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l0chn3ss · 4 years

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l0chn3ss update

I feel like the last time I ever really active on tumblr was in the year 2016, so i want to address my absence between 2017-2020. Part of it is because I feel like I owe it to my friends and mutuals who I just basically left on read and another part is because I’ve always treated this blog as a personal blog that documents my life and my growth. I put off writing this for a long time but now that I have a huge paper due, now is definitely the time.

You are welcome to skip but I will address a few hard hitting questions I feel should be answered, especially since I feel like I departed like an anti-hero of a bad tv show.

Where I am currently: I am in grad school to obtain a master’s in library and information science. I have a full time job at different middle school libraries, though I work from home now. I also tutor kids on the side to pay for my tuition because I basically make minimum wage. Quarantine messed with my head at first, but now I’m feeling much better and I’m trying to reconnect with friends and close a lot of loose ends.

TLDR: I took an extended break because tumblr mobile sucks and my laptop needed serious repairs. I made a huge migration away from social media in 2018. I prioritized my education and in-person connections, which fell to shit because of my fandom involvement in the past. I did not like the direction of the main fandom I participated in and knew that many of the people I once respected did not respect me in return/ Us versus them mentality. I recognized that I treated my life on tumblr too seriously and took petty drama personally. I am sporadically on tumblr now because I genuinely enjoy the social connection and because I still like running fandom events.

Yes, you can reblog this. I’d love for this narrative to be heard.

Long version: To preface this, this post is being written to give myself closure and because I really am procrastinating on my final big paper of this semester. I’ll be tackling on the points in the tldr in a longer narrative that will appear to be in an expository fashion, which I recognize will be a source of contention, but my intentions are to throw it onto the table so that I can be freed. I can let it go and move on. I’m no longer a 20 years old who cared too much of what other people think and will think; I think differing perspectives are important and I want to give myself a chance to say my piece. That and I recognize that I lost the audience that I once had, so I doubt this will be an issue at all. It’s been 4 or what ever years, let’s just not.

Back in 2015-2016 there was a huge back and forth between three groups of people in the SE fandom. The reason why I’m not listing out the name is because I don’t want this to show up in the tags. I’d say that the three groups could be seen as quite literally the soma shippers (mostly white, demi sexual girls), lgbt centric bloggers (very kid or star oriented, very fed up with soma), and the people who were deemed as alright to soma shippers (c r ona, ste inm arie, jac k im centric people). There was a constant (and understandable) tension between the first two groups while the third was like the weird cousin that everyone in the social circles liked because they sprinkled in soma for the masses. Don’t argue with me on this-- this was literally how the fandom was in 2015 and you know it.

The main issue was that one group felt that they were being inclusive towards identities and sexualities while the other felt that they were not. I remember that one of the arguments was that soma WAS an LGBT ship because people headcanonned the members to be demisexual. However, the other side of the argument was that it wasn’t good representation of a gay pairing. Now that we can look back at this 5 years later, I have two things to say: 1, I now very much understand why the argument broke out because of how heated the topic is, and I do believe that I lean more towards the “other side” now that I’m not wearing rose tinted glasses, but 2, I need to make it clear that demi people are lgbt, but a headcanon is not fact and ship diversity was the main question at hand, not the ship itself. This argument lasted for weeks, destroyed my friendships, and no matter what I felt I did in the moment (which was to mend the fandom), it was taken as an insult.

(Side note: Somethings that I remember was being in someone’s DM’s to encourage them to participate in the large fandom events more, but once they twisted my intentions and rallied their friends, I became their enemy. I also became the mods’ enemy but then again, when was I not? I was made fun of for saying “queergender,” a term that is now currently being widely used, quite openly by someone I wanted desperately to be friends with. I was outwardly mocked by popular users who only apologized behind closed doors but didn’t bother to clear things up with their followers. Adults who were in their 30s quite literally attacked a 19 year old. It was in that moment that I realized I would never become friends with either side, and not because I didn’t want to.)

I bring this up because as I begun to stop writing soma fics, I also begun to see and understand why people moved away from it. It wasn’t the ship itself, it was the culture surrounding it. However, on tumblr we have the ability to connect intensely with the content we produce. Therefore, the ship itself began to be connected with the shippers and their attitudes towards outside pairings-- that attitude being tied into elitism.

