edit: ignore me here I found where I screwed up, just leaving this for anyone that gets stuck
The rampaging Ralts quest has softlocked me. I went up and fought the rampaging Ralts, beat it, talked to the person, did everything I could up there, and I thought I was done so I jumped down and saved over my previous save, which I'm pretty sure doomed me.
I have now learned that this for some reason doesn't count as subduing the threat, and also that it won't let me back into the forest to go up and around to get up to the cliff or do much of anything, because the "maybe you should deal with that rampaging Raltz first" text also blocks the leftmost entrance to the forest as well, and even if I did there is no longer a Ralts there to fight so idk what the game wants from me lol. I tried leaving the area, sleeping, quitting, etc, etc, and nothing.
edit: ........
so listen. I was spamming enter during the ralts battle, and so when it fainted I accidentally skipped one single line of very important text... which is that the ralts survived and I needed to find it in the town >~< which I have only found out now that I have started over and gotten to this point again