#cb2077

POV: You're staring at him.

Angry rockerboy bitch.

Ok well I asked the 80s rocker boy who lives in my head and also committed domestic terrorism, and he said I should kill the CEO of nestle…

In Phantom Liberty, they barely touched the surface of his military trauma and other traumatic events throughout his life, let alone Johnny losing his human arm and getting a prosthetic that sent him over the edge with cyberpsychosis and a messed up, traumatized psyche (as if it wasn't bad enough before that).

Cyberpunk 2077 is already such a great game, but it could have been an absolute masterpiece if they let us get through to Johnny and his trauma. V tells him he's a softie and Johnny replies with a "fuck you"—because how many people have been kind to him before that, really? How many people tried to genuinely understand him, especially since he pushed them away over and over again?

The game should have allowed the player to push through his "fuck you" that is actually a defensive mechanism, his awkwardness at being seen and exposed to those human feelings. The game should have allowed the player to help Johnny, to "Don't bullshit me, Johnny, I'm here for you whether you like it or not. Don't want me? Let's go talk to Kerry. Rogue is also an option, y'know?" (And judging by the way Johnny acts during a date with Rogue, and by him telling Rogue about V's death, Johnny still trusts Rogue enough and is, to a point, ready to be vulnerable and truthful with her.)

I mean, I'm sure Johnny and Kerry had many heart-to-heart conversations, but Johnny still built up a wall and pushed people away, even Kerry (his best friend, mind you).

And after the war? Drugs, alcohol, anything to drown the pain. The way he used sex to manipulate and to cope while he was also disassociating? I mean, he already has an arm he hates, that is still a foreign object, why not use his body, too?

You've heard this from me before and you'll hear this again: Johnny Silverhand deserved better. The Temperance ending remains the best canonical ending for me—he gets that second chance at life, to heal, to live. Even though he has to live in V's body, has to get used to it and that there's no V anymore, that the body fully belongs to him now. There's another question of body autonomy because Johnny's consciousness/the Relic overwrote itself on V's psyche, so technically he stole the body and killed V without meaning to. But then again, it was V's choice to give Johnny the body. It was V's choice to tell Johnny, "Don't fuck this up. Heal. Live for me to the fullest."

And so he tries, with his immense guilt and grief. He genuinely tries, otherwise V's sacrifice was for nothing. Otherwise it was only a waste.

Of course, in my head V is alive. Johnny gets his body back, his rehab, his healing—because's Johnny's actual body is so tired, is so used to every kind of poison, he NEEDS time to heal. It's going to be a process. It's going to take years. But it's important for him to get help.

But that's not canon. Canon is that Johnny is suffering all the fucking time, lying to himself that he's good, and then during events of Phantom Liberty and any kind of heart-to-heart with V it overwhelms him to the point of him holding back tears.

"I was totally ok with that, until now."

Yeah. Sure you were, darling.