snakes that just bite

techno has said that doomsday was mostly personal, a revenge thing, and wasn't the best example of anarchism. but with that line you can see there's a disconnect between what techno's actual motivations are and what tommy assumes his actions are.

tommy seems to believe that l'manberg didn't interfere with techno (clip found: here) and therefore techno had no reason to react to it but it did.

i am here to say techno's response wasn't that out of proportion given everything that had happened and what he knew because from his perspective, it was the only to stop anything else from happening to him or his friends. and that it was justified (and the narrative agrees with him in the end!), but i'm only going to talk about this particular speech in this post. and what tommy is saying is untrue. he's not lying when he says it didn't interfere with techno. he doesn't know because when techno tried to tell him, tommy didn't really listen and certainly doesn't seem to grasp how serious this was for techno. (one clip found here.) he even admits later that he didn't know techno had been executed.

and this is what i mean about there being two conversations. tommy seems to believe that techno is doing this because he hates the government only on principle and that this is something for self gain.

tommy: you destroy what people love--

techno (crosstalk): *makes a noise of disgust* Oh my god.

tommy: for self gain. you're selfish!

phil: and you're not?

techno: all these problems are because of your government. your government has caused all these issues.

and i can see why he thinks that.* if he doesn't know the real reason behind it, what techno is saying here would make it seem like that. the problem is, techno tried to tell him. tommy talked over techno in almost every instance where techno attempted to tell him. and you can hear the frustration in techno's voice upon realizing that tommy still hasn't heard what he's saying in the doomsday speech.

*loyal from the future: i'm leaving this part in because it's more fair to c!tommy but i'm gonna be honest here, folks. five years in the future and i actually don't get it. i don't know what tommy thinks techno has to gain, personally, other than like. not being executed without a trial or reason? sure, he doesn't know about the execution because he didn't listen but even beyond that, what does techno have to gain? unless tommy is under the assumption that everyone wants power which does honestly make sense after c!wilbur but you can understand why this is so frustrating to techno! tommy isn't listening and projecting his own beliefs onto techno.

now, i'm not saying techno communicated perfectly while they were working together. he didn't. techno avoided certain topics, assuming everything would work out later, which led to both of them being on very different pages. he heard what tommy said and ignored the parts that didn't line up with what he wanted, in big part because a huge flaw of c!techno is thinking the best of people and believing things will work out to the point of willfully ignoring obvious facts.

the point i'm making here is that not all of the blame can be placed on techno. tommy is not listening to him.

throughout the speech, tommy doesn't listen to (or ignores) the moments when techno tries to explain and brings it back to himself and the discs.

techno: don't speak to me of loyalty!

tommy: you were my friend and you betrayed us.

techno: you never thought of me as a friend.

tommy: the thing about this government is that- it was- it didn't interfere with you!

techno (crosstalk): yes it did!

tommy: [unintelligible] this interfered with us. these [the discs] were stolen by dream. [he says something else but techno talks over him]

techno: i don't care about discs! i care about freedom!

you can truly see how they're not having the same conversation. tommy doesn't know that it did, in fact, interfere with and harm not only techno but phil as well. he's approaching it as if techno betrayed him and partook in doomsday for some sort of self gain or as a way to specifically hurt tommy and take away something he cared for. tommy thinks doomsday, for techno, is about tommy. but doomsday, for techno, is about the government and what it did to him and his friends. doomsday was for a personal reason and for revenge on top of the ideological reasons but it wasn't directed at tommy. and tommy thinks it was.

techno: we can't have freedom with the government! tommy (crosstalk): -- the government. you have your own freedom, just let people love what they love, man. techno: *speaking lower* tommy-- tommy (crosstalk): you're selfish, techno! techno: i used to think like that, tommy. you know what they did to me? tommy: you're selfish techno: *raises his voice again* they hunted me down, the whole butcher army, and they executed me! i tried being peaceful, tommy! the government made it clear- tommy: you didn't have to do this. techno: i did! the government made it clear that we could not coexist.

the biggest issue with this speech is how roundabout it goes. tommy says that the government didn't harm techno, techno says that it did, tommy calls techno selfish for doing this, techno says he had no other choice, tommy says that the government didn't harm him.

and i will gladly put half of the bedrock bros era communication issues onto techno, though i do think that neither of them treated each other well and i do think tommy not listening to what techno said added to the problems.

but in this speech, in this moment, tommy isn't listening. he's not even considering what techno is trying to tell him. and this is a pattern. tommy is under no obligation to agree with techno, he is under no obligation to accept techno's reasons, but i do think it's.... hypocritical to say that techno was his friend and that he betrayed them when he won't even listen to techno when he's trying to tell tommy that he was hurt by the thing that tommy loves. and no, tommy isn't obligated to listen, either, but then he's not techno's friend and can't use that against techno.

and this is where i'm going to veer off strongly from my original post.

i still believe that techno doesn't literally think tommy doesn't see him as a person. i do think techno felt used as a weapon but the main issue was that he felt that tommy didn't see him as a friend while techno did. but there is some dehumanization that's probably sticking with techno and rightfully so after the butcher army and while tommy didn't have anything to do with that, it's got to hurt to realize the guy you thought of as a friend won't even listen to you. and, here's where i get controversial, i think techno has a point. it's weird that tommy keeps ignoring techno's points. it feels like him brushing off anything techno has to say (and like, yes, techno did ignore things tommy said in hopes that things would work out) and you don't really do that to someone you think of as worth the effort to hear out.

and it's right there, in everything techno says:

tommy: you were our friend

techno: [finishes berating sapnap for shooting him and ripping him off] okay, sorry, we're back, tommy

tommy: you were our friend and you know what-- i thought friendship.

techno (crosstalk): tommy, you never thought of me as a friend tommy.

tommy (also overlapping): please for once in your life, listen to me

fundy: *laughing loudly in the background*

techno: i listened to you for weeks! what did you do?

fundy: yes!

techno: you went back to tubbo, to the guy that exiled you. who chose his country over you.

the whole build up to the 'i'm a person' line hinges on the fact that techno believes that tommy never considered him a friend or worth listening to and understanding. multiple times, techno comes back to that point and it's very clear why he feels that way. he's trying to explain his motivations and being misunderstood. he's trying to explain he was hurt and is being told he wasn't. that's not something you do to someone if you think they're worth listening to and definitely not if someone is your friend. tommy doesn't and when he finally does acknowledge what was done to techno, that's where we get into the whole 'actions have consequences' bit which is a wild thing to say to what techno has explained happened to him. especially when tommy spent so much time in this conversation denying techno's complaints which were actually the consequences of the butcher army's unjust actions.

i'm not going to go into that in-depth but i will say that there is a cycle of violence on the server and yes, doomsday was a part of that. so was the butcher army. both things were reactions to something else though my personal opinion is that the butcher army was fully in the wrong given their own stated reasons for doing what they did.

i suppose the 'tl;dr' of this post is that both tommy and techno were having completely different conversations and that tommy not listening to techno is what prompted techno to feel that tommy never saw him as a friend or even as a person worth hearing. and in this situation, in this moment, techno is right to think that.