Ghost in the City: Cyberpunk Gamer SI

[PersonablePlatypus]

Okay I think I know what's been bugging me about this arc, at first I thought it was that it was too focused on music for my taste but no because I genuinely enjoyed the earlier points in the story where Motoko starts playing. What I've started to dislike are her chooms, it's becoming more and more apparent that Motoko's unhappy with her rockergirl "career" but all of her friends seem to not care one bit about that, even stopping to search for gigs (hiromi in the previous chapter), it feels like they're saw the MC's rise to fame and went "Oh well we can coast on that, no need to go for edgerunning anymore" even though it's thanks to Motoko and it makes her unhappy. She seemed a lot more invested in her rockergirl skills when she was doing it just for fun or to destress. WHICH is what she wanted to keep it as in the beginning [...]

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For all Mokoto is appearing well put together, she and her friends are at the core still teens in a field that not just eats its own young but commonly does its best to mimic active warzones.

The boys are fine with 'safe' grunt work that S9 got them and Hirumi would be crushed if Mokoto up and left her Rockergal gig for more easy exposure and on the job training mostly.

Her 'bandmates' on the other hand fully deserve the leech label, on that I agree with your assessment.

My hope for the future is that one or both of the background chucklefucks get a big enough head to start shit with Mokoto only to flop hard, for MSM and Alex to really get greedy and get a tactical Major to the face and to their servers and for S9 to gracefully retire the Boys to Specialist roles, have Hirumi get an admin assistant and Mokoto to go on a recruiting outing to get some more institutional knowledge by way of vets and other assorted contacts that let S9 grow into itself and her softly spoken credo of quiet professionalism and the possibility of utter carnage for a fair price.

S9 will hopefully never not be a collection of loot goblins that take everything not nailed down and then go back for prybars!

Edit: minor change of style for readability and my inbaked need to sound profound

 

[zecorezecron]

I might be in the minority, but i think it is a good thing she has hobbies other than mass homicide.

 

[Mariadreaming9]

I might be in the minority, but i think it is a good thing she has hobbies other than mass homicide.

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The problem isn't her having a hobby, it's that the hobby is bringing her more frustration than the murder does. Heck, I think her most relaxing hobby right now is the programming

 

[Winged One]

Still better than Spira's 'contents protected by Militech' brand panties XD

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That was hilarious, though.

 

[backgroundnoise]

The problem, I think, is that Motoko doesn't really care about being a 'Rockerboy'. She likes the music, she likes to sing, she likes the energy, but everything else is essentially just an annoyance to her. Her friends, and even her family don't get it, it's nice, it's safe, you get fame and fortune without having to risk your life everyday, in other words it's practically a dream job! Motoko doesn't care, music is essentially a hobby to her, a side-gig, something that's fun for her to do every once in a while when the stars align and everyone just shuts up and lets her sing her heart out. Ultimately I think that, for the most part, they mean well, they see that their friend is amazingly talented at something and they want to help support her in rising as high as they know she can, they just don't understand her lack of passion, and that passion is what she really wants out of life.

Unfortunately it's fairly obvious that her music career is gonna crash and burn. There's just too many demands on her and her time, her 'band-mates' aren't really friends and aren't in this to goof off and have fun like she is, the politics are only going to ramp up from here, and Motoko doesn't care to fight it because none of this really matters to her anyway. Sooner or later (and likely sooner rather than later) this part of her life is going to get so insistent and annoying that she just... walks away. And at that point nobody is going to be able to wheedle her into going back because it won't be fun anymore, it won't be making music, just dealing with a bunch of whiny, petty bullshit. And that's fine when music is your passion, and there's nothing else you'd rather do, but that just isn't Motoko at all.

 

[OneFallLeaf]

Okay I think I know what's been bugging me about this arc, at first I thought it was that it was too focused on music for my taste but no because I genuinely enjoyed the earlier points in the story where Motoko starts playing. What I've started to dislike are her chooms, it's becoming more and more apparent that Motoko's unhappy with her rockergirl "career" but all of her friends seem to not care one bit about that, even stopping to search for gigs (hiromi in the previous chapter), it feels like they're saw the MC's rise to fame and went "Oh well we can coast on that, no need to go for edgerunning anymore" even though it's thanks to Motoko and it makes her unhappy. She seemed a lot more invested in her rockergirl skills when she was doing it just for fun or to destress. WHICH is what she wanted to keep it as in the beginning: a hobby that helps her destress. Anyway, regardless of all that, thanks for the chapter Seras, I can't wait to see the way this goes

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Tbh, I think that's been pretty consistent throughout the entire story. Her friends have routinely not really cared for Motoko and more just about what they can get out of her. When Motoko had amnesia at the start, Hiromi dragged her into a potentially dangerous situation without even telling her, which led to Motoko killing someone and having a mental breakdown. This was then followed by Motoko going off in the middle of the night and nearly throwing her life away seemingly to try and get revenge on scavs. Anyone would look at that and be like 'yes, we probably should try and hold an intervention', Motoko's friends didn't. Worse they accepted far more money than they realistically should have from her, despite money in Cyberpunk equalling strength and safety due to the existance cyberware. Again, a normal person would have looked at that and been like 'if you're going to keep doing this, you should keep this money and buy something that'll keep you safe'. The fact that they didn't implies they don't care enough to even consider this

This compounds as you get further into the story, with people like Hiromi consistently putting her business interests before Motoko's wellbeing, taking jobs the group wasn't ready for out of nothing but vanity (which almost leads to Motoko's death, again) or going behind Motoko's back to all but force her to become a rockerboy. Likewise no one even seems to give enough of shit to even try to understand the current Motoko; when something comes up like their friend crying upon seeing pictures of all the kids she helped with Vic, they just give her weird looks and walk away. When she explicitly goes to her friends to ask for advice on how not to kill the gang of kids helping that netrunner, her friends and even Jun turned around and told her to get over herself and kill them. They seemed to have more investment in that mission than Motoko did given how hard they pushed for it, and that investment was entirely fixated on trampling on Motoko's wants and morals

To me there's a clear pattern of people disregarding Motoko down to who she even is as a person, and that kinda makes me upset spaghet given that I'm a fan of hers