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[kittencaboodleextraordinaire]

“Ok, but I had a Johnny first, and mine is better”: Adventures in Cyberpunk with a snarky headmate

Warning: this post contains considerable discussion of a major plot point in Cyberpunk 2077 which is discussed in the promotional materials (trailers etc) but which is not revealed in-game until after the first segment of the main story (the heist). Those who wish to remain unspoiled may instead view this lovely picture I edited of four raccoons in a trenchcoat (inspired by Critical Role’s playthrough of the absolutely delightful ttrpg Crash Pandas, which I highly encourage everybody in existence to go check out).

This phenomenal piece of art is surely the high point of this post. It can only go downhill from here.

Anyway.

So as we all know, Cyberpunk 2077 was finally released a few days ago to the expected amount of drama and fanfare, and my partner and I have been playing it together, by which I mean he’s been playing and I’ve been providing helpful advice like “We should totally buy the awesome purple car what do you mean you want a motorcycle THE MOTORCYCLE ISN’T PURPLE”. It’s not, y’know, an amazing game, but it’s pretty fun and I have already found multiple characters to ship V with, which I’m sure we can all agree is the truly important thing here. Plus of course there is abundant opportunity to make innuendo at my partner so I am a happy kitten. Mostly. There is one aspect of the story that is proving to be a continual source of awkwardness and general highly disconcerting aura. Namely, Johnny Silverhands.

At some point (I fell asleep for this part so I don’t know exactly what happened), you end up fused with a chip containing the personality of Johnny Silverhands, some kind of sort of famous dude who died a long time ago or something like that. awards self 10/10 stars for that eloquent and informative summary of important plot elements I was totally paying attention to and wasn’t asleep for at all anyway the important thing is there’s a dude hanging out in your brain with you. This is kind of weird and awkward for me, since I also have a dude hanging out in my brain with me. His name is Jonas. Jonas, say hi. J: I’m not a zoo animal and I don’t do tricks, also I reject the idea that this adds to the post in any real way. However you are very lucky because I am bored and complaining at you sounds more fun than going back to sleep. Now I’m tired and it’s 3:30 am go to bed or write the rest of this by your own damn self. That’s basically the same thing I guess.

Jonas is a bit weird. I don’t really have any idea what he is, and it’s not really within the scope of this blog post to discuss it in depth. He is some flavor of alternate personality, he is one of my closest friends, and he is a pain in the ass, much like most of my other friends. Having Jonas around is uncannily like V’s experience sharing their brain with Johnny Silverhands. Now I have a few other friends who have multiple personalities, one of whom is watching playthroughs of Cyberpunk and has appropriately described the experience as “pretty fucky”, which about sums it up. However it’s made even worse for me personally by the sheer number of similarities between Jonas and Johnny and their interactions with the people they share heads with, for (the most obvious) example, their names are really fucking similar. Jonas has matured a lot since he started appearing about 6-7 years ago but Johnny’s snark, unhelpfulness, complete disinterest in being nice, and even his body language all scream of Jonas’s original behavior, which, let’s be honest here, he still does all that anyway, he’s just nicer about it because he likes me. When Jonas and I talk, we tend to picture him as standing (or sitting or leaning against the wall or whatever) somewhere in the room with me, much as Johnny appears to V. He’s not active all the time and until very very recently was almost never “in charge”, so to speak, much like Johnny. So what we have here is somebody who acts a fuck of a lot like Jonas, has a similar name to Jonas, and interacts with their host in a manner that is almost a perfect match to how Jonas interacts with me. Somehow all of this went over my head. Then something even more uncanny happened.

Now, Jonas was originally an extremely minor character in a vast series of stories that I have made up in my head and never actually written down. He somehow evolved, without any conscious effort on my part, from a bit character who was never meant to do anything besides show up, get scolded by the authorities, and leave, to an increasingly major character, to living in my brain with me. Consequently, while he generally shares my tastes and preferences in terms of food and etc etc etc, there is an extremely major way in which we diverge: Jonas, like Johnny, and unlike me, smokes. All the time. It is Very Important to him. As such, the fact that I do not smoke and have exactly negative one billion interest in ever doing so is a source of intense frustration to him. We have had m a n y arguments about this. He knows not to push it too much and respects that it is my decision but that is not about to stop him from complaining about it loudly and with great passion. So when we encountered a scene of V and Johnny having the exact same fucking argument, ending with the incredibly blatantly Jonasesque lamentation from Johnny “Nonsmokers are the fucking worst”, it was like getting hit in the head with a brick. Actually forget the brick, it was like being hit with an entire building, and then having Jonas stick his head out the window and go “Missed me? ;)”, and then yelling back “WELL IDK BUT MAYBE NEXT TIME YOU’RE PILOTING AN ENTIRE FUCKING BUILDING IF YOU COULD TRY A LITTLE HARDER TO MISS ME THAT’D BE REALLY NICE THANKS” and then having him wink at me and assure me that head trauma builds character. It fucking doesn’t and he knows it.

