July Wrap-Up

July was a bunch of fun. No, really, vacation tends to equal a ton of pictures. Which means having to rethink the layout of my wrap-up posts. Which means new images yaaaaay!

Books Read

|| Monstress Vol. 1 by Marjorie Liu || The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith ||
|| Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell || Deadly Class, Vol. 1: Reagan Youth by Rick Remender ||
|| The Slow Regard of Silent Things by Patrick Rothfuss ||  Vicious by V.E. Schwab ||
|| Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris ||
|| Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, & Jack Thorne ||
|| Blood of the Earth by Faith Hunter || You’re Never Weird on the Internet by Felicia Day ||

Currently Reading

I swear I got halfway through The Way of Kings before my attention started to wander! It’s really good, though yeah, 1,200 pages of epic fantasy kills my attention span. I will eventually finish it!

Jade Dragon Mountain by Elsa Hart || An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir ||
|| A Promise of Fire by Amanda Bouchet || The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson ||

Writing

• Did a bit of writing in and out of the house. Finally got myself a handsome laptop (which has been named Vakarian), so it’s much easier to change writing venues for when I don’t feel like putting pen to paper.
• Got an email back about having sold a short story! So that’s pretty friggin’ awesome. Will talk more about it sometime in August during our author showcase.
• Got a fabulous review of the Czech version of “Chasing Volcanoes.” Rough translation: “Flying sailships, robots–collectors of souls, gods, mafiosi and, if you like, even dragons. In the anthology of South-Asian steampunk, as varicoloured as its cover, the stories maintain a high quality and only rare among them doesn’t overflow with colourful details of worlds [that are] right succulent. “Taming Volcanoes” contains, even despite its subtitle, first of all tales in which the matter actually isn’t so much “steam” or “punk” but rather pure storytelling, wherein immediacy melds with layers of hidden meanings, clash of cultures and tradition. The result is un-trite and (even despite the afterword of Jaroslav Olša Jr.) for an European not quite comprehensible cocktail of imagination and foreign mythology. But even though and foremost, [see above]. It is a great insight into Asian fantastic literature which deserves attention.”

Movies

My friend and I are still on an animated movies project, so that’s usually what encompasses my movie-watching time. Pleasantly surprised by Kung Fu Panda, which I’d never seen before. And Only Yesterday is totally my biography.

|| Only Yesterday || Waltz with Bashir || Kung Fu Panda ||
|| Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust || Feherlofia (Son of the White Mare) ||
|| Justice League vs. Teen Titans || Monsters, Inc. || Zootopia ||

Television

• The Shannara Chronicles, Season 1 – I don’t know how I managed to binge-watch this season, because it pretty much crashed into super-weird every so often. It was just so bad that I had to keep watching. It had totally nothing to do with pretty scenery, pretty people and their pretty abs…or their pretty clothes.
• Criminal Minds, Season 11 – STILL CRYING OVER MY CHOCOLATE THUNDER. SO DISTRAUGHT.
• Leverage, Re-Watch – I put this series on whenever I want to watch something in the background. Which is almost all the time.

Video Games

• Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune – I’m liking this game so far, but then I got distracted because…
• One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3 – This happened. It pretty much is a rehashed, HD, shortened summary of the anime from the Romance Dawn arc all the way to Dressrosa (though I don’t know how much of the last bits are accurate to the anime). This game pretty much encompassed my last two weeks of the month.
• Dragon Age: Inquisition – I am still dying over the Trespasser DLC. It was so damn good. I CANNOT WITH YOU, FEN’HAREL. I JUST CAN’T. Also, I want the next Dragon Age game like, now.

