#im trying but baw gawd is the mental illnessing

[mail-me-a-snail]

are you unwell like me because im thinking about how the conclusion re: johnny and arasaka tower on august 20, 2023—is that johnny simply vanished from public eye, never to be seen again but certainly to be talked about, lauded as an anti-corp, anti-government (though the two are not mutually exclusive) activist until he became the stuff of legend—a reputation that arasaka itself could never have impeded, because doing so would have required them to release a statement saying johnny silverhand is, for certain, dead; at that point, johnny had left in the rubble a population of night citizens who now share his anti-corp sentiments.

they never would've believed that arasaka had had nothing to do with it—that silverhand was simply "dead" and that they were just the bearer of bad news. so they didn't say anything. johnny silverhand became a mystery, just as rache bartmoss and morgan blackhand did. the story is that johnny vanished on the night arasaka tower fell, never to be seen, but certainly to be discussed and praised even all throughout the time of red and especially further into the dark future.

but are you also unwell like me in thinking that johnny didn't die just to flip arasaka the bird or to end the 4th corporate war. he wasn't a soldier and nothing would've made him into one; he agreed to work for militech just to help alt.

and the only ones who really know what he had truly died for are the people who were there that night—and the one merc who's brain he—or the ghost of himself, rather—lives inside of knows, too.

but what v learns is johnny's side of the story. it's embellished a little in certain places...but v is the only one who will ever know what johnny—relic or no relic—is going through.

maybe he's showing them that being a legend is not too far from being a ghost. no one wants you for you—they only want the you they find in all the rumors and echoes after your death.