Tommy Shepard (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
doubled_speed) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thespherelogs2019-10-18 08:24 pm
doubled_speed) wrote in thespherelogs2019-10-18 08:24 pm
[Mingle!] Haunted House!
Who: Everyone!
What: Haunted House!
When: 7-10 PM for the House, Open until Midnight for post Haunting Refreshments, October 15th through 31st
Where: Haunted House in the Abandoned Domes
Notes: Mingle Log, so everyone have fun!Don't forget to not injure your haunted house staff. And leave tips. Speedy the ticket Sloth is a growing baby so just leaves, let's not spoil him.
It's an event that has been almost a month in the planning. What started as only talk on the network and mumbles in work groups comes to fruition with announcements starting early on the thirteenth and continuing on from there.
Do you consider yourself BRAVE?
Are you strong of HEART?
Can you handle the terrors of HELL?
The Approach
Hell is promised, and when you arrive at the entrance to the dome your fellow residents have slaved in for a month, it's Hell they delivered. A version of it, at least. The outside is done up a lot like your normal 'Halloween Obsessed Neighbor Going Overboard With Spooky Decorations' kitsch. They're trying to set an atmosphere here, but the real hell is a line that has formed because, as the teen working the front table points out, to go through the 'Horrors of Hell' you have to be in a group of at least two and at most five people. Also, please don't injure any of the workers, the teen insists, as they're all just volunteering their time for the love of the event. And if you enjoyed you experience, be sure to take some of the leaves from the bowl of the table and offer them to the nice little baby sloth that the teen is watching over, hanging from a PVC and rope creation that is Speedy's baby-sitting rig.
Once you're settled up with your group you can enter and move through at your own pace, and really, hope you're big on choices because there is one right away. A big, hand-scrawled sign. But don't worry, you can reenter later or even another day to experience both paths.
<----- HELL! -or- HOUSE! ----->
Paved With Good Intentions - Hell Path
Those who go left are treated to something a bit less seen for the traditional Haunted House. Then again, the traditional Haunted House doesn't tend to play up the whole human cliches of hell. Through some really fancy illusion work once people walk through the door it's all fire and brimstone and tortured spirits. Massive, fiery, winged demons swoop through the air, whips and lashes and pitchforks in hand to take a jab at anyone around and always, always missing at the last possible second. The creatures dart and dive at you, herding you along the paths through a tour of all hell has to offer. You know, molten rivers, suffering people tied to painful spires of pointy rock and overseen by their own personal demons.
The further in a group goes the greater the horrors. How brave are you when you're faced with a massive magma demon rising up out of the lava, a massive metal mask and horns standing out from its head, roaring as it makes a grab at you? Do you scream? Do you faint? Do you cling to the person going through the experience with you? What are you going to do when one of the creatures grabs at a trailing piece of clothing you're wearing, and they prove to be solid?
Try not to stray from the path the demons are guiding you down, taking you on your own personal tour, because moving too far from the well worn path means that the rattling you can just barely hear will get louder, and skeletons will start to approach. Only some of those are illusions. Others are absolutely real, though they tend to be the ones that have no arms and far further back, so they're not a threat.
The path seems to lead down, and as you go you pass through a dark corridor and things get a little more Dante's Divine Comedy, because somebody has clearly been reading. Here you pick up your tour-guide for the rest of your trip, a tired and worn looking person, features hollow and pale, who will explain that you've reached the place where souls are punished for the sins of their lives. What started as impersonal torments above comes to punishments poetically fitting the crime. The stranger leads you first through lust, a smaller area than before, filled with scantily clad demons of various styles, howling and dancing in the throws of a massive storm. The winds threaten to haul you off of the narrow cliff you walk along, and while they never quite do it, the stone under you may occassionally crack and seem ready to dump you into the malestrom. Down and down the path winds until you come to the next level.
Here you get a lovely two-for, Dante's third and fourth circles of Inferno combined into one. Massive, rotting forms of people guilty of gluttony wear shackles at their wrists and ankles, linked up by chains to other souls, those guilty off greed. The latter struggle to drag themselves up the steep incline of the cliff, trying to win themselves free, and weighed down by their slothful companions. Through it all the storm continues, hail pelting the sets of illusory sinners, sharp rocks cutting at skin as people crawl and drag each other around. For a moment it seems like someone might win themselves up to you and your guide, a hand reaching for your ankle before the weight drags them back down. Oh well.