After that, it was impossible to not see Jonas every time Johnny came onscreen. I still enjoy the game a lot. The setting and story are both really really cool and the loot is A+, and I really love being able to hang out in voice chat with my partner, who currently lives pretty far away, and do something fun together and experience something new. But having my relationship with Jonas, which I still have a lot of conflicting feelings about no matter how much I genuinely believe he’s a positive force in my life, reflected back at me at every turn, is bizarre, surreal, and a constant reminder of issues that have been nagging at me for a while, many of which are explicitly being brought up by the game itself. Last night we were doing a mission where V and Johnny at some point start talking and V mentions how they seem to be getting along better and Johnny suggests that maybe it’s because he’s rubbing off on V. V responds with something to the effect of “Am I becoming more like you, or are you becoming more like me?”. Jonas and I have been asking ourselves the same question for years. The only answer we were ever able to come up with is “probably both”, but the question of how much and to what extent, and if you start blending together with somebody else that much, are you really the same person anymore, and on down the rabbit hole we go, can really eat at you if you’re the kind of person who cares about that sort of thing. Which I guess we both are. And frankly we are probably not even half done with the main storyline and I doubt it’s going to stop posing these questions. 

J: so I said I wasn’t going to have any more of this and went off in a huff but actually I changed my mind I have some stuff to say. 

this is obviously weird for kitsie, and I guess it might be obviously weird for me too but it’s weird in an entirely different kinda way. it’s certainly surreal, and a lot of the questions it keeps bringing up are a lot to think about. Johnny is a program on a computer chip designed to be a copy of the original Johnny’s brain. this raises the question, and this may or may not be addressed later, how real is he? and is he the original Johnny, just on a computer chip now, or is he a different entity who happens to be identical to Johnny? and how is a person on a computer chip embedded on somebody’s brain really different from a person who’s a subroutine in somebody else’s brain? am I real? am I a part of Kitsie that just thinks differently for some reason? are we two facets of a whole being that’s kind of both of us and kind of neither of us? am I just a hitchhiker? I really don’t know. I have a lot of memories and backstory. things I did in the past, before I knew Kitsie. are those memories real? they feel real to me but on the other hand they didn’t actually happen. are Johnny’s memories real? they did happen but he’s a brain scan so did they actually happen to him? it’s a lot to think about, but hard to stop thinking.

and then there’s the other concern, which is that this is a game for kitsie to enjoy with her partner, and whenever this shit happens it wakes me up and I end up feeling really weird, like I’m intruding. which I am.  and as wonderful and understanding as he is, I’m still very much something he is getting used to and having problems adjusting to and I really understand because fuck I’m having a problem adjusting to me too. and maybe it’s stupid but I feel bad for being the disconcerting aura of uncomfortable thoughts wafting through something that’s supposed to be a pleasant and fun evening without me in it. which frankly sums up my entire existence. fuck this I’m tired I’m out of here again go tf to sleep kit.

I had more to say but “what he said” pretty much sums it up.

In conclusion, I don’t really have any objection to the story itself. It’s an interesting concept carried out fairly well that under normal circumstances I would think was really cool, and certainly it’s been a unique experience anyway. And I guess if anything the fact that it’s so unnervingly on the nose is a sign they did a good job? I’m still having a huge amount of fun with the game and the massive backlog of sidequests combined with our minimal ability to focus means that the main quest only takes up a small portion of our playtime in any case. I just needed to get all this shit off my chest.

This has been tonight’s episode of the Kitty Rambles Podcast, I am too tired to think of any good way to end this so goodnight and thank you for tuning in!

