Superior Realities Sixth Anniversary: Reflections

Six years have now past since the first post appeared on Superior Realities. Time flies when you’re yelling at Blizzard, I suppose.

The Greatest City in the WorldIn some ways it doesn’t feel like it’s been that long, but in others it feels like a lifetime. I was still writing Dispatches from the Romulan War when this blog started, for crying out loud.

When the blog started, I lived in Toronto, then I moved to the country for a few years, then I moved back to the city. Seems like rather a lot of effort just to move from the west end to the east end.

I still miss Parkdale. My new neighbourhood is nice, too, but that’s the problem. It’s too nice. I’ve been here for going on two years now, and I’m still waiting to get the bum’s rush. I don’t fit in here.

I try to visit Parkdale as often as possible. I feel like I belong there. It’s the only place I’ve ever been where I’m not the weirdest person around.

When I lived in Toronto the first time, I lived with my father and a couple cats. Now that I’ve returned, I live alone with many books but no cats.

When the blog began, freelance writing was still some new and exciting adventure I was embarking upon. Now it’s just old hat.

Looks pretty in the picture, but it's really a miserable placeI’ve written… three novels since this blog started. I think. Three or four. Of course only one of them (Human Again) has seen the light of day so far. I’ve also written who knows how many short stories in that time.

Six years ago, I had hair. I should really update that profile picture at some point. Male pattern baldness can suck it, by the way.

When the site launched, I was a huge Metric fan, and now I’m a huge Metric fan who’s shaken Emily’s hand (best day ever). I’m also now a huge Chvrches fan, but I haven’t shaken Lauren’s hand.

When Superior Realities began, I was still in the process of re-entering the gaming world. Of course I’d been playing WoW for a while by then and had also played StarCraft II and maybe one or two other things, but I was still a bit out of the loop on the industry as a whole.

Since then I’ve broadened my horizons considerably. I eventually got around to most if not all of the games I missed out on during my teen years and embraced many modern classics, as well as a few more obscure titles. I hated Bioware for a while, then I kind of liked them, then I loved them, then I think I hated them again for a bit, and now I’m just generally confused.

They had real winters up there. That's somethingI’ve blogged through four WoW expansions, the rise and fall of my passion for Guild Wars 2, and my totally unexpected dive into Star Wars: The Old Republic. I fell in love with The Secret World, and now I’ve had to cope with its inglorious collapse. In general I’ve created enough MMO characters to form an entire battalion, and like half of them are named Maigraith.

I’ve mourned the cancellations of Defiance and Sanctuary, and I’ve fallen in love with Continuum, Dark Matter, and iZombie. I’ve reviewed some very good movies, and also Immortals.

It has been suggested I should take this opportunity to examine whether I’ve achieved my goals for the blog, to which I can only say… maybe? I guess?

Honestly I’m kind of losing sight of what the point was originally supposed to be. Nowadays blogging is just part of my routine; it’s not something I think a lot about. Just an excuse to run my mouth (figuratively speaking) without anyone trying to change the subject on me like they usually do.

I’m mostly happy with the traffic I get, though of course it’d always be nice to get more, and I do get a decent amount of attention within the greater community, so that’s nice.

Best day ever

Shake your head, it’s empty…

I will confess that I wish I got more comments, though. Figure pretty much every blogger wishes they got more comments, and compared to the handful of blogs I follow, I seem to get less comments than most. Not sure why this is, but I imagine it’s some combination of my terrible opinions, my long-winded endurance test of a writing style, and my cantankerous personality.

Of course, reflecting on the past also invariably leads one to pondering the future. For the most part, I suppose it will continue to be steady as she goes for Superior Realities for the immediate future.

I’m always mulling ideas for new types of content, but I dismiss almost all of them.

There’s often the temptation to expand beyond my relatively narrow sci-fi/fantasy/video game focus (the lack of Simpsons content on this blog saddens me sometimes), but at the same time I think there’s something to be said for keeping a clear vision for the site. I like the idea that my readers know what they’re getting: angry nerd rants and Elves.

I’ve thought about doing a series on various songs that I use for inspiration when writing fiction, but most people’s ears start bleeding when confronted with my musical taste.

I could also probably get a lot more posts out of the head canon and backstories for my video game characters, but my previous posts on that subject have the dubious distinction of being the least popular posts I’ve ever done by every available metric, so I probably won’t bother with that.

To winter I belongI tried my hand at video content recently, and there’s some temptation to do more of that, but it’s another thing that didn’t get much reaction. Plus I’m not sure I can bring anything to the table that the legions of YouTubers out there aren’t already covering, and I definitely have a voice for text (which is like a face for the radio, kind of).

