#I cannot stand 'hes so fucked up i can fix him' ships by default so Im already kind of exhausted

[taldigi]

you kno i expected it to happen based on how he acted in the story but now that I am actively looking into fanwork and stuff- the sheer inescapable nature of ren/aketchi stuff (aka trying to find stuff abt other characters ) makes me wonder if sadboy angstshipping is truly eternal and inescapable OR I completely misinterpreted their dynamic & their characterizations entirely.

[fresh-prince-of-denmark]

Analysis of the Devil Ending: Who Died and Left Aristotle In Charge of Ethics? (Pt 5)

Hello and welcome back to me over-analyzing everything in Cyberpunk. If you haven’t read my other posts, please read those first! (V’s Mikoshi Poem, Johnny’s Mikoshi Poem, The Sun, New Dawn Fades).

This part took me a lot longer to complete. Not because it was particularly long…it was just painful. Jesus Christ. I hated every second of this ending. That shit hurted.

There were a few shards located at Arasaka’s estate that I chose to skip, as I did not find ant that were unique to the location. The three the game seemed to want to draw your attention to were actually not scattered as shards, they were spoken-word. The only shard I was able to find was a portion of The Odyssey. The other two pieces of literature are In Kyoto, which is quoted to V by the guard to takes her to the hospital room, and (what I believe to be) a reference to Plato’s The Allegory of the Cave. This section is going to be super theoretical. Like, more theoretical than the rest. So bare with me please.

Let’s start easy. This is the poem that the guard quotes at V as he leads her out of the operating room:

In Kyoto,

hearing the cuckoo,

I long for Kyoto

(By: Basho, translated by Jane Hirshfield)

Ten words. What could ten words amount to? The saddest goddamn words you’ll ever hear, dammit.  This poem is a feeling more than a concept. Ever feel homesick when you haven’t gone anywhere? Lonely when you’re around other people? That’s V. This was supposed to be a victory, supposed to be what they wanted. But now Johnny’s gone, scorned and betrayed, and no one they calls seems to even be able to give V the time of day. This was supposed to be a victory, their way of going back to the way things were, getting their life back, going home. But we can never go back, can’t ever erase our experiences, what we learn, how we grow. As Misty says, we should not fear change in of itself, but who we might change into. This just goes to show what happens when we betray ourselves by rejecting our own growth: all that’s left is bitterness and sorrow.

The next day when V wakes, you can pick up a shard containing a section from Chapter 8 of The Odyssey. Now, I’m not too familiar with the Odyssey. In fact, I hate the Odyssey. So if anyone wants to jump in here and add something more intelligent, I’m all for it. The Odyssey is the tale of Odysseus, who has been trying for ten long years to return to his wife and son after the Trojan war. Odysseus is basically listening to a bard remind him of all his Trojan War trauma, and begins to weep, at which time time people start questioning what’s up with this guy:

Say what thy birth, and what the name you bore,

Imposed by parents in the natal hour?

(For from the natal hour distinctive names,

One common right, the great and lowly claims:)

Say from what city, from what regions toss'd,

And what inhabitants those regions boast?

So shalt thou instant reach the realm assign'd.

In wondrous ships, self-moved, instinct with mind;

No helm secures their course, no pilot guides;

Like man intelligent, they plough the tides,

Conscious of every coast and every bay,

That lies beneath the sun's all-seeing ray;

Though clouds and darkness veil the encumber'd sky,

Fearless through darkness and through clouds they fly;

Though tempests rage, though rolls the swelling main,

The seas may roll, the tempests may rage in vain,

E'en the stern god that o'er the waves presides,

Safe as they pass, and safe repass the tides,

With fury burns; while careless they convey

Promiscuous every guest to every bay,

These ears have heard my royal sire disclouse

A dreadful story, big with future woes;

How Neptune raged, and how, by his command,

Firm rooted in a surge a ship would stand

A monument of wrath; how mound on mound

Should bury these proud towers beneath the ground.

But this the gods may frustrate or fulfill,

As suits the purpose of the Eternal Will.

But say through what waste regions hast thou stray'd

What customs noted, and what coasts survey'd;

Possess'd by wild barbarians fierce in arms,

Or men whose bosom tender pity warms?

Say why the fate o Troy awaked thy cares,

Why heaved thy bosom, and why flowed thy tears?

