hi. im back. im alive—barely. but i can't promise ill be as active as i was then. still, i missed lads, and above all, i missed my moots. so. im leaving this acc open in case my indecisive ass wants to write again.
Jackson: If I died and came back to life and you had already moved on and married someone else, would you leave them for me?
Isaac: Yeah, sure.
Jackson: I can’t believe this.
Isaac: What? I said I’d get back together with you.
Jackson: Who told you to get remarried, huh? You jackass. What if I didn’t have the ability to come back to life?? You were supposed to mourn me forever!
!! I love whenever you write those post ab how far u r with ur cyberpunk journey and ur opinions and thoughts x3 hope ur having a good day :D
Thank you! I love talking about it so much. This game is beautiful and dissecting its scenes is so entertaining.
I've been doing the fighting club missions lately and was surprised to see Johnny actually show interest in a car.
Tbh same, I saw the car and my jaw dropped to the floor. What a beauty. I beat the guy and let him keep the money, I just want the car!
He immediately projects himself into it and doesn't take his eyes off of the car for a second. Even is like, "What are you waiting for V?" to urge you up to win the damn match and get him HIS car.
Side note: very adorable how when he pictures himself in the car, he chooses to appear in the passenger seat and not the driver's. Because he knows he's confined to the fate of eternal passenger princess and that V will always be the one driving.
But also, I like to think that he was this way even before, never drove himself anywhere, just constantly made people do it for him, while he put his feet up (dirty shoes and all bc bastard) on the dashboard and lit a cigarette.
Anyway here are pictures of Johnny and his one true love!
(Ignore the poser merc, they're just a conformist)
But seriously here is one with just Johnny and the car of his dreams alone.
And some more because those were fun to take
-
I recently got all the tarot cards, and let me tell you the scream I scrumt when I finally found the Death card oh my got. umatchable high, finally guessed something right.
The reward is a little anticlimactic—lowkey I hoped for more scenes of Johnny's past where we get to walk around in his body, see more memories, and interact with the 2020 cyberpunk world.
But heyho more Misty content is always a win in my book! My beloved Misty! Is there a mod that adds her to photography mode? I'm desperate, man. I need to take a cool pic of her and V hugging.
How she nonchalantly called both V and Johnny the fool lmao. Accurate. Two brains, one body, yet no braincells to be found. The combination of their brains came the closest to miracling negative numbers into existence.
I'm started to notice a pattern of foreshadowing here. First, Deshawn asking V if they'd prefer a slow death by a comfortable life or to burn in a blaze of glory and become a legend.
And now Misty telling V and Johnny they need to either best the world or make peace with it. One of the two endings to the fool's journey, which is the premise of the entire game as the art direction seems to imply.
To be honest, I know nothing about tarots, and I'm tempted to look up the Fool's journey to read about it. But at this point, with this strong of a parallel, it feels like I'd just be spoiling the game plot for me by doing so. I would rather remain in the dark for now. I will check out the tarots after I finish the game.
Back to foreshadowing, this constant choice offered to you makes me think the endings will either be to follow in Johnny's footsteps and blow up the Arasaka tower, dying in the process and burning into a blaze of glory.
Or, somehow, getting rid of Johnny (or merging together into the same person and suppressing his desires for revenge with your own contentment) and just... living life, you know. Anticlimactic but expected.
(Please don't actually tell me the endings or even hint at them. I don't want to know if my guesses are close)
It'd be cool if there is an ending where Johnny just takes over you completely and the player is forced to control him instead of V. But that feels like a pipedream.
I thought about it a lot, what to do if I was in this situation and couldn't get rid of or calm down this parasite in my brain. My proposed solution is to make another brainchip, copy V's consciousness into it, plop it into any rando's dead body from the piles of corpses we leave behind in missions, then boom! Problem solved, easy peasy. If Johnny isn't willing to move out of my body, then I'll throw him the bone and move out myself. He can have it, dude. idgaf, I'll get me a new body.
But also, this solution will only work in the very, very early stages of the infestation. Otherwise, the chip would've eaten too much of V's brain to be able to correctly copy it into a new chip. Even then, what's the guarantee that we won't end up with a second V and a third Johnny? But hey, at least now they're not dying!
-
I've finished the brainchip engineer convoy mission. Rip scorpion. The amount of information revealed ??? Like
So it was never just a relic we were stealing. This chip isn't malfunctioning because Johnny is a stubborn dick who's attempting to take over our body by force. If anything, it's functioning perfectly. This is what it was designed to do, shred your brain into sludge and slowly replace all the parts.
