#cyberpunk 2077 meta

[elvenbeard]

This point has probably been made already but let me make it again anyway... I dont believe for one second that Johnny is really getting wiped in the Tower ending.

In the very beginning in the President's airplane there's a shard you can read about how they know Johnny's engram is on the Relic. Whether or not V tells anyone at some point they have the Relic in their head (if you do, Prez Rosie seems so so surprised like, nah, not buying it), they probably all know anyway and from the start.

So far I've only played the Songbird ending and maybe there's more to discover in Reed's (I only have little knowledge at this point about the Cynosure or what it's called, most of it from that one Mr Hands gig and the little my emotionally damaged brain could retain from the convos with So Mi xD).

But yeah like... Who does the info that Johnny gets wiped come from? Reed. The same guy that knows so much about this tech that he tells V they'll be back on their feet again in like, a week, or a month. The guy that keeps lying to you and tricking you, the organisation that keeps lying to and tricking you, manipulating you for their own goals and purposes.

Johnny's gonna get wiped, dont come looking for him, it will be no use. We, the FIA, will have absolutely no use for an engram and technology created by our biggest rival company and this definitely could not gain us an edge against them in brewing conflicts to come.

Honestly, wiping Johnny would be the humane thing to do, but looking at Slider, the Cassels, So Mi and Reed themselves... humane isnt how any of these people operate, and just how Reed shouldn't shoot So Mi in the head to capture her, why waste Johnny's engram like that?

#cyberpunk 2077 #phantom liberty #phantom liberty spoilers #johnny silverhand #cyberpunk 2077 meta

[bookmauls]

Potentially drama-starting take:

Pawel Sasko doesn't like Takemura.

BEFORE YOU GET MAD AT ME, TUMBLR, THIS ISN'T A PERSONAL ATTACK. I think Pawel did an amazing job with 2077, and I have utmost respect for him.

Regardless, I have thoughts:

I've been following meta analysis by writers about their games as a hobby since I was a kid. I recently got into CP 2077 because of how open and transparent Powel and Philipp have been about the development process and their own writing process, and I really appreciate the layers of story-telling they add to V and the cast of 2077.

However, I get the feeling Powel is apathetic or antipathic towards Takemura. I have to say I understand how he feels, because when your art is consumed, enjoyed and analysed in ways you don't expect it can feel a little alienating.

You put all your effort into THESE romances and story arcs for THESE characters, and a chunk of the fandom adores this last-minute addition who you weren't super invested in to begin with. Or the guy who lives in their head. I would feel super frustrated.

I think Powel avoided Takemura romance because he felt icky about it. That's fine. As a writer, he shouldn't have to write what he doesn't enjoy. What I wish he did instead was leave a romance arc to another writer and set out hard limits for content and characterisation, then share his thoughts with the rest of the writing team.

But I have to say, the best thing CDPR could have done is rolled with the fandom on this. Hell, Bioware did with Garrus, and femshep/garrus is still the biggest ship in the ME fandom. Garrus is babygirl and peeps are still grateful to bioware for indulging the fanbase. Takemura was a missed opportunity.

This is me talking out of my arse. Shoulda-coulda-woulda is easy for me to say. But I would have appreciated it if the idea of "goro gets giggty with V BUT another writer handles it bc it's not my cuppa tea," was given to the community, rather than just not including any new romance content.

It probably never would have happened, because time, budget, story prioritization etc. But Takemura has been done dirty, out of neglect. Not maliciously so, but the removal of lines, bugs (no post-Wakako jig-jig street shopping, eye-bugs, texts not triggering,) and his appearance in Phantom liberty (LITERALLY THE HAIRLINE THO.) All point to an unintended lack of care.

Again, I don't think there's any malicious intent, just different priorities. All too often, majority femme fanbases like v/takemura remain underserved, while the masc fans are better catered to and receive new content for Panam. (At least as far as I know, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)

In the end, all that matters to the execs of CDPR is turning a profit, so CDPR can remain in business. I get it, but fans don't forget goodwill. I hope CDPR will throw us a boner in the future.

#I'm so sorry i had to get this off my chest #goro takemura #takemura romance #takemura #takemura goro #Cyberpunk 2077 #Cyberpunk 2077 meta #cd projekt red #video game feels #Judy was done dirty in pl too #i wrote this at 3am and with a severe uti so bear with me

[nananarc]

Let's talk about that one token Vietnamese mission in Cyberpunk 2077. It's cultural appropriation.

How do you know this is cultural appropriation? Pretend the character is American. If the story still works in exactly the same way, then it's cultural appropriation: our culture never even mattered.

Culture is meant to be shared, but appropriating our culture without a sliver of understanding on what, and who we are, is just unethical. Lemme explain and it's gonna be a long post.

Mission Summary

So basically it's a cyberpsycho mission about 2 sisters who are reality show celebrities like the Kardashians and one of them turn cyberpsycho after a really horrible "prank" gone sour. One sister drugged the other, put her in a coma, besmirched her looks by giving her clownish implants, and steal her fiance after she was humiliated by that sister in the past due to a similar equally mean-spirited prank. The cyberpsycho found out and killed her sister, her husband, and a lot of people, including the crew, at their wedding. Everything is scripted except for the real deaths. The physical and mental damage done to them was also real.

Sounds kinda ok, typical American reality show and exploitation in the show business. All are good until you realize the sisters are Vietnamese.

Problem Checklist

Reality TV shows aren't that popular in Vietnam. We do have a few shows here and there, and all of them are concepts bought from America, for example, Next Top Model, Masked Singer, and The Voice. And you can see from those 3 most popular shows that they are talent shows, not family feud shows. Vietnamese people don't watch family feud reality shows, and tho we might know of the Kardashians for their scandals and makeup, we don't watch them. Generally, we don't really have that reality show culture here. This is a very American thing. Additionally, such anti-family values, hyper-individualism, and anti-tradition sentiments as of the Kardashians usually will get censored and denied by the government.