Reading this made me feel just how tired V must be. All this fighting, all this war, and for what? Much like Odysseus, V has been through hell and back (literally, depending on how you see it). And it never seems to end. V has been fighting for so long, yet there’s always something more; the tests the doctor gives her are endless, and they’re always being asked to do more, over and over again, with no results or end in sight. Odysseus is teetering on despair; nothing he does seems to do will ever be enough, just like V. The world will just take and take and take. It’s exactly what V’s poem asserts in Mikoshi; the world cannot be fixed, and resistance is futile. You can’t change how corporations rule the world, and as a protestor states on the TV in the hospital room, the rich have no boundaries or morals, and we are powerless to stop them from taking whatever they want. They can take not only our souls, but our bodies, devour them in order to prolong their own lives. Johnny would, of course, disagree. Even a slap in the face to The Man is better than submitting to a corpo-leash, even if that is the easier path. And in fact, he may be right, since it seems taking Hanako’s offer is the conformist path, and the only one that leads to Saburo coming back.

But Johnny isn’t there anymore to walk the rebel path at their side. No more guardian angel to whisper when they it most to never stop fighting.

There’s a lot more we could go into here with the Odyssey; comparing Arasaka to the story of Polyphemus and the cave, talking about themes of passion vs. commitment, yadayadayada. I hate the Odyssey so that can be someone else’s problem tbh.

The final piece is what the doctor asks V to read as one of their tests. Now, on surface-level, this is foreshadowing if V will choose to stay in their body, or be turned into an engram. It’s laughing at them, really, both pitying and mocking the fact that they believe they have a choice, since either way they’re once again at the mercy of the rich and powerful:

“And it was a sight to behold, he said, how a soul would choose its life; sometimes pitiable, sometimes laughable at times wonderful and strange. For in most cases, the souls made their choice according to the habits of a former life.”

I couldn’t find where this was from, or if it was a quote from anything. But googling it does bring up Plato’s Allegory of The Cave, which I thinks tracks pretty well. I found a quote from this chapter of Plato’s The Republic, which is strikingly similar in meaning. For the sake of my sanity, lets assume that this quote is referencing this one from Plato:

“And he will count the one happy in his condition and state of being, and he will pity the other; or, if he have a mind to laugh at the soul which comes from below into the light, there will be more reason in this than in the laugh which greets him who returns from above out of the light into the cave.”

If you’re unfamiliar with the allegory of the cave, it’s a philosophical discussion from Plato’s The Republic. It’s about how human perception is limited, and so true knowledge comes from the self via philosophical reasoning. Much like humans imprisoned in a cave with only shadows as their entire world, we cannot imagine the true world outside the cave until we leave to see it for ourselves.  Those who are freed from this limited reasoning have a duty to go back and free others, subjecting them to the full experience of awakening; both the pain and the triumph it entails. V starts out with a limited perception of things; a surface-level world, never stopping to see the bigger picture, until Johnny comes along and encourages them to question the status quo. In all other endings, V accepts this enlightenment. They challenge Arasaka, and try to follow Johnny’s legacy and Stick It To the Man. Yet if they accept Hanako’s offer in an attempt to return to “the habits of a former life,” they are rejecting this new understanding, refusing to leave the cave and live in ignorant bliss. This, I believe, is where Johnny’s true feeling of betrayal comes from: not because he’s being shredded, and not because he thinks V doesn’t know any better. V learned and changed just as much as he did, and this growth was something they were able to gift to one another. Johnny is proud of his change, proud to be someone trusted by V, proud at a second chance not to fuck things up. When V gives him control to go with Rogue to Arasaka, he’s ecstatic to prove himself worthy of that trust, to prove that he’s changed. Yet V, the person who aided in that change, is now actively ignoring and rejecting their own growth, and thus is betraying themselves. By not using their enlightenment to actively oppose the status quo and rebel, they are choosing the side of the oppressor by default.

Some of her last words if you choose not to sign the contract are to Goro, “You have no idea how good it feels to be free.” But the truth is, V is not free, and now they will never be free. By walking the path they have, they are choosing willful ignorance, stubbornly clinging to the darkness of the cave because it is easier to convince oneself that they are not a prisoner at all than it is to leave the comfort of one’s chains. Either way, they are caged, even if the bars the rich and powerful build around her are clear instead of solid. Her so-called freedom (and knowledge) is pure illusion — shadows depicted on a cave wall.

[plinys]

did you see agentverbivore 's meta on why fraida is sexual assault? can you comment on it?

so like, i wasn’t going to answer this. i was off enjoying my life, i saw cars 3 which is great i cant believe doc hudson is gay and lightening mcqueen is secretly fitz and if y’all think im not gonna write a cars fraida au you’re wrong

and i come home to this

lovely anon

i was really just going to be like ??? this isnt worth my time and just go write fraida fic and dont worry guys if youre here for baby au or beach house verse or kinky framework smut well i got you covered later today

but before that, we need to talk

this is long, and doesnt cover most the important bits

first off, apologies to my one (1) mutual that is a huge holden radcliffe fan, you should probably look away for part of this meta. because im gonna put some of the blame on him

a few points from that awful meta i skimmed that was again not valid because it was written by a fs stan and these people by default cannot stand any other character looking at fs (like my girl oph may be evil, but like will daniels was not !? but man were the fs stans ready to call him abusive and sexual assualt back then so, again as proof opinions of those extra gross fs stans are not valid)

