so. i've known ribbit for like a good amount of years, even before the 2.0 release, but only recently have i grown enough braincells for the gods to see me worthy to give me the divine providence of YOUsie.
for real, ever since i've replayed the mod for the 2.5 update i've been baffled by just how. how. they are. its actually kinda insane
"guuuuys i they MIGHT be onto something here but im not really sure yknow just a thought" the conveniente in-game YOUsie bombs:
needless to say, they've occupied a fair amount of my midnight thoughts, having my own fair share of disorganized Thinking About them moments, and i'd like to (try) sharing them here!!! holy moly
so
first of all the fundamental similarities between the two characters that makes the narrative put them together in the first place!!: a history of familial abuse and a utter loneliness that has affected their lives severely. They never had a support system, so they've lived most of their lives on pure survival mode. It's only logical that they'd adopt some pretty bad habits due to that environment.
Susie says that she'd lash out and push away any person that'd try to interact with her due to a lack of trust over people, which is fairly similar to her deltarune self, only maybe to a more extreme degree.
But meanwhile, i've noticed that YOU is kinda like the opposite? They instead end up latching onto anyone to...not even show them kindness, sometimes even when the other person clearly doesn't care about them, they'll end up clinging onto them anyways (im talking abt toriel btw. the whole scene where she goes like 'ill allow you to call me mom' like). This could be an attempt of their brain trying to find a replacement to the parental figures they've lost, but since they weren't good parents in the first place, it now ends up connecting bad experiences with that want.
so uhh yeah. the gift. the famous "i am traumatized" disease. its no wonder those two are the ones who have them- susie's had it way longer than YOU did during the game and i think that's important cause like, shes kinda stuck with it at this point. the lore files says that every time she does her gift awakening thing and it doesnt work she ends up having to leave the other person dead in a ditch so like when YOU comes in and they actually get it, normally, and they're alive, it must have been such a relief to her yknow like. Someone else is finally sharing something with her for once, and she gets very attached very quickly cause of it (she might even project her once close friend from the orphanage in them a little, given they also had glowing eyes). But does she really think she deservers this kind of connection after all the 'evil' she's done? answer: no, lol. so she tries pushing them away, and make them hate her so much that they'll go ahead and finish the job that she can't. Her killing them is almost like she's testing the waters sometimes, testing their limits by aggravating them, as if she's wondering what's going to finally make them leave her (like that time she goes like "eeehhh i never killed you, right??????" know damn well that YOU remembers it. big loves me, loves me not game shes playing through the whole game)
but what she'd never guess is that....she kinda accidentally was the one who gave YOU's life meaning, in their eyes? Ever since the begginning YOU have always felt like a parasite in the lives of other, as something that would selfishly take advantage of their surroundings for their own gain (despite them just being a normal kid having very normal reactions to very not-normal shit happening). YOU was a waste of space at Toriel's inn and maybe also felt like one at their own home, but the moment that they've stepped into the orphanage, this girl comes up giving them special treatment, and now they're suddenly something that's useful, needed, and maybe even wanted, in this whole quest of saving the afterlife. All thanks to Susie! So, not only is there a relatability factor, but also their desperate search for meaning, too, is on the line. So, no matter how much they might feel kinda uncomfortable around her (which might even be deserved in their eyes), they'd never want to actually get rid of her for real. They, in a way, kinda need her to even live.
i also think susie kinda ends up taking a little bit of advantage of that. i doubt that it's intentionally, or that she even realizes that, but she ends up using that clingness to like keep them close despite all of her contradictory thoughts and all. I kinda view Noyno as a very big symbol of hope amidst all of the chaos of the game and thats a whole other conversation but: YOU, despite their desperation, still has some will to them, enough that they'll listen to his advice and motivation, and attempt to go along his quest agaisn't the MOTHERs. But we see that during the Lodge, we kinda slowly ignore and abandon him, until Susie straight up makes him leave. She's taking that piece of hope and trying to get rid of it, because she's already hopelless, and probably wants YOU to be too. kdwaosedaeodwajedaw
I think what ends up making this whole thing not very healthy is the fact that they view each other as a necessity. Being around each other is not a choice, but like a symbiotic relationship where both fulfill some kind of need of theirs. That's what ends up making their genuine care for one another turn into straight up and unhealthy obsession, plagued by all of their insecurities and shared trauma. But in the end, they're both still kids, kids who've never had the reference of a good and healthy relationship in their lives and ends up making bad decisions because of it. I'd say it's pretty realistic, portraying how victims of anything in real life, most of the time, won't end up 'perfect' and WILL make many mistakes and have a higher chance at getting into messy relationships cause of their past experiences.
and....at the Manos fight, the scene where Susie goes and frees YOU's soul to go and defeat Manos. Idk there's something that feels very genuine about it that i think shows that part of them that really just appreciates one another in a simple way like dkwosedasawe. hekllo guys welcome to my tedtalk im losing my neurons fuck fuck fuck
anyways yeah tldr: theyre so fucked
i am so sorry if any of this comes out weirdly cause i'm very NOT confident on my way of phrasing things.
I have a longer post in my drafts that was going to be posted after that jokey post but it was so late and I had just smoked so I wasnt articulating myself great and just ended up deciding to finish it later but! I am very normal about them!!
In the first part of Ribbit's last anniversary post on game Jolt we actually get a tiny bit more perspective on the end game fight and epilouge
And this chunk of text has fucking insane implications imo. YOU used the shooting stars to work their way up to being able to truly grant their one wish to the person they trust the most and... it's Susie. This also gets paired with the fact that the track you hear almost immediately after your fight with Manos ends is titled Friendship - a pretty meloncholic track.
I also wanna talk a little bit about those lodge character stat descriptions too: Susie's changes. If you flick back and forth between hers and YOU/Noyno it has a chance to change between "LV 20 Best Friend; Trustworthy, tell her everything" to "LV 20 Nuicance; Would be better if she was gone". This can give us some good insight on how The Gift impacts thought and on how YOU and Susie feel about each other.
We see a lot of times in the game where YOU seems to feel at least attached to Susie (like when she leaves to team with Lancer and Noyno says he can see that YOU misses her when he looks in their eyes or how all the options when you talk with her on the balcony change to be something kinder) but we rarely see Susie have similar moments and that is most definitely due to The Gift messing with her thoughts.
I'm gonna be honest, I personally see The Gift as acting as a stand-in for mental illness (specifically borderline personality disorder, though I think I read depression is the actual inspiration).
The two of them get immediately attached to each other, Susie finding some comfort in sharing The Gift for the first time since her human friend left and YOU finding comfort in someone who actually seems to care about them and want them there (albeit in her own way).
I'll probably finish that other post later today but they make me fucking sick!!!!! They are so codependent, YOU is specifically so codependant. I don't think they even really fight back at full force in the fountain room in any route other than the violence route. I don't think they would have it in them to kill her if they knew everything would be over after that.
