#relax by drawing a gay ghoul

[valfeathers]

you look lonely, i can fix that.

[mildlylesbian]

hihiiii for the hermit ask, 11 and 19 🫶

11 - favourite hermit to listen to?

Mr. GoodtimeswithSCar himself, his voice is relaxing and content pleasing... unfortunately, I cannot use him as background noise as he will die and scream at least once an episode, so for that, I turn to Geminitay my beloved

19 - favourite hermit design?

Firstly, your cleo design makes me want to give her so much love oh my god, @/applestrada's Pearl design makes me so very gay, and @/lunarcrowns Tango is so very appealing, and @/hybbart's Jimmy design is so very smol and endearing. "Jimmy's not a Hermit!" I hear you say and to that, I respond... I don't care I'm using this as an excuse to call out artists I like... @/Cherrifire also has cool designs in general, @/headless-witch has the coolest mother spore design known to man, @ink-ghoul just in general has fabulous MCYT content, and so many more oh my god... I cannot possibly list them all, but rule of thumb: if you draw Hermitcraft I am such a simp for your art

Ask Game!

[waitimcomingtoo]

hihi! im obsessed with your writing, like alot. but if you're doing requests, and if you don't mind can you do a hc on peter parker dating a bisexual reader? :)

Peter Parker dating a bisexual!reader head cannon 💗💜💙

You realized you liked girls as a child when you were attracted to both shark boy and lava girl

You were definitely in love with Shego and it definitely gave you a soft spot for goth girls

While your friends were busy gushing over Hercules, you were fully in love with Megara

And don’t even MENTION jade west

Your sexuality was something you mostly kept to yourself in fear of a bad reaction

You told your first high school boyfriend after building up the courage for a week, and all he said was “that’s super hot”

because some people mistake the sexualization of the LGBT community as tolerance 👁👄👁

That was the end of that relationship

MJ was the next to know and it went a little like this:

“Your jeans are cuffed” MJ observed

“Oh, yeah. I guess they are” you shrugged

“I didn’t realize you were bi”

that was your first experience of what you liked to call gay panic

“What? Pssh. You think me gay? I mean, I’m gay? I’m not gay. Not even a little. I love men. I love men so much. I think about them all the time.”

“Relax, baby. I’m not gonna tell anyone.” MJ chuckled as she doodled on a piece of paper. “I’ve known since I saw you checking out Parker during first period and Gwen during second.”

“Oh.” Your gay panic subsided as MJ treated the situation with ease

“Don’t worry. Your secrets safe with me” MJ winked at you as she held up her drawing

It was you and Gwen Stacy wrapped in the bi flag

She patted your back and walked away, levaing you with flaming red cheeks but a newfound confidence

After MJ’s reaction, you decided it was time to tell your boyfriend Peter

You laid on his bed that afternoon, staring at your cuffed jeans as you worked up the nerve to speak to him

“Is something on your mind?” Peter asked you, making your attention snap to him

“I have to talk to you about something” you blurted, sitting up and fixing your clothes nervously

“Okay. What’s up?”

“You know the LGBT community?” You said weekly

“I know of them” Peter chuckled

“I’m the B”

“You’re the B?” Peter asked

“I’m the B” you confirmed and it clicked

“I don’t want to steal your thunder, my love, but when you rant to me about how hot Haley Kiyoko is, I get the feeling you like girls”

“You knew?” You asked in shock

“Your alarm song in the morning is always Girl In Red.” Peter shrugged. “I took a wild guess”

You stared at him, not knowing what to say, until he got out of his desk chair and sat next to you

“You’re the same you person were before I knew, and you’re the same person now. This doesn’t have to change anything between us. Your sexuality is as valid and beautiful as you are. I love you just the same.”

“I love you too” you smiled at him before leaning in for a kiss

Peter went to Hot Topic that night and bought himself a bi pin

Peter wore said bi pin on his jacket every single day

Unbeknownst to you, coming out to Peter opened a gateway to all kinds of jokes

You we’re driving with him one day when Bye Bye Bye by N’SYNC came on the radio

“Babe it’s your favorite song” Peter said as he turned it up, making you giggle

Lots and lots of jokes

“I think my straightener is broken.” May said as she came in the room. “Can you test it out?”