Even in the best case scenario where the soul trapped in the relic is extremely friendly and doesn't want to harm us or erease any part of our brain, It still has no actual choice in the matter. No real power over the relic itself.
Silverhand's engram isn't special. Johnny wouldn't be able to stop the chip to save V even if he wanted to—the fact he is indifferent to the whole thing is another matter entirely.
But the thing is, why did the chip even save V's life if it was meant to activate when the host is dead? For a split second all neuron activity within V's brain began to fizzle out as the bullet tore brain tissue apart, and in that split second the relic made the choice to reboot their brain instead of completely overtaking over it.
Why?
How?
Was it a conscious choice? Was it Johnny's doing? Was it the relic's doing? Was it some stroke of luck?
This also means that Arasaka ment for Johnny's relic to be activated eventually, for what purpose exactly? Why keep the soul of your nemesis trapped in stasis awaiting revival? Just to brag? A victory trophy? A lesson to teach those who mess with Arasaka? To torture him one day? Or to revive him just to point and laugh? Just in case for the unlikely scenario that shitty punk rock bands become a dying bread and it's left to Johnny to save the world with the power of music and unwashed armpits?
Hope it gets answered! eventually... after like 50 more shopping spree montages where I waste all of V's money on clothes and then wonder why I can't afford better cyberware.
I want you to focus on this line here.
"It's programmed to take over its new environment, at all costs."
"No matter what, sooner or later, the engram wins?"
"Yes."
THE IMPLICATIONS! I CALLED IT!!! I FUCKING CALLED IT!!!!
The.
Implications.
Are REAL.
fuck :(
1. Your personalities are merging. The scale is tipping very slowly, but surely. This is a fact.
2. Johnny is suddenly defensive and dismissive in this conversation despite staying silent at the beginning. Denying his influence in the past on you and warning you against listening too much to Hellman only when he started to tread on dangerous territory that'd make you suspicious of Johnny.
3. "at least Johnny never whored himself out like you" is 100% a a Johnny line. V doesn't speak like this. It's abrupt and doesn't fit with the V's past comments during the conversation. But it certainly fits with Johnny's. It was an offered dialogue choice for the player to make. We're actively choosing to make V into Johnny with every option we pick, no matter how small and seemingly meaningless.
In conclusion: the fucker's taking you for an absolute tool. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if it's Johnny's influence that's purposely isolating V just so they never listen to any counter arguments on why maybe taking advice from a mechanical tumor is a bad idea.
The more V remains miserable and lonely, the more susceptible to Johnny's influence they become. The more they hang on to his every word, take his advice to heart, look forward to the bits and pieces of chatter he drops around. Things you the player often do.
Because V's current life is unbelievably loney. You sleep alone in empty apartments, shower, drink coffee, go outside, and wander without purpose. The only time people ever call you is when they have jobs for you to take or when they need your help as in doing missions for them.
V spends entire weeks just waking up, killing people for money, going back home, sleeping, then rinse and repeat. Sometimes, days pass by where they haven't spoken a single word to themselves or anyone else.
It's normal from our perspective as players. This is how game protagonists always acted. This is why the loneliness flies under the radar for so long before the player clocks just how miserable V's life is. Why we're none the wiser when V suddenly has lots more dialogue options to reply to Johnny in small scattered conversations, someone they once swore to never listen to, yet driven by desperation and isolation into befriending.
At the end of the mission, you get the dreadful conversation with Johnny.
And I just want to point out that the man saying this
Is the very same man who said this only a few days ago.
Apparently he changed his mind again :)
Fr tho, he's clearly contradicting himself. There is a clear contrast between what Johnny wants, and what he thinks he should want.
Or once he saw that his reign over your mind is invetable, he decided to trash the whole script and come clean with his intentions since you can't do shit about it at this point.
-
Talking about isolation, I've recently finished the Sinnerman mission.
Oh Joshua :(
I've dealt with my fair share of extremely religious individuals in my life. Even ones devoted to a delusional degree. You learn to live with them. Because at the end of the day, they're people like you and me. They say the same things people say, only worded differently with some sprinkled religious qoutes here and there. You become desensitised to the fanatic aspect and learn to read between the lines.
And because of growing up in a place with a lot of religious people, I developed a sort of admiration towards the passion and devotion they hold. In a lot of instances, I'd indulge them in conversation and earnestly ask about their interpretation of certain events and ideas.
When I first started writing queer stories at 12 years old, one even came to argue with my in my dms about how wrong the thing I'm doing is. Instead of approaching me with hostility it seemed as if they pity me and wanted to gently diway me from "sin" this greatly piqued my interest as a kid and I spent hours talking to them and debating the actual meaning of certian religious lines.
