#swyntennial

BIOGRAPHY: 

There was one reason and one reason alone that James Jones the II had applied to Sidneyland: nepotism! 

He’d admit it, straight up, hand to God or the Mouse or whoever the fuck had the power at play here. His fathers had been working there since the place had opened after all. They had started out in the custodial services but slowly wormed their way up until they were a pair of standouts over in Atlantis Island. Especially after his father’s accident on park grounds that resulted in the loss of his hand. Sidneyland took care of him, made sure he was looked after, and kept him on after he recovered. 

James grew up going there whenever possible. After school he’d arrive on the bus to hang around until it was time to go find his dads as they were finishing up for the evening. During the summer he was left to wander around, hopping from park to park, until they were all ready to go home. It was home away from home. So, yeah, why wouldn’t he want to work there, too? The old men had retired a few years back, but that didn’t mean they didn’t still have some pull within the park. 

BIOGRAPHY:

Most of Toby Determined’s life, like a lot of people these days, can be chronicled by pictures. Only difference between him and the majority is that he is the one behind the camera rather than within them. He started like most photographers do, getting his hands on a camera when a school function needed someone to take photos for it. Then he joined the yearbook and pretty much anything inside its pages that had an ounce of spirit and soul could be credited to his name. The local newspaper took some of his work, too, when they advertised if anyone had shots from local events. 

There was nothing very remarkable about this life. He went to school, he graduated, he got a job as a wildlife photographer for a wildlife magazine. Living in Australia, that meant he was out in the bush getting shots of all the animals that everyone wanted to see but never with their own two eyes. It was a lonely gig, but not one he would regret. It put him on the path of environmental activism, too. With all the bush fires Australia was seeing only going up and the funding for firefighters or wildlife aid going down, he did everything he could within his power to advocate for those that couldn’t for themselves– the animals. This put him in hot water with the local government, but he didn’t back down. While his photos were being seen online by people, his name was being blacklisted. And after he was threatened and attacked, he had no other choice but to leave home. 

BIOGRAPHY: 

Andrew Lipsky was a very intelligent man. The amount of rides he worked on over the years stacked up against the likes of Werner Stengel, Anton Schwarzkopf, or John A. Miller, to name a few. While his ideas weren’t considered to be the most practical, he was a forward thinker and while everyone else was trying to get with the technology of the present, Lipsky was skipping ahead toward the future. After he was hired to the Sidney company and put on their team, he assigned to work alongside other brilliant minds to create rides and experiences that people from far and wide would come to see. 

He had the magic touch when it came to animatronics, able to make the static and cold come to life. There was fluidity within his creations, making them more believable and enjoyable rather than creepy or unsettling. And he was able to keep malfunctions to a minimum with his designs, the wear and tear on them decreasing despite the constant use and stress they were put under. Drew viewed the robots as his greatest achievements and only wanted the best for them, as well as the company that had given him the ability to put his creations out there in the world for all to see. 

So, when word trickled in that competition might have been snooping around and putting his and many other's work at risk, he petitioned to the higher ups to help. And when they reported back that he was just being paranoid he decided to take matters into his own hands. Much to everyone in his department's dismay, he put in his letter of resignation and left.

BIOGRAPHY :

Ken just can’t quite quit Texas, now can he? Even though he’d left the state, he was still deep in the heart of it in Besydus. That’s okay, though! There was no other park he would rather be in. Despite all the nay-sayers and the rumors going around that they might have to shut down soon to be gutted and scrubbed out, Ken fully believes that Besydus is one of the better parks Sidneyland has to offer. 

It had never really been in his plan to work at Sidneyland. He had never been there growing up since there was Six Flags or Schlitterbahn only a few hours away, so it held no nostalgic factor for him to seek out. He also hadn’t really seen many Sidney movies as a kid since his parents had a strict say on what their kids could watch. There were no ties for him. No rhyme or reason. 

Other than the fact that because of these things, he was pretty sure his family would never be able to find him within the park grounds. After ratting them out to the police and standing trial against them on a plea deal, he ran. He couldn’t leave the country to get as far away as possible, so a coastal state was as close as he could get. 

She’d been a weird kid without many friends, and even the foster kids her Mami and Papi occasionally took in would avoid her. When Vee and Ben came into their lives, Luz was beyond excited to have a new chance at friends -- maybe even siblings -- only to quickly realize she was still the odd one out. 

Vee was sweet, and they quickly got along, but Ben ignored her completely. Vee and Ben were in their own world together, and Luz never quite figured out how she fit into it. She tried! She helped make costumes for Ben’s performances and let Vee direct her and played every minor role and bit character just to be included. It didn’t stop Ben from sometimes looking at her like a replacement he didn’t want, or Vee from running off ahead after their brother without looking to check if Luz was following.

And she was. She followed them to Sidneyland -- to the college program with Vee and to auditions with Ben just to cheer him on. She loved working in the costume shop, getting to help make magic all over the park instead of being limited to just one like most employees. She made friends with her roommates and she got to visit Ben in the park with Vee all the time!

