leif

THE KILLING MOON

I MEAN HELL, the guy literally gets into an accident when he’s taken control of V’s body and he didn’t really care too much about it. Almost like he got so caught up living again that it was just another night out for him. Imagine if he broke an arm or a leg during that crash, I bet he would have felt very bad about hurting V so frivolously. Sure, he’ll get a tattoo, but that’s funny. it can be reversed and it’s only skip deep. a broken bone has to be lived with for a while.

it probably pains him a lot to see V hurt when he is helpless to do anything about it. it probably drives him nuts that they’re so stubborn, just like him. he probably lies awake in his little hardware mind palace wondering why he cares so much, until something eventually clicks. until he realises he’s never been closer to anyone in his entire life, and the last person he didn’t want to see hurt was Alt.

So Mi is meant to parallel V, and phantom liberty asks an incredibly important question — would you help yourself? if you met someone in the exact same situation as you, would you help them? it’s an exercise in empathy, an exercise in trust, an exercise in doing what you personally think is right and it’s brilliant, truly!

there isn’t a way to explain So Mi to cyberpunk chuds bc they won’t listen; they’re just misogynists who hate woman bc she is woman. if So Mi were a man, i’m sure lots of the conversation around her would be about how she’s morally grey, stuck in an impossible situation, etc etc, but bc she is a woman and has these societal expectations of what a woman should do stuck onto her, no matter what she does.

she is such a phenomenal parallel to V, genuinely. the key difference between them is support. V has panam, judy, kerry, river, vik, misty and — most importantly — johnny. V is never truly alone, their brain parasite operates as a friend and a confidant, someone who knows V better than anyone else.

So Mi has no one. her friendship with reed and the rest of his team is founded on blackmail and threats — join us or netwatch will hunt down your family and loved ones. she had no choice. even when working under reed (because i do believe they did care about each other, genuinely) she had no one. when reed is taken out of the picture, So Mi is at the mercy of rosalind myers. not even the therapists and counsellors and doctors at the FIA can convince myers to give her songbird a break. she is forced to work, to watch as her mind becomes overtaken by forces unknown to most other netrunners. forced to have her body altered to accommodate the workload and damage that is being done to her. she has nobody, she is dying, and she wants nothing more than to live. of course she is willing to do whatever it takes to get out.

it’s interesting, because people make it seem like So Mi is malicious in “fucking V over.” yes, it was her intention from the beginning to use V to aid in her escape. but she isn’t heartless, nor is she remorseless. she is acutely aware of what she’s doing, why she’s doing it, and the cost of her actions. So Mi has nobody. she can’t trust anyone. despite her liking V, and wanting V to survive, she can’t allow her own survival to be secondary. it’s the same deal as V — how many people die because V wants to live?