I say this with every ounce of love I can because I once had the exact same mannerism. When you become so tied into one pairing to the point where other ships appear to threaten the existence of it and you react negatively towards it, you become rancid. The popular tag “everything is soma” takes a very dark turn. Even if readers consume another pairing’s work, they will be obliged to say “I ship soma more BUT that was cute.” They will read an entirely different topic and wonder why soma wasn’t inserted into it in the background. They will reject pairings that separate the two as if breaking them up is sin and an insult.

The only reason why I stopped writing my soma fics in 2016 was because I saw a real need to fill in the gaps of other pairings. I took what people were saying to heart and I wanted to change my ways and my perceptions. I saw the animosity of the ship culture and rejected it. I wanted to use what little influence I had to make the fandom just a bit more accepting. In 2016, I don’t think the fandom was ready for it. In 2017, they still weren’t ready for it. In 2020, I see hope, but I wonder sometimes if it’s masqueraded pity because of previous treatment.

In the middle of it all, I went from being the soma angst master to becoming the weird person everyone once knew. I was the friend that people excluded from group chats and I just “wasn’t the same.” Cliques grew extremely large in power in 2017 and exclusion hurt like a bitch.

The straw that broke the camel’s back and completely shut me down was in 2017 when I was graduating as a bachelor. There was a fandom event that I decided to go all in to. For context, there used to be a huge debate on how many times a person should enter in an event, but in my mind, the more exposure the better. My graduation and the event took place at the exact same time, which was cool, but what hurt me was what happened after.

I was lucky enough to be accepted into field school (when you travel to do outdoor excavating) for my major. I’m an anthropologist-- it was an honor. I didn’t plan in advance for it, and if anything, I thought that I would be committed completely to the events and my 5 or what ever entries at the time. I’ve always prided myself in communicating with others, so I made sure to let my partners in the event know what was going on. I was so excited to be going on my first ever excavation and no one at the time said anything otherwise, in fact, they all seemed incredibly supportive.

What I didn’t know was that I would be called out by name in the event feedback response by one person who felt that I didn’t take the event seriously enough and that I should’ve prioritized my time accordingly. Two of the mods let me know because it referred to me directly, though the name of the submitter was not included. It was not only a slap in the face, but a dumbfound moment that reminded me that wow, fandom content really is someone’s life out there. My enforced silence because of lack of internet in the woods actually upset someone and made them believe that I wronged them, because I put my real life ambitions first before a fandom event.

It was then when I woke up and I remember very clearly thinking to myself: I don’t want to be like them. I don’t want to treat my fandom life seriously. I want to participate in fandom for fun, not out of duty. I don’t want to prioritize this life because in the end, if I am hated for putting my work and education first, then I don’t want it.

(For context, I suspect that it was the same person who made a 200 note call out on me during the fandom tension. I respected this person immensely, but I also treated them like the flawed person I believe everyone is. I’m sure because of this, I’m pretty much trash in their eyes, which is totally fine. They have really cute cats so they can’t be all too bad. Don’t look into it too deeply.)

Once my month long field school was up, I was already used to not being on the internet or any of my social media accounts. I didn’t play my mobile games for a month. I didn’t read the news for a month. It was like going cold turkey on the internet, which reshaped my habits entirely. The only time that I had online within that time span was during the weekend, but I spent my time working on my projects and catching up with friends instead of being on apps.

I was also completely fed up with tumblr’s mobile app at the time, so one by one, I deleted my apps. Good bye to tumblr, snapchat, what little I used of instagram, twitter, everything. The only thing I kept was facebook, which was because it is the main platform that I use to message my boyfriend. That meant that any friends I retained from the fandom (who I still contact now) were also friends who had the chance to add me on facebook.

This was the cause of my 2 or 3 year hiatus on tumblr, and therefore the fandom. I occasionally checked back every 6 months to do a few fandom events, but I have several unopened messages and notifications that I haven’t been able to get to. I open my instagram for a few days once a year, and I only go onto twitter if my friends tell me (through facebook) that they dm’d me a post there.

When I left my online persona behind, I quickly strengthened my in person connections. New drama that erupted every other day became replaced with starbucks and boba runs. Reality TV shows replaced fanfiction. Text messages replaced the tumblr activity feed (which still doesn’t work on mobile BTW). I study at cafes unironically with friends instead of typing alone in my room. Overall, it opened my world considerably.

