just, fuckin' tired...

and then, in the prophecy, she is The Girl. The other two, The Cage and The Prince, are focused on the specific roles they play in the story, while Susie's part is entirely reduced to her gender. yes, "prince" is a gendered term, but still very different from if it was just "The Boy."

This, to me, feels like a subversion of the character archetype that is The Girl-- the character whose entire personality is Girl, who knows all things pink and glamorous and cute. This archetype is more common in older video games and cartoons, which Deltarune already tends to parody. Ralsei says himself, The Girl is supposed to be able to equip ribbons.

Susie doesn't fit that archetype, and she's still unflinchingly accepted as The Girl, because none of those things are actually tied to gender identity. She doesn't need to be feminine to be The Girl, because girls do not need to be feminine.

and for the record, i do understand why becoming more feminine might fit into her arc! i can very well see her not viewing femininity as "available" to her in the same way she wasn't allowed to play piano. i don't think it would be out of character or even out of place. I would just be, y'know, extremely disappointed if that actually turns out to be where her arc goes.

I know a lot of this seems like a huge overreaction, especially considering Susie immediately gets uncomfortable wearing a ribbon on her head and makes it an armband, but this kind of reaction comes from YEARS of having to dig and squint for any itty bitty scrap of actual butch representation we can get. because, genuinely, there is so fucking little to go around.