#ctechno critical

[autistdazai]

I have varied opinions on c!techno. I think he's interesting because I don't see a lot of genuine good to them as well as being morally terrible. He's diehard loyal to a select few people. He'll kill his allies without a second apology. He has a strict set of morals. Said morals are almost more ruthless than killing as he pleases. He makes long speeches on other people's morality. He does not and will not attempt to understand situations more than he already does.

I really wish they had canonized the Antarctic Empire fully because I think he was already a hypocrite and I think him being a former imperialist who gave it up and now is a challenge seeking anarchist with no interest in the longterm effects of his actions and a dog-eat-dog worldview would be interesting

100% agree that the AE should have been canon, i generally use that as his backstory because i think it dovetails well with wilbur coming from newfoundland as this mutual moral corruption of their ideals that they had in smpearth to pogtopia.

of the two, dream and technoblade, only one of them managed to get tommy to turn against lmanburg for a time. like, for everyone's portrayal of dream as this mastermind manipulator, techno did what he could never do and convince tommy to go against lmanburg. and the way he did it by exploiting tommy's fears of being abandoned is genuinely sinister as hell. its not treated like that from his perspective but from tommy's, thats how it seems.

a similar thing can be said in pogtopia. its implied on several occasions (mostly from wilbur's pov, but again, techno from techno's perspective is damn near a different character) that technoblade was aware that wilbur was going to destroy lmanburg, knew that he likely was going to die in the explosion, and was either complicit or encouraging in this plan. which when you look at the cwilbur finale and how lmanburg represented his friendships (and really you don't have to go as far as the finale, its all throughout lmanburg's history), its again, very sinister.

with ranboo, i believe there was a scene where he literally backed him against a wall, after bonding over their shared social anxiety and willingness to succumb to peer pressure, to join the syndicate and go against snowchester, which i will remind you is the nation ran by ranboo's husband who technoblade executed. again, humorous from techno's perspective but from ranboo's hes terrifying.

so techno's supposed virtue of loyalty is something i find difficult to see. to me, hes not even particularly lawful and driven by ideology. hes driven by a similar thing wilbur and dream are, the desire to be seen as powerful. and under "anarchism" (what techno believes anarchism is about) techno would be the most powerful person, so thats the ideology he drifts towards. but its not like he cares about the wellbeing or freedom of the people around him as you would expect an anarchist to do. and for all of his loyalty the only person he is "loyal" to is himself, and he is willing to accept help from others if they are also loyal to him. and thats the loyalty you see, which is why he feels "betrayed" every time someone disagrees with him.

its not necessarily that hes a hypocrite so much that he is not driven by what he says he is driven by. his sole motivation above all else is to be seen as powerful. he doesnt like governments telling him what to do, so he destroys them. when a dictator calls on him to execute someone and he is faced with either leaving the stage and being called a coward, or displaying his strength by going through with the execution, he goes through with it. he apologizes only when he knows the person will help him if he does. once you realize this, you realize that everything that techno does is perfectly in line with it and there is no hypocrisy within his character other than ones you project onto him.

and thats why hes nearly as bad as cdream is to me. but its also why hes one of my favorite characters.

[laikaesque]

ctechno is like squidward but not good or nice im sorry this is something i know in my heart

[cirrusea]

@peerpressureweek Day 2: Prison/prison break

Tfw your mentor breaks you out of jail :')

[fridgeza]

"you have your own freedom! just let people love what they love, man! you are selfish!"

letter for an old poet, boygenius / techno & tommy, doomsday

[transphilza]

i hate you people who create malevolent motivations in c!phil that literally do not exist. i hate you people who misconstrue every single thing he does even his active attempts to help others as evil. i hate you people who act like c!phil isn’t a person with his own complicated feelings and motives. i hate you people who think that if a character behaves immorally that they are undeserving or incapable of depth or complexity. i hate you people who refuse to consider even an ounce of nuance. i hate you people who hate c!phil

[dyketubbo]

good god c!eret does something unlikeable and suddenly a shitton of people decide its now okay to just actually disrespect cc!eret and pick at her acting and get wayyyy too fucking close to just actively being dicks about her through character neg like. um. can you all chill out. how are some of these people the same people who call it out when people use c!wilbur neg as a shield to be negative about cc!wilbur. can you really not tell that youre starting to veer into that territory

[ranvwoop]

Ranboo just has the range cranboo is sooooo cool and unique and I love them

[avephelis]

not tagging it on there but the people tagging this post with techno like. they're right about it being a well-documented pov (cctechno can slay) but the joke is just GONE like i'm sorry but ctechno is literally "The Victor(s)" documenting that history

[cupcraft]

c! techno thoughts ?