I still like making fun of myself and I try not to take myself seriously. I still make self depreciative memes to send to friends but then double up with kermit heart pics. I’m still a plot bunny, I still write my fics, I still watch my anime, I still play video games, I still sleep at 4am, I still take my depression medication, I still love potatoes, I still use my voice for people who can’t find theirs yet. But I think I’m in a much healthier mindset now, even if I still make stupid shifty posts calling out bad behavior.

Nowadays, I’m working on my Master’s degree in secret. My parents don’t know about it because my mom doesn’t like that I want to go out and do unladylike things like getting an education. I tutor kiddos and I’m really good with younger children, but I’m not going to do anything with kids because I just don’t want to. Instead, I want to work at an archive or a museum to bring my library interests and my anthropology background together. If I had my dream job, I would be a marine archaeologist; however I love my boyfriend of 8 years whom you probably all remember and I really came to terms with my grandeur dreams. I’m extremely happy with living in a small town with loved ones now, and I don’t need to move somewhere far away from my parents to be content. It’s a huge realization.

From 2018 to 2020 I got into actual drama in person while I was job hunting. Adult people suck and honestly it’s kind of embarrassing how ill equipped some people are. Even so, I currently work in middle schools as a media assistant. One of those realms is the library, and honestly it’s like fulfilling a prophecy. As much as I love the social aspect, public schools are an absolute train wreck.

I’m going to wrap this up now. This post is meant to help me close the past and move forward because the fandom culture feels different now. Things from several years ago don’t need to resurface. I want to enjoy my life fully, and fandom life is one of those aspects that I truly did enjoy. I’m going to keep using my voice and act like a fool, but I’m also not going to be losing sleep because of this. People are going to talk about you no matter what, whether positively or negatively, and it’s important to not take it personally.

Idk, go enjoy yourselves. Do things for yourself. It’s more fun that way.

#nessingaround #this was cathartic #huge thank you to my friends who stuck by me and to my friends who welcome me back with open arms #big shout out to my disney girl gang and another big shout out to 'ma girls'#another thank you to my sweethearts on google hang out #and thank you especially to the group of se lgbt users from 2016 who truly did open my eyes to the severity of the fandoms actions #even tho u still hate me and have me blocked hahaha i consider this growth

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poloniumicecream · 4 years

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i was tagged by @starryeyedagony and @hashbrownteamcobrakai for this absurdly long list of personal questions <3 no one could possibly need to know this much about me, but let’s go

 1. what is the color of your hairbrush? i just... use my hand.... i keep my hair short, it curls and does its own thing

2. name a food you never eat:  idk i’ll eat what’s offered to me?? i buy what’s easy?? i have no strong food opinions at the moment

3. are you typically too warm or too cold? i have this bird bone body like an ailing victorian child, anything under 70º and i’m freezing

4. what were you doing 45 minutes ago? was trying to be productive but instead found a good link to the blue lick horror house🙏 idk what’s so fascinating about this thing, but i can’t let it go. maybe bc i have nightmares that resemble this space?? anyway i live here now

5. what’s your favorite candy bar? reeses never lets me down

6. have you ever been to a professional sports game?  memories blocked, sports too boring to think about

7. what is the last thing you said out loud? i regret to admit i am reading this out loud as i go

8. what is your favorite ice cream? idk but the worst i ever had was peanut butter

9. what was the last thing you had to drink? some faintly bleachy tap water, delicious

10. do you like your wallet? i use a coin purse to hold cards and cash - it's a pretty recognizable bright colored mass produced one. a while back there was a popular celebrity on the periphery of my friend group (don’t ask pls) and one time at a bar or something i had my "wallet" out and from across the room they locked eyes with me and pulled the Same One out of their pocket. pretty sure it was weed tho. but imagine carrying ur weed in a normal bill-fold wallet. that would have been funnier :/

11. what is the last thing you ate?  lost in the turbine of my memory

12. did you buy any new clothes last weekend? i did not but i just got a new desk lamp, genuinely v excited for that to arrive

13. what’s the last sporting event you watched?  i don't think this question applies to my experiences

14. what is your favorite flavor of popcorn? popcorn smells are compelling but if i eat things that stick in my teeth i'll lose my entire mind. wait this is it, the answer to number 2

15. who is the last person you sent a text message to? close inner circle group chat planning our surprise private island getaway. no but we’re making (safe!) halloween plans

16. ever been camping? not as often as usual this year but yes! see above

17. do you take vitamins?  those gummy ones like fruit snacks

18. do you regularly attend a place of worship?  nah

19. do you have a tan? i'm ghostly

20. do you prefer Chinese or pizza? i'm pickier about pizza. u can't go wrong with chinese

21. do you drink your soda through a straw? no...?

