Adventure Magic

Kicked off a sunny, breezy morning with breakfast and the first My Little Pony: Equestria Girls short. "Dance Magic" picks up a couple of weeks after the previous camp-themed film. The girls are raising money to repair the damage done to Camp Everfree during their stay. Rarity sees a music video contest at their local mall and signs up her and her friends. First of all, her friends may be good singers and musicians, but they're terrible dancers. Second, Rarity blabbed her ideas to their rivals from Crystal Prep Academy, who steal her ideas. Rarity finally calls them on it...but then comes up with a better idea to make everyone happy.

Spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon finishing Thumb-Leia. Chewie and Luke take Leia and Han down south, to the flower field that's the Kingdom of the Fairies. Luke shows Leia his flower home...which is the same flower Leia was birthed from. They figure out that their seeds came from the same flower. Han explains to her that she is, indeed, a fairy. They gain their power from the sun. Vader and the beetles kept Han in a dark cell to weaken him. Had Leia remained underground with Pellaeon and Thrawn, she would have been weakened as well.

Leia helps nurse Han back to health and gradually falls in love with him. Chewie brings letters to her parents to reassure them that she's fine and has found her place. The last letter has an invitation to a wedding...for Han has asked Leia to marry him.

So, Leia becomes queen of the fairies. Han gives her a crown of her own; Luke gives her beautiful wings. It ends with the three flying off together in a race, in search of adventure once more.

I'm pretty happy with how that came out. After doing two complicated novels and two only slightly less complex short chapter stories (one pretty dark), it actually feels good to be doing shorter, lighter stories again. (Having a lot more time to write in the past few weeks probably helped.)

I have a whole list of short Star Wars fairy tales that were put on the back burner when I was doing those two novels last year. Next up will be Brave Rey, a Sequel Trilogy take on the Scottish/British Isles folk tale "Molly Whuppie," and a Finn-centric version of another Hans Christian Anderson story, The Swineherd.

At any rate, here's Thumb-Leia:

Thumb-Leia - Archive of Our Own
Thumb-Leia - My Writing Blog
Thumb-Leia - Fanfiction.net

Broke for lunch at 1. Ate and got organized while watching the second Equestria Girls special. "Movie Magic" takes the girls behind the scenes on the new Daring Do film. Rainbow Dash in particular is thrilled to be there - she's a huge Daring Do fan - while Rarity wants an autograph from her favorite star. The movie's having a lot of problems, though, including falling sets and the star throwing fits over a lack of her favorite chocolate bars on-set. When two major props disappear and it looks like the movie may have to shut down all together, the girls are on the case!

Headed off to work as soon as I finished lunch. This wasn't easy. I'd heard sawing and chopping all morning, even as I finished my writing. I didn't figure out what was going on until I tried to leave. There was a big crane on the path to my apartment chopping down the trees that Charlie always complain make a mess...and it totally blocked it. I had to go around and through the dogs' yard to get to my bike.

Once I got to work, things mostly went fine. We're still having problems with people calling out due to illness. I spent the last hour of work gathering carts because the night bagger called out sick, and there would be no one to do them later. Good thing it was a nice day for it, sunny and windy but not too cold. Otherwise, we were pretty quiet. I did the bathrooms when I came in and shelved a full cart of returns.

Ducked around the crane well enough to get upstairs and in my door when I got in. Had leftovers for dinner while finishing out Equestria Girls. "Mirror Magic" kicks things up a notch. Juniper Essence, the villain from the previous story, discovers an enchanted mirror while working at a movie theater. The mirror shows her greatest wish...in her case, to be a beloved star. It can also make objects disappear. This proves to be a big problem when Juniper makes Sunset Shimmer and all of the Equestria Girls vanish into the world of the mirror! Good thing Starlight Glimmer from Friendship Is Magic came to visit and saw the whole thing...and knows exactly how Juniper feels after all the trouble she caused.

Returned to Lego Star Wars for about an hour and a half after dinner. Finally finished out the "story" portion of the game with the last round of Return of the Jedi. Once again, I kept bumping into the sides of the Death Star and couldn't keep any studs, but I did get several pieces and the red brick.

Tried some other rounds after I left Jedi. There's six "bonus rounds" just off the main hub. I built the doors and entered "Anakin's Flight," which was cut from The Phantom Menace. As  you can guess from the title, it's a flying round. Young Anakin has to fly and destroy a ship shaped like a doughnut with a bite taken out of it. It's pretty hard, and I'm not the best at flying rounds to begin with. I still couldn't get any studs (though I did get Anakin's fighter to use in Free Play).

Speaking of Free Play, I went into that next. Started with one of the easier levels, "Escape from Naboo." Got four more pieces and True Jedi...but more importantly, I actually managed to get a bunch of studs. I was finally able to buy Jango Fett. (The Fetts can use their jet packs to fly, as well as toss explosives that blow up metal objects like the other bounty hunters.)

Ended the night after a shower online with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. We jump back slightly to 1935. After an interlude in Shanghai, where Indy picks up an annoying singer (Kate Capshaw) and a kid sidekick (Key Huy Quan), the trio end up in India. The citizens of an impoverished village recruit the trio to rescue their sacred rocks...and return their children, both of whom were stolen by an evil force at a near-by palace. Turns out that the "evil force" is a cult that rips out hearts and forces children to mine for the remaining stones. Captured by the cult himself, Indy and his friends have to break out and free the kids and the stones, before the cult leader (Amrish Puri) gets his hands on their hearts!

Um, yeah. While there's a lot of things I like about this one (the Shanghai opening sequence, the mine train ride, the finale on the bridge), it's still my least-favorite of the Indiana Jones movies. I actually like Short Round and thought Quan did pretty well with him. Willie, with her annoying screaming and silly vanity, is a lot harder to take. I also have problems with the Indian stereotypes that were dated when this film came out and are probably just in poor taste today. The violence is strong in this one - there was so much blood for a PG movie, it helped to contribute to the creation of the PG-13 rating.

If you're into the Indiana Jones movies, by all means, see this one, too...but I'd recommend checking out the much better Raiders or even Last Crusade before coming here.