The whole story doesn't sound like anything I've ever heard in Vietnamese media or real-life stories. We have our fair share of family feuds and love drama tropes, but this is not it. We are a communal society as opposed to individualism. This means we tend to avoid direct conflicts and over-the-top gestures. Couple that with a high-context communication style, conflicts and solutions often come in the form of scheming, indirect influence, psychological warfare, long term, and done in a group. Not to say the thing in the mission never happened ever, but it's not typical of Vietnamese culture.

Sure, the characters are Vietnamese diaspora in the US so they are influenced by US culture. Even so, this is not a relatable story for the Vietnamese diaspora, there are a lot more relatable and impactful stories than this for the Vietnamese diaspora. More on that later.

"It's not typical Vietnamese means it subverts stereotypes and it's creative. This is a different view that you just don't understand because not all Vietnamese are the same!" It subverts so hard it's unrecognizable by a Vietnamese. Sure people's experiences are diverse and the Vietnamese people are diverse and there are a lot of interesting new ways to write our experiences. But this story is nothing really new, creative, or interesting? Sisters backstabbing each other and fighting over a man on a reality show for clouts and it backfires is just an American drama trope. You can see this trope on Mean Girls, the only 2 Vietnamese girls there is exactly like this, and the actresses doesn't even speak Vietnamese. Why not just write them as Americans? Because the fact that they are Vietnamese contributes nothing to the story. If anything, it feels degrading because Vietnamese people are turned into exploited laughing stock for the Americans.

Furthermore, it IS stereotypical. The name of the reality show is Saigon Sisters. It evokes the image of Saigon queens or Saigon call girls, ie. exploited sex workers in South Vietnam during the American Resistance War (aka Vietnam War as the American calls it) who serve the colonizers and the puppet government officials. Believe it or not, Vietnam is not that war-torn, colonized, underdeveloped, and humiliated state. We are a culturally rich country with thousands of years of history bravely fighting off all the superpowers in the world. We have skyscrapers, we have highways, and our cuisine is arguably one of the most diverse and delicious cuisines in the wort. So it's interesting the devs decided to go with a stereotypical name that carries a sense of misogyny and colonialism with it. I doubt this is a conscious choice to portray colonialism, considering all of my other points proving that they don't even know who we are.

They got the name wrong. There is no excuse for this. The sisters' names are Dao Hyunh and Linh Hyunh. The first names are correct, Đào (anglicized as Dao) is not a common name but it exists; Linh is a very common name. The last name Hyunh is wrong, Huỳnh (anglicized as Huynh) is the correct one.

In conclusion, if replacing the character's ethnicity with American does not affect the story in any way, this representation is incredibly bad. I really prefer they have not mention us in the first place.

What It Should Have Been?

First let's talk about the common themes in the stories of Vietnamese culture. I take inspiration from the presentation by a wonderful artist Stephani Soejono (ig @stephanisoejono) and others in Xiran Jay Zhao's compilation video essays of analysis did by South East Asian people on the movie Raya & The Last Dragon.

Strong communal aspect: clash of expectations from community to individual's dreams and passion, conflict avoidance, friendships and family relations.

Living close with nature and the philosophy of go with the flow: Unexpected things happen but adapt to the environment and situation, embracing the negative because its yin and yang to make balance.

Supernatural and Spirituality: Fated meetings, coincidences, the unchanging wheels of fates, spirits and demons, shamans and witches (who are not feared but respected), deities and saints. One of the most interesting worldbuilding aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 is the blurred line between Spirituality and Technology, so there could have been so much to explore here.

Based on the above mentioned, I can easily come up with many interesting, relatable and impactful stories

A person who acted disrespectful towards a family, religious beliefs or a Vietnamese shrine and got hexed to turn into a cyberpsycho. (You will hear stories of this everywhere in Vietnam)

Vietnamese Shaman got possessed by daemon from beyond the Wall.

Vietnamese immigrant struggling to adapt and survive in America and couldn't take the pressure anymore. (Just ask any immigrants)

Overachiever kid who are pressured by their parents to be perfect student and perfect citizen, they use implants to be more perfect and finally snaps under the pressure and become cyberpsycho (I can assure you, this actually happens a lot irl, source: I am one; also search for the case of Jennifer's Solution)

and so much more!

Conclusion

I know this is mission is quite passable and small compare to the grand scheme of things, but it can't help but pisses me off. Asian representation is already a rare thing and rarely done well in western sphere, let alone South East Asian, let alone Vietnamese representation. I'm not even gonna repeat the affect of misrepresentation and under-representation in the power dynamic between western superpowers and a small country like mine. I am not unfamiliar with how most countries especially in Europe and American sees us, they still think we are this fragile, poor, rural, colonized and war-torn country like 50 years ago. This is reflected in how we are portray in the few and far between instances in western media especially Hollywood. For a studio based in Poland, a country with a relative good relation with Vietnam and a large community of Vietnamese diaspora, this is a piss poor portrayal of our people.

The Vietnamese market is probably too small for you to even care, and it's true that most Vietnamese player doesn't even give a shit. But it does not mean no Vietnamese care, at least I know I do. And this is not a new phenomenon, this has been happening for forever in western media, and someone's gotta tell people about it.

Let's end this extremely long and angry post with some beautiful images of my country. On tumblr, you can find a lot more of beautiful images like these curated by the blog @lotusinjadewell. And I'll be creating a personal blog to post my photos I took of my home country soon so there!

If you wanna support Vietnam, please consider give a shout out and/or donate to these organizations:

ISEE: Minorities and LGTQ+

CSDS: Youth Empowerment and Sustainability

ICS: LGBTQ+

SOS Children's Villages Vietnam: Orphange, Underprivileged Children

CHANGE: Environment and Sustainablity

GreenID: Environment and Sustainablity

Hà Nội – Một thành phố trong nhiếp ảnh Exhibition in Hà Nội

Photographer: Alexandre Garel, Khổng Việt Bách, Diego Cortizas, Lolo Zazar, Peter Steinhauer, Sébastien Laval, Veronika Radulovic, Ben Reich, Bert Danckaert, Nguyễn Hữu Bảo, Nguyễn Thế Sơn, Lê Thịnh, Lê Xuân Phong, Nguyễn Duy Kiên, Maika Elan, Phạm Tuấn Ngọc

Curator: Nguyễn Thế Sơn

Lotte Tower in Hanoi | Skyscrapers in Hanoi

Photographer Unknown

Ta Caphe Shop in Hà Nội

Photo by WhereInHanoi

Mid Autumn festival themed photoshoot

Photographer: Lê Giangg.