22. what color socks do you usually wear? mostly dark but i have some fluffy pastel ones specifically bc the contrast in my laundry is funny to me

23. do you ever drive above the speed limit? i'm gay i don't drive

24. what terrifies you?  third date kind of question!

25. look to your left, what do you see? dying jade plants and beyond these, a cat's loving gaze

26. what chore do you hate most?  vacuuming. loud

27. what do you think of when you hear an Australian accent?  family

28. what’s your favorite soda?  dr pepper only. i don't really drink soda tho. i was raised by the kind of parents who put fruit juice in seltzer and sold me that lie. i guess it stuck

29. do you go in a fast food place or just hit the drive thru? there are so many food questions in this list pls

30. what’s your favorite number?  secret information

31. who’s the last person you talked to?  my father. probably the person i've spoken with out loud the most this year

32. favorite meat? i no longer eat meat

33. last song you listened to? it’s been a war on drugs kind of week

34. last book you read?  i can't read

35. favorite day of the week?  something cool about a thursday, i can't explain it

36. can you say the alphabet backwards?  feeling very interrogated rn

37. how do you like your coffee? however it wants to be. i for real cannot supply food or beverage opinions like this on demand PLS

38. favorite pair of shoes?  generic black leather lace up boots

39. time you normally get up? i'm drawing my shades and peering suspiciously outside through a crack rn

40. what do you prefer, sunrise or sunsets? ok when ur out somewhere with no artificial light and it makes the sky more dramatic and cool, either one is good

41. how many blankets are on your bed? not enough, season transitions are rough

42. describe your kitchen plates? ... grandma is that u?

43. describe your kitchen at the moment:  it's clean, it's fine, grandma get out of here

44. do you have a favorite alcoholic drink?  among the friends i drink with, one is a skilled bartender and we let him surprise us with whatever obscure drink he thinks each person should have that night. i would trust him with my life. conversely i just remembered my very best friend is also a bartender but him i wouldn’t let serve me anything except straight from the bottle. hm. what i’m trying to say is, the company i keep is more important to me than what's in the glass. should i also clarify i made these friends before they pursued this work and i’m not, like, frequenting bars to harass the staff? this answer is a mess lol

45. do you play cards?  i don’t have a great attention span for learning or enduring things like that

46. what color is your car?  u know what's funny is how much junk mail i get with car insurance offers. i wonder what color they think the car i've never had is

47. can you change a tire? 100% no and that would not stop me trying. it won’t be my car so i have nothing to lose and all of myself (also nothing) to give

48. your favorite state or province? idk i feel like a stranger everywhere i go except nyc

49. favorite job you’ve had? ok, mr. fbi i think that's enough

😔 i have not kept track of who’s been tagged or done this already, and the links will kill my tags anyway. do u have shit u need help procrastinating on? here, try this

#yes i am avoiding tasks #come join #tag game #...formatting text is my passion🐸

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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WHY TO THE STARTUP IN YOUR IDENTITY SMALL

In fact, the amount of stock an employee gets decreases polynomially with the age of the company. It turns out I have a lot of external evidence that benevolence works. And that did turn out to be a startup. Three options remain: you can shut down the company, you can turn that into a recipe for succeeding just by negating. You may notice a certain similarity between the Viaweb and Y Combinator logos. It was alarming to me how foreign it felt to sit in front of computers connected to the Internet, and distractions always evolve toward the procrastinators. Starting in January 2000, Yahoo's stock price began to crash, ultimately losing 95% of its value. What makes the nerds rich, usually, is stock options. The most important quality in a CEO is his vision for the company's future. It's obvious why transparency has that effect. So one way to find interesting work is to volunteer as a research assistant. Now if I accidentally put the cursor in the wrong place, anything might happen.