Peter took the straightener form her, plugged it in, and ran it over a strand of your hair

“Are you still bi?” He asked you

“Yep”

“It’s broken” Peter said as he handed it back to May

Peter was also the number one defender of your sexuality once you started coming out to more people

“Hey, Parker, I heard your girlfriends into chicks. You’re so lucky. Does she ever bring another girl in when you two…you know?” A random jock interrupted Peters peaceful morning one day

“No, you ghoul, because bisexual girls don’t exist merely for threesomes. I am lucky to have Y/n as my girlfriend, but not because gender has no effect on what she wants in a partner. Have a nice day, Kevin.”

If anyone ever made a homophobic comment to you, Peters was on it

“I don’t know how you do it. It’s unnatural.” Your lab partner said casually one day when she noticed the bi flag on your hat

“So is your orange spray tan, Becky.” Peter snapped. “Get lost. Don’t you have a chocolate factory to trap children in?”

“How are you bi if you’re dating a man?” A girl came up to you at your locker to ask

“How are you in high school if you’re a basic bitch?” Peter asked as he pulled you away, making you laugh as you went

You stopped him midway down the hall and looked at him

“Thanks for always sticking up for me”

“I got you, baby.” He shrugged. “I’ll always be by your side. Emphasis on the bi.”

You groaned, but secretly loved it

because you not so secretly loved him

[rubbish78]

Heyyyyyyyyy you guys wanna read another my short ass slightly slutty (tiny bit) Ghoul/Poison fic?

(It is on aO3 but not posting the link just ask because keekjejejd I’m shy about my other stories but you could probably find this if you wanted to also I was writing nonbinary Poison)

Anyways...........here you go:

Jumping onto the kitchen counter and landing on his butt, Fun Ghoul also pulled his lover, Party Poison, in between his legs. Wrapping his arms around them, he mouthed at their neck, sucking and licking the hot salty skin. Tasted like the desert, so damn good.

Reciprocating, Poison held on to his hips and played with Ghoul’s dusty jean belt loops with their index fingers. They also grinded against Ghoul’s crotch, feeling both their half-hard erections begin to grow between their pants. An animistic moan vibrated against the skin of their throat as Ghoul began to rut against them as well.

The two Killjoys were alone for the most part, everyone was out on a run at the moment, yet they still sneaked into the back of the diner's chaotic kitchen like they had something to hide. Pretty much everyone knew about them, mostly, well not the public or definitely not BLI .

“I know ya think I’m kiddin','' Fun Ghoul abruptly whispered into Poison’s ear, referring back to their earlier conversation. Easing back against the dirty metal cupboards, he cupped Poison’s feminine face with his dirty fingerless leather-gloved hands. “But c'mon Poison, have I ever kid about gettin' ink?”

The evidence was everywhere, Ghoul was covered head to toe with various tattoos, getting to the point he hardly had any plain skin left. His cute boyish face remained untouched…for now and he would probably never get one either but he never let Poison know that just so he could continue teasing them about it since Poison was furiously against it. Nah, he just wanted to ink the left side of his neck now since it felt kind of blank compared to the right side of his neck, which had a scorpion with the wrong amount of legs. It had been his first tattoo and was too excited to even notice the legs.

Poison chuckled low, lifting a hand to card through Ghoul’s greasy ebony colored hair and gazed lovingly into his warm brown eyes.

“Trust me, I know you’re not kidding, I’m actually taking your request quite seriously.”

“So you like?” Ghoul happily beamed, caressing Poison’s face with his thumbs about to plant a kiss on their lips. “I knew you would, so I got—

“Not exactly,” Poison interrupted Ghoul, who frowned a little and dropped his hands to their shoulders. “I just think…you haven’t fully thought it through, like maybe something not so whore-ish?”

“Whore-ish?” Ghoul repeated, almost breaking into hysterical laughter, shaking his head. “Really? Okay. That’s hilarious coming from you.”

“Ah! How dare you!” Poison broke away from him, spinning around in a dramatic manner and ramming into the broken rusty oven, which hadn’t cooked a meal in this diner for years. The oven let out an alarming hissing noise and Poison let a high pitched shriek out before jumping up on the counter next to Ghoul, holding onto him like the oven was gonna explode.

Anticlimactically, the oven door just slammed opened and coughed out dust.

Poison’s grip on Ghoul relaxed and mumbled, “Thought you might have put a bomb in there as a joke or something.”

“Yeah that does sound like me,” Ghoul smirked, deviously. “Good idea for next time, huh? Maybe I’ll try it on Kobra.”