Because you only get to learn more about the religion type when they share their interpretations of abstract and vague text with you, it gives you a mirror into their inner psyche, their personal opinions and believes, not the ones their holy scripture makes them abide by.
Plus, they're way more open to talking about sombre topics such as death, sin, and redemption. Things the average person considers too heavy for a conversation with a stranger. And I love to yap and philosphise about, so surprisingly we got along pretty nicely for two strangers having a conversation at the bus stop, otherwise I knew they'd want my "undesirable" queer ass to burn in hell.
So when met with a character like Joshua, he wasn't anything out of the ordinary for me. Instead, he felt like a trip back home. I could easily look past his alarming traits and see the person behind the religious talk, I've become desensitised.
I ask you to grant him the same grace, in the following conversation screenshots, to attempt to overlook the religious extremism and approach his words with a fresh open mind. Pretend he's talking about personal philosophy that he discovered or a new form of art he founded instead. Indulge me, to be able to see him in the same way I do.
I'd be lying if I said the protective way he spoke to V didn't stir something in me.
Because no one can even harm a hair on V's head if they tried, but Joshua doesn't know that. He isn't aware of V's reputation or extent of power. They're not someone you best easily. Getting shot and still keeping going is a daily occurrence to V.
Yet he's still gentle with us despite it. Soft with his words, merciful? Benevolent?
Little creepy.
Lonely. Incredibly so.
The way he speaks and holds himself is reminiscent of how stories portray kind yet wise prophets of the past. Asking the person paid to kill you to spend one day with you, willingly at that too, is something straight out of a bible story.
He has enough social awareness to realise Rachel's true views on him. He isn't stupid or naive, Joshua knows the studio is only helping him not out of the kindness of their heart, but to make money off of his death.
He knows what the lieutenant assigned to protect him actually thinks of him. A charlatan, a vile scum of a criminal that deserves death. Yet he risks upsetting Vasques just to stop him from shooting at you.
"I didn't like the way they looked at me, and I had the power to stop them"
Remorse and shame clear in his tone of voice, yet he doesn't try to evade the blame or clear his name. He takes it in stride, tells you why he really shot them after he robbed the story. He doesn't try to mask the truth and say they obstructed his escape, or that he only did it out of desperation for money.
No, he is upfront with his sins. He simply didn't like how they looked at him in fear and terror as if he was a monster.
And he held the power to stop them. Forever. Rather kill them than bruise his ego, than stain his conscience with a reminder of what he's done.
But that was in the past, the man in front of you turned a new leaf. Or so it seems.
"I truly need you."
"You're the one I want to talk to."
"Remain by my side and talk to me"
An artist needs an audience.
An idea is only relevant if it's being thought upon.
A show for one is still a show.
Vasques and Rachel are part of the cast, the opposing powers. Joshua needs someone with new eyes, someone to watch, to bear witness. V is that someone.
He truly needs you much like a painting set on fire needs an observer.
The mission continues afterwards, and he takes you to meet the sister of one of the people he killed. They talk, and you find out Joshua's true plan is.
Now, I don't think he actually thinks he's the messiah or a second coming of christ. It's easy to misinterpret it this way because of Joshua using Christ imagery in his choice of execution.
He understands art on a fundamental level. That's what makes him a good actor. He understands that if he wants to be a messiah, he'll need to go through the whole journey, not just the crucification part—which was done to Jesus against his will, yet Joshua is volunteering himself to it.
Instead, it's a display of love, not of divine powers.
If you've ever cosplayed a character, you'll understand this feeling. You would've felt a much less extreme version of what Joshua's feeling.
It is a cosplay to him. He knows he's not the messiah. But it's a cosplay done out of respect and love, an attempt to wake people up.
It's his unconditional love for his god, which he's showcasing that day, which in turn should prove the existence of god by virtue of its own existence.
He wants this display to be turned into a braindance so he can reach the general audience more easily. Because if what he truly feels at that moment is unconditional love and they get a glimpse of it while playing the BD, then it'd be as if his soul touched them, and maybe changed their views on life a little.
He's not trying to convert people by an execution garbed in holy robes, he's trying to convert them through hope and love, his own endless hope and love.
An honest attempt, by a person fully aware of the corruption that lurks at every corner in this world. Joshua is more of an artist who's using religion as a medium for his art rather than a holy figure. And art touches people just as well.
Does it ring a bell? Remind you of someone who once also tried to shake the world awake through his art?
Then there is the last line he said:
"Think of paid killers like you, V. Have you known love? Do you know what it is?"
And it stung.
The pure love V was shown in a city so vile.
The very same love Joshua hopes to show others that they're capable of.