That's why Julius Caesar thought thin men so dangerous. When I told the fearsome Professor Conway that I was interested in AI a hot topic then, he told me I should major in math. College was a bottleneck through which all your future prospects passed; everything would be better if you went to college. Standard, schmandard; the whole industry is only a few percent of the world's population. We supported online transactions via a company called Cybercash, since if we lacked that feature we'd have gotten beaten up in product comparisons. In most startups, expenses people and decreasing expenses firing people. In Web-based applications. Which in practice usually means, whatever existing agreement he finds lying around his firm. In fact, nice is not the one that doesn't feel mass-produced. Most successful startups get money from more than one founder, it seems a good bet, he's still at a disadvantage. Prefix Syntax? In technical matters, you have to go on?

People never say that about me. They do it too consistently. The key stage is when they're three guys operating out of an apartment. Angels and even VC firms occasionally do this, and so are slack about reaching profitability, which further decreases their chances of raising more money, as if it were merely lack of the right answers, fast, with no clutter. But when he rides the Segwell, they shout abuse from their cars: Too lazy to walk, ya fuckin homo? We had 2 T1s 3 Mb/sec coming into our offices. All users care about is whether you make something users want, then you're dead, whatever else you do or don't do. They don't really grasp the risk they're taking till the deal's about to close.

But the investor is already being compensated for that risk in the low price of the stock, so it was a charming college town with perfect weather and San Francisco only an hour away. Whereas Pittsburgh has the opposite problem: plenty of nerds, but no amount of training can flip a ratio as overwhelming as 95 to 5. Real estate is still more expensive than just about anywhere else in the country. Yes and no. It's especially good if your application solves some new problem. Half our earnings were too. They get introductions to VCs from various sources: their angel investor connects them with a couple; they meet a few at conferences; a couple VCs call them after reading about them. Investors have much higher standards for companies that have already raised money. If I'd spent a whole morning sitting on a sofa watching TV, I'd have noticed very quickly. But they're also desperate for deals. One of his projects was to connect Harvard to the Arpanet; it had been one of the hot startups that always win recruiting battles.

The most important quality in a CEO is his vision for the company's future. PhD. What matters is what you make of yourself. If you make anything good, you're going to have to be done? The tragedy of the situation is similar with malaria. Dealing with competitors was easy by comparison. Professors have to publish novel results to advance their careers, but there you face bureaucratic obstacles that would slow down a startup. The fact that you can't tell who to be nice to, you have to be able to avoid the worst pitfalls of consulting.

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archonreviews · 7 years

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The Archon’s Review of Supreme Commander

Supreme Commander is a real-time strategy game by Gas Powered Games and published by THQ. In the far-flung future, humanity has colonized space with the help of space portals (which can apparently be hacked, which presents a massive security risk, I should think, but nevermind that). This led to an era of peace and prosperity unseen by humanity ever before. During this time, an old, enterprising scientist named Dr. Gustaf Brackman fuses an artificial intelligence with a human brain (again, this presents a massive security hazard, but nevermind). The new, half-computer, half-human people are called “Symbionts”. This development spooks the Earth Empire’s bigwigs who hack the Symbionts and enslave them. Disgusted and not at all aroused, Brackman takes a corps of his loyal Symbionts and forms his own Cybran Nation with blackjack and hookers. Meanwhile, on a far off world, a human colony finds religion via an alien race called the Seraphim (in a surprising twist, it’s the Seraphim who’re presented with a security risk, rather than the humans). The Seraphim teach the colonists the way of “The Way”, shortly before being obliterated by the millenia-in-the-future equivalent of a Neo-Nazi, who really just could not stand that the other humans were finding a peaceful religion brought to them by a benevolent green people. Jokes on that asshole though, as the destruction of the Seraphim brings about the Aeon Illuminate, a sort of Knights Templar in space. After these two factions finish tearing up ye olde Earth Empire, it reforms itself into the United Earth Federation, because it’s always a federation, isn’t it? Can’t be a cadre, or a union, or a confederation, it’s got to be a federation if it’s in space, doesn’t it? Anyway, the three factions develop a cool mecha called the Armored Command Unit, or ACU, which can pull entire military bases out of their “mass”, and command entire armies of automated(?) tanks, boats, and planes. With the ACU, war becomes easy-peasy, so the three factions decide to have one for a thousand years, just for kicks. That’s where you come in. You take command of one of the three factions, hoping to end the Infinite War once and for all.