Fooding

A lot of food to be had. First of all, I may as well just call my “Quebec 2016” photo album the “Mari Eats Through Quebec” album, because I had a TON of food pictures. I decided just to highlight the poutine, because yes, Canadian specialty, that. Some highlights include birthday waffles (because I got a new wafflemaker!), a lovely cake which I didn’t bake for once, some super-rummed-up chocolate cupcakes, and a new TARDIS teapot! Love it.

|| Banana Rum Cupcakes (courtesy of Prohibition Bakery) || Yakitori || Duck poutine ||
|| Nutella Waffles with Ube Ice Cream || Veniero’s Strawberry Shortcake || TARDIS Teapot and Matcha ||

Miscellany

• Journey in Quebec – I learned three things while I was in Quebec: (1) The Cold North is STILL cold even during the summertime. So pack a sweater at least. (2) Climbing down a mountain creates a great vantage point for Montmorency Falls pictures. Climbing back up, on the other hand, will require determination and resolve. And prepare for super-sore legs the next day. (3) My French was totally rusty.
• Schwab signing – Victoria Schwab came to Books of Wonder for a signing, and she was AWESOME.
• Knitting stuff – Did quite a bit of knitting. Many infinity scarves were made because I got myself a pair of size 50 needles.
• Zuko artwork – My cousin got REALLY GOOD with drawing, and he got me a birthday present of Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender! Sigh. Firebenders. They are truly my favorite.
• Hamilton – HERE COMES THE GENERAL. I have become utterly obsessed with this musical. I kid you not. I’ve practically half-memorized the lyrics.
• Too much Pokemon Go-ing is happening here. I must have been out of the house for hours just trying to get several damn Jigglypuffs. Totally salty over losing out on an Arcanine, tho.
• Harry Potter book launch! So the city kind of held several book launch parties for the release of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (Parts 1 and 2), and my friends Meg at La Foi Aveugle and Kelly went party-hopping. So, er, Meg and I already did buy our books at Books of Wonder, but that clearly didn’t stop us from visiting the local B&N for a bit of a dance party (and a Snape and Dumbledore meeting) and The Strand for some Polyjuice Potion and brownie refreshment, as well as some activity page R&R with fellow Potterheads. Oh, and trivia. Lots of trivia (which, honestly, if we’d been competing, we so totally would have nailed it all…). Anyway, I totally finished the book already, so watch out for a review on that sometime next week.

Nerdy News

San Diego Comic Con happened recently, which means LOTS of awesome new trailers. I still haven’t watched Batman v. Superman (and I’m actually no longer compelled to watch it…even though it has my beautiful Henry Cavill), but I’m actually stoked over Justice League and oh em gee, I am excited for the Wonder Woman movie, especially after all my griping about how I wasn’t a big fan of Gadot’s casting. Also, I’m not feeling this first look of Superman in CW’s Supergirl, it’s too frelling edited, which is a shame, because the guy they cast is pretty cute.

Speaking of DC, I seem to be more excited over their animated franchise than anything else. I haven’t caught up to the JLA movies (and I’ve probably been watching them out of order anyway), but I’ve loved the ones I’ve seen so far. Some are continuities or based off of comic book canon, which is even better, since I’m almost always overwhelmed by the amount of universes and story volumes I’d need to wade through to get to the chunk of my superhero fandom.

That said, I am still terribly excited over The Killing Joke finally being released. Despite its controversy (and honestly, I am so in disagreement of the whole Barbara Gordon/Batman relationship in the film), I’m familiar with the comic it is based on, and that shit is DARK. And pretty epic.

DC also did just release a sneak peek into Justice League Dark, which is another animated movie I am looking forward to see. Lawd, I’m just swimming in DC movies right here.

Okay, now that that’s out of the way…

Eeeeeeee American Gods trailer! “It’s myyyyy daaaay!”

Also also also, eeeeeeeeeee Sherlock Season 4 trailer! SO GRIM. SO DARK. SO AWESOME.

There’s a Studio Ghibli exhibition in Tokyo. Can I go there now?

Pratchett’s The Wee Free Men is being turned into a movie. I haven’t read the book, but I will totally watch the heck out of ANY live-action Pratchett movie/series. Also, Rhianna Pratchett is penning the screenplay, and I liked her work in the Tomb Raider remake and her short Red Sonja story.

Allegiant diverges (hee) into a made for TV movie and spinoff. Yeah. I’m actually not surprised this may happen, considering how off-kilter the third movie was. I just…could not with it.

Because a live-action adaptation of the Shades of Magic series isn’t enough…there’s also the optioned film rights of This Savage Song! Ugh, Schwab, you slay me.

So yes. My July in a nutshell.