Poison snorted, rolling their eyes and pushed aside Ghoul’s long hair behind his left ear. Staring at the canvas of skin Ghoul wanted to ink before tenderly kissing it. “I can come up with way better ideas,” Poison murmured into his skin. “Let me draw some things up.”

“Wait, first I gotta hear why you think my idea is whore(ish),” Ghoul retorted, genuinely curious. Gripping Poison’s delicate chin, he turned his face to the side and licked the shell of his ear. “I mean come on, if anyone is a whore it’s you—

Letting out a let loud mock offended gasp, Poison playfully smacked Ghoul across the face as if they were one of those actors performing a fake slap onstage. Ghoul half-laughed, half-aroused tried to grab his flailing arms as they mimicked a distressed southern debutante: “Well, I have never been accused of such debauchery in my life!” Fanning their face, they dramatically sighed in Ghoul’s arms. “How will I ever get a good marriage match now with vicious rumors like that spreading around the zones?”

“Ain’t rumors if they are true, sweetheart,” Ghoul teased back in an equally horrible southern drawl. “Now why don’t you put that pretty mouth to good use?” Ghoul fumbled with a pocket on his vest before unexpectedly pulling out a tube of lipstick.

Poison stopped thrashing his body around and dropped the horrible accent. “Wow okay…. you came prepared, you weirdo.”

Ghoul cracked a small smile and shrugged, handing him the tube of lipstick.

Poison took the cap off, finding the lipstick to be the same color as their neon red hair. The lipstick had definitely been used before as it was worn down to almost a nub but most things they found in the desert were broken or used.

“You really want this?”

“Yeah because I’m a whore.”

“Okay maybe “whore-ish” wasn’t the right word,” Poison bashfully admitted, as they played with the lipstick, twisting the tube up and down. “It’s like ugh, uhhh how do I say this uhhhhh…...”

Ghoul raised an eyebrow.

“Like I don’t know, people might interpret it as you being straight.”

If Ghoul was a cartoon his eyebrow would have raised off his forehead into the air.

“I don’t know, it’s something a twenty year old drunk girl would get, y’know?”

“Okay, okay now I’m lost,” Ghoul chuckled in confusion. “So it’s gay then if I got it then?”

“Like ahhhh no!” Poison shook their head, lifting a hand to rub their eyes. Embarrassed, they looked through his fingers at Ghoul. “I mean a girl might get it because it’s aesthetically cute, but boys might get to show off how much they get laid.”

Chuckling, Ghoul took Poison’s hands in his own. “Okay I get what you’re saying...kind of.” Taking the lipstick tube from Poison, he uncapped it and began applying on Poison’s lips, who hesitantly puckered their lips. “As soon as anyone sees you standing next to me they will connect the fucking dots.” He then fished out his pair of aviator sunglasses from a vest pocket and held them up so Poison could see their own reflection of their beautiful red lips.

“But it’s not for anyone else anyways,” Ghoul continued, beaming at Poison who seemed to really like the look on themself. “It’s for me and...fuck, you look hot.”

“Shut up,” Poison blushed, face getting dangerously close to his hair color. “Fine whatever, hold still!” Moving Fun Ghoul’s hair aside, they kissed the left side of his neck and lingered there trying to leave the perfect kiss mark.

Ghoul knew the kiss mark was probably gonna get messed up by the time Show Pony got here with the needles and ink because he was planning to kiss them everywhere but he loved the novelty of the act

“You happy?” they snapped after pulling away, however; lovingly played and twirled with Ghoul’s hair.

“Always with you.”

[nishaapologist]

Proved You Right (Fallout 4, Sarah Lyons/NB!LW - First Sentinel AU)

a small note: this mentions having a basement in Home Plate, but that’s actually because i have a mod that lets me stick basements down to have a bit more space to breathe. for the sake of I Did It In My Game So It Counts, there’s also a basement in this au too! so yeah. anyway have this gay shit.

(sarah’s pronouns are she/her, rookie’s are they/them)

—

“This probably comes as, like, no surprise, but man... I love this city.”

Finding out there was a balcony, of sorts, on the roof of Sarah’s home in Diamond City — home plate, as they call it, which was a name that’d flown right over Sarah’s head until Rookie had gleefully explained the term — had been a pleasant surprise when Sarah had thrown down the two-thousand or so caps to buy the place, clambering up the rickety old ladder to the roof on her first inspection of the house only to find herself in a little sitting area that overlooked the market. She hadn’t made great use of it right away, more interested in the basement underneath that would later become her new base(ment) of operations in the Commonwealth, but then Rookie had shown up to Diamond City on the coattails of a local merchant, and now they spend near every evening sitting in the shell of an old caravan that’s been welded down to the corrugated sheets of the roof, drinking lukewarm beer as they listen to Myrna holler anti-synth slogans, or quietly singing along to songs on the radio until exhaustion makes all the words collapse into mumbles.