Another tunnel and you enter the final circle, because hey, some are just a lot harder to portray, even with illusions and creative minds. Here the sounds are overwhelming, the cacophany of pained voices and metal on metal of war itself. Violence is here, and here the guide stands back. Here you must venture alone. If you can brave the battle and win to the other side, freedom from this horror awaits you. But beware, none have ever done so. Don't worry, it's just flavor. Take up whatever fallen bit of rubber armor and weapon you wish, and try to win your way past enemies, illusion, skeleton, and actors alike. You're not in any real risk of course, but it's definitely a heart-pounding experience whether you try and fightand thus get your own, specially prepared 'demon' to try and hold you back for a minute or two, or if you try and duck and dodge and weave. Either way you'll eventually make your escape. If you're not great at winning it yourself, at times the tide of the battle will shift for you, seeming almost to make a path to help you get out safely. And when you make it through the glowing arch at the far side...
Please proceed to Post Spook Meal Time
But The Rent Is Good - House Path
For those in for the more traditional experience, the path to the right goes from zero to ghosts with a bone to pick in no time. This is a far shorter experience, only about four rooms compared to a massive expanse, but it's still spooky. The tour starts in an entrance hall filled with things that move without any discernible method, creepy gusts, and sudden bursts of wind. Of course as some of those things that move are suits of armor and creepy statues that get closer when you aren't looking at them, it might be best to move on quickly.
Further on is a dining room, and it's set for a ghastly feast. Within moments of entering the room things start to fly. Not even metaphorically. No, it's a red mist moving through the room, chairs and tables and decorations all hovering and whirling around in mad patterns, never touching anyone of course. And with it all a horrifying wailing noise overlaid with whispered threats are just at the edge of hearing. The longer the room is lingered in, the more likely it is that 'sharp' instruments will make swooping passes at people, but don't worry, they're rubber.
Flee the dining room and there is still the kitchen, which is the designated actor room for the event.Remember, don't attack your Haunted House volunteers. Within moments of entering there's rattling in a door that no doubt leads to the pantry, and it soon creaks open in a properly spooky manner. A man, or woman, will stagger out, looking half dead and covered with blood, and wielding a butcher's cleaver. Given the pot on the stove that's bubbling and has what looks like an arm sticking out of it, you probably want to flee the shuffling footsteps and maniacal laughter. But hey, at least you know what the source of the ghosts probably is.
And in the final room there's time to cool down a bit. Literally. It's something like a walk in freezer that you've been herded into, meaning there are hunks of meat hanging all around you from chains. What starts as pigs and cows soon gives way to hanging and dismembered human torsos. Which is definitely a problem because, soon enough, the creepy cook will be after you again. Best to just try and hide behind these grisly sides of meat and make for the brightly lit and open doors at the far end and you'll find...
Post Spook Time Meal! - After Either Route
Freedom from either path means reaching a final area where someone has managed to get a local restaurant to help donate time with a bit of a mixer. Swap stories about your experiences as you enjoy volunteers moving around in overdone demon and spooky ghost costumes, all carrying snacks and drinks. Enjoy eyeball-frosting cupcakes, jello brains, and 'steaming' goblets of green liquid that turn out to be warm drinks of one style or anotherthe gray 'stone' goblets turn out to be slightly alcoholic, and the white 'bone' ones are all non-alcoholic. Anything you can imagine to take normal foods and make them spooky can be seen here, and even some tables with kids spooky party cliches like 'boiled eye' peeled grapes, or a bowl of crushed oreos with gummy worms in them.
Once the hauntings shut down at ten also make sure to give your performance volunteers and organizers applause. After all, Loki worked SERIOUSLY hard on the illusions for hell, and Tommy had to move around REALLY heavy statues and suits of armor super fast, and Wanda did really great at making things move and fly around in the haunted dining room, just as some examples.
Costumes are of course welcome, and if you didn't wear any coming to the haunted house, there is a whole rack of simple costumes and costume ideas to enjoy, everything from a combination strap on angel wings and halo to a fake axe to the head headband to the spookiest costume of all: a name tag that says 'IRS Auditor'. Enjoy yourself, mingle, and share your stories of spooky encounters!
