#it's the monowire for me

[corpocyborg]

fuck astrology what's your preferred arm cyberware in cyberpunk 2077

[colorfulnickellandgarden]

NC//GATHERING STORM

[tarmac-rat]

A nomad and her brain tumor walk out of the city...and into a bar

Very lucky and blessed to have a friend in @janeofthechoir12, who offered to snap photos of Riley decked out with some of the mods that I've had my eyes on over the 3 years I've played this game.

It's baffling to see my V actually in the way that I picture her in my head (minus the more heavy stuff I'd need to mod myself) but damn, she looks so good and if I go on any longer I might start tearing up a bit so I'm just gonna see myself off lol 🥲 💙

Check out Em's Tumblr and their work on AO3 if you get a chance! Their V/OCs Ambrosia and Mika are a DELIGHT I give them chocolates on the daily.

Clothing, hair, eye, accessory, and pants mods all linked here

[ruvviks]

designing hanan's custom mantis blades :^)

[dualbasilisk]

I wish the monowire was a cool weapon :/ like it's so cool in concept! And you watch Edgerunners and Lucy is doing dope shit, natch, like grabbing people's arms and choking them out with her monowire and it's cool as fuck!! But in game it's just like. A longer ranged melee attack. It's so lame. Like they should change the stealth grab/choke out animation with a monowire based grab if you have it equipped at least!

[merge-conflict]

bitching under the cut

every game that has a fun stealth system: what if we made a huge multi-stage boss fight where we shoot rockets and lasers at your fragile sneak-thief body for multiple rounds? what if we put in consumables in a room where you're in active combat, and these consumables cannot be used while you're in active combat? what if you built your entire build around recon and finding a good place to fight and then we cemented shut every door and had you fight in a coliseum. are you having fun? are you having fun now? you stupid fragile piece of shit. are you? special shout-out to sinking a skill into being able to hack cars and then NOT being able to hack cars during combat because they're special little unhackable cars. idiot.

[quaddmgd]

[seraphfighter]

Just a city girl and her truck.

[mail-me-a-snail]

can you imagine if the cyberpunk fandom fucked a little harder with the horrors of arasaka though. like yeah in game they're so completely fucked up as a corporation and you do see a lot of that but do you ever remember there are millions of corpo rats who don't?

like they have to run the rat race from their cubicles every day knowing they could be bumped off for any slight misconduct but it's so much better than placing their lives in the hands of the city itself because at least arasaka would know how to make it fast and easy

[aceghosts]

15 Lines of Dialogue

I was tagged by @voidika and @nightbloodbix to do this challenge! Thank you!

Tagging (Opt In/Out): @bbrocklesnar, @marivenah, @alexxmason, @sergeiravenov, @carlosoliveiraa, @strangefable, @socially-awkward-skeleton, @amalkavian, @confidentandgood, @clicheantagonist, @theelderhazelnut, @cassietrn, @direwombat, @captastra, @cloudofbutterflies92, @katsigian, @inafieldofdaisies, @simplegenius042, and anyone else who wants to do this!

Rules: Share 15 or fewer lines of dialogue from an OC, ideally lines that capture the character/personality/vibe of the OC. Bonus points for just using the dialogue without other details about the scene, but you're free to include those as well!

Rooney Shepard (Cyberpunk 2077)

“Even at the cost of my own life,” Rooney picks up their whiskey glass again, “If you’re going to ask me if I regret it, I don’t. I would do the same again if given the choice.”

“You are a client,” Their tone is firm as they continue to dig their grave, ever obstinate, “You are hiring me to find someone. Unless you would prefer someone else to take this case.”

“Hmm…,” They start, tilting their head for a second as they pretend to think before answering with a smirk, “No.”

“People depend on me, Yorinobu. I cannot let them down. If I stop, I fail them. And if I fail them, then what use am I to anyone?”

“Fine,” They say, pulling out their monowire, “Remember, I gave you a chance to turn back.”

“I can do all of these things, but I know when others need me first,”

“No, I made a promise that I intend to keep. I’ll find a way out for us both.”

“It’s more than that. He’s my teammate; I’m responsible for him.”

“I can blame myself,” They look at him, meeting his eyes, “It was my job to protect Jack. He was my younger brother. He needed me, and I failed him. Danny, too.”