H'Mông Fabric Seller

Photographer: Michel Arnault

High Fashion designs inspired by Mông people's traditional clothes

Left: Dạ Minh Nguyệt | Right: Nguyễn Đặng Khánh Linh

Modern side of Saigon

Photographer unknown

#cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 meta #vietnam #vietnamese #vietnamese culture

[cyberpunk-20xx]

What I like most about Johnny gotta be how much he just wants to do right, even if he has not the slightlest fucking idea how.

Fault on everyone else around him is to have ever expected a man who did not know how to fix himself first to fix the world.

Like, a cult of personality isn't just bad because there's "cult" in it. 

It's also plain bad because reducting entire movements to one man, who then has to carry all hopes and ideals people project on him... That's a recipe for disaster, simply.

Messiahs, prophets and heroes are not meant to be humans.

That's kind of his worst flaw and what ruins him, in 2023 too.

Johnny's a hopeless idealist. A paradox.

He wants a revolution but he doesn't believe in anyone else being strong enough to carry it.

He wants the end of corporatism but he's still gotta be the boss of everyone.

He craves kindness, but present it to him and he'll spit in your face because he does not believe in it.

He's desperate for a world of peace but he's also unable to stop being a soldier. 

He's all for mercy except for when it's too close to him, in which case he mocks it and whoever it came from.

He wants equality for all, but he retains the deep belief that there are people that are weak, and there are people who must be strong.

It's no wonder he's got ego problems.

Man thinks he has to be the best to deserve as much as everyone. 

Which is self-sabotaging in of itself.

And hey, let's not forget that no matter how much he runs his mouth about a better world, at no point does he ever see himself existing in it.

Johnny's better world has no Johnny in it.

Cue any ending except Temperance.

It's funny, that name. Temperance.

#johnny posting #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 meta #cp77 #johnny silverhand #cyberpunk 2077 johnny #went off yet again on discord but this time i thought i'd take it here #thoughts

[theviewfrommegabuildingh10]

#cyberpunk 2077 meta #yes #i swear this game and the people who made it got so wronged #but a thing of beauty / I know...

[imadhatt3r]

You know what? That one line from that Phantom Liberty ending where V can call Johnny a "big ol' softie"? They're right. They're absolutely right.

Johnny is a softie. He goofs off on multiple occasions in V's field of view despite knowing that nobody can see him, probably to his own and V's amusement. He screams on the rollercoaster and grins like crazy at V. He adores Nibbles. He wanted to check on Kerry when he heard that he was suicidal. He finally took Rogue on that car cinema date and can flirt with her in a goofy way straight out of his favorite "Bushido" movies. He has fun on the reunion concert and gives Kerry his DeLuze Orphean as a goodbye gift. He narrates that one quest like a noir narrator just to mess with V. He understands Barry's grief over his tortoise. He's respectful when watching Joshua's crucifiction. He's nice to Spider Murphy and calls her "Spider". He sheepishly apologizes to Alt in "The Sun" ending. He puffs up his chest when Denny says she misses him. He's fuming over the kids in "Talent Academy" being treated like products, probably because it reminds him of how he was treated in the military. He feels for Solomon Reed because he sees himself in him. He feels for Songbird because her circumstances remind him of V's.

And speaking of, he really loves V. He just loves them so much; He's always on watch for any danger and does his best to give them advice. He promises that he will do everything he can to cure them. He will encourage them to take a break if they're feeling sick. He will attempt the most dangerous stunts to get them to Mikoshi. He promises V to let them wipe him from the Relic and he keeps that promise. He will realize that they're his only loved one left and will ask for the last chance, and when he gets it he does everything he can to make them proud and happy. He accepts their decision no matter what it is, because it's their body and life. His worst fear is getting to live again, but without his friend/partner/soulmate/beloved (depending on interpretation) with him. He's proud to be able to call himself V's friend. He's proud of them. He's sad that he won't be able to see how V will change. He choses to stay calm and positive before he will be innevitably killed so that his beloved V will live to keep them calm and comfort them.

That whole hardass, asshole act? It's a ruse, it's a front, it's a persona he had to put on due to bad childhood, PTSD from being drafted as a teenager, seeing other teenagers die horribly around him, losing his limb and being branded with the Arasaka logo he did his best to scratch out and being tossed into a rockstar life of drinking, drugs and fans when he was likely not much older.

He might fight it, but he will never be the detached, emotionless action hero he wants to be, because that's not at all who he is! I think that his slight grin when V says it is one of relief, that he was able to show his most vulnerable, tender and gentle side to the one person he holds dear and not be punished for it, playfully teased but with clear sympathy on V's part. After decades of struggle with who he is being so different from who he wants to be, he can finally be seen for who he is, and who he would be if his life went oh so differently.

#cyberpunk 2077 #phantom liberty #phantom liberty spoilers #Johnny Silverhand #silverv #hatter blathers #hatter writes meta #i had these thoughts since the base game but pl finally added that one last puzzle to it #its literally like two sentences but its a key that unlocks his characterisation

[merge-conflict]

I realize it's just a headcanon of mine that Takemura loves a little bit of mischief, but I will submit several canonical events to support my theory:

After meeting with Oda, if you ride with him in the car he will sternly warn V not to mock him and then minutes later V and a stranger can convince him to do his best Hideshi Hino impression, which absolutely bombs

He plays right along with V's "what happened to Dexter Deshawn again?" with "He is deceased" without being annoyed or disapproving

Before the parade starts, even though he seems to hate all streetfood, he buys a scopburger and waits until V is within view to drop it several stories off a railing and then complain about it

The industrial park quest where he jokes "I will make their systems sick" and then genuinely laughs when V tells him he can take the float all the way to Tokyo

The straight-faced way he tells V they "do not look so bad" can be read as just reassurance, but tell me that's not the kind of joke you might tell someone to make them feel better?

