Johnny and how he feels, thinks, knows, his trauma is what defines him, what makes Johnny -> Silverhand. Pictures himself a tortured artist, trauma the only thing that makes his art real, authentic. How no one else playing in the scene is as raw as he is, as good. That he's got the ingenuity everyone wants. Wishes they had been through what he had, so then they'd maybe know something about what real life was, what it was all about. Actually be able to sing about shit of substance instead of all the shallow bitchy whining of lost love and ignoring what's really happening in the world, just get up and dance and jerk each other off till the sun explodes. It's bullshit. And he can't get better. Because then where does that leave his true fans, the few who do actually get it, who don't need it spelled out for them, who need to hear what he has to say, hear what he's been through. Like a sick spectacle, a performance of his trauma he'll spin out on stage just for them to lap it up like eager dogs. It's fucking thrilling. It's bullshit. It's what he's good for.
Johnny who'll make himself worse for it, makes himself angrier, drunker, higher, because without it, he won't know who he is. it is him, and it's all he's ever known. Pain like the only thing grounding him to reality, the stage the only thing that echoes back to tell him, yes, you're still alive, and yes, what you went through was fucked, and yes, it's all you can be loved for. All you can be hated for too. All you're known for, and don't you want to be known? To be told you exist?
ughfr I like thinking about angel motifs in reference to engram Johnny, and religious motifs in general with him and Vs relationship, all cuz of some throwaway line meant as a 'joke', almost. But it's like, he is a guardian angel, isn't he?
(heavy religious themes)
He's that thing suspended, only existing between life and death, but also? Legitimately V's guardian angel. The only one who had been picking them up when they were down, literally. The thing that saves them, condemns them, revives them so many times after, like during the scav side mission. The only one who could protect them at the time, when he brought them back to the Sofia. Who saved them again in the elevator.
And especially when I think of how, in my eyes, Johnny always considered himself something much much less than deserving, much much worse than any kind of angel, even the ugly ones with all their fucked up eyes. Something sinful, ruined, divergent, deserving of hurt, an eternity of self punishment. And here he is, finding himself to be one of the only omnipresent forces that V can rely on, that reminds V there's something bigger than V, both of them, at play here. Johnny preaches that to V constantly, even.
How Johnny is the only one who can see everything V is doing, like god, how it's pushed that god always knows what you're thinking, doing, needing, desiring, tempted towards, succumbing.
How Johnny's the snake too, telling V, convincing them, to do what he thinks is selfishly the best for himself, but not for them. Tells him 'do it' when they have a fucked up, impulsive thought that could damn both of them. Who puts V through penance, harsh words and petty punishments. That no matter the players choice, he influences V, corrupting them, making them crave cigarettes like Johnny's sin lives through them too, because it does, doesn't it? If that's all he thinks he is? How you might not even notice, as a player, how he influences your choices and actions too, with V. A devil in disguise, snake with a silver tongue.
That to Johnny, with a V who does love him, it does feel like worship, because V's the only one who can love him, see him, believe in him. Ground his existence into reality. To be acknowledged, taken into consideration. Who can read him like a book. An angel who speaks through V, talks to V. Who V wills into existence through belief and faith alone. Belief and faith that Johnny is real and so are their secret conversations, hidden only between them and god. Worship so strong they give themselves over to Johnny, like many do with gods, angels, jesus. Gives themselves over to Its love, even. Gives Johnny the body, and believes him into existence, love given and faith all too trusting.
V's final waking moment in real space, baptized, then reborn with a new soul into a digital landscape, free roaming, the promise of free will like an illusion. Like wealth, freedom, a heaven. Much more of one, at least, than the hell Johnny was trapped in, in Mikoshi.
Johnny risen again, after 50 years, prophetic. Johnny reborn into a new body. Johnny who's been saved, who's atoned, who's changed, who's repented. Soul a little lighter now, accepting and wanting to be different. Who wants to honor V again, the way V had done for him, putting their faith in him so strongly that Johnny can create a whole new chapter, a whole new testament to a whole new life he's still unsure he deserves.
okay ☝️ I've talked about how the attention Johnny gets from sex can be the only attention he has trust in being genuine, but also ☝️ Johnny and sex feeling like it's the only thing he can do right for people, do right by them, the only way he knows how to show affection, rough, messy, intense, the only way he can make others understand for a moment that this is him, that he takes, but wants to give as well, his apologies too, that he's sorry, but won't say it, so let me make you feel it, convince you, help you feel better for a little while, yet can't apply that to most any other form of intimacy outside sex, emotional or otherwise, if he can even bring himself to call the sex he has intimate, feeling like it's the only thing he's good for, only reason people keep him around, only reason Kerry does, only reason the band sticks together, reason it falls apart too, cuz with perceived abandonment comes desperate measures to keep them together, even if he says it's just for morale
Johnny who can't ever get enough of anything because he doesn't know how long he has it for or if it'll last, a scarcity mindset burned into him since he was a kid, from his time with his father, with the wraiths, at war, homeless, on the streets,
like drugs he always craves, people if he lets them in, love when he lets himself want it, sex when he gets it, food when he lets himself have it, booze he always needs, cigarettes he chain smokes, he wants and yet he doesn't, doesn't let himself desire things, yet takes, pushes others away, chases, consumes, deprives, wants not cuz he desires even, but because like everything that's anything in his life, it's out of fear, sadness, turned to anger
in my heart, kerrys authentic voice has a bit more of a fagcent, once he starts feeling more comfortable around V, and the voice we do hear from him, is the one attached to his public image, what they expect out of eurodyne, gruff, low, sultry, nurtured long before the records, from johnny and his jabs when his voice first started cracking, creating the insecurity early in kerry