“No.” Rooney’s tone is deadly quiet, a grim look on their face.

“Work. You know how I am.”

“Not for a lack of trying,” They joke back, wiping at their eyes.

“I do. I let everyone down who didn’t make it off Space Force One. I refuse to let anyone else get hurt. Not as long as I breathe.”

“I know what is at stake. I’ve made a decision and decided that I’m okay with that risk.”

‘Glad to see you too, Silverhand’, Rooney thinks. A moment later and perhaps a touch more fondly, they add, ‘I mean it. I really thought I might have lost you, and it terrified me’.

[ghostoffuturespast]

WIP Whenever

Thanks for the tag @therealnightcity! 🩷

(Don't be fooled by all the pink... I just did it so the colors would match lol)

I've been plugging away on this for the past two months, but tomorrow's Thursday and I've got the next chapter of So It Goes locked, loaded, and ready to go. But here's a little sneak peek:

A snap behind her, the crunch of boots. V froze, shut her eyes to listen. Close. No cover. Unknown position and number. Too far to advance. Retreat. She rolled over and lightning cracked as she lashed up, thunder erupting fractions of a second later. The opening volley in the air. She missed both of the closest soldiers by a foot. But it was enough for them to break formation, backpedal in surprise. Another slash, down, air singing as she retracted her monowire to keep them from advancing while she lunged. The boots on her feet finally useful instead of dead weight. V rocketed forward, cleared the distance, and aimed for the assault rifle in the first soldier's hands. Arms outstretched, she pinned their fingers, jamming them to the metal and rearing the gun back. She struck with the force of a cannon, recoil tilting the pair of them off balance before a final downward flourish of her hips tackled them to the ground. They fell, down and over, impact jarring bone before slamming into the jungle brush side by side like a doomed pair of lovers. V swiftly carried herself up onto one knee, stolen momentum and stolen trigger lined up in her palm to pop a question of rounds point blank in the soldier’s chest. She turned to her next suitor and shot them down like the last. A bang from her right. And another. The soldiers in front of her tilted to the side, bullet holes and chipped plastic from their helmets sticking out of their heads. Rogue stepped in from afar to scare the third and the fourth off dead. The fifth was second-guessing his chances until the rest of the fraternity arrived out of the brush. Something in the distance whined. “V, get down!”

Tagging with no pressure: @baublekute @dani-the-goblin @shimmer-like-agirl @wanderingaldecaldo @merge-conflict @luvwich @streetkid-named-desire @seeker-of-truth @mynonsenseistingling

As always, your WIP doesn't have to be writing or CP2077 related. Whatever you want to share that you're working on. And you can cash in now or later, there's no expiration date.

Also if you weren't tagged but want to share, tag me! I'll come check out your stuff!

[chipped-chimera]

WIP WEDNESDAY - 21/06/23

(I mean it’s technically Friday now between timezones and spoons but have this otherwise I’ll keep forgetting) My first WIP Wednesday! Thanks @theviridianbunny​ for the tag! I’ve been really getting stuck into modding - as well as falling into my usual mod habit of ‘start like six project at once and end up with a million WIP files' but I guess I’ll talk about the major ones.

Graphic design is my passion ...

(Long) rambling about mods I'm making + things I've learned below the cut~

My V’s tatt project is still ongoing, and I’ve (somewhat begrudgingly) been trying out Substance Painter to work on bits of it, mainly polishing seams between UV maps. It’s definitely got a lot of benefits, especially for graphic placement in really tricky areas (like anywhere in the entire head mesh region for example) but I still think a lot of the heavy work will still be done in Photoshop so I’ll probably be writing up both experiences with them when I do that tutorial I keep hinting at for complex tatt work. I’ve started drafting a tumblr tutorial but I wonder if that’s the best format, maybe a PDF? Google doc? Github wikis look cool? (tho I think I need to pay for that) - if y’all got suggestions for tutorial formats pls let me know!

As for the other arguably overly-ambitious-project-where-I-bit-off-more-than-I-could-chew ...

H A I R.

Hair has been the bane of my existence for about the past week( ... weeks? Maybe two?), most of it involving cursing, a lot of reverse-engineering game meshes and smashing my head against blender. But if not already evident from my monowire post - I am a stubborn bitch with too much time on my hands so even though there were at least two moments where I wanted to curl up on the floor under my desk and just stay there - we got there.