It’s a moment of peace, of relaxation, in a time increasingly fraught with battles and tension, and Sarah actually looks forward to tinkering with weapons or armour on her lap at the end of the day, Rookie beside her and resting on an old sunlounger as they hum along to the radio. It helps to put things into perspective, rather than grinding herself down to a sliver as — many years ago — she would have always done.

“I mean, I don’t like the mayor, or his whole ‘no-ghouls’ bullshit or anything,” they quickly add when Sarah glances up from under her eyelashes, head bowed as she turns the extended magazine of a 10-mil pistol about in her hand. Back in the Citadel, over a decade ago, weapon modding was never really a thing Sarah had needed to do, but it turns out that after years of maintaining Power Armor she has quite the knack for it. It’s just a bit more fiddly than she’s used to, is all. “But I really like everything else. The people, mostly. The market. The stands. All that stuff.”

Sarah snorts under her breath, squinting back down as the sunlight slowly dims on the horizon, a cool evening ushering in a breeze and making the hairs on her arms prickle. Spring is approaching the Commonwealth, the months quick to pass, and soon the most hardy of trees will be flush with life again, Ragstag fawns wobbling on unsteady legs, Yao Guai slowly waking from hibernation. It’s a new year, and 2288 is already shaping up to be an exciting one. “You sure that’s not just ‘cause we’re on a baseball field? Pitch?” Sarah screws up her nose. “Stadium?”

“Baseball park?” Rookie offers, though there’s no surety in their voice. “We called it the baseball diamond back in the Vault, since that was pretty much all we had space for.”

“Baseball diamond, then. You sure it’s not ‘cause of that? Isn’t this, like, your wildest dream, or whatever?”

Rookie kicks one leg out at Sarah, too far away for their foot to even hope of landing anywhere near her, but she jerks backwards to dodge it anyway, laughing at their grimace as they retract their foot. “Oh, please! I have bigger dreams than arguing with Moe fuckin’ Cronin about how ass-backwards he got his baseball rules!”

That first argument with Moe had been quite the spectacle, and one Sarah knows Diamond City won’t forget any time soon; Rookie had been checking out his stock with wide eyes, giving each bat a practice swing to feel the weight and heft as it arced around, and when he’d leant down to tell them how crazy Pre-War baseball had been — one team would beat the other team to death with things called Baseball Bats, and the best bats were called Swatters — Rookie had given him a public dressing-down that even Sarah had sidled away from, lest Rookie’s faithful bat, grasped in increasingly irate hands, accidentally found an arc directly into her skull by mistake. It had ended most excitingly with a lot of swears, intervention from the guards, and Rookie’s solemn declaration that they were never gonna buy bats from ‘such a dipshit’, and even now they and Moe glare daggers at each other from across the market, much to Sarah’s ongoing amusement with the whole thing.

As if remembering the same incident, Rookie takes a swig of beer, glowering off at the floodlights that shine down onto the city. “At least Alex agrees with me about him. This shit’s a dying art, apparently.”

Sarah pauses for a moment, and she can’t help the way her gaze tracks towards the far stands, glancing through one of the glassless windows to where ramshackle abodes sit, suspended, above the common rabble. Alex — or the Sole Survivor as some call her now, after her story about the Vault got published for hundreds of eyes to see, and for many more mouths to gossip about — had been granted a house in the upper stands by Mayor McDonough out of the kindness (or manipulation) of his heart, offering her a safe place to adapt to the new and unforgiving world she’d found herself in. Since they’d met, Sarah had struggled to get much more out of her than single-syllable words and pleas for her to find her son, but it was only when Rookie had shown up that her sturdy, Pre-War walls had finally begun to crumble, just a little.

Really, it’s because they’re a Vaultie, too — different experiments be damned — and it helps that they’re someone who was also thrown into the topsy-turvy world of the wastes with nary an idea for the horrors within. They might not quite be out of time, but they do understand being out of place, and when it turned out that Alex is (or, perhaps was) quite the baseball buff herself, they’d forged a connection that made her, initially, a little warmer. Nowadays, Alex is very nearly sociable.