[Ask game]

I am so sorry anony...my thoughts are not the most favorable. I think there was a lot of wasted potential with the realizing c!Dream was a bad guy arc/thus not freeing him.

[mcyt-aro-week]

Aroace agender ctechno is better than any other aro headcannon forever and no I will not take criticism /silly

Triple A battery let's go! I have no criticisms here, anon

[mourninglamby]

Are you like, still ok with dsmp lore/character analysis asks? Cause i want your thoughts around sam real bad but don't wanna be rude.

If you're still ok w those kinda asks but dont wanna write a bunch just saying where on the spectrum between vilifier and apologist you are would be really cool too! (Gonna take a wild guess that you're somewhere near a critical sympathizer? Like you understand why he did stuff n dont think hes evil but still think he made very immoral choices or something)

brah ur good. i dont mind dsmp asks at all!! also im glad u asked.

this is gonna be long oops

c!sam is one of the only characters where i have nearly full faith in regarding authorial intent, for starters. Sam The Dude (bringing that back) is obviously very self aware of his characters morally ambiguous and sometimes straight up ethically bankrupt actions, and everything he does with consideration for his character and the plot makes sense to me up until. Well.. c!sam's prison arc. But all of the consequences of that arc are still up in the air and I still stand by sam's understanding of the metatextual implications of his characters actions. Because oh boy does sam GET CONSEQUENCES. However for now I'm keeping my distance from that until we get some more c!hotelduo shit.

I think Sam The Guy is an expert at writing his character's hypocrisy compared to, say, c!techno's. C!Techno does things selfishly and impulsively, and doubles down on the decisions he makes regardless of how destructive or hurtful they are to anyone who isn't him or his friends. This is largely in part perpetuated by his character never reaping the consequences of those actions. That's a fact, not an opinion. So his hypocrisy in relation to his principles (his hatred for any form of government) feels antagonistic and almost goofy when you realize that makes him the defacto government, if he is to be the judge jury and executioner of the smp's organized communities. See the syndicate and snowchester or literally any ctechno stream post bedrockbros arc.

Now look at C!Sam. Sam does everything to follow HIS principles, but has extremely little regard for himself and other people, aside from C!Tommy. While attempting to make things more safe, his downfall lies in that code becoming an obsession, leading to him to justify mutilating his ex and stopping tommy from killing dream in C!wilburs revival stream for the sake of containing the real threat. And most notably, we figure out that sam somehow found out about c!ranboo's association with c!dream, which is a concept that explains a myriad of fatal errors with pandora's vault security and some experiences inside it. C!Sam killing c!ranboo is awful, sure, but there's this thing called DRAMATIC IRONY, where we know it wasn't truly c!Ranboo (debatable, given how ranboo The Guy abandoned his damn character) who carried out the plan with the explosives that lead to c!tommy's death and subsequent revival, but c!sam doesn't. And once again, the cycle of violence is repeated. However, for all these things, C!Sam faces dire punishments. Probably more than any character on the server.

C!Ponk and c!sam will probably never heal their relationship. As much as C!sam may regret it or feel remorse for hurting them, c!ponk has every right to be scornful and hold resentment towards him for the rest of their lives. C!tommy, someone c!sam has held dear throughout the entire show and arguably values the most, HATES him and never wants to see him again after his incidents. C!tubbo and his murder squad put him in the prison HE OVERSAW SECURITY FOR.... punishments left and right at this point.

And this is why his character and his hypocrisy are more tragic to me. All of this comes to a head when C!dream, someone he shouldn't even feel remorse towards, kills him after he wakes him up to his own cruelty and murders him for the keycards. C!Sam is constantly hurting himself and others and being brutally punished afterwards, without learning much, because he feels like his principles justify his actions. But now he has no need for these principles, since the prison has been rendered obsolete and he's lost everyone he wants to protect.

