say goodbye, it'll make me wanna kiss you

So, Violet Scrivener is picking up a lot of interesting gigs in some very interesting places. One of those was one I hadn't managed to make yet, last Sunday, but I finally had time, so...I went to J and R's Ballroom.



First of all, the place is stunning. I mean seriously stunning--all gilded columns, Art Nouveau paintings, Art Deco glasswork and marbled floors. Really well done.



This is the bar, just to the right of the entrance, around the curve of the dome.



The other side of the dome, with the dance balls, the cloud to click for animesh dance partners, and the tip jar (the gold rotating clef).



I do want to make it clear that I did not dress for the venue, because this was the first time I'd been here. But I dressed in teal to go dancing, and the ballroom was dressed in teal to meet me. Wild.



The Art Deco chandelier, or light fixture, or whatever it's formally called, at the top of the dome.



A painted marble urn stuffed with peacock feathers. Lovely.



In fact, the only downside (barring the fact that whomever picked out their dances needs to update to this century, because they're all vintage, and most seem like they were put together before mocap technology)? That the slow rezzing issues that seem grid-wide currently result in some very...odd...visual disturbances.

Case in point, the wonderful fellow who danced with me at the ball. Charming gentleman, agile on the dance floor...never stopped nomming his brain. Disquieting, but not a deal-breaker.

I do intend to go back, though. Dorky dances and all. It's a fun place.

blurred black and white as they flicker past

"Happy Halloween from Tod and Abby!" the description began. It continued

We are pleased to share with you our haunted sim. Please feel free to explore not only the haunted area of our sim but the rest too. Haunted House, Halloween, Asylum, Ghost, Zombie, Sex, Swingers, Voice, couples.

So let's go see Tod's Lounge Haunted Sim.



Well, I'm officially terrified.



Where the hell is the haunt??

I give up, there's a default beam-in point that leaves me off at that precise point and not the nigh-4000-meters-in-the-air point where the haunt supposedly is? And I can't fly, so forget it. They are not getting reviewed.



On the other hand, SL'S TOP HAUNTED PLACES TOUR and HUNT is now open, being October 1st. Their description matches their name:

TP Now!! Oct. 1 - 31st- 10th year for Grid Wide, "SL'S TOP HAUNTED PLACES TOUR AND HUNT"! Approx 100 Creative Haunts, Hunts and Halloween Shopping.Halloween, Haunted House, Ghost, Witch, Shop, Zombie, Monster, Skeleton, Graveyard, Muertes, Vampire, Werewolf

Right. So port there for the list, it will likely grow with more places during the month.

In the meantime, I really liked the Weeping Angel homage statue at the last stop, so I pulled it into edit to find out who made it. Turns out it's from Lost Junction and retails for L$100. Nifty!

How about the haunted house at Bazzar Fantasy (their spelling, not mine)? Their blurb is pretty standard:

Halloween Haunted House in Bazzar Fantasy Community. Enter if you DARE. Opened Happy Halloween 2019, spooky, scary, ghost, haunted, halloween

That looks promising. (The running legs behind the skeleton belong to an animesh kid. He says he's looking for his mommy, but the ghosts won't let him out.)



AAAAAHHHH! Okay, that was actually my first real jumpscare this season. Because there wasn't anything else in the room, until suddenly, GAME RIP SPIDER. I actually jumped in RL.



And, due to the random pop-up monsters, I decided to chicken out and just cammed up to see the rest of the haunt. Unfort, I cammed too far--this is the attic. Doesn't appear to be much going on, but I'm also not there, so if I went up there, something might have leapt out of a box or something?

Anyway, I may have to give this one a full entry. It's not bad. What I did see seemed pretty good.

freaky, freaky, feeling so spooky, when it’s me and you

Having had a string of dissapointing haunts of late, I figured I'd go for a no-brainer. For a breather, you understand. We're visiting the "Halloween Delights" store.