This all started because my favourite hair mod which I cannot split from my V’s identity was acting funky and the shape of it had been altered since a physics update. It wasn’t her anymore. So I needed new hair. I tried editing the existing hair. I tried importing the old hair mesh. I tried so many things and they didn’t work out one way or they threw a million errors or there were an obnoxious amount of verts.

I even tried looking for replacement mod hair. None of them fit, all of them felt too ‘clean’ for my V. So I just concluded: FINE. I’ll make my own damn hair. From scratch. At least then I’ll actually KNOW what’s going on with the mesh, right?

Problem with hair is tutorials are very limited in respect to Cyberpunk, so I had to learn a lot of this by myself and looking at other processes used for building game hair. I’ve had a previous stint in game design at uni but it was very introductory and more broad-strokes concepts not specific stuff like what ‘real time hair’ is and how you actually go about placing hair-cards (there’s a million different ways btw) but after another 3 days smashing my head against blender I finally got shit to work to a satisfactory level using hair tools for blender and the particle hair grooming system (not the 3.5 blender system, maybe more on that at some point).

Putting together the hair cards I was 120% convinced this was going to blow up in my face, primarily through vert count. But this hair tool plugin? Alarmingly efficient. I was frequently checking my work against Alt's hair mesh (one I was planning on rigging to) and here's the final-ish stats -

This is with only Alt's hair mesh selected (no cap) and then only my mesh(s - lots of layering to build it up), and by comparison I felt I'd built up the density of a chinchilla. This is not a brag, this is mostly genuine confusion over how efficient this plugin is, all I did was smack around hair curves. It did all the UV mapping junk on the fly.

Although structurally complete, I still consider this a WIP (yes I know there's a reeeeal fun vert funkiness in that second render, it's been fixed) since I'm having to go back and fine-tune some of the UV's the plugins mapped that I'm not happy with and generally figuring out my density problem because if anything, after putting it in-game it felt too dense.

Because yes, somehow I got it in game.

WITH. PHYSICS.

This may have driven me absolutely up the wall between having to learn blender from scratch then what the heck real time hair is and how that works etc. etc. but ... god, seeing her move back from the mirror and just feeling that instant catharsis of 'IT'S HER!' made it so. Damn. Worth it.

It looks too thick - this might be because I chucked in the 'doubled' feature Wolvenkit comes with because I hadn't spent any time doing backfaces. But it also might be because it's black? That's going to need investigating.

The physics need a lot of work too, I did a pretty rushed weight painting job last night on a merged version of the mesh because I was worried whether it was even viable and I'd already dumped an insane amount of hours into this between trying to salvage the old hair and building a new one (with some more bells and whistles. Mainly - curly). That wasn't without it's issues -

This almost fucking cracked me, given this was one of the issues I was experiencing before trying to fix an existing mesh mod. Turns out I was just being dumb and forgetting to export the armature, which I'd thought I wasn't supposed to do after having blender throw a bunch of errors on other hair attempts. I gave it a try after one last shot and boom. Worked. (I dunno what those errors were about man but now I know armature? very important).

Will I release this hair? no damn clue, depends on if I can get it to a level I feel is 'releasable'. I already know what I'm calling it though - Venatrix her side-handle I've decided on.

I look forward to adapting it into maybe a comb-back version, as well as a tied up version, so I can show off both her undercut + have the option of NOT hiding every damn tatt I've obsessed over placing on her neck haha.

In other news -

My much-needed wacom tablet replacement arrived (as well as other things I was looking forward to 👀) meaning my Wacom Cintiq, workhorse of ten years can finally enjoy her retirement. Her controls were getting funky, she had a few dead pixels but man. I'm convinced they won't make them like her ever again. Either way she's done unfortunately - upgrading my monitor to 2k made this painfully obvious. I don't think it's even running in full HD, it's that old. And with Phantom Liberty coming out this year? I'm probably going to need a new videocard and DVI compatibility isn't really a thing anymore.

So for future I think I'll just stick to the basic tablet set up, invest in screens. Also now I FINALLY know what her hair is gonna look like and with the tablet here, I can get back to work on the tattoo bodysuit.

Anyways, that's it for now! (Jesus Christ did you really read all of this? If you did you're a fucking trooper). Sorry for the extended ramble but MAN I did a lot, I needed to yell.