When Hellman freaks out and runs someone over, Takemura pats him on the shoulder and tells him (paraphrasing here) that he did a good job as a chauffeur

Actually his entire opening conversation with Hellman before he interrogates him and the way he threatens to waterboard him is entirely unnecessary unless he's amusing himself

Like, he's almost always deadpan and obviously there are a lot of times where he's too focused or annoyed for humor, but c'mon!! Who was it that once said Takemura was like the comic relief for this game? Because they are 100% correct.

#cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk meta #goro takemura #it's possible to read him differently but i'm just exceptionally charmed by an emotionally reserved man having the soul of a trickster #all his experience being a sober and practical bodyguard just make him that much funnier when he chooses to joke around

[asha-mage]

Cyberpunk Meta: The Power of Sticking to Your (Narrative and Thematic) Guns

I've been struggling to articulate why exactly I find Cyberpunk 2077 so damn compelling, given how far it is out of my usual wheel house in terms of genre, tone, and even ideology. And I think after beatng Phantom Liberty it finally clicked-

What enthralls me about this game is it's complete commitment to it's underlying themes and ideas.

Most video games struggle to challenge the player on a story level. Some of this is the capitalism of it all: the idea that video games that aren't trying to make every moment exciting and engaging and wish fulling aren't going to sell well, and so video games should try and maximize player satisfaction above all else. But it's not just that- video games have an inherent limitation of medium in that, since they ask for so much time from the player, they have to be hooky, to draw you in, and keep you there. You don't loose a video game when you die and have to start over. You loose a video game when you put it down and decide to stop picking it up again. And that means that the ways a video game can or will push it's audience are sharply limited- it curtails their ability to make the player uncomfortable, to deprive them, to push them into things like no-win scenarios, and bad endings, to force the player to reflect. And that limit is a hurdle to making art inherent to video games as a medium.

What I admire about Cyberpunk 2077 is it's willingness to find away around, over, and through those limits, while still sticking to it's narrative and thematic guns. Cyberpunk could so easily fall into the trap of making the torment nexus look cool and rad. But it doesn't. Night City is a suffocating capitalist hellscape plastered with advertisements, where the right of way belongs to the person with the car running you over, the only way to get an ambulance is to have a good enough insurance policy, and dodging bullets on your way to work is just a part of every day. The game is unafraid to hammer it home repeatedly that this world is broken, sick, lost, and their isn't really anything you can do to save it. One of the main themes of the game is that sometimes, their are no good choices: just ones you can live with.

And nothing hits this home harder then Phantom Liberty's King of Wands ending. The game hammers you during it's final stretch, again and again- how much are you willing to help Songbird, someone who is, at the end of the day, no different then you- a young kid way in over their head, dying from betrayal and loss, with only a razor thin margin of hope. Helping her is the right thing, but what are you willing to do for that? The game slowly strips away your other motivations and reasons, until you are sitting on that train left with just one reality: do you call Reed and betray Songbird because that's the only way to get the cure you need? Or do you preform an act of true altruism and charity, in a world tormented by greed and selfishness? Do you put her on that rocket, and send her away knowing you'll get nothing for your trouble but the knowledge you stuck to what you believed was right? Or do you choose to give her up to the FIA, to Reed, to Myers, knowing what that will mean, knowing that all she's done to win her freedom?

And like, the sheer audacity, to add an ending via DLC, and it's not a good ending. Their is no magical reward, no last minute silver bullet, or dues ex machina. Virtue is it's own reward. The extra ending you get, for compromising, for betraying, for choosing the same selfishness and greed as everyone else in Night City- it's a bad ending. You loose all your personal relationships, you loose our chance to be a legend, you even loose Johnny in the end. And for what? To most likely end up like Reed one day- on the leash of the NUSA, used up until their is nothing left but regret. I've never seen a game quite do that, because it runs against that central idea of video games- it's anti power fantasy. Your extra time, extra missions, extra choices- their not rewarded, not repaid. The story doesn't let V find a third door just because they have been moral and true. It's unjust. It's cruel. It's unfair.

Just like the world Cyberpunk 2077 is warning against.

And that, is a brilliant bit of art.

#cyberpunk 2077 #Cyberpunk #Phantom Liberty #phantom liberty spoilers #V #Songbird #Solomon Reed #rosalind myers #Johnny Silverhand #And NONE of this is even getting into how the final mission for King of Wands is a retelling of Paradise Lost #WHICH IS WILD ON IT'S OWN #*chews arm off* #Cyberpunk meta

[tarmac-rat]

Slowly quietly thinking about how water-- the classical element of change, movement, emotion, and community-- is a subtle symbol of every Cyberpunk 2077's love interest's quest once it reaches it's completion

Judy Alvarez wants to enact change. She is, at her core, an idealist, and wants to confront the injustices of the world she lives in even if she doesn't exactly know where to start. Judy sees the way the world chews up the working classes of Night City and spits them out with no remorse and is one of the only people who says "no, this shouldn't stand, we have to do something". Even though her plan to seize of Clouds is ultimately unsuccessful, she walks away having gained at least one thing: her freedom. She's tied to Night City, in many ways always will be, but she realizes her worth extends beyond the place that's done absolutely nothing for her in return, so she chooses to leave it behind. Judy's storyline ends with her sitting on the dock overlooking the reservoir of Laguna Bend.

River Ward doesn't know how to change. Blue-blooded through and through, an NCPD detective whose traumatic experiences with crime has shaped who he is. River's morality drives his work, but it also pushes those closest to him-- his sister, his niece and nephews-- away from him. As a result, we see him as the thing society shaped him to be: a no-nonsense, by-the-book cop who genuinely believes in the morality of those he works with until he's forced to look it's corruption dead in the eyes. And the second he realizes how unjust the law he fought so hard to uphold really is, he severs his ties with it and returns to the people who care for him the most. River's storyline ends with him sitting on top of a water tower.

