#Had a lot of fun doing vaders expressions and poses

[taffycatart]

He can’t help but feel proud. Based on this post.

[roykent6]

ELLIOTT. FORREST FAMILY DISNEY VACATION!!! TELL ME ABOUT THIS!!!!

OH BOY CAN I!!!!!

the first time Emmett goes with Elle to visit her parents in LA she takes him to Disneyland, which is his first time in a Disney park. he LOVES it. she buys him his first pair of Mickey ears and has his name embroidered on the back, and she wears matching Minnie ears.

they start going for a day or two almost every time they’re out there, and finding new things to do each time and finding little routines that make the most out of their days there.

they like getting there early and hitting the big rides like Space Mountain and Indiana Jones before the line gets long, and then getting a bite to eat and doing some of the Fantasyland dark rides and grabbing a fast pass to do Splash Mountain later when it gets hot. they also go over to California Adventure in the afternoon so they can drink and relax and do the Cars ride.

they’re hyper competitive on both the Buzz Lightyear ride and Toy Story Midway Mania. sometimes they have to ride those rides three times to go best two out of three.

Elle loves meeting the princesses and so they go through the princess hall to meet them each time. Emmett could do without the characters (except he does geek out a little when it comes to meeting Darth Vader and Chewbacca), but he happily poses with Elle and whichever princess they’re meeting at that moment.

they’re huge Disney dorks and take lots of those cutesy pictures kissing in front of the castle and all that. they’re also big softies and love to stand all pressed up against each other when they watch the fireworks. catch Elle standing in front and leaning back against Emmett, while he’s got his arms around her and is kind of gently swaying them on the spot in time to the music.

but then!!! they have kids and they both gain this whole new appreciation for Disneyland from seeing it through their kids’ eyes. seeing their kids experience each new ride and meeting characters and watching parades and fireworks is so wonderful and they can’t get enough. hearing one of their kids laugh all the way down the drop on Splash Mountain is like riding that for the first time.

also, Elle can never get enough of seeing Emmett walk around the parks with a kid on his shoulders, or holding them up during fireworks. seeing him carry a sleeping kid down Main Street at the end of the night is enough to make her cry a little, she loves her family so much.

the first few times they go when Eli is little is just as day trips down from LA, like they always used to do before he was born. (and once after when he was less than a year old and they jumped at the chance to leave Eli with his grandparents and go to Disneyland for the day on their own.)

Eli is 3 or 4 when he first starts to really understand and love Disneyland too. he’s tall enough to do some of the rides he wasn’t able to do before. he’s a nervous lil guy but he sits between Elle and Emmett on Big Thunder Mountain and ends up having the time of his LIFE. he’s also big enough to do the other mountain rides and all the Cars rides, and he’s obsessed with Cars Land in general.

he likes characters you can talk to and he’s less crazy about ones like Mickey and Minnie. the Disneyland photographer takes a picture of the three of them talking to Mickey when Eli is around 18 months old, at the exact moment that Eli burst into tears. the expressions on Elle and Emmett’s faces and, somehow, on Mickey’s are priceless, and they have to buy the print of that picture because it’s so good.

once Emma comes along, Eli is thrilled because he gets one last trip to Disneyland just with his parents while Emma is still an infant. then the next year they take her with them. since she’s still a toddler, they get very familiar with the rider swap program, where one parent sits with the baby while the other one rides and then they switch so the one who waited doesn’t have to wait in line twice. this especially works out for Eli, who gets to ride once with each parent, and the more rides the better.

Emma loves every single princess and makes it her mission to see as many of them as she can on each visit. that becomes her and Elle’s special thing to do, and one of the only times they split up while they’re there. Elle will take Emma to go through the princess hall, while Emmett will take Eli to go through the Star Wars spots in Tomorrowland.

then when Emma is old enough too, they decide to go all out and plan a trip to Walt Disney World in Orlando. they go down for the kids’ spring break and stay the whole week in a Disney hotel and get like fully immersed in Disney the whole time.

all four of them get really into pre-planning for this trip, and they spend a lot of nights before bed huddled around an ipad looking at everything they can do, booking their fast passes, making dining reservations, and planning out what they’ll do each day.

they bring Emmett’s mom with them, which is really special because she always wanted to take Emmett to Disney when he was growing up, but could never afford to. they’re really excited to have her with them, especially because they can have her take the kids for a little bit so they can have a nice date night in one of the hotels, and also so they can go to Epcot alone and drink around the world.