But she still very much keeps to herself, and it’s enough to have Sarah worry. She sees a lot, maybe too much, of Rookie in her — back when they met in Chevy Chase, still new to this world — to be strictly comfortable leaving her to her own devices, but there’s not much else to be done. It’ll take years before she’ll ever really adapt, Rookie had said, years until she can really grapple with the world she doesn’t know. It’s just tough shit.

“Yeah,” Sarah murmurs absently, drawing herself from her rabbithole of thoughts, and Rookie follows her eyeline carefully, knowing exactly where she’s looking. “Well, hey. I guess you have to think of it this way; you and Alex make up two people who know how to play baseball, right? How many more do you need for a full team?”

Rookie laughs at that, sombre face breaking out into a toothy grin, and they slide even further down the lounger as their hat slips over their eyebrows. “Hah! Find me six more Vaulties, and then we’ll really be talking. I’ll be able to hit the first homerun in two-hundred fuckin’ years.”

“Wait,” Sarah says with a frown, doing the maths. Even to her ears, it doesn’t seem to add up right. “Only eight people? You sure?”

Rookie snorts, and then they reach up to take their hat off with a lazy pluck, eyeing Sarah up seconds before her vision goes dark as it’s tossed, haphazardly, onto her head and over her eyes.

“Baby,” Rookie coos fondly as she splutters, nearly dropping the magazine to the ground whilst she scrambles to whip it off her head. “Bold of you to think you can worm your way out of being our pitcher.”

The hat gets launched back at Rookie’s face, the brim making a dull impact on the bridge of their nose, and their shout of pain and laughter echoes right across the city.

[rewrite-canon]

Fifteen Minutes

Monster Prom // No Pairings // 2609 Words // Lyrics by Mike Krol

“What if I told you that the world was gonna end? And you had fifteen minutes to spend with me or your friends?” Vicky sings, bobbing her head to the tune that seemed to be playing in her head.

“What lame shit are you singing now?” Damien demanded, flicking a finger at her.

“None of your business,” Vicky bristled. “Why do you care anyway?”

I sucked in a breath. Vicky was really pushing it now. I think she is the only one with balls low enough to question Damien. Besides me, obviously. Well, Vera and Brian were plenty badass for it too. But only because Vera had enough brain cells to manipulate the way she said it that it looked like she wasn’t confronting him, and also because Brian gave no fucks whatsoever about Damien’s chaotic behaviour. Even now, I shudder to think of some of the arguments Damien and Brian had had.

And speaking of the devil and his green mates, they were huddled together in a manner that only meant no good. Now, Damien had swivelled around to face Vicky, a sneer on his face. I was sure his eyes would flare in rage at her question (they were always somewhat flared with rage), but instead they narrowed and Damien just frowned.

“Because you're distracting me, Brian and Vera from devising a plan to ransack the new substitute’s office with horny epileptics from hell for when he starts looking at our attendance records,” Damien said, gesturing to Brian, who had looked up blankly, and Vera, who was wearing her trademark scowl.

I should've known. Damien had always had a weird soft spot for Vicky (and Oz and Scott, but everybody had a soft spot for Oz and Scott).

“And steal his things,” Vera added. “I heard ghouls were filthy rich.”

“Great,” Brian rolled his eyes sarcastically at her. “So you're just going to waltz into Mr Devido’s office whilst he's being assaulted by epileptic demons and take your time picking and choosing what's valuable enough for your standards, unaware? Great plan, Vera. I thought you were supposed to be a grand schemer.”

Meanwhile, Vicky went back to humming her little tune. Miranda, who was in the middle of braiding Liam’s hair as he was browsing his phone (a seemingly pure act, if you ignored the fact that he was reading erotic gay smut and she kept rambling on her father’s new murderous conquests), looked up at her and smiled warmly. She soon picked up the few words Vicky sang, and began to sing it too, Liam then unconsciously murmuring them too after a while.

“I am, you ungrateful toad,” Vera snapped in the meantime. “Would you be paying attention to anything else around you if you were being grinded on by demons having seizures?”

Brian seemed to mull it over, then he said, “You’ve got a point.”

Polly, who had her head laid in Oz’s lap (poor Oz was trying to do homework, and ignore the heinous acts his friends were planning to commit) and her feet were resting in Scott’s lap (Scott was just chewing on a football, only to stop, look up, and smile adorably at everybody) and was complaining loudly at how bored and sober she was, and how she hadn't got completely wasted in seven hours.