Oh, and after ten, be sure to come over to the quiet little booth in the back to take pictures with Speedy the Baby Slothno flash photography please. A sign will helpfully inform you that all spooky noises for demons and ghosts were made using natural sloth noises that had been messed around with in audio mixing software to make a plethora of scary noises. He's a very talented little voice actor.
What: Haunted House!
When: 7-10 PM for the House, Open until Midnight for post Haunting Refreshments, October 15th through 31st
Where: Haunted House in the Abandoned Domes
Notes: Mingle Log, so everyone have fun!
It's an event that has been almost a month in the planning. What started as only talk on the network and mumbles in work groups comes to fruition with announcements starting early on the thirteenth and continuing on from there.
Are you strong of HEART?
Can you handle the terrors of HELL?
Hell is promised, and when you arrive at the entrance to the dome your fellow residents have slaved in for a month, it's Hell they delivered. A version of it, at least. The outside is done up a lot like your normal 'Halloween Obsessed Neighbor Going Overboard With Spooky Decorations' kitsch. They're trying to set an atmosphere here, but the real hell is a line that has formed because, as the teen working the front table points out, to go through the 'Horrors of Hell' you have to be in a group of at least two and at most five people. Also, please don't injure any of the workers, the teen insists, as they're all just volunteering their time for the love of the event. And if you enjoyed you experience, be sure to take some of the leaves from the bowl of the table and offer them to the nice little baby sloth that the teen is watching over, hanging from a PVC and rope creation that is Speedy's baby-sitting rig.
Once you're settled up with your group you can enter and move through at your own pace, and really, hope you're big on choices because there is one right away. A big, hand-scrawled sign. But don't worry, you can reenter later or even another day to experience both paths.
Those who go left are treated to something a bit less seen for the traditional Haunted House. Then again, the traditional Haunted House doesn't tend to play up the whole human cliches of hell. Through some really fancy illusion work once people walk through the door it's all fire and brimstone and tortured spirits. Massive, fiery, winged demons swoop through the air, whips and lashes and pitchforks in hand to take a jab at anyone around and always, always missing at the last possible second. The creatures dart and dive at you, herding you along the paths through a tour of all hell has to offer. You know, molten rivers, suffering people tied to painful spires of pointy rock and overseen by their own personal demons.
The further in a group goes the greater the horrors. How brave are you when you're faced with a massive magma demon rising up out of the lava, a massive metal mask and horns standing out from its head, roaring as it makes a grab at you? Do you scream? Do you faint? Do you cling to the person going through the experience with you? What are you going to do when one of the creatures grabs at a trailing piece of clothing you're wearing, and they prove to be solid?
Try not to stray from the path the demons are guiding you down, taking you on your own personal tour, because moving too far from the well worn path means that the rattling you can just barely hear will get louder, and skeletons will start to approach. Only some of those are illusions. Others are absolutely real, though they tend to be the ones that have no arms and far further back, so they're not a threat.
The path seems to lead down, and as you go you pass through a dark corridor and things get a little more Dante's Divine Comedy, because somebody has clearly been reading. Here you pick up your tour-guide for the rest of your trip, a tired and worn looking person, features hollow and pale, who will explain that you've reached the place where souls are punished for the sins of their lives. What started as impersonal torments above comes to punishments poetically fitting the crime. The stranger leads you first through lust, a smaller area than before, filled with scantily clad demons of various styles, howling and dancing in the throws of a massive storm. The winds threaten to haul you off of the narrow cliff you walk along, and while they never quite do it, the stone under you may occassionally crack and seem ready to dump you into the malestrom. Down and down the path winds until you come to the next level.
Here you get a lovely two-for, Dante's third and fourth circles of Inferno combined into one. Massive, rotting forms of people guilty of gluttony wear shackles at their wrists and ankles, linked up by chains to other souls, those guilty off greed. The latter struggle to drag themselves up the steep incline of the cliff, trying to win themselves free, and weighed down by their slothful companions. Through it all the storm continues, hail pelting the sets of illusory sinners, sharp rocks cutting at skin as people crawl and drag each other around. For a moment it seems like someone might win themselves up to you and your guide, a hand reaching for your ankle before the weight drags them back down. Oh well.