She had hoped that if she showed them how much she supported them, the lengths she would go for her siblings, they would start to include her in their world.

Disaster struck, however, when Luz went to support Ben at an audition and managed to catch the casting director’s eye. She hadn’t even known they were looking for a new Lady Blackwell! And she certainly didn’t think she fit the role! But when they offered it to her, she knew the only worse insult to her brother than getting a role before him would be rejecting one, so she accepted.

She’s the youngest performer in the Camelot show, now, and spends her days playing a villain she doesn’t think she can quite do justice. When she’s not Lady Blackwell, Luz is running around the park with her friends hoping to distract herself from the anxiety.

Elsa would visit every year with her family, running through the park and throwing herself into the fantasy of it all. She would swordfight with pirates on Atlantis Island, joust with the other squires in Camelot, and ride through the wild west in Besydus. The park hadn’t lost any of its magic by the time Elsa’s little sister Anna was born, and every time they made the trip to the family vacation home in Orlando, Elsa would take her baby sisters on all of the same adventures she’d loved as a little girl. It was her favorite place on the whole planet; as far removed from the cold of Minnesota as it was possible to be.

The trips stopped suddenly when Elsa was fifteen. When she went to practice her driving with her mother and little sister and ended up in a crash that put Anna in the hospital and her mother in a coma. When Iduna woke up, she didn’t remember anything and was paralyzed from the waist down.

Everything changed after that summer. Elsa’s father was distant and icy cold, excluding Elsa from every family event and taking every possible opportunity to remind her that their family’s woes were all her fault. Elsa did everything she could to try and make up for her mistake, but the pressure and guilt finally got to her during her first year in college and Elsa had to be hospitalized after having a nervous break. When she told her father she wasn’t returning to school, he kicked her out with little more than the clothes on her back.

To this day, she wasn’t entirely sure what brought her back to Orlando of all places; maybe the memories of a warmer, happier time. Maybe the guilt bringing her back to the scene of the crime. Either way, it turned out to be the best decision she ever made.

She managed to get a job at the park during a job fair, starting first as a clerk at Tortuga Treasures. She made friends in the park and even found some roommates, since her attempt to get back into the abandoned Sommers vacation home had nearly ended in her arrest. After a few years of working in the park, she was scooped out of Atlantis by the then-manager of the Ice Queen to instead work in Camelot. 

It took time -- and a lot of crying into Luisa and Martin’s arms on their living room floor -- but Elsa slowly began to let go of all of the guilt from her childhood. She started to see the magic in Sidneyland again and even started making some of her own, earning herself the reputation as the real-life Ice Queen. She took over as manager when Johanna retired, and even finally reunited with Anna when she came to Sidneyland with the SCP. 

(The fallout of that reunion was still dying down, but her mother was now living in the old Orlando vacation home while her lawyers take Agnarr to the cleaners. Elsa visited frequently to help her mom out, and their relationship was slowly being rebuilt.)

BIOGRAPHY:

William Stoddard was raised on a farm in Colorado, and it was expected that he would eventually take over the farm himself. There was just one problem. He did not want to be a farmer. His dream was to join a rodeo and become a bronco rider. But his father refused, insisting that he stay and run the farm. William did not want to anger his father, but neither did he want to give up on his dream. So one day, he got in his beat-up old truck and left home, sorry to leave his family but determined to achieve his dream.

It took some time, but eventually he found a rodeo where they were willing to give him a chance, and he proved himself with flying colors, becoming the best bronco rider anyone in the rodeo had seen in a long time. Still feeling guilt for having left his family, he started going by the pseudonym Bullseye, too embarrassed about what his family would think if they ever found out where he was. But overall, he was happy to have reached his goal, and everything was good.

Until it suddenly was not.

It had seemed like Bullseye could ride and tame any bronco, but one day, that was put to the test with a particularly rowdy horse. In the end, the bronco won, and Bullseye found himself with a devastating knee injury which brought his rodeo career to a heart-breaking end. Despondent, he left the rodeo but had no idea where else to go. He knew he could not go home, which only hurt him more to think that he had left his family for a dream which had backfired spectacularly.

While still trying to figure things out, he stopped at a gas station and bought some snacks and a bottle of soda. On the bottle was a code to enter to win a trip to Sidneyland, a place Bullseye had never been. Though he figured his chances of winning were zero, his despondency made him feel suddenly like throwing caution to the wind.

So he entered the code, and amazingly, unbelievably...he won.

If he had been amazed to win, Bullseye was even more amazed when he got to Sidneyland. It really did seem like the most magical place on earth, and the more he saw, the more he liked it. And once he saw Besydus, Texas, he knew he had found his second calling. He might not be able to ride in the rodeo anymore, but maybe he could do something just as good. So again he threw caution to the wind and dared to apply for a job. Again his luck seemed to be holding--he was hired.

But not for Besydus. Bullseye was assigned to Pokemon: The Enchanted Forest.