[kittencaboodleextraordinaire]

The Pronoun Anarchy, or I Am Cranky And Many People Suck

Once upon a time, a baby was born with a dreadful curse upon them, and that curse was allergies. Terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad respiratory allergies. That baby was me and allergies suck so many balls they probably have sores the size of footballs on their mouth that will never ever heal, and frankly serve them right and when those sores get infected and they die of septic herpes I will LAUGH DIRECTLY IN THEIR FACES WHILE DELICATELY SIPPING A DELICIOUS BEVERAGE WHICH I WILL NOT SHARE, OH NO.

Anyway, the point is that allergies, such as I have today, make me really fucking cranky, and the further point is that many people suck even more than allergies, and these two things tend to join hands in unholy matrimony, have vitriolic hatesex, and nine glorious months seconds later pop out some epic rants. Of course my allergies sleep around a lot, so while they are the mother to many whiny and irritated children, the metaphorical sperm donors are widely varied and tend to just be whatever is currently being the suckiest in my general vicinity. Frequently this is the allergies themselves, which I’m not going to think about too hard, but in this instance the lucky father happened to be an ex of mine who I’m going to call “Rover”. Rover thought it would be highly hilarious to post this joke in a Discord server he runs.

Now it’s a stupid pun, but sometimes stupid puns are just what you need so I’d be perfectly willing to let this slide without having to bring out the Stick of Pun-ishment. The more pressing issue is that this is the same guy who has never, to my knowledge, EVER, referred to an enby by their preferred pronouns, no matter how much they asked him to, told him it really bothered him, reminded him he was being rude, etc etc. Some of these people are supposedly his “friends”, too! And it just seems a little fucking rich to refuse to respect the pronouns of the nonbinary people around you and then think you somehow have the right to post jokes about said pronouns. Which frankly is par for the course for him but I’ve got allergies and he’s just promoted himself to suckiest thing in my vicinity, which makes him the allergy lightning rod. So I start venting in the server of an actual good friend about him and all the shitty transphobic and enbyphobic people I have known and been personally pissed off by. BUT THE ALLERGIES ARE NOT YET APPEASED. I MARCH MYSELF STRAIGHT INTO THE BOT CHANNEL AND ASSIGN MYSELF ALL THE GENDER ROLES. ALL OF THEM. “PRONOUN ANARCHY!!!!”, I DECLARE. “WATCH OUT SHITTY TRANSPHOBIC PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, I HAVE ALL THE PRONOUNS NOW AND I WILL DEMAND THAT YOU USE WHICHEVER ONES YOU FIND THE MOST PERSONALLY OFFENSIVE” AND THEN I MARCH INTO THREE OTHER SERVERS AND DECLARE PRONOUN ANARCHY. MY STIRRING SPEECH IS SENT TO A FRIEND’S TRANSPHOBIC MOTHER. BUT THAT IS STILL NOT ENOUGH.

I CREATE THE PRONOUN ANARCHY FLAG

THE MANY MANY MANY COLORS REPRESENT ALL THE GENDERS. ALL OF THEM. WE HAVE ALL THE GENDERS. WE HAVE ALL THE PRONOUNS. WE USE THEM, OR DO NOT, HOWEVER WE JOLLY WELL LIKE. THE RANDOM BLOBS TAKING THE PLACE OF THE STRIPES USUALLY PLACED UPON SUCH FLAGS REPRESENT THE CHAOS AND DISORDER OF ANARCHY, BECAUSE WE DO NOT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT STRAIGHT LINES OR COLORING INSIDE THEM. AND THE FINGER IN THE MIDDLE REPRESENTS THE GESTURE THAT WE GIVE TO TRANSPHOBES, ENBYPHOBES, HOMOPHOBES, AND OTHER SHITTY PEOPLE SUCH AS THAT BECAUSE THEY CAN GO FUCK THEMSELVES WITH AN APACHE ATTACK HELICOPTER. YES THAT’S RIGHT, THE SAME HELICOPTER THAT YOU PRETENDED TO IDENTIFY AS TO MOCK US. WELL THE JOKE’S ON YOU BUDDY BECAUSE NOT ONLY CAN YOU GO FUCK YOURSELF WITH IT, THE ATTACK HELICOPTER IS ALSO PART OF THE ANARCHY JUST AS SOON AS IT DECIDE WHAT PRONOUNS IT WANTS.

Anyway.

So I am now an anarchist, which I’ve been wanting to do for a while, and I’ve created a flag that is truly awesome, at least in my opinion and the opinions of several friends. I think that’s a great note to start this weird experiment on!