Hah, I thought the F/GO intro was long. Sorry mates.

So, I like real-time strategy games. I’d go so far as to say it’s one of my top two favorite genres of video game. Which makes the fact that I’m only now reviewing an RTS a somewhat criminal act of neglect. I was first tuned in to the Supreme Commander series when I was a teenager, playing Supreme Commander 2. Incidentally, this is also when I would learn about Steam’s DRM, when I was so used to just installing stuff from a CD. In any event, I found SC2 a lot of fun, once I figured out how to play the game properly. So, SC being on sale a while back, I decided to see if it lived up to the fond memories of it’s descendant. The short answer is, “Eeeehhh... Kinda?”

The game’s primary objective for a standard game is to destroy all of the enemies’ ACUs. In fact, the ACU is the most important unit for any player, as it represents the player themselves. In addition, the ACU builds your base before you gain access to Engineers. As far as objectives go, “regicide” is pretty straightforward, and given that all the other units are possibly automated, it makes sense. Sadly, the story campaigns decide to complicate things significantly.

This objection may be subjective, but I have a feeling it’s less subjective than I suspect. See, I’m used to an RTS presenting me with an overarching objective in each mission, flowering with optional objectives or minor complications as the mission progresses. Supreme Commander, however, does something slightly different. In the beginning of a campaign mission, you will be presented with a very simple, deceptively easy objective. Something like, “Kill these dudes we’ve essentially tied to posts for you,” or “Hey, see that building over there? Yeah, send your ACU over there and grab it for us, ya?” But then, once you’ve completed it, the map will expand to reveal a new objective. At this point, things’ll be okay, with only minor adjustments in strategy required. But then, it’ll expand the map again, and you’ll be faced with your final enemy... and usually a massive wave of enemy units that you couldn’t have known were coming on your first go-through. To add insult to injury, they’ll usually give you the ability to produce a unit that would help a lot, but with the wave of enemy dudes bearing down on you, you’d best hope that you’ve got adequate base defenses while you build your new units, otherwise, to paraphrase Richard III (or maybe Game of Thrones), things will go very hard for you.

The best way I found to deal with the game stringing you along like this is to develop a super economy mid-mission, and put off your objectives as long as you can. This strategy, however, presents two challenges: first, some objectives are timed. Second, and perhaps more annoyingly, is that as you procrastinate, a comms officer or a superior will occasionally complain at you for not completing your objectives. It’s kinda funny at first, but after a while, it sounds like a middle manager reminding you of a minor job-related obligation that nobody performs anyway. Anyone who’s ever had to push a credit card will know exactly what I mean.

^(Large robot friend building up my super economy. Also, my apologies for the console box in the corner, I had to change the screenshot button to the ` button, as the F12 button brought up an even more obtrusive thingie.)^

Now, it might sound like I’m ragging on the game, and to an extent I am. The game doesn’t seem to have too much of a player-base to battle against and I imagine single-player skirmishes can only be exciting a few dozen times. Most RTSes base much of their content on their story campaign, and indeed, that’s where I began, but while I didn’t much like the way the individual missions were formatted, the mechanics of the game itself were actually pretty fun! Building up a base with your big robot friend and then later, your little robot friends, is generally gratifying. Churning out a massive army of gunships and raining hellfire on your foes is quite entertaining. Watching stuff explode is almost as primordially engaging as a Michael Bay movie without the casual racism, sexism, poor acting, and poor screenwriting. Watching boats explode is a particularly fun thing, and this is coming from someone who is usually uneasy about commanding naval forces in RTSes.

That said, there are a couple more nitpicks, but these are some pretty big nits. First off, the pathfinding for ground units may be best argument for self-driving cars ever, ironically. When in formation, they will move the front line first, then the lines behind, until they’re all moving, instead of everyone moving at once. This can create major problems when you’re trying to roll out an attack force into an enemy base and their turrets just shoot down all your bots as they come. Otherwise, they tend to just move however they want to, which may interfere with your strategies, and it gets worse when you realize that the only way to get rid of enemy shields is to march your land units inside the shield and shoot at the generator from there, more or less necessitating the insipid groundlings. In fact, if it weren’t for shields, I probably would’ve relied solely on air and naval power, as air units don’t need to pathfind, and naval units don’t have any obstacles to get tripped up on and their range is long enough that even if they did, they could still perform their essential function, i.e. total boat obliteration.