they have such a good time, and they fall in love with all the things that are new to them, like Animal Kingdom and Epcot. they all really love the safari ride at Animal Kingdom, and getting to see different animals each time they ride it. 

they make friends with the cast members who work in their hotel, and have really special experiences thanks to them. one afternoon they come back to rest a little before going back at night and Eli gushes to a cast member they’ve gotten to know in the lobby about how cool the Indiana Jones show was, and how amazing the stunts were, and how cool Indy was. that night they come back and there’s an Indiana Jones hat for him in their room with a personalized note signed from Dr. Jones to wear it well. there’s also a Mickey Mouse plush in an Indiana Jones costume for Emma, because of course she couldn’t be left out. Eli wears that hat every day for the rest of the trip.

also, for as much planning they do with the kids to make being at Disney perfect, Emmett and Elle still have some surprises up their sleeves, and they have the kids thinking their leaving on Friday to go home, when really they’re just switching to a hotel at Universal Studios to stay there for a couple of days and go home Sunday.

the kids are shocked because they thought they knew every detail about this trip, when in reality it had been planned and booked at the same time as everything else. but they’re so excited to see the Harry Potter lands, but honestly their excitement is nowhere close to Emmett’s. he definitely has a Moment the first time he sees Hogwarts, and sort of stops short and just stares up at it, slack-jawed. Elle rubs his back a little to snap him out of it, then winks at him, then takes his hand and pulls him after their kids to go on the ride in there.

even though he’s not usually one for spending a lot of money on theme park merchandise, Emmett can’t resist buying all the Ravenclaw gear he can get his hands on, plus wands for everyone. (“look, Elle, you can really do magic with them!”) Emma gets picked for the wand demonstration in Ollivander’s and she is delighted. she giggles through the entire thing because she’s so excited.

all in all they end up doing that trip every year or two, because they have so much fun down there and make so many special memories.

[savevsfacemelt]

Big Dungeon Energy - Skeletons & Showdowns

It’s time for an END OF SEASON SLOBBERKNOCKER as the Wyvern’s Egg/Jericho Xoth/Black Meridian arc comes to its bone-shattering conclusion!

Seriously, a lot of bones got shattered. That’s what happens when you fight an army of skeletons.

Lemme tell you, there’s a lot of action to process this session, so head on over to the Obsidian Portal page and get caught up before coming back for the GM notes, just under the map from the final battle on/around a dragon’s skull.

Imagine more skeletons n’ shit around it. It was pretty rad.

--

If the last session set the emotional and physical stakes for the end of the arc, this one provided the payoff - the culmination of over a dozen sessions of action. Was it a success? Yeah, damnit, it was - it wasn’t 100% perfect across the board, but I had a good time and I think everyone else did too. Not only did the PCs take down the baddie, defeat the skeleton army and save the time-displaced dungeon - something I did not expect, and that’s going to be fun to take on board - but I laid the groundwork for the next major campaign arc, made sure everyone had spotlight moments and even worked in the Northern Colossus (an early request from one player). Honestly, I think we could stop the campaign right now and it would feel satisfying - but I want to keep going, and (I hope) the players do too.

One minor negative that this session highlighted, though: I suck at portraying villains. My eeeeeevil necromancer was more Skeletor than Darth Vader - a whiny, petulant jerk who elicited jeers and jokes from the PCs (and players) rather than fear and respect. That’s probably because, well, I think most bad people are whiny, petulant jerks, and I struggle to get into a headspace where I can portray them as something more complex. It wasn’t really an issue here - the players enjoyed making light of Xoth, while still finding him dangerous in the final showdown - but I need to consider whether I can improve my performances for future sessions and future villains. Then again, maybe the answer is not to have ‘villains’ in the next arc, and find other ways to put faces and personal stakes on the problems the characters overcome. Stakes like having things they care about be eaten by a dungeon...