Another tunnel and you enter the final circle, because hey, some are just a lot harder to portray, even with illusions and creative minds. Here the sounds are overwhelming, the cacophany of pained voices and metal on metal of war itself. Violence is here, and here the guide stands back. Here you must venture alone. If you can brave the battle and win to the other side, freedom from this horror awaits you. But beware, none have ever done so. Don't worry, it's just flavor. Take up whatever fallen bit of rubber armor and weapon you wish, and try to win your way past enemies, illusion, skeleton, and actors alike. You're not in any real risk of course, but it's definitely a heart-pounding experience whether you try and fight
For those in for the more traditional experience, the path to the right goes from zero to ghosts with a bone to pick in no time. This is a far shorter experience, only about four rooms compared to a massive expanse, but it's still spooky. The tour starts in an entrance hall filled with things that move without any discernible method, creepy gusts, and sudden bursts of wind. Of course as some of those things that move are suits of armor and creepy statues that get closer when you aren't looking at them, it might be best to move on quickly.
Further on is a dining room, and it's set for a ghastly feast. Within moments of entering the room things start to fly. Not even metaphorically. No, it's a red mist moving through the room, chairs and tables and decorations all hovering and whirling around in mad patterns, never touching anyone of course. And with it all a horrifying wailing noise overlaid with whispered threats are just at the edge of hearing. The longer the room is lingered in, the more likely it is that 'sharp' instruments will make swooping passes at people, but don't worry, they're rubber.
Flee the dining room and there is still the kitchen, which is the designated actor room for the event.
And in the final room there's time to cool down a bit. Literally. It's something like a walk in freezer that you've been herded into, meaning there are hunks of meat hanging all around you from chains. What starts as pigs and cows soon gives way to hanging and dismembered human torsos. Which is definitely a problem because, soon enough, the creepy cook will be after you again. Best to just try and hide behind these grisly sides of meat and make for the brightly lit and open doors at the far end and you'll find...
Freedom from either path means reaching a final area where someone has managed to get a local restaurant to help donate time with a bit of a mixer. Swap stories about your experiences as you enjoy volunteers moving around in overdone demon and spooky ghost costumes, all carrying snacks and drinks. Enjoy eyeball-frosting cupcakes, jello brains, and 'steaming' goblets of green liquid that turn out to be warm drinks of one style or another
Once the hauntings shut down at ten also make sure to give your performance volunteers and organizers applause. After all, Loki worked SERIOUSLY hard on the illusions for hell, and Tommy had to move around REALLY heavy statues and suits of armor super fast, and Wanda did really great at making things move and fly around in the haunted dining room, just as some examples.
Costumes are of course welcome, and if you didn't wear any coming to the haunted house, there is a whole rack of simple costumes and costume ideas to enjoy, everything from a combination strap on angel wings and halo to a fake axe to the head headband to the spookiest costume of all: a name tag that says 'IRS Auditor'. Enjoy yourself, mingle, and share your stories of spooky encounters!
Oh, and after ten, be sure to come over to the quiet little booth in the back to take pictures with Speedy the Baby Sloth
no subject
"No. What prince has no crown?"
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"That's your crown?" Wow. "Did you pick it out yourself?"
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"I suppose not. For example: your were part of a servant caste, weren't you? My joke was in poor taste." He inclines his head, and instead of saying 'forgive me', he says, "Humility."
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She blinked at his comment and actually recoiled slightly in surprise. "Guess you weren't too old to learn new tricks." She shrugged. "We were bred to be servants. We're not anymore."
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He nods, "but it still stings, being reminded of it. I am sorry." And then he smiles. "Now, how might I make it up to you?"
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"Apology accepted." She pauses dramatically and looks like she's thinking extremely hard. "You know. I don't know if you can."
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"No? There's nothing you'd like?"
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"There's a lot I'd like."
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Except run away, but they're also sort of invested in...a thing. "It's warm."
That was a good excuse for taking it off, right?
"And is that so? Other than wine?"
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"I can get wine anytime I want."
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"Yes, if it's all the same." And he nods. "Then what, my darling, might I provide in recompense?"
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"Oh?" He grins. "Is there any particular color you'd like to try?"
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"You're putting me on the spot. Never really thought about what I'd try. But I'm definitely going to be telling Tommy eventually."
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Well, then. "What's your favorite color?"
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"Red. Deep red."
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