I’m also often tempted to post more of my fiction and thoughts related to it on the blog, but again, such posts never seem to generate much interest, so I’m kind of gravitating away from that at this point.

Seriously, if you ever feel like doing me a favour, go read some of my stories and leave feedback. I don’t mind criticism as long as it’s constructive. I’m particularly interested in opinions on The Wounding and Lady of the Dawn, as that setting is very important to me, but In Her Sister’s Pose is probably the best thing I’ve written as far as short fiction goes.

Anyway, if any of these ideas sound like they’d interest you, or if you there’s something else you’d like to me to do with the blog, let me know, but otherwise it’s probably going to be status quo for the time being. There is many a Warcraft rant yet to be written.

In closing, I would like to thank my readers for sticking with me all this time. Be seeing you, sweetlings.

In the half-light.

Review: Dark Matter, “But First We Save the Galaxy” (Season Finale)

Corporate war is looming. Based on knowledge gleaned from the alternate universe and the Seers, the Raza crew believes an upcoming corporate diplomatic conference will be attacked, sparking a conflict that will set fire to the entire galaxy. And they’re the only ones who can stop it.

The logo for Dark MatterWith some convincing, they manage to gain access to the conference via their Mikkei allies, and the race is on to find the bomb.

But there are complications. Oh, boy, are there complications.

Inspector Kierken of the Galactic Authority oversees the security for the conference, and he’ll jump at any chance to finally apprehend the Raza crew. Ferrous Corporation also has a strong presence on the station, and they’d love to get some payback on the crew for season one’s double-cross.

And then there’s Four. Or the man who used to be Four. Now emperor of Zairon and no longer any friend of the Raza crew, he has come to represent his planet’s interests at the conference.

This is Dark Matter, and it’s the season finale, so do I even need to say that things get really bad and really crazy really fast? I don’t think that’s even a spoiler; I think we all knew that pretty much everything was going to explode — figuratively, literally, or both.

As usual, the writers do a great job of keeping you guessing. It’s obvious something bad is going down, but it won’t be until pretty near the end you get a clear picture of just who is planning what.

Alex Mallari Jr. as Ishida Ryo/Four in Dark MatterIt is, simply put, an absolutely excellent episode from beginning to end. As tense and exciting as you could possibly ask for a season finale.

My only complaint is very, very minor, and it’s that we’ve rounded out the season without learning the full origins of Sally the android. They’ve been building to it all season, but nothing’s come of it.

But otherwise “But First We Save the World” is yet another entry in the “this is why I love Dark Matter” file.

There’s a bit more I want to say, but it crosses into spoiler territory, so I’ll save it for the end of the post and label it clearly.

Overall rating: 9.1/10

Now that season two is in the history books, I think it’s safe to say it was a significant improvement over season one — and season one was great. There was not a single bad episode in season two. Some were better than others, but overall the show has maintained an incredibly consistent quality level.

It’s actually been kind of frustrating for me as a reviewer because there’s only so many ways I can say, “Yeah, it’s pretty good.” I’m worried all my reviews are starting to sound the same because every episode is the just like the others. Fun, exciting, and keeping you guessing.

Five (Jodelle Ferland) and Six (Roger Cross) in Dark MatterBut I guess that’s what you call a good problem to have.

There’s good news, too: Dark Matter has already been renewed for a third season.

I can’t wait.

Spoilers here:

Seriously, spoilers here, stop now if you don’t want to read any.

So…

Four.

I’m very curious what they’re going to do with him next season. This is a lot worse than Six’s betrayal at the end of season one. That was the wrong thing to do, but it was somewhat understandable. Even before season two started, I had a pretty good idea of why he did it, and it was hard to view him too harshly.

Four, though, has crossed the Rubicon. I don’t see how there can be any coming back from this. Six was a conflicted man who made one bad decision. Four — or I guess Ryo now — has crossed into full-blown supervillain territory. I don’t see how the crew can ever forgive him. I certainly can’t see myself as a viewer forgiving him.

I wouldn’t be surprised if he became a main villain for the third season. Longer term, if things go really bad for him, I could maybe see him killing himself in a last ditch effort to regain his honour. Especially if Nyx doesn’t make it.

On that note, I wouldn’t think they’d want to kill Nyx off so soon after introducing her, but then again, they did it to Devon.

I’m not sure what I want to see. I don’t want to see her go; I was just starting to really like her. But if Ryo ends up responsible for her death, however indirectly, that adds a whole other layer of emotional intensity to his story.

How long until season three?