Kerry Eurodyne is resistant to change. Why wouldn't he be? Kerry Eurodyne is the last of the old guard, a rockerboy still living 60 years in the past who's in a mansion he hates and in a corporate deal he can't break out of. So what happens when change comes along in the form of a J-Pop band that's covering his songs without his permission? He confronts them, old-school style, because that's what rockerboys like him've always done. But Kerry soon realizes that the world moving on isn't a bad thing-- what is bad is him digging in his heels and not moving along with it. The new ways can be hard to accept, but Kerry's done with spending the rest of his life grappling with a past he refuses to reconcile with, so he ushers in a new era of his life the only way he knows how to: with songs and flames. Kerry's storyline ends with him lying on the shoreline of Del Cornado Bay

Panam Palmer is desperate for her people to change. Stubborn, hardheaded Panam saw the writing on the wall and broke out for a fresh start the moment she realized Saul's 'promised land' was nothing but dust, Raffen, and dealings with Biotechnica. She struck out as a merc in Night City, running drugs and working with the local gangs. But Panam's loyality is as much a blessing as it is a curse. She comes back when her family needs her, but she is done sitting on the sidelines and watching the Aldecaldos fall further under a corporate's thumb. So she does the only thing she feels she can do: steals a panzer and shows her leaders that their clan can still be something great. She's rewarded for her actions, and the Aldecaldos retain their independence for good. Panam's storyline ends with her driving the Basilisk over a lake in the Badlands.

#Cyberpunk 2077 #CP2077 #Judy Alvarez #River Ward #Kerry Eurodyne #Panam Palmer #Yeah yeah smth smth 'Water is the element of change we have a sense of community and love that holds us together through anything' #Also bonus fun fact that Johnny is very often paralleled with fire and Fire and Water are direct inverses of each other lolololol #This has been your once-every-two-months Cyberpunk meta analysis with Seta thank you for coming and please tip your waiters #Aldi speaks

[ghostoffuturespast]

What’d I miss what’s the thing with the clair de lune piano? 👀 gotta know the backstory

Hehehe I'm so glad you asked :>

I jokingly refer to the Clair de Lune piano (the piano in the Peralez's apartment for anyone reading this) as my arch nemesis, but it's actually one of my favorite pieces of foreshadowing in CP2077. Like it's just one of those things you'd never know, unless you took the time to get to know, and there's just so much of that in this game. A mind-boggling amount of it. It makes my brain very happy and it's one of the many reasons why I love this game so goddamn much. It's just layer upon layer upon layer. The cake that keeps on giving!

Now, there is a possibility that this wasn't intended as foreshadowing, but given how many music and poetry references there are in the game, I'm really hard pressed to believe that the inclusion of Clair de Lune wasn't intentional.

(Heck, look up the other classical song that is referenced in the game Nocturnes, Op. 55, Frederic Chopin, and Jane Stirling. You may see some similarities in situation between Chopin and Stirling, and V and Hanako. Two diseased dying virtuosos and their two wealthy financial sponsors crutching them along.)

We as players can encounter Clair de Lune piano twice in the game. First at the end of the quest I Fought the Law and then a second time at the beginning of Dream On. Both instances, in the Peralez's apartment on a self-playing piano. The melody drifting disembodied through the air...

At first listen, the fact that this song is playing, may not have even registered. (It certainly didn't for me the first several times I played.) Just a classical song being listened to by a couple of rich people for atmosphere. Dig a little deeper, you may have noticed the moon motif based on the title of the song. There's a lot of moon and space motifs in this game too. But the true meaning of this song requires you to know a little bit of music history.

Clair de Lune is the third movement of a piano suite called Suite bergamasque that was composed by Claude Debussy. That third movement got its inspiration and name from a poem written by Paul Verlaine.

Clair de Lune is a fucking poem.

A poem about a masquerade dance underneath the moonlight where all the dancers are living a fantasy life. Very much in the same way that we find out in the conclusion of Dream On that Jefferson and Elizabeth Peralez are living their own fantasy life...

Foreshadowing.

Clair de Lune by Paul Verlaine Your soul is like a landscape fantasy, Where masks and Bergamasks, in charming wise, Strum lutes and dance, just a bit sad to be Hidden beneath their fanciful disguise. Singing in minor mode of life’s largesse And all-victorious love, they yet seem quite Reluctant to believe their happiness, And their song mingles with the pale moonlight, The calm, pale moonlight, whose sad beauty, beaming, Sets the birds softly dreaming in the trees, And makes the marbled fountains, gushing, streaming – Slender jet-fountains – sob their ecstasies.

And remember...

Nothing comes before Night City.

#ask away! #irrigone #cyberpunk 2077 #meta analysis #clair de lune piano #nothing comes before night city #and yes this little nugget is in my fic lol #i didn't tag it as an ode to my tinfoil for no reason

[elvenbeard]

2077, September

“I’m wondering if this is what Alt meant when she said Soulkiller would… kill my soul. Leave me nothing but a cluster of memories and thoughts… A blurry copy of myself, trapped in a body so adjusted to Johnny already that it would’ve been smarter to just – …”

Look at how far you've come. You're the King of the fucking Afterlife, a Night City legend... but as it is with Night City legends, they tend to die young.

Vince is 28 by mid-to-late 2077, every other person his age has so much to live for, to look forward to... yet his thoughts are still pre-occupied with the same problem they have been since April, just with a new twist: how the hell am I gonna survive my own body trying to kill me now?

He'd been told that Johnny would slowly wipe out his personality, his memories, his existence, but even with Johnny gone now, for good, an amicable separation in the end... Vince doesn't feel the same anymore. Is he even himself still? Or just a not-entirely-accurate copy of the Vince that once was? In the end, did he wipe himself out with the help of Alt and Soulkiller, without Johnny even having a fault in it so much?

Just like after Jackie's death, Vince cannot help but wonder: would it have been better the other way around? Should he have stayed back in Cyberspace, give Johnny a second chance, changed man that he was by then? But this body was Vince's, had always been, logically he knew it... But something was off, not quite the same anymore.