The very same love Jackie and Mama Welles extended to you, Zuleikha has shown Joshua. If not even more. She reached out to the killer of her own brother, not for revenge to sate the burn in her heart with, but for a chance at mutual understanding.
She offered forgiveness.
You can sneak upstairs and read through her messages. You find out she greatly struggled with the loss of her brother, her journey through grief documenting through brief correspondences between her and the local priest.
That's how Zuleikha got the idea that unconditional love is the answer to this heartburn, how Joshua completely adapted her message.
And that family really struggled with loss. The room next to her is clearly her brother's room, left untouched still. His bed unmade, the same as the day he left it.
There was no bedroom for the mother, suggesting she slept on the couch or living room. Their family wasn't doing well financially, and yet the mother still sacrificed just to give her two children some comfort and privacy.
I switched to camera mode and attempted to read the scattered papers on Zuleikha'a desk. Just copy pasted assets, that, or apparently everyone in Night City owns a lease to a mango farm.
At the end of the mission, you get this conversation with Johnny.
He acts weird during it, doesn't he?
Unusually quiet at first, before V provokes him with the "Where's the rebel Johnny?"
Only for him to snap and admit that the real rebel was in this guy all along. This isn't the first time Johnny has shown surprisingly empathy to incredibly lonely people.
I thought it was strange that his hologram didn't disappear at the end of the conversation. Johnny goes from standing up to sitting down again. It was an active decision.
Until I turned back to look at him one last time before I left
And realised how familiar this scene felt.
Where have I seen this before?
Oh. Right.
Love it when devs have fun.
btw a bug happened here where the Mr. Stud ad got stuck onto the screen? No matter how much I waited, no new ad ever came. So, of course, knowing me, I absolutely did NOT take advantage of the situation to take some tantalising pictures.
Mhm not me sir not at all.
My hand slipped.... however
All night every night indeed.
-
It was by complete coincidence that I played these two missions back to back—now I can't help but see the blatant overlapping of what the studio is doing to Joshua, what the Johnny brainchip is doing to V's meatbrain, and what capitalism does to society in our real world.
Let's take a currently relevant example to the year 2025, Squid Game, the series. The first season was supposed to be the only season—much like the first world war was supposed to be only known as the Great War, but humanity never learns—It's a clear criticism of capitalism, it couldn't be more in your face with its message if it tries. You have to actively play a part in the downfall, therefore murder, of others in order to succeed. And when failure means death, succeeding becomes pure survival.
Because that's what money is, as it currently stands, isn't it? Having money means you can afford food, housing, and medication. Every means of survival once offered freely by nature has been stripped bare to make room for more factories, for more villas, for another Walmart parking lot. The weather is constantly setting new records for extreme temperatures every year. The odds of surviving without a roof over your head are getting slimer and slimer.
And Squid game took this line of logic and completely removed the middle man. It moved the finish line in front of the starting point. Shortened the sentence to "Money = the right to live"
All the silly games that mock its participants with its innate childishness and simplicity despite being a literal life or death stake. All the convoluted silly rules you have to abide by to keep a stable job if you happened to start from the bottom. How everything you've worked for, your whole life, can go astray because of a bad stroke of luck or some asshole who got away with it.
Yet look at the show now, turned into another byproduct of the market. The director abhors his creation as it's reduced to another fat, old gold vein for the studio to exploit.
Anything that aims to criticise Capitalism peacefuly, only ends up getting sucked into it instead, reinforcing the very same notion it was set out to destroy.
The 60 year old man who's dedicated his entire life to being a fanatic of Johnny's band, who memorised all the lyrics and knows all the trivial facts there is to know, shamelessly sells you the bootleg of Samurai's first gigs at a very steep price. The very same recorded bootleg of a free concert by people who didn't even know who Samurai were. They just liked the tunes and wanted to archive it. Sixty years, and yet the core message still flew over his head as he churned them into another niche band to make merch off and sell it on the street. The very same songs set out to criticise capitalism only to end up reinforcing it instead as they get sold for thousands of eddies by someone with zero right to sell them.
Knows all the lyrics but didn't understand a single word.
Going back to the parallels. Joshua's demise is inevitable, no matter what choices you make. His authenticity is only valued by how much it could improve the quality of the braindance, protected and nurtured by Rachel for its scarcity, therefore material value.
"It's programmed to take over its new environment, at all costs."
"No matter what, sooner or later, Capitalism wins?"
No matter how sincere of a message you hold in your heart, no matter how authentic and real, how pure your intentions are. Joshua only wanted to prove the existence of unconditional love, because if that could exist, then so could god, in his eyes.
