#Legends of Night City

[elenaril]

>DATABASE ENTRY: EDEN VALENTINE

I spent two entire days putting this together dfhjbgghdfhjgfd Please enjoy, and grab the template over on Ko-Fi!

[medtech-mara]

[prototypelq]

The Most Unreliable Narrator I Have Ever Seen

soooooo I had a Cyberpunk-obsessed phase pass recently, and this time Johhny Silverhand's character caught my eye. His story, more specifically, and how... inconsistent he seems, depending on each source.

In the game, Johhny acts like a bastard for most of the game. He panic-rages on his first meeting with V, throws many threats around, but is later beaten into the background with the blocker pills Misty gave to V. Even Johnny's friends' are well, they react Loudly to his return. Y'know, make it known his presence alone provokes a lot of anger from them.

Even during his first appearance, when V gets thrown into Silverhand's memories of his SAMURAI concert, the only real thing V recalls is the all-consuming rage that he felt, which he tried to shout out through the microphone, but it never felt like enough.

And doesn't this sound weird then, that the only thing Johnny does throughout the game after that first meeting is help V out? He learns about the Smasher guy hideout at the docks (he does that through dubious means but that's Johnny for you), he helps V out when the seizures become worse, he calmly agrees to Any decision V makes, despite V clearly Not being in any real state to oppose him in the finale of the game, he plans the whole thing with "Alt" so V can get his body back at Johnny's own expense, from the beginning, and he doubles down on that claim at the end of the game.

Do you see the dissonance? The egoist rockerboy that admitted to using his friends to getting what he wants, and the downright self-sacrificing hero and a friend that is Johnny at the end of the game? People change, sure, but this divide is very massive and too sudden, so I wanted to dig into that. And what I've stumbled upon, with the help of canon Cyberpunk materials like the Red sourcebook (or, more specifically, LayedBackGamers' reading of the canon books and his lore videos on different topics), is that

Johhny Silverhand from Cyberpunk 2077 is the Most Unreliable Narrator I've Ever Seen.

Count with me here:

Johhny's personality in general. No matter what your interpretation of him his, it's impossible to ignore that Johhny is very much a people person and he exploits that knowledge and charisma to suit his own goals. If you choose to trust him, then you might have already been played.

2) Johhny has been alone, only his lovely self for 50+ years inside the Arasaka chip. Don't ask me how he is still even remotely sane, I haven't got a clue (hopefully the time as a construct without outside stimulation flies differently and he hasn't felt those 50 years in real time). The thing to mention here, however, is that, being alone with your thoughts and emotions for a long time, having nothing else for entertainment, is a great opportunity to rewrite your own memory of events or emotions you've felt.

3) Lack of a body. The aforementioned constant rage, that was the dominant emotion is Johnny's life (before Alt, at least, if Never Fade Away is anything to go by, and I mean, that's literally a love ballad), is a symptom of his PTSD from his too-young years serving in the corpo war, same as his signature silver hand. I'm not a specialist here, but I do know PTSD, especially for war veterans, is a physiological illness just as much as it is a mental one. Johnny's body literally had trouble living normally after that experience, and knowing this bastard - he never managed to treat that. Existing as a personality construct frees him from the many bonuses of being corporeal, but it also free him from the physiological side of PTSD. His day-to-day existence is fundamentally different from that of the Johnny Silverhand that the world knew 50 years ago, so yes, as a 'time traveler' or a source of information and comparison about the 70's and 20's of cyberpunk world Johhny is not a good source.

4) The chip with Johnny is literary inside the head of another person. The characters in game question, multiple times, just which decisions is V making on his own, and which of them might be Johnny's doing. Not consciously, no, but V and Johnny are clearly not your simple neighbours. They are not your 'close friends that start subconsciously copying each other' too. It is quite possible that the chip with Johhny is adapting to the 'hardware' it is running on, so it is specifically implementing parts of V's personality into Johnny, to minimize the 'friction' between the personality and the body it is supposed to inhabit. Everyone say hi to existential horror)

5) How does Soulkiller ever work? Is there data on how much the resulting engram actually resembles the person it tried to copy? How did the process of copying Johnny go? I can answer the last one - very badly.

Death of Johnny is told in excruciating detail in the Cyberpunk sourcebooks. Johnny died on the floor of Arasaka tower, torn in two by a shotgun blast from Smasher. There is no information on how much time it takes Soulkiller to create the engram from the brain, but it better have finished doing that before Johnny's brain started dying from a lack of blood and oxygen, and he clearly didn't have much time either, considering bisection is not the best for bodily fluid preservation, so it's a wonder the engram even works properly. Plus, during the initial heist to steal the chip with Johnny, the chip was damaged further before the idiots decided to stick an unknown harddrive into their heads to preserve it. Basically, it's nothing short of a miracle, that engram-Johnny is actually a whole damn person, that he can function, think and feel properly (well, as much as Johnny can do those things)

It is very sad that V can't talk to Johnny about this, as the man does blame himself over things he hasn't even done, and he had done enough emotional damage to himself and people around him without that kind of burden on top of it.

6) Johnny's memories are literally false. The attentive reader had to pick this up in my previous point - didn't Johnny die in the hands of Arasaka after they interrogated him? Nope. Nope, and I can say that confidently because,

(drumroll please)

Cyberpunk tabletop sourcebooks! Mike Pondsmith, the creator of the Cyberpunk universe and the TTRP series of games, has worked closely with CDPR writers during the production of the 2077. He oversaw everything, and he says that 2077 is in the same cyberpunk universe too, it's not an 'alternate reality' or anything.