He has so much to fight for now, not even only abstract concepts like a good reputation or "being remembered" that he was so focused on at the start of all of this. In the chaos and hardship he found friends, love, forged connections he could have never dreamt of - in spite of and because of Johnny, and for that he's thankful.

He has so much to lose, more than ever. Giving up is not an option, has never been.

Vince through the years (8/9)

I mentioned many times before that I love the Sun ending cause it fits really well for Vince for many reasons. He's a good merc, but he'd make an even more amazing Fixer with his background, he's hella ambitious, smart, cunning, organised, and just.... hhhh everything!! But the Soulkiller thing still fucks me up so much everytime and the more I think about it. Anyone know the plot-twist of/played SOMA? Yeah... yeah. If you know, you know.

The one thing that always really bothered me about the Sun Ending though, is one of the last things he gets to say before the credits being "I have nothing left to lose" when... no, clearly not. We accept that the council has made a decision but it's a stupid decision! Blaming it on his nerves and not having a good time with Mr. B, distrusting his ass for good reasons, that he says that at that moment XD

That being said... I know everyone has a slightly differently timeline of events, and I wanted to share bits an pieces of mine in this context (still a wip more or less, but I have some set dates for certain events because I love angst).

Thursday, Nov. 5th 2076 -> meet Jackie at Lizzie's, booted from Arasaka

End of December -> First Gig with Jackie

[A lot of the early gigs for Regina and Wakako (but a few of the other Fixers, too), happen during the time of the 6-month-montage for my headcanon]

Sunday, April 4th 2077 -> "The Rescue"

Monday, April 5th 2077 -> "The Ride"

[preparations for the Konpeki Plaza heist in the following days - a bit more elaborate planning would be needed imo than what's shown in game, the Maelstrom meetup alone, esp. if you meet Meredith upfront, wouldn't be something Vince would do over the course of a fun afternoon]

Friday, April 16th 2077 -> Konpeki Plaza Heist, arrival at the hotel in the early afternoon

Saturday, April 17th -> V wakes up in the landfill in the evening

[stay at Vik's to recover - mostly from injuries sustained during the fights and the operation; since this is the future it would probably not be as long as we'd have to stay in hospital with today's medicine; I think V would also get more glimpses into Johnny's memories as he sleeps/dreams]

Tuesday, April 20th -> V is brought home and Johnny appears at night

Wednesday, April 21st -> Breakfast with Takemura xD

[over the course of the next few weeks everything up to "Play it Safe" happens, including the Hunt for Hellmann and the search for Evelyn and the Voodoo Boys; a lot of it is going on simultaneously, but helping Panam and going after Hellmann and such is something that would take at least 3-4 days with minimal travel inbetween - but V could for example talk to Mr. Hands while waiting for the Kang Tao AV to get the meetup with Brigitte scheduled and help Takemura while Evelyn is recovering, and so on.]

Mid-May 2077 -> Attack on the Parade in Japantown (the attack on the parade and the few quests that follow with Takemura's safehouse and V and Johnny escaping to the Motel etc. all happen over the course of 12ish hours in my head, cause it wouldn't make sense to trail off doing gigs or other stuff while Takemura and Hanako sit there and wait super on-edge XD)

Friday, May 14th -> Johnny's wild bender

Sunday, May 16th -> Ebunike & Oil Fields

Tuesday, May 18th -> Movie-Date with Rogue

Thursday, May 20th -> first meeting with Kerry😌

Tuesday, May 25th -> Samurai "Reunion" Concert

Thursday, May 27th -> Kerry has a gig for V

Tuesday, June 1st -> Dark Matter show with Us Cracks (and in the following days Blue Moon's stalker gig, before Boat Drinks)

Friday, June 4th -> Boat Drinks 🚤🔥

[a tiny little peace of mind pls before it all goes to shit XD]

Wednesday, June 9th -> Embers-Meetup with Hanako (headcanon time: I think, with how dangerous and secretive everything is with Hanako, they would agree on sth like her calling V with a date for the meetup at Embers at some point, when she feels it is safe. Maybe he'd still formally agree at some point "all right, starting now, feel free to call me anytime and I'll come, I'm ready"; so there is some plausible reason as to why "Meet Hanako at Embers" sits in your journal for around 20 gigs revolving around Johnny's past without consequences XD)

Thursday, June 10th -> V's 28th birthday, bc I love angst :D (as I said above, the meet at Embers would be something more or less spontaneous, and so he'd be like "aw shit, I wanted to spend my potential last birthday not thinking about the Arasakas' offer too much", not expecting he wouldn't really walk out of the restaurant on his own again. The attack on Arasaka Tower would happen the same night, after the meeting with Hanako, and so by the time midnight strikes and V walks into and out of Mikoshi, it would be his birthday in multiple ways, kinda. Cause ~symbolism~)

[time skip with very important things happening that explain how V got his mansion and became King of the Afterlife]

Thursday, September 2nd -> "Blaze of Glory" - Meetup with Mr. B at Afterlife (I put it in September because Alt's estimate for how long V has to live find a solution to his problem is around 6 months. So, by September half of that time is over, but V'd also have a very reasonable amount of time to plan the Crystal Palace Heist and make it a success, looking at how he managed to survive the main story events in a shorter timeframe. I think the outlook could definitely be seen as positive; also basing this a bit on what a femV romancing River says in the Sun Ending, that "months of prep" went into this "last gig". Also, the very prominent clothing ad "Focus on Winning this Fall" - "fall", as in, the season - visible at the start of the 6-month-montage also kinda makes me think the endings take place during Sep-Nov, cause we love foreshadowing in this house)

Saturday, September 4th -> First Chapter of "Love is Stored in the Olive Jar" XD and from then on we'll see o.o

Oookay.... that ended up being longer than I thought XD But yes... seing what V has accomplished in a relatively short amount of time (and I mean... about 1.5 months can definitely be "a few weeks, at most", if we look at Vik's original estimate of the situation) I think with twice as much time to plan *just one gig* (even though, admittedly, an insane one) his chances of it going right are good. Maybe not 100% according to plan, cause something always goes wrong, but yeah. Fully depends on everyone's V's of course, and whether at that point they *want to* continue fighting, have something to fight for and lose - Vince definitely does - but yeah. I choose to interpret the Sun ending as a positive outcome that gives V another shot at life xD Maybe not in the way he expected buuuut... 👀

Thanks for reading so far if you did, would love to hear different takes and how you'd space out the timeline of the main story for your V!

#cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk 2077 spoilers #cp2077 #cyberpunk vp #cyberpunk 2077 vp #cp2077 vp #cyberpunk v #male v cyberpunk #corpo v #vincent ezaki #my vp #vince's timeline #my headcanons #vince through the years #one more to go and HHHHH #I mean... if you remember my overview post of these a couple months back #you may know what's gonna come #but yeah still my feeeeels ;__; #cyberpunk 2077 meta

[awhalesrider]

Some thoughts about the story timeline in CP2077(2.0) after the release of PL

Dunno if it's a spoiler (about PL) but you are alert anyway!!!

The more time I spend playing Phantom Liberty, the more I realize that the canon timeline could be PL (after chasing clues about Evelyne and Voodoo Boys) followed by other main quests (getting Hellman with Panam and seeing Hanako in the Parade with Takemura). The quest of "Phantom Liberty" pops up as early as V is chasing after Evelyn, and there will be quite a bit more new dialog with Johnny and NPCs in the main quests if you finish the expansion before them...

In this case, the silverv relationship will develop in a natural way in cp2077 2.0 with all their interactions in Dogtown.

The conversation in Pistis Sophia and Johnny's grave in the oil field are milestones (in their relationship) of qualitative changes. In Pistis Sophia, they have promises about taking a bullet for the other. In the oil field, they truly understand each other (if players take the proper choices). But...for me all these are a little sudden? Like I know they spend 24h a day together, but the *reasons* are not enough, you know? Especially for V. They are dying because of Relic, and what make them finally take Johnny, who is an engram in the chip that's killing them, as a friend, a comrade and even a soulmate for them?

So it is very nice that we finally have those quantum changes in their relationship accumulating in Dogtown. What happened in PL fill the blanks in these "reasons".

Dogtown is a treacherous war zone with a whole lot of colluding forces. V is confused. In such a high-pressure environment, who should they trust? Maybe the only one they can rely on is themselves, and Johnny is somehow themselves. That's the point. The only person who is LITERALLY and TECHNICALLY on the same boat with them is the engram in the Relic.

That's why in some conversations at the end of the PL, when V says "Got the two of us more time together"... the tone of their voice sounds like they are in relief (instead of being annoyed). When they are strunggling in Dogtown, for a moment maybe, V thinks that they are lucky to have Johnny in their head, and that at least they are not alone. They have Johnny despite all awful things.

With the timeline goes like that, both the promises in Pistis Sophia and the true reconciliation in the oil fields become a done deal.

Just imagine. Even though you have some happy time together, you will still hesitate to make a generous promise to an engram living in a chip that's killing you that you'll take a bullet for him too, right?

But what if he was the only close allied comrade in arms you could trust for a long time? What if he was always there for emotional support, no matter what choices you made?

Your answer, of course, will be: Yeah, I would do the same for you.

#silverv #johnny silverhand #female v #male v #johnny x v #johnny silverhand x v #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk2077 #phantom liberty #some meta stuff #plz cdpr they just want to live together #I dunno I am just crying

[bnbc]

Bite My Shiny Metal Ass (Kou's body lore dump)

As a disclaimer, back in the days when I started working on Kou’s post-canon story, I decided not to stick with canon in terms of technologies. I bought this ‘we can’t find a donor for you’ thing and built everything around her getting a full-metal body, yet, I needed her to be capable of certain things (read: to get laid without plugging cables in 100500 ports) so I basically made her an artificial human instead of traditional fullborg. New-gen borg it is! So if something of my ‘tech’ contradicts the canon, it’s because I decided not to limit myself by sticking with it.

Story >>> canon accuracy, this is the way.

So, the body. I headcanon that long ago along with developing relic technology Arasaka also started working on creating a perfect fake human body. First, because it’d make a relic tech more salable: you don’t need to care about finding a proper donor, so you could get those clients who don’t have blood related relatives or actually care about them (yes, Saburo, it is a dick for YOUR summer hat). Second, the tech basically consists of the three major parts — the body itself, the digital 'soul', and the code which make it all work together — and since all three would be Arasaka’s property it’d make such clients totally dependent on the corporation. 

They advanced fast with the code and chrome parts but were stuck with one issue: the engrama still needed an old good meat brain to parasite into, and no matter how they tried, they couldn't crack brain cloning. So, they made someone else do the work for them. 

After the game events Biotechnica went against the Soulkiller tech, claiming it unethical, and decided to cut their piece of the new market by providing 'morally correct' full cloned bodies for engrammas to claim. They were successful but they didn’t last long enough to taste the fruit of their labor: in the final stages of testing their facility in Brazil was raided, and brain-cloning tech was stolen. It caused Biotechnica’s collapse, and a lot of their technologies ended up in the free market. Brain cloning, though, was kept by Arasaka for themselves.

Early prototypes of new-gen borgs were quite… straightforward, and basically they were just nicely looking human shaped pieces of chrome. First tests showed insane rates of cyberpsychosis cases, so to make it salable, they had to advance both chrome and code further, creating a body capable of perfectly imitating organic processes. It worked, but the code was too complicated for meat brains to process, so the body’s passengers should’ve either gone through the long and unpleasant process of learning how to do it themselves or to rely on Arasaka’s satellite support system for the rest of their lives. 

So, when it came to bringing Kou’s back to life, they had it all well tested, yet there was a challenge, as well. 