now if you are a mildly reasonable fs fan or just a normal person that ships other things, please do not let the crazies convince you of some total bullshit 

hee’s some ground facts

my girl aida, now know as ophelia, is one of the main villains of the season. she’s evil af in the later half. im not here to deny that. she’s one of the seasons villains

you know who else are tho - holden radcliffe and leopold fitz

back in 4.01 my girl was created to be a digital assistant, programmed not to lie and not to kill and generally just like a good™ person. now that got fucked up and whose fault is that

well lets have some more facts:

holden gave her the programming that it was okay to kill if it was to fill an objective he set (this allowed her to kill him later and honestly that was his bad)

fitz taught her how to lie, and holden assured her that it was okay to do so

as mack, the only person with a logical fear of robots would tell us, this is a bad idea

and then we get the darkhold

man who, from the other side, convinced aida to read the book? 

who then later enabled her to keep reading and gain all the knowledge and use it to help him create the framework and expand it and make it better

but oh man thats another good point who designed the framework? 

holden radcliffe and leopold fitz

holden specifically was the one that wanted it to grow, that encouraged her to push the simulation, that had the plan to put may into it and give her a whole different life to keep her contained

holden was also the one to have them kidnap and replace the rest of the team

wait you mean? aida was just following orders? the whole time? oh yes, thats right guys. she was

until of course

the framework

now here’s where it gets messy because

the framework 

in the framework, the darkhold has no hold on you anymore

which means, holden gets to experience regret and becomes not the villain anymore go him 

though as mentioned before this, holden’s instructions were to fix regret so people would stay in the framework and not question the narrative or want to leave

which leaves us with

coulson not a shield agent

may saving the girl (both of which ive mentioned in previous metas is why hydra rose with no one to assemble the avengers and a fear of inhumans in the public it was easy)

fitz being raised with his father (who i personally hc as hydra in the real world too but thats just me)

mace being an inhuman

and mack having his daughter

now despite what poor sad jemma simmons, and the fs stan mouth piece that daisy got to be for a brief moment (i miss a well written daisy wow) will tell you,

not having a girl in your life does not suddenly make you a super villain

maybe its idk

the hydra father you were raised with 

in a demonstrated emotionally abusive house that says not to show emotions and weakness (much like john garrett did to grant ward)

a world in which there was a fear of inhumans and a push for hydra to rise

a natural inclination for ambition

now, idk if its just me but

aida didnt make fitz evil

she followed holden orders to fix his regret, 

if anything holden made him evil but really this anger and darkness has been inside of fitz all along and if you dont believe me rewatch season 2/3. watch that scene with ward when he cuts off the air, watch him with the gun and yelling at the space rock, watch him angrily pushing things onto the ground when frustrated

this kid has been two shakes from being a villain since season two

 now to the fraida bit

if you believe ophelia on the beach scene which i do, she’s human now, able to feel things, there’s no way this girl so new to emotions that she has a panic attack thinking about people being hurt, so new that she loses herself to heart break in what is honestly just bad writing but canon so i can use it as a point here

would lie without there being an obvious tell

she’s not lying. 

she wanted to feel loved and human

so she took jemma’s place at the academy

now when did fitzsimmons first hook up? when did they first kiss? how long did that take? 

aida, then calling herself ophelia, wanted to be jemma simmons and like i get that. you, the fs stans, should get that. i mean isnt that why you all write self insert fanfic while slapping the name jemma on the character and pretending its the same one we see in canon?

aidas just like you

maybe a little misguided, playing a fucked up sims game of the real world

in a sense they created an alternate universe

an earth 2

and now you’re here telling me a robot, who cannot canonically feel anything more than pain, was the one to initiate sex? no, that boy def initiated it. 

the horrible example of the meta involves someone being roofed and forced into sex, but thats not what happened. she wouldnt have been the one to touch him first, wouldn’t have been the one to initiate anything because she wanted to experience love and humanity and none of that is part of it

now iain confirmed the friada sex happened, canon later told us that it happened in 4.21 and again reminded us that she could feel nothing, which important take away here

now if you say

there’s consent issues, probably dub-con ill agree

but the framework version of him, this alternate universe man very much wanted every part of that

and honestly could you blame him?

so now i am going to sit here and write my fic set in the framework verse as if it was a full earth 2 and enjoy living it up in my alternate universe sin verse

im going to write my lets ignore everything after she saves mack fix it fics because i can do whatever i want

its fandom

and theres like 4 of us shipping fraida

block the tag if you dont want to see it 

dont come up in my inbox anymore and ask my opinions or for m to justify my ship ever again, im just going to start replying with the parks & rec gif of ron with her permit to do what he wants

ye be warned