Johnny Silverhand died while trying to buy time for his friends to escape, from a shotgun shot from Adam Smasher. That's it, he died on that floor, there was noone to interrogate, no rooftop helicopter he ran for.

The sequence of 'memories' we see from Johnny's POV in the game is a mishmash of two different assaults on the Arasaka towers, yes towers there were two of them. There is a great video explaining all the small and Major details Johnny's version of events got wrong, because we have the sourcebooks and the text inside. You may accuse me of holding a 'holy canon' argument ... and well, yeah, this is kind of holy knowledge, as it was written for gamemasters.

Still, some of the things in Johnny's version are Major, and while the media certainly covered the whole story extensively with corpo propaganda (oh, btw, Johnny didn't bomb anything, he probably didn't even know there was a nuke involved, he is literally just a scapegoat), there are some holes that a citizen of this world might know and wish to poke. The aforementioned Two Arasaka towers, or the absence of the legendary solo Morgan Blackhand from Johnny's story. Interestingly enough, there is a radiostation of Maximum Mike in-game, who is actually just pretty much Mike Pondsmith, and he does propose a couple of questions the 'official' version of the attack doesn't cover (like, where would a rockerboy even get a nuke, he might have been popular, but that's not just something you find without military contracts, and that means corporations). Another thing is that since Arasaka owns Soulkiller and has had the engram for a couple of decades, it is quite possible they are the ones responsible for messing with Johnny's memories.

So uh, yeah, Johnny is the Most Unrealible Narrator I have ever seen. Johnny of 2077 is most certainly not the Johnny of 2020's, but this might be a good thing. Maybe the 'real' 2020's Silverhand could never have made the progress the engram did, or become such a good friend and companion for V, or maybe he could have done those things too. We'll never know. I really love this story anyway.

[imaginarycyberpunk2023]

OC: Mara "Panthera" Sterling belongs to @medtech-mara

Half the battle is getting OCs to work in your game, right? Thank you for trusting me with herrrrrr.

[cyberpsychotic-purgatory]

The Only Fan Service

For @imaginarycyberpunk2023

Those who know me, know that I don't care at all for glam shots. I'm a world builder. However, imaginary as been supportive and actually reads my blogs so for you, just this once.

[dezthefixer]

Both? Both. Both is good.

[a-gay-little-cat]

"An excerpt from an interview with boxing legend Tiger"

I saw this post again and I just felt inspired to redraw it with Tiger so here we are :]

[ilovelin]

SpiderLin is still a thing right?

[swearingcactus]

one of my favorite things about johnny silverhand is the fact that he acknowledges that he's the 'him' in the 'i can fix him' movement. he knows nobody could resist. even saburo arasaka took a glance at him and went "lemme try."

[civilization-illstayrighthere]

while i do think Kerry can be emotionally distant and closed off at times, especially when he feels slighted or hurt, i don’t see the new ending as evidence of that. He tries to listen to V and keeps getting interrupted, but he’s also in the middle of a tour (notoriously crazy busy at his fame level) and had also been (albeit accidentally) ghosted by V for two entire fucking years. And yet, he laughs with excitement hearing V is back, asks if he needs any monetary support, says he’ll see him right after the tour in four months. Is he busy? Yes. V would have known this getting into a relationship with Kerry. Musical artists have crazy tour times and then slower times off-tour. V himself was booked and busy himself with his job. Kerry literally seems like the ONLY one of the love interests in that ending where a chance at reigniting the relationship is even possible! I actually really like that ending because it shows him as he is: a vain, successful rockerboy who is a touch vapid and short attention spanned but honestly really caring and giving to those who he holds dear. While, you know— being a grown adult invested in his career with responsibilities and obligations he has beyond what was, though life changing, a few week romantic fling that, again, ghosted him for two entire calendar years.

[elenaril]

𝘐𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥, 𝘸𝘦'𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘬 𝘐𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥, 𝘸𝘦 𝘬𝘪𝘴𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦'𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 '𝘊𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦, 𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘪𝘯'𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘐𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥, 𝘸𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘸 𝘢𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘐𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥, 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘸𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘸𝘦'𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘪𝘯𝘨 '𝘊𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦, 𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘺, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘪𝘯'𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘴

with my darling @bloodriver-king's Jericho.

[medtech-mara]

Been trying to move on, been black and blue, trying to turn the old into something new.

Song - Synthetic - The Midnight

credit: @cyberpsychotic-purgatory My hubby had done the editing on this photo. I always show him my VP, and he will sometimes be inspired to do something with it.

[gamma-mesarthim]

happy new year guys! i don't usually draw such couples but it was nice experience 💕 hope i'll get a chance to draw smth like this again in the future.

[imaginarycyberpunk2023]

OC: Mara "Panthera" Sterling // Mara belongs to @medtech-mara

[cyberpsychotic-purgatory]

Morning shower

Music: SpaceWave Cosmic Relaxation

Waking up to his alarm at 6:00am, Jack gets into the shower. He receives a call from his fixer in Santo, Paul.

"Dreeeeeeeeeead, I got somethin for ya"

Jack sucks his teeth, today's not a good day for a gig. Gorge is still staying with him and Mara until Judaline and her husband make up their minds about the kid. Jack checks his account. ($987) 

"What is it?"

Paul smiles, "somethin lucrative."

"you mean something risky"

"Fuck Dread, it's all risky. You wanna know the deets or what?"

"shoot"

"Not on the holo. Meet me here." (Sends cords to a bar in Santo)

"See you in a bit"

[dezthefixer]

Everything is temporary. All that is will someday cease to be.