The thing is she was put in her shelf in Mikoshi without plans of resurrecting her: they tried, tho, first with finding a donor, then with a borg way, but her DNA samples were no good for growing a healthy cell colony. However there was an opportunity, that with a clean sample of Johnny’s DNA, they would be able to get all the ‘trash’ out, and eventually the sample was delivered. (This part was created before I found out that there is a story behind real Johnny’s body and shit, so I stick to the oil field grave thing here)

But why spend so much money and effort on some mercenary whose biggest strength was in slicing people left and right? Kou’s aint a big brain netrunner after all, and all her skills were gone, wasted with the muscle memory of her original body. Obligation to nobody trash girl obviously wasn’t a thing that bothered Saburo much. Kou would’ve stayed on her shelf forever, if not for her allies.

Hanako Arasaka was introduced by the plan and managed to support it in front of her Father: Kou will be brought back, but not as a charity. She’d be in debt of Arasaka who’d owned both her body and soul, and would have to work this debt out as their agent. Everyone involved understood that such debts could not ever be worked out (you always can add some more to it, charing Kou for fixing broken parts, you know), but it was better than nothing, and the person behind the project idea promised to make sure that Kou would eventually agree to these terms.

They had another plan in their mind, but nobody should’ve known about this.

Back to the chrome! Till then Arasaka was producing only 'civil' bodies, because most of the SYS participants were rich people, they simply didn't need battle implants and software. But Arasaka agents were another story, they needed to be capable, yet they should've been sane enough to solve problems more complicated than ‘go and kill everyone’. So, they’ve made some changes.

I.e. Kou’s realskin is more dense then the common one, yet it’s so high quality you can’t distinguish it from human flesh my touch. (I HC tho, there are some hints, like her skin barely holds smell on it, doesn't change its color when she’s supposed to blush or get pale etc). But even with this update she needs to wear armor and subdermal implants because it turned out that being able to bleed is an essential part of staying ‘human’. She also have her legs augmented for jumping and keeping the balance; her reflexes are boosted to insanely high speed, she’s got a chrome spine to carry her frame (she weights fairly lot), a flagman cyberdeck (which is laughable because her netrunning skill are joke), optic and, of course, blades — and lots and lots new lines of code to make it all operating together.

The body itself is a very complicated tech, whose first goal is to pretend to be real. It doesn’t mean that she has all body systems duplicated as they’re in the human body, but her ‘organs’ serve the same goal. I.e. her ‘liver’ doesn’t look like a liver, it’s a system of sensors and filters that keeps the body clean. Her digestive system is a combo of ‘battery’ and ‘human guts’: she needs calories to keep her meat brain alive but doesn't really need to eat, technically, but eating helps her to stay sane. Yeah, this poor borg girl still has to poop. I’m so sorry, baby.

Of course, this fine piece of tech wasn’t given her on pure trust basis, and even tho she had no choice but to agree with her contract terms, her supervisor, the person who came up with idea to bring her back as ‘saka agent, got granted the access codes that could let them interfere in her processes or even cut her off the satellite support, making her body just a pile of dead metal.

Ah well, did I mention it was Goro?

He never abused it though, even when she tried to kill him, he broke both of her arms to stop her instead of using the magic button. I mean, it would be hella disrespectful to treat her as she's a machine, and Goro is not like this, right? xD Later, after their escape, Kou got her codes changed first with her fixer team, then, once again, in Night City. After that she gave new codes to Goro, just in case. He never abused them then, either.

So, one last topic to cover is THE LOOK. When I was creating the story I was living with the idea that ‘saka didn’t care about Kou’s appearance even barely resembling her old one, so they just took a standard body made for the inner market for her. But when I created her in her new body in game she turned out to be crazily pretty. So, I have altered my story a bit: since she’s supposed to be a corporation property she should've looked accordingly, so they designed her frame and face to be an Arisaka cover girl.

Goro kept as much distance from the process of her creation as he could, but he had to interfere once. Arasaka, of course, installed its own optic into Kou’s eye sockets, but on his last visit to Night City Goro’s got “Kiroshi” with Kou’s favorite lenses integrated. Vik gave them to him in exchange of the promise that when she’s back to life she’d be looking on the world through her own eyes. This is the episode he isn’t proud about, because he basically had to psychology crash the medtech for them to change her optics and to erase all the data about it from the databases. This really wasn’t cool (because it was fukking HOT).

And, of course, as anyone with such an amount of chrome Kou's balancing on the verge of cyebrpsycosys. She, basically, has it, but mostly in remission, yet if she stops caring about 'body maintenance (aka skipping meals, abusing sleeping system, or even killing way to much people) she's at risk of having cyberpsycitic strikes. They usually come as auto-aggression and are shaped in attempts to get rid of human likeness 'because we all know who I really am". But gladly, since she still has something (someone) to care about she always gets back to her normal state and her 'stupid routine'.

Ooof, I guess that's all.

#cyberpunk 2077 #fem v #oc koulin #female v #gigilpunk #cyberpunk v #cyberpunk oc #street kid v #gigilpunk: lore and meta

[neon-prison]

wake up samurai, new endgame cyberpunk ship just dropped. 

#cyberpunk 2077 #fingers #this is the new shipping meta #Fingers/Vee #...Veengers #please dont let this be one of those moments u make a joke ship #then it becomes real #god no #not like this #NOTLIKETHIS

[sage-knight]

I finally cracked and have been installing more mods. To do silly things like take pics of her trying to hang a picture or something. This playthrough is gonna be like 1000 hours.

#model shoots are all fine and good and impressive #but I love candid pictures. I wanna watch my little person do stuff! Immersion! Helps make up for the lack of 3rd person #like who is she calling and why is it Jackie doing something stupid #that or meta shots that look like they took it i.e. selfies/group photos #specific opinions no one asked for #cyberpunk 2077 \\ #ch: v #ch: ixaphia

[imadhatt3r]

Johnny can totally empathize with Reed because he sees himself in him, that much is clear, but he absolutely can sympathize with Songbird (esp if you side with her and help her) because he can see V, his V, in her, and he wants to protect her and help her get better because that's what he wants to do to V...

#cyberpunk 2077 #phantom liberty #phantom liberty spoilers #johnny silverhand #v cyberpunk #silverv #song so mi #solomon reed #hatter blathers #hatter writes meta