Till next time Chooms! Thanks again @theviridianbunny for the tag~ <3

Oh shit wait, have the blender renders before I forget because hahah I figured out how to do that too lol -

[streetkid-named-desire]

@merge-conflict tagged me for a wip whenever, im tagging @medtech-mara (creativity is never gone!) and @wanderingaldecaldo

i finished chapter 2

i started chapter 3, i'll put that excerpt under the cut. but this week's challenge in the server inspired me to write a little bea origin that im gonna expand into a longer fic or origin series, here's that

-

"82052!" the voice called.

A number. That's all we were. Or rather, our birthdates. Numbers written on the death certificate, that's all that mattered.

My head throbbed and I tasted the salty, snotty blood on my lips. My number was called again and I snapped up to look at my instructor, Arasaka-san. Not THE Arasaka-sama, mind you, just some long distant cousin that got sent to the NUSA to beat up little girls.

"Hai!" I returned to my starting position at the opposite end of the black mat. I felt something hot drip down my cheek and checked to make sure they weren't tears. That would make the jeers worse. Thankfully, it was only blood from where his monowire sliced into me when I didn't dodge fast enough.

Motherfucker.

A bell rang and I lunged for him. Time slowed as I watched the red hot wire sizzle centimeters from my face. I dove between his legs and turned to kick out his knees.

He flung his arm back and again I was too slow. Too fucking slow. Always too fucking slow. A searing pain tore across my back as the monowire made sure I wouldn't sleep comfortably for a week.

Motherfucker.

I heard my nemesis giggling right next to me, urging others to join in.

Arasaka-san raised his hand and the girls giggled again. Their stupid uniforms were all styled in the exact same way. The sleeves of the gym shirts were all perfectly folded and the waistband of their shorts rolled the exact same height to show their asscheeks.

Don't know why. It was an all girl's school and they weren't into other girls. Learned that the hard way with my face stuffed inside a trash can filled with used tampons because I looked a little too long at one of them in the locker rooms.

"I thought you liked pussy? Aren't you a dyke? Doesn't this turn you on?"

Jessica, that was her name, stupid fucking goy name. "God, Sheeve, you're so fucking pathetic. This is your fifth time. We all passed this test last year."

"Language!" Hannah, the matron of our group, was responsible for teaching us how to be women. Not just that, but how to use that fact to our advantage. I hated her lessons the most. I couldn't give less of a shit about silverware placement on a table when I only really needed to know the difference in stabbing pressure required to pierce a jugular vein with a butter knife versus a salad fork.

"Sorry Hannah-san!" Jessica said. Her smirk. Her stupid, perfect grin with stupid, perfect teeth, in a stupid, perfect face.

My vision blurred and ran red. Time stopped with Arasaka-san's fist in front of my face. I didn't care what happened to me in that moment, I just wanted to kill her.

I kicked his knees out from under him and grabbed his wrist. I bit down over the tendons that released the monowire from its spool and they spilled to the floor, sizzling against the plastic mat. I threw him to the floor and dug my knee into his back as I grabbed the tanto sheathed in his belt. In one smooth movement the hand and monowire were mine.

I heard a whip crack as I snapped the monowire across Jessica's face. The other girls scattered. The rushing sound in my ears was replaced with an old tune from a forgotten western flick we'd watch at the camp.

Another crack and her nose was sawn in half. I got one last good crack in, taking her eye and half her face. I watched it slide in a single, bloody sheaf to the ground as the guards tackled me to the floor.

I got one month in isolation. But it was worth it to see the hideous, aftermarket plastic garbage they replaced Jessica's face with.

And I finally passed the monowire defense exam.

V opened his eyes to the high ceiling of Kerry's villa for the 15th day of drinking and fucking every joytoy Kerry paid to do so. He inhaled deeply as he stretched and was delighted to smell bacon. He peeled himself off the white synthleather couch and rolled over. He painfully thudded onto the floor where his hand landed with a splat in something cold, wet, and mushy.

Last night's vomit, V assumed. Or was it his morning's? The day before that? V inspected his hand, pondering the timeline of the previous 48 hours and curled his lips in disgust. Whether at himself or at the sensation, he wasn't sure. They were the same, to him. He and vomit. The same thing. Regurgitated out of life's gullet only to be sucked away by a well-paid Filipino maid and her wet-vac.