Which is why I feel his redemption arc would be the most rewarding at this point in the story. He seems to finally be recognizing his errors. sam feels like the type of character to not want this guilt to destroy him more than it already has, and if I had control over this story, or even the room with sam The Guy, I'd ask him to start with c!tommy. His redemption starts back at the beginning: protecting this kid from a monster. Except this time, he does it right, and he does it because he not only cares for him, but he owes it to him, as both the adult and as someone who is distinctly aware of c!tommy's suffering at the hands of c!dream.

[cleverpaws]

u dont get it. indeed: cranboo in the cartoon saloon artstyle. ctechno like the bear mom from Brave. entire cast of origins smp.... but they look like they r from the moomin comics. i do not take criticism

[bugflies00]

ctechno has always been one of those characters i have a rly weird relationship with because like . on paper i disagree with A lot of the things he’s done or said. but i always have trouble criticising him because whenever i think of him or see him in lore i just go Oh my god pig guy hello :D 

like i’ll start trying to be critical of how he acted with ctommy during the bedrock bros era but then ill think of him having a tea party with phil or something and it evaporates like im just too fond of him 

and i think it comes from the fact that cctechno’s roleplay style keeps a Lot of himself, in the voice and the jokes and the personality and everything and so i cant really distance the two like i can with others and so i cant ever really dislike him because he’s so similar to cctechno himself

[sadghostdyke]

thinking about ctechno again. yknow ive had my criticisms of him over the years but ultimately man i think he as a character was still so full of love and i think that's always important. like i come back to that. i'll criticize him for everything but i think truly as a person he cared so much and i'll always admire him for that

[tntduocore]

for the ask game if ur still doing it, number 3

3. arospec headcanons?

yesssss ctommy and ctechno are aroace i dont think criticism cbeeduo are also both arospec

and i guess ill be on theme and say cquackity is cupipromantic and cwilbur is nebularomantic

[transphilza]

I, notorious for not reading shit, read your latest fanfic yesterday! Just had to take some time off to collect my thoughts as I had many

First of all, its brilliantly written; the prose was captivating and genuinely fun to read, despite prose being my usual least favourite thing about writing, it was really good and I made sure to absorb all of it. The dialogue was so on point and in character which I wouldn't expect any less from you if im honest, but still. The flow felt natural, not rushed nor boringly slow, and the depiction of cphil's breakdown, as well as ctechno's actions, felt real and tangible. Which, even for me as an angst connoisseur, felt heavy and painful. As grief is.

Every action, interaction or thought was just so well written and made me feel many emotions that I cannot even describe. It made me want to put it down to take a break so often but I couldn't cus it was just that damn captivating!

On the writing front there's nothing left to be desired, truly.

I was a little hesitant getting into it cus I have some very mixed feelings on c!emeraldduo and the actions they chose to take throughout and still lean to the side of heavy caution dealing with their character. You could say im a very critical enjoyer. But I would say that work like that of yours, is what keeps me firmly on the fence.

Its genuinely super intresting to see such exploration of their character that makes me feel rly sympathetic towards them. But mixed with my preexisting gripes, it ends up making them very human for me. And even aside from that, your very clear investment and knowledge of these two characters gives them a sort of softness and delicacy that I wouldn't otherwise see.

this may be par for the course and im just inexperienced, true, but it frankly doesn't matter to me as this experience was absolutely wonderful and I must convey that somehow. Which even that I can't do justly as I still struggle to turn the emotions this work made me feel into actual constructed thoughts.

Hats off you sir, you made me internally scream for like an hour on a fine Wednesday afternoon, very appreciated :).

WOWWW thank you so very much!!! i’m so flattered holy shit i’m so glad you liked <3

the entire purpose of why i started writing about c!phil (and c!techno by extension) was to Make him feel more human and real, and helping people understand him better, which is why i’m always so glad to hear from people who don’t feel like they’re allowed to like c!emeralds because they disagree with the stuff they’ve done.

that’s why when i write about c!phil, even though it’s from his perspective and thus automatically easier to sympathize with him, i want to emphasize that him being three dimensional and meaningful doesn’t absolve him of blame in anything he’s done. i really do think you can thoroughly enjoy a character and their narrative purpose even while agreeing they’ve done bad things. he just has complex motives and perspectives on the world like any other character, and im really really glad i was able to get that across!!!! ^_^