“Seven hours!” She cried out, either to Oz or Scott, but it might as well of been no one, because no one was really listening. “That's the longest I've ever been without drugs and adrenaline coursing through my undead body! Can you imagine? And it's because I'm hanging out with you borings fuckheads. I mean, I'm literally in the lap of somebody doing fucking homework. I haven't even said the word ‘homework’ in centuries. And I'm not even on Oz’s lap in a sexual way so what even is the fucking point–?”

“–And you had fifteen minutes to spend with me or your friends?”

<!— more —>

“What the fuck are you singing?!” Damien roared at Liam, who jerked in alarm, Miranda, who just grinned evilly, and Vicky, who just rolled her eyes at his drama. “It’s going to make me go insane!”

“More insane than you already are?” I prompted, not being able to help myself.

Damien’s scorching eyes turned to me, and I snickered. He’s so easy to piss off.

“Amira,” he growled at me, “tell Vicky and company to shut the fuck up. They respect you for some reason.”

“It’s because she has really fucking good music taste,” Polly answered for Damien. “Like, it’s seriously good.”

Everyone collectively nodded, and I blushed.

“Wow guys,” I said, feeling this was a good time to talk about Rex Orange County’s new album, “it’s not that–”

“What would you guys do if you had fifteen minutes left in life?” Scott blurted, a troubled (yet absolutely adorable) expression on his face.

“I'd probably try to fuck up the world even more,” Polly said immediately, grinning at the thought. “I think I'd try to burn down everything, spray some secret concoction to get people incredibly horny, watch them get at it as they're burning to death, and I plan to do this all while riding a donkey casually.”

“To be honest, I'd probably try to finish this first and foremost,” Liam said, holding up his phone. Then he smiled goofily. “This shit is good.”

“Would you spend it with me and friends?” Scott said, wide-eyed.

Polly and Liam looked at him, at his vulnerable face, and I knew what they were going to say before they said it.

“Of course!” Polly said enthusiastically. “Yeah, doing all that with you guys would make it even more rad!”

“Yeah,” Liam added, but then blushed in that cute, shy way. “But I don’t know how much you guys would love reading this with me.”

“I’d love doing everything with you both,” Scott grinned, his mood instantly picking up, as Polly choked at the statement. He then turned to look at Damien and Oz.

“How about you two?” Scott queried, and I laughed a bit about how Damien’s face scrunched up as he started to think about. No doubt he was using his maximum brain power.

“To be honest, I’m probably the one who is ending the world,” Damien remarked, and everyone started to nod their heads in agreement. “So, sorry about that in advance.”

“I’d probably have to finish this Monsters' History homework first,” Oz said, gesturing awkwardly at his essay he was writing out, “and then I’d probably straighten up all my debts and then–”

“Oh my Satan, Oz, shut it,” Damien said, massaging his temples, as if Oz’s statement caused him physical harm. “It makes me sad, that you would say that. And it also makes me impeccably annoyed with you. And now I feel hostile.”

“When do you not feel hostile, though?” Vicky and I said at the same time, and then we grin at each other and high five.

Damien glared at us, whilst Oz is quick to defuse the fire.

“Well, sorry Damien, but I'm just being honest,” he said quickly, drawing Damien’s attention to him (which is kinda ballsy, if I do say so myself). “But what I do know,” Oz continued bravely, under Damien's smouldering gaze, “is that I wouldn't mind ending the world with you, Damien.”

It's hilarious, seeing Damien’s naturally red face get even redder, and to see Oz realise what he just said and sputter innocently. Vera, however, is not pleased.

“Oh,” she said, sniffing in jealous offence (that takes me all the willpower I possessed not to burst into giggling fits, and I could see I wasn't the only one struggling there, because Polly was just barely keeping it down), “I see how it is. You would destroy the world with Damien, but not with me, Oz?”

“What? No! Of course I would want to do everything with you–” and then Oz’s voice died and Polly finally lost it, which made me burst as well, and the next thing you know Vicky was also giggling along with us. Even Brian seemed to be smirking.

Vera glared at us, which made Vicky and me shut up, and Brian just lost his amused expression naturally, but Polly was undeterred.

“For the record,” Damien said in a weird, insecure, shy tone that made him sound like an entirely different person. “I don't, you know, mind doing homework or whatever nerdy stuff with you, Oz.”

And now Brian was the one