He wiped his hand on a dry part of the carpet and mustered all his strength to stand up. His body felt heavy and stiff, like he was stuffed with clay—a golem, devoid of my own autonomy, only she holds the scroll. He padded to the giant kitchen where Kerry's cook stood in front of a shining steel stove. The Filipino man wore a pristine white, short-sleeved uniform with a black apron. V walked over to the large industrial kitchen sink next to the stove and washed his hands in the scalding hot water.

"Nagugutom ka ba?" the young man said. V blinked at the cook who gestured at the two pans on the stove with eggs and bacon. V nodded and the cook shooed him out of the kitchen. V sat down on a rickety barstool on a cabinet island behind the cook. He smelled Kerry's heavy cologne before he heard his footsteps and swallowed an all too wet belch that burned his throat.

"How ya feelin' bud?" Kerry leaned against the counter on the opposite side of V. He wore a loose, breezy white linen shirt and light blue swim shorts. A pair of large, round sunglasses perched on his head.

"Fucking shit," V replied. He was suddenly very aware that he was only wearing boxers and blushed. He and Kerry spent the majority of their relationship naked, but there was still something about them simply being friends now that made V feel coy. The cook placed a steaming plate of scrambled eggs, fried bacon, and buttered wheat toast in front of V. He scooped a forkful of egg onto the toast and took a bite, savoring the real ingredients. The two weeks he's spent here did nothing to make him forget Bea. But, he realized he needed to weasel his way over to Kerry's more often to take advantage of the rich rockerboy's access to 'ganic ingredients.

Kerry snatched a piece of bacon off the plate and V glared at him. "Why don't you get outta town? Spend some time with the Aldecaldos?" Kerry wiped his greasy fingertips on V's equally greasy hair as he walked past.

It wasn't the worst idea. Though, Panam said she never wanted to see him again and doubted Mitch or Saul or really any Aldecaldo wanted anything to do with him after they all learned he cheated on her. Hell, Mitch shot at him as he ran to his car half-naked from the tent he and Panam had shared. He wasn't sure if the girl he was fucking in their tent had a better fate.

But, they were fun drunks and he would do anything—including hard labor for them—to stop thinking about Bea. "Yeah, alright. Can I borrow your pet sitter for another week or so?" Nibbles was living it up in an incredibly lavish underground pet hotel.

"Of course! Now, I got a fucking tan to maintain. Fuck off," Kerry waved to V behind him as he walked out onto his deck. Pets were illegal without a license and Nibbles was just picked up off the street. She was getting daily coconut oil massaged and cubes of real dried fish. V almost thought it would be cruel to take her back to his megabuilding. But caring for her forced V into a routine that required he care for himself, too.

[trashbabyart]

Animals cut off Noir’s finger?! I gotta hear the deets.

Ps. Love the JJBA inspiration in your art!

Back when Noir was a baby merc, he did a job that involved delivering a shard to the Animals for someone. What was on the shard basically said "fuck you." They decided to take it out on the messenger. Noir instinctively held his hand up to a monowire which cut straight through his hand. Fingers gone and wounds cauterized. He barely made it out of there with his life.

Also thanks! It's a big inspo for me!

[seraphfighter]

POV: You walk into a bar and find them judging you.

[kazaanaxtaijiya]

Inuyasha AU Concept

I've had this concept in my head for a while/ever since I finished the game and watched the show sooo I figured I'd throw it out there as an idea or inspiration if anyone is interested — Cyberpunk 2077 AU with the Inuyasha gang 🌃 Hear me out...

The gang are a bunch of mercenaries that work for various clients through a network of fixers to do any kind of job that calls for their specific set of skills, each of them with their own agenda.

Inuyasha is the Leader, of course.

He grew up as a Nomad and worked towards becoming a professional boxer. When the love of his life, Kikyo, is killed, he's framed for her murder and forced into hiding, desperately trying to hunt down her killer.

He eventually finds love again after meeting a med tech, Kagome, who becomes the first recruit of his newly formed merc crew.

His cyberware includes the Sandevistan for super speed and Gorilla arms, allowing him an advantage in hand-to-hand combat. A sword would be great in order to stay true to his character, BUT imo a machine gun seems like it would be a better weapon of choice for him in this universe.

