this hasbeen sitting in my inbox long enough. i am cringe but i am free and i apologize if this doesn't form fully coherent thoughts anon but unfortunately i just woke up and am tying this as i go over my coffee. i want to write an actual analysis essay on this at some point but ruina is a long game and a ffxiv expac is coming

a decent amount of Why i read argalia as trans is just . his page story . so i'm going to attach it in full here so that you can also receive the visions. retrospring doesnt support images but i'll transcribe it too so that my rant is somewhat coherent bc this is like foundational

LIBRARY OF RUINA SPOILERS - ARGALIA'S PAGE
When I heard the news and rushed to the scene, only a hideous musician who had concluded his performance and permanently shut the piano's lid with his torso awaited me. For the first time, emotions I couldn't understand welled up inside me. It's hard to define what hey were, even now. It felt as if deep tenebrous stains were seeping out of my heart. Alas, I didn't shed tears before that piano where your body rested—for I soon realized that you were no longer there.

That's right; you're the gentle breeze that brushes past my face, and the clouds that fly in the sky, which give me heed of your presence from overhead or underfoot. I thought you had left me, but you would always come back. That's why I no longer care about the skin and flesh you wore only momentarily. Angelica. I'll follow after the name you gave me: Uberto. You used to call me that down in those horrible underground chambers. I'll create a new world... One where people can live bountiful lives even if they have nothing, free from obsession or greed. When we lose the fixation on our bodies, we won't be afraid of death anymore. No rest will be eternal.

:) this is also the most important element of my reading/interpretation of argalia even aside from my interpretation of him as trans because they are his inside thoughts whereas everything he says out loud is very deliberate and kind of filtered. anyway.

special emphasis on the leap between creating a new world and When we lose the fixation on our bodies in particular because distortions can still die. even if we assume he starts getting his brain deep fried by carmen at this point (which would make sense, it's a world-shattering life event for him just like yan w the prescripts or xiao losing lowell), it doesn't fully follow that fixation on one's body is responsible for the fear of death; nor does it fully follow that fixation on one's body is the source of their obsession or greed. to me, it comes across as a thought that's like... "Oh, surely everyone thinks about their body all the time." No king only you are experiencing that and it's called dysphoria.

obviously and as a footnote, not all trans people think Like This, and the trans experience can be defined just as much by Joy from being perceived as your correct gender(s) (or as being without gender!) as dysphoria from the box that society tries to force you into. however, i think it's also pretty reasonable to say No Cis Person Would Say That.

i also feel like from this it's pretty reasonable to infer that argalia feels trapped in or otherwise restrained by his body which would also make sense with his background (human experimentation) and is arguably reflected in his distorted form, where his body is made out of mist/smoke! (or his body is hollow and there is mist/smoke inside? he can certainly wear clothes but his smoke is obviously kind of billowing out of his brand new slutty bodysuit) and in order to cope with her death he divorced the Idea of Angelica from her body. like that's a very normal thing to do. while in lobotomy corp it's vaguely established that major organized religions no longer really exist, there are also a handful of religious orders in the city (church of gears, i believe the udjat...? i haven't actually. read distortion detective. but they give that vibe as a general reception) so i feel like the concept of an afterlife would not be entirely foreign to people within the setting, so it's interesting for argalia to do this, specifically, instead of "you're watching over me from a better place" (or some variation thereof).

anyway. okay. stay with me here. i'm beaming this into your brain right now. argalia taking ownership of his own body to make it more comfortable for him to exist in and actually really admiring his top surgery scars in comparison to all the scars from his time in the lab and from fixer work.

so, why do i hc argalia as transmasc specifically...? primarily i just prefer to trans characters' genders in the direction of their canon presentation because it would be sad to me for them to go through the entire narrative being misgendered. however i do think that this doesn't point in any particular direction other than Trans! and i am 100% open to a trans*fem* reading of him (wow i cant believe carmen is just in the reverb ensemble's heads cracking all of their eggs and they're all beautiful trans lesbians) and i also heard of a genderfluid interpretation and it's like oh! wait!!! because that cooked too.

i, however, identify as broadly transmasc so i'm hitting argalia with my gender specifically. also because it's really convenient to my ensemble roland au because of the delusion situation (roland using argalia as a surrogate for angelica physically/sexually in an ill-fated attempt to cope).

so uh yeah!! thanks for coming to my ted talk!!!!!!!!!!!!!! does retrospring have a character limit. crazy that this didn't hit it. anyway please talk to me about trans argalia at all times i'm so normal about him/her/them/it/xer (i think he can use any pronouns he wants)