I hate the recent trend of trying to justify everything a character does just because they're your favorite. I know it's been a thing for forever but it really seems to be more uncommon than ever to be able to go "this is my favorite character. They're unreliable and they do a lot of awful shit but they are my favorite because of x, y, z."
Like I love characters that do messed up stuff and hurt a lot of people because they tend to be more narratively complex and interesting and real, but I never understand trying to twist the world around so that everything the character does is justified?
It seems fandom has such a black-and-white "this is the box you go in" mentality that can be really harmful when discussing complex characters? Like they just try to shove them in even when canon clearly contradicts?
Maybe I am jumping to too many conclusions—this is about your techno!crit posting and I have never dreamed an smp in my life—but it's just disappointing because it takes so much nuance out of discussions when you have to struggle to get people to admit their favorite has done anything wrong in their life ever.
oh my god vylad you're like a savior in my inbox
This is exactly what I mean about Techno & his apologists. And other dsmp apologists too! Dream & Phil stans are not free of guilt. (Ofc anyone can do this, but Dream, Techno, and Phil are the ones I see it with the most.)
It's especially foreign and frustrating for me, because I love when characters are wrong. I love when they're assholes and you can see why they're an asshole and delight in the mistakes they're making. It's why my favorite characters are George, Schlatt, and Quackity!
George is cold, detached, and repeatedly shown to not really care about his friends, or at least not act like it—he can't be bothered to show up for anyone, even while expecting people to give him free things or prop him up power-wise (thanks, Dream, for setting this precedent. now he's fucked up). He miserably sulks in the outer corners of the server, alone because of his own actions (or rather, inaction when his friends needed him). I LOVE this about him, I think it makes him fascinating and engaging. I never want it to change! Well, that's an exaggeration, but I don't want it to change quickly. I want him to stew in his mistakes and negative personality traits for a while, so that if he ever does improve, it will be much more satisfying after watching him act like an aloof prick all the time.
Schlatt is obvious. He had some serious problems—he was an alcoholic, rude all the time, abused his fiance (Quackity), etc. He has very realistic flaws that lots of us have seen in people we actually know. He died surrounded by people who hated him, in an anticlimactic way, having no chance to change. He ran out of time. He was a terrible person and then he died before that could change. It's sad, to me. Depressing. Even though I don't share any traits with him specifically, I do have negative traits, of course, and seeing a character die before improving is... well, motivating? Motivating to improve. Techno is not motivating to improve because firstly he is not improving nor does he want to, and secondly he is not in any danger of dying or having anything of importance taken from him.
Moving away from DSMP, this is also part of why I love Wirt (otgw). That kid is just full of flaws—realistic, mundane flaws, but painful ones nonetheless. He's dismissive of other people, self-depreciating, self-centered, avoids responsibility... and he only starts to turn against these traits at the end. Even then, he's not perfect, he just begins to fight against his negative traits because there's something more important than him at stake—his brother's life. I relate to his flaws and find his acceptance of responsibility for both himself and Greg super inspiring. This is the sort of character I love. This is the sort of character that I feel for.
Oh, yeah. I just can't get behind this fandom movement to paint characters as Always So Very Good! (Unless it's c!Tommy because imo, his narrative place is basically a punching bag who doesn't deserve what's been done to him. He's an exception <3) Flawed characters are often BETTER.
When people try to explain away Techno's flaws or mistakes or kick under the rug things that he's done, its frustrating because if Techno were allowed to have flaws I would probably love him. If he were allowed to be hypocritical, self-centered, and self-justified, I would love to explore these traits. (And he has them in canon!) But his fans want to paint him as Good and Correct and that's frustrating to me because it makes him a really boring character that I want nothing to do with, and the justification itself is also something he does so it makes his character really frustrating too. Having to constantly prove that Techno is a bad person wastes energy that I could be using to enjoy a good villain, a good Fucked Up Evil Man.