It all ends up being exploited for the benefit of another who's trying to make bank in a certain market under the guise of helping you.
I post my sincere writings and thoughts on a website that bans trans people's accounts, a website that pushes mandatory ads on all of its users, that offers a premium subscription, that censors posts as it pleases to appease shareholders and ad companies. Yet still pushes ads that are just full on real life porn occasionally.
This website advertises itself as a safe place, who's not like those other evil websites ruined by greed. Whilst being overrun by pornbots and obnoxious premium subscription pop ups. And people make jokes of it now, blaze posts fot fun as a silly pvp war thing, pay the very same website to get a cool pin or two on their account. It's irony they claim, those tens of rainbow coloured checkmarks, it's to make fun of twitter checkmarks don't you get it? It's a silly haha joke, aimed to criticise consumerism! By paying ten times the price of the twitter checkmark just to get all the rainbow coloured ones on this website! Hell yeah! You're really sticking it up to the big man. Sick irony my dude.
Maybe that's why I felt sympathy for Joshua, comradery even. I saw myself in him. An incredibly lonely person whose got nothing to offer to this cruel world but their love and feelings in a form of art, who gets robbed of that too as it's used to exploit both the people who abhor and adore the art he has to offer.
I deeply apologise to you, the one reading this, for every time you went to check my blog or reread a story and saw an ad pushed into you between my writing. I'm very sorry we're both being played for idiots in this, that my art was twisted into something to take advantage of my readers for a website to earn literal pennies.
Lastly, Johnny. Our prima donna of examples.
He dedicated his whole life to destroy this one thing, only to end up having his soul sucked out and put on a parasitic brainchip.
And what does he do in this situation? Becomes the very same thing he swore to destroy. He takes and takes from V, couldn't care less that they're a person, he will do everything he can to achieve his goal—doesn't matter what the goal is—what matters is that if he needs V's body to achieve it, he will take it by force.
Every attempt to connect and sympathise with him is twisted by Johnny for him to gain more leverage over you, to sneak that brainchip percentage even a decimal higher while you're busy bearing your heart to him.
Embodying the very same methods of capitalism, the very same soul sucking endless consumerism ways. Except with your life now, your brain, your body, everything you are.
He was quiet during the Joshua quest at the end. "Where's the rebel, Johnny?" V said. He saw himself in him, the very same passion, the sincerity, the unbridled authentic drive for a noble cause.
It's a mirror to what could've become of Johnny's own heart and feelings if he hadn't left the band, turned against him into another tool of capitalism. At one point, it must have clicked that he couldn't change the world through songs.
It was also the closest he got to glimpsing the reality of his current actions, what he's done to you.
"And you're fucked up because of my fucked up head inside you."
He sat there and made a choice that day, to keep doing it, keep paving this path. If the veil to self-awareness got lifted for a second there, Johnny immediately boarded up the windows with wooden panels the next second.
What difference would one life—yours—make when he's already sacrificed a lot more innocents than you when he first blew up Arasaka tower? Shooting at the innocent and the guilty with willful ignorance.
He knows all the lyrics, but he doesn't understand the words. He'll live and die by the very same notions he never fully deciphered.
Johnny isn't the antagonist because he set out to destroy our lord and savour Capitalism, Johnny is the antagonist because he attempted to dismantle Capitalism using the very same methods of Capitalism.
It's like we're in the trolley problem, and Johnny decided to bomb the whole traintrack. Train, conductor, track, and people tied to the track included. Then he clutches his pearls when a few weeks later, they build a new bigger train and a sturdier track with even more people tied to the track.
You cannot "eradicate entropy" when you're goddamn spreading it yourself in a different flavour Johnny!
His long rehearsed speech about the plague of capitalism at the end of the mission. How the words rhyme, how he stood up to yell it out loud, pacing around and looking down at you. Filer words and abstract descriptions ment to target your heartstrings, to ignite the dormat anger inside your mind in the name of ending some vague injustice.
All very much resembling a speech given by your favourite artist upon a stage, at the end of a glass-shattering song, as you stood there sweaty and unclothed as the day you were born, looking up at him in awe as if he was a god, convinced his words were gospel as the adrenaline still pumped in your veins.
How it almost worked on V who just threw up half the sludge of their brain's viscera on the pavement.
How the irony of how much he was describing his current parasitic self during it, was lost him.
How I fear I am the very same. I play predatory gambling games, I mindlessly buy things I'll never use during sales, I preach and preach but in reality I find myself contradicting the claims I make a lot. By my own standards I don't even come close to meeting the ethical measures I set on others, I wouldn't be friends with me If I knew me.