^(It’s difficult to see, but on the left is a fleet of my submarines demolishing an enemy fleet on the right. Note the lack of physical obstacles. Note pictured: My joy at the destruction of my enemies.)^

Also, the tutorial is absolute bollocks in cheese. It’s basically a bunch of videos detailing basic concepts, and then they let you loose in an empty map with an ACU from each faction, and that’s your lot. This game is actually fairly complex, and an actual tutorial wouldn’t have been remiss.

The aesthetics are nice. Environments are pretty, if a bit sparse in places, and all the robots look pretty cool. Each factions’ units are distinct enough that you can tell friend from foe immediately; the UEF has this sort of “basic Earth unit” look to them, all blocky with lots of things on wheels and conventional design, the Cybrans are all spikes and doom fortresses (only somewhat ironic, as their goal of freeing all enslaved Symbionts is actually the most morally justifiable), and the Aeon design is half cathedrals-on-legs and half Space Alien(TM) aesthetic. When the game is being all wiz-bang-kaboom, it is indeed rad A.F, but the flipside to that is that I frequently got the disquieting feeling that I was doing something wrong somehow. Like because I wasn’t wiz-bang-kabooming all the time, I wasn’t playing properly. Or maybe the game’s marketing was a big fat liar; who knows?

(^What I expected vs...

what I got. I mean, there were shades of the first image, but the vast majority of my time was spent constructing like a hyperactive Mincraft player.)^

The music isn’t much to write home about. It’s alright, I guess.

The reason I believe the player-base is sparse is because looking up walkthroughs for this game was excessively difficult. There were no Steam guides except for those telling you how to get the game to work; which wasn’t a problem for me. The only GameFAQs walkthrough I could find was very light on actual details, preferring instead to provide me with information I probably could have figured out on my own. I finally had to find a Youtube playthrough; and incidentally, Ser “SergiuHellDragoonHQ”, if you happen to be reading this, it is generally considered bad form to periodically pop in with obtrusive demands that I subscribe in the form of extremely distracting low-res graphics. I was only there for a walkthrough on that particular mission, we’re not that close bruh. That said, you have my gratitude for your walkthrough, which taught me the “super economy strategy”, mentioned above. All of that said, it may just be that the player-base are super leet haxorz and therefore don’t require any walkthroughs.

^(The notes I took on SergiuHellDragoonHQ’s walkthrough. Note the rushed handwriting and Gudetama in the bottom left.)^

Ten slotte, SC is fun at it’s core, but the lack of a good tutorial and the frustrating and drag-out campaign format kinda kills it in places for me. I would recommend it mostly on the basis that the person I’m recommending it to would play with me so we can, as wise men have written, “git gud”. I’m probably not going to keep playing it, unless I start playing SC2 again and a major plot point comes up that necessitates me playing through the campaign of the original. As for social commentary... well, it’s actually remarkably progressive in places. The while the Earth president is a dude, and the main character is also a dude, the high commander of Earth’s armies is a woman with a badass battle scar; you know she’s seen some shit. In addition, the Aeon Illuminate are ruled by a Princess, and most, if not all of their commanders are women. So apparently the Infinite War is much more gender-equal than today times. That said, everyone appears to be white, although the cockpits of the Aeon commanders are poorly lit, and it looks like maybe there’s a Latina commander somewhere. So the lack of racial diversity’s a bit of a problem. Also, the Symbiont slavery thing has some pretty obvious parallels, and while it often isn’t mentioned by UEF commanders, the Cybrans will talk about it constantly. Almost like their primary objective is freeing a marginalized group of people from government enforced bondage. Almost creates a parallel to a certain real-world tragedy that was enforced by the government and resulted in a certain war that itself resulted, ostensibly, in a certain marginalized group of people being granted their freedom. That said, the parallel isn’t too clear-cut, and I didn’t get far enough into the campaign to see where it goes.

All in all, if you’re looking for a sci-fi strategy game, you could do worse than Supreme Commander, but I remember the sequel being better, so go play that maybe.

^(Pictured: The prelude to Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”.)^

#archon reviews #video game #sci-fi #rts #real-time strategy #supreme commander #review

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