This was the biggest and toughest fight I’ve thrown at the players to date, and I feel more confident now that I can create challenging battles for them in the future. But I’m also increasingly thinking about cutting back on big, crazy battles, because they’re hard/slow to run online (where we’ll be for a while) and don’t engage some players as much as others. What really worked this session was the ‘hazard montage’ we played to explore the larger skeleton army battle - a process where each player posed a challenge to another player’s PC, which had to be overcome by spending resources (items, spells, hit points etc.) or making risky rolls. Everyone got into it, they came up with some great scenes, and the risk/cost element gave it more bite and impact than the usual montage process. Maybe I can use this subsystem for most action scenes and less important battles, while reserving the full rounds-and-rolls approach for boss fights. Or would that be dull for the players with fighty characters? Hmm. Something to tinker with and report back on later.

Next session... hmm. It might be an out-of-character hangout - level up characters, talk about what’s worked and what hasn’t, discuss house rules, decide on some party goals, catch up with my friends over Zoom beers. We might skim through some of that and get into some low-key breathing-room sessions, give the characters a chance to talk and shop and express themselves without all this fighting. Or we might cut straight to the flying dungeon crash-landing in a forest full of spider-people and angry werewolf druids.

I don’t know. And that’s exciting for me.

[darthellspeedwalker]

Darthell Demonwolf's force power Illustrated design process/development and final piece

In these drawing, Darthell is using his dark force power from the power within his anger to use telekinetic or Force like power to cause magnitude on who ever he is attacking. When I drew this, I was thinking about Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. Anakin Uses the Dark side when its necessary to save or get the job done in certain situations. Darth Vader is the same but does things his own way. He uses the dark side at all times. His power is second to none to the Jedi. however he is 80% powerful than Darth Sidious due to his limbs been cut off, server 3rd degree burns from the lava from Mustafa and left for dead. I also had a reference of Vizard Igicho when he has his mask on showing his power and strength. At the same time I used my own character Darthell and looked at how Vizard Igicho, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader were posing. For Vizard I looked at his hand pose and facial expression (even though his face is covered with the mask. Anakin Skywalker when he uses the dark side to carry someone or something very heavy in midair, same applies to Darth Vader but with the Sith red and yellow eyes. The way Darthell is portrayed here looks as if he is possessed by his hatred with the burning volcanic red and yellow eyes (a reference to anakin skywalker when he falls to the dark side from the revenge of the sith and becomes Darth Vader) But really he really he is using his inner Demonic-wolf power to raise alot of power on someone or something. This was a fun little easter egg I drew. However this would be misinterpret by many people if they were to see this image. So I want to explain in this description why Darthell looks this way and how it influenced me into making this piece.   I will say one thing though. Despite the image looking like manga in some or many ways, I was avoiding trying to make character look like Sonic the hedgehog. I have a lot of inspiration from the Archie comic Sonic drawing style and story and Star wars but I want to make my work as original as possible. I want to make my work interesting and show some meaning to it.

also...

This drawing took me roughly 2-3 hours. The hand took me 10-15 to do as I used a reference from the internet to draw Darthell's hand in a particular way.  and colouring him in took me 1 - 2 hours to do. I was overall impressed but at the same time a little  disappointed. I wanted to do a bit more with this character. For instance his eyes could have being wider due to him being part demon part wolf and perhaps draw his full body to see what he is really doing. This is because many can assume that he is angry at someone or something and using some kind of telekinetic power to cause harm to someone. Well that does not seem to be the case. Darthell is actually in fact carrying something with the magnitude of the will of his power. His hand gesture is showing him carrying something with his telekinetic power. Despite his facial expression, he is actually doing this, its just the matter of showing what that thing he is putting so much frustration on.

[itdisneymatter]

Day 15 - Hollywood Studios

TLDR: Longest park day yet and one of the best. Met loads of characters. Took loads of photos. Kids became Jedi’s and battled against the formidable Darth Vader. Hit the shows we missed first time around and returned to favourites. The day had a definite Star Wars thread and ended with a huge Star Wars Pyrotechnics & Light show. Amazing day and Hollywood has most certainly been done for another trip.

Hollywood Studios. Our plan of action today was to retry Jedi Academy as we missed it last time and also do all of the extra things in the park like the Star Wars shows, Character autographs, photos and Fireworks. That meant a full 09:00-22:00 day shot at the park (weather permitting). Once we got through the gates, me and the kids once again went straight to register for Jedi Academy aaaand there was NO queue! It might just turn out to be a quieter day here in the park :) The kids were booked in by Becky who was from Falkirk! Small world. We had an early afternoon return time so hopefully in before the weather starts to turn as it was forecast to.