It is a store, yes. It is an outdoor store, so it looks like a yard sale. Moreover, it is a store in SL, so  there will be rips. I am trying to ignore them in favor of what looks original, how'ver.



Like this, for instance. It's charming. It would work on family-friendly sims, in front of stores that want a little harvest decor, and in haunts.



I'm not used to animesh yet, but this little guy moves. I also can't tell if he's original? Closest thing to a 'possibly' are the scrunched corpses from Phantasm, but even that's not a dead-on, just a supposition. It's called a Dancing Goblin, so that may be a wholly original concept.



The obligatory gathering of zombies. My main question: why are there twins? And why are they both bald?



This makes me think first of dried orange slices used in those chunky potpourri mixes? But I do like the skull finial atop it. Not as crazy about the pierced and rotting corpses, though, to be fair. Now with added display of tentacles in front!



Another cool animesh trick--this "Skeleton Erotic Dancer" for L$199, for instance.

It moves fairly fluidly, even on my system, but there are two places where it does noticeably lag. Animesh will do that, and this place seems to have a lot of animesh going on.



Yeah. I could spend a scary amount here. And I didn't show a tenth of what they have. (Case in point: I bought this web-shrouded deer head.)

If you decide to go (shopping or wandering), and you like listening to music in SL, do turn on the soundtrack for the land. It's all Halloween music, some sound effects tracks, some movie themes, most just music of the season, everything from classics to hellbilly to modern tunes. It was wonderful walking around and listening.

So this turned into quite the palate cleanser, yes.

flooding cares to keep hope clear, drowning all to keep what's dear

As long as we're doing old home week, how about Pickled Spooky? I don't think their blurb has changed at all:

Haunted Doom of Captain Pickles in the DreamWalker Cave of PickleSong
Haunted house, ghost, horror, evil, vampire, dead, monster, zombie, scream

Okay. Let's go.

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There have been some changes. I don't remember the wall of blood. And I definitely don't remember the animated crying baby-head balloon. That is just surreal and disturbing.

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Why is the artist's name reversed? But more to the point, I nearly missed this one. It was taking a bit for things to rez for me inside, so I just picked a place near the living room to stand and be patient. I turned around and was impressed by the nearly floor-to-ceiling painting, but I puzzled at the three hand axes sticking out of it.

After things had rezzed in, I backed up to get a better perspective for a potential picture, and only then saw the three axes fly across the space where I'd been to embed in the painting. ...Oh. Oops. Sorry I missed the trap at first.

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Well, that's just terrifying. Don't look up.

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...Derivative. I mean, I guess I shouldn't complain overmuch, if it's not hacking up corpses--or corpses-to-be--it's food that's very far gone, or made from truly repulsive ingredients. I get the trope, and we've seen it everywhere from the original Addams Family cartoons in the New York Post to Resident Evil 7. It.s just...I get tired of the kitchen being where they keep the serial killer chefs and the obviously insane victims. Can we do something more original with kitchens, please?.

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[22:18] Study door: Emilly Orr is disturbing the spirits.

Apparently I am.

I will say, at least for me, this was the highlight. Things to know: touching the circle will give you an option to sit; it will also light or extinguish the candles. Of more pertinent note: the dress I'm wearing does not have a radiant cross on the front. That's something to do with the lighting in the room, and it is subtle and effective. It's also a very long animation wherein one 'disturbs' the spirits.

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[22:27] Emilly Orr: Have you been bound to this place?
[22:27] Medusa says~ Aye, it just may be

I couldn't figure out, in the few minutes of asking the swirling Medusa half-globe on the wall questions, whether it was an Alice-based AI program or simply scripted with a smattering of vague answers to potential questions. Either way, it's a nifty piece of interactive art.



And the Captain is still hanging.

I really like the updates, and the calls back to the first story behind the house. Very well done and highly recommended. Glad I went back. I would highly recommend a trip for enthusiasts, because there are lots of rooms I didn't cover. As with Pendle Hill, I could fill two more entries with all the little details in this small cove house. It's really good.