Kagome is the Med Tech of the group, often assisting with the crew's injuries and cyberware issues after a job is complete.

She meets Inuyasha after finding him brutally beaten and treats his wounds, off the record. She later realizes he is the man accused of killing her cousin, Kikyo, and attempts to call the police, only for him to escape.

The next day, Kagome finds herself in danger, a local gang cornering her into a dark alley. To her surprise, Inuyasha shows up and saves her, unable to forget her after she saved him. She has been loyal to him every since, working with him and her Grandmother (see bonus content) to find out who really killed Kikyo. She eventually falls in love with him.

Her cyberware includes the Monowire for long-range attacks (closest thing I could think of compared to her bow & arrow that's part of the Cyberpunk universe). Maybe a cross-bow?

Miroku is the Netrunner of the group, able to hack into any high-tech computer system due to his intelligence and vast amount of knowledge.

As a Street Kid, he grew up to be a con man, running various schemes to support himself. During a particular con, he ends up crossing paths with Inuyasha. They butt heads at first as they both go after the same prize, with Miroku successfully outwitting him during their first of many encounters. But the more they run into each other, the more they grow to understand each other, and he joins Inuyasha's crew.

Due to a mishap while netrunning prior to the crew, Miroku has become more susceptible to Cyberpsychosis due to a virus that is slowly killing him. Despite his best efforts, he is unable to remove the virus or reverse its effects. He has accepted his fate and just tries to make the best of it. However, he soon finds a reason to keep living when he meets the love of his life, Sango.

His cyberware includes the Sandevistan (gives him the speed to keep up with Inuyasha), and he has the Projectile Launch System installed on his right arm, which launches an explosive projectile from the palm of his hand (a nod to the wind tunnel of course).

Sango is the Soldier of the group, being highly trained in combat and probably the most lethal of the team.

She grew up in the Corpo life as a soldier-turned-bodyguard for some of the most dangerous government officials. However, after her family is threatened by the exact people she was sworn to protect, she leaves the life and becomes a solo mercenary in order to find her only living family left – Kohaku.

She is initially hired to kill Inuyasha and his crew, but after realizing they have a common enemy, she decides to join them– eventually falling for her womanizing comrade, Miroku, whom she becomes determined to find a cure for due to his impending death.

Her cyberware includes Mantis blades (a callback to the hidden blades she has), but she mostly relies on her trusty Katana passed down by her father.

Shippo is more of an honorary(?) member of the crew rather than a truly active member – don't panic!

Upon becoming an orphan, he relies on his wit, tricks, and pickpocket-ing skills to survive Night City. On one of his outings, he attempts to pickpocket Inuyasha, who quickly discovers him and threatens to hurt him.

Luckily, Kagome takes sympathy on the little boy and convinces Inuyasha that they should take him in. Despite their disagreements, him and Inuyasha eventually form a brother-like bond – the rest of the crew becoming family as well.

And although he usually doesn't join in on their hired jobs, his pickpocket skills do tend to come in handy sometimes.

BONUS CONTENT:

Kaede is a Fixer who sets up the various contracts that Inuyasha's crew handles (pretty much Wakako Okada from Cyberpunk). Being Kikyo and Kagome's grandmother while also believing Inuyasha is innocent, she heads the search for Kikyo's killer and helps the crew find answers where she can.

Koga is the Leader of the infamous gang Wolf (Tyger) Claws, known for their ruthless and territorial nature. Despite his hatred towards Inuyasha, Koga has a sweet spot for Kagome and often proves to be a resourceful and well-connected ally... when he wants to be.

Kohaku falls victim to Cyberpsychosis and is being controlled by a corrupt corporation. Sango strives to save her little brother and bring down the corporation responsible.

Hachi is Miroku's longtime friend and former con artist partner who will sometimes assist with jobs as the getaway driver when needed.

Naraku is (you guessed it) the CEO of the corrupt corporation that is controlling Kohaku, the man who is responsible for Miroku's virus that's killing him, and the man who murdered Kikyo in a fit of jealousy and rage when she did not love him back.

Parallel to Episode 132: During a job, Sango's cyberware is hacked into, causing her to start attacking her friends. Luckily, due to his Netrunning skills, Miroku is able to save her just as she's about to kill him.