As it was REALLY quiet we walked straight on to Star Tours (even though we had a FP for it later in the day). I was identified as the rebel spy this time - WOOT! (though with a my favourite Disney Princess is Princess Leia it was kind of a dead giveaway). Same planets as before but we had Yoda instead of BB8 this time. And I survived! :P

After that we met Olaf for a quick photo op (no Anna or Elsa though :( ) and then a quick coffee stop and on to the Star Wars Launch Bay to meet several Star Wars characters too. Now Grace brought along Furbacca today with the sole purpose of introducing him to Chewbacca. And when he met him, was he confused - LOL - but he played along brilliantly, and Grace was absolutely tickled at his reaction. In fact Furbacca was a huge hit with a lot of the cast memebers through out the day, the only problem is he doesnt shut up, he constantly RWARRRs and sings Star Wars tunes all day. We got lots of photos of just the kids and the whole family - the staff are so accomodating and even though theres a queue they dont ever rush you out the door - just sums up the whole experience of Disney to be honest. Next up was Kylo Ren, and his sounds and mannerisms were spot on. Grace didnt really know where to look and she kept Furbacca hidden behind her back just in case. Then finally on to BB8 another one of Gracie's favs. The launch bay also had a lot of props and memorabilia so its a great experience for any Star Wars enthusiast.

May the force be with you!

We then headed off for our reservation for the Jedi Academy: Trials of the Temple. A short introduction followed by them donning their robes and marching their way through the park to the temple a little way away. And Patrick, Robert & Grace were in Team Chewie! A wee story develops where some Jedi masters arrive and take the through some training with light-sabres. And they the time came when the three of them faced off against Darth Vader and some other Darth Vader-chick. It was a tough battle and all three fought bravely and pushed back the dark forces of the temple. Kylo Ren also made an appearance to conclude the story. It seemed much more immersive than last time I seen the show and the kids loved it! Lots of pics taken by both ourselves and the Disney Photographers (and all of their photos are added to your memory maker too, which is sweet).

Reach for the sky!

Toy Story Fast Pass up next, and after my defeat at the  hands of my eldest on Men In Black the other day, I felt I had to redeem myself. That being said, Patrick asked for some hints and tips on this one too, which I did give him (albeit reluctantly).   Competition was fierce, esp from the missus, but I managed to scrape by.

Gerry: 162800

Ann: 141400

Robert: 114700

Patrick: 93200

Gracie: 49900

Patrick kinda waned on the Fun Fact Of The Day today but as its kinda related I gave him a pass. Here it is...

So many people started shouting 'Andy's coming' to the Toy Story characters that it had to be stopped for safety reasons. Now when people shout it, the cast members reply 'He's in College!'

Anyway, I celebrated my win with a wee double espresso, my first this holiday surprisingly - I think Ive had my fill of cold brews for a little bit. Next, we had our first of two regular Star Wars shows: March Of The First Order. Here, Captain Phasma leads a bunch of First Order troopers through the park in precise military fashion. Pretty cool and brings in the Force Awakens lore, which they seem to lean on heavily in the park at the moment (there are now 5 new Star Wars shows and attractions from two years ago). Fun Fact from myself, Captain Phasma is played by Gwendoline Christie aka Brienne of Tarth from Game Of Thrones which will shortly be starting back (one of the few things I’m looking forward to going back home for). HYPEEEEEE! Ahem. we headed over to the Great Movie ride after the show was finished. We didn’t get on this one last week, so was looking forward to it as was Patrick (though Grace was a little more reluctant as we hadn't really done any rides other than Star Tour so far). Nice wee trip through some memorable movie scenes, which included some live action sequences by cast members and ended in a nice compilation of movies over the last 70 years or so. After which  Patrick expressed an interest in watching older, classic movies when he got back home and I had to agree.

Our next attraction was a second Star Wars show, which wasn’t due to start for a while yet so we went to browse some shops (we didn’t have time to do anything else in the time). I decided to pop back down to Tower of Terror gift shop to see if there was some further Jasmine Beckett-Griffith art (where I picked it up from originally) and bought a Rey & BB-8 print. The cashier Noelle (probably noticing my t-shirt), gave me some insider info about the artist including that she was actually from Florida and pointed me in the direction of some further Star Wars prints only available in Disney Springs. Awesome! :)

We got into a good position for the Star Wars: A Galaxy far far away show which was a compilation of Star Wars clips with appearances from some major characters (and droids) at specific intervals. We seen another appearance from Kylo, Chewie and BB-8 as well as Boba Fett, R2 and Threepio and a bunch of others.

Who’s the leader of the club that’s made for you and me?

We then went to meet Mickey and Minnie! Something you absolutely must have to do when you visit here. After about a 30 minute wait (which was longer than the others for obvious reasons), we got to meet Minnie Mouse. She gave all the kids a big hug, signed their Autograph book and posed for photos with all of us. Then it was on to Mickey, and not just any Mickey - it was Sorcerer's Apprentice Mickey - one of Patrick’s absolute favourites and he went crazy when he found out. He also welcomed them with open arms and was really attentive will also of them, to the point Robert got a little emotional about the whole thing (to be fair they had been on the go for 7 hrs with little breaks and intense heat). Amazing experience for them and that particular one really made the day.

WE ARE GROOT!

Keeping in with the order of the day, we then headed off to meet Groot & Star Lord from Guardians. We didn’t know what Groot it would be but I think we all secretly hoped it would be Baby Groot, even though it would be pretty difficult to do a meet & greet with a one foot plant. We turned the corner to the set after queuing for a little and it WAS Baby Groot! He was sitting on a console with a cable, and had a pretty convincing actor playing Star Lord alongside him. He interacted really well with the kids and even told Grace The Collector was on the look out for her Furbacca (which she had in her hand ready to meet the two). It must more that a little demanding when your having to spontaneously interact with someone as a talking character as opposed to someone who puts on a suit so kudos to this dude (and no offence intended to the other costume characters).

Fortune and Glory, Kid!

Patrick wanted to go back to see Indy again (being an avid fan), so we decided to skip dinner for yet another hour to go catch the last show of the day. We arrived early enough to get one of the first rows and when it came time for the show to start and them to look for volunteers to participate in the how the kids and Ann put up their hand for me. Unfortunately I didn't get picked - kids were gutted and ummm so was I ;) Having photographed the last show I just wanted to get a few extra pics of the golden idol/boulder sequence (due to the better vantage point) and then I got to put my camera away to watch the show properly. Unfortunately a thunderstorm was heading our way so they had to cut the last scene much to the disappointment of the kids (and especially Grace when I told her this was the last day at Hollywood Studios). Luckily the storm didn't come to anything. When exiting Indy, Patrick decided that now would be a good time to redeem his birthday present in the form of an authentic leather Indiana Jones hat and satchel. 120 bucks for both but after thinking about it since last time we were here, it was what he really wanted and the hat looked cool AF!

And then FINALLY we ate! We picked up some sandwich meals at Backlot Express, which seems to be somewhat of an unspoken favourite in years gone by and the food was really good, even if it was just burger and fries. Grace also got a awesome looking  BB-8 cup (as she was no longer able to get another Orange Bird cup). After dinner, we decided to head back to the car to drop off some baggage and merchandise we'd picked up. And then Gracie fell. At first I thought it was nothing as she didn't make a noise (usually she's quite vocal about these kind of things), but after picking her up she seems to have damaged her elbow and knee (which was bleeding)  quite bad. Headed off to first aid who patched up her knee and gave her an bandage and ice pack for her elbow. As she couldn't really put any pressure on her knee, we had to get her a wheelchair to run her about the rest of the park for the remainder of the evening. And she was absolutely amazing about it all, not crying or complaining, so much so that we bought her some pins that she was wanting for being so brave.

Fire and Light!

As night was falling, it was time for the first of the two evening shows: Movie Magic! This was a light show cast on a huge building at the back of the park. It showcased a number of movies, including Pirates and Guardians (where  we seen Baby Groot again, in a HUGE digital projection this time). It was very impressive.

Shortly after that it was the finale performance for the evening and the one we were all waiting for Star Wars: A Galactic Spectacular! An epic fireworks and light show, all centered around different aspects of Star Wars. Lot of explosions and lasers tied in with a compilation of iconic Star Wars scenes and awesome fireworks. No characters this time, but it still had impact, especially the Leia scenes. A spectacular end to one of the best days we've had yet. Just under 13 hrs and 1350 photos later, not including a whole host of Memory maker ones, and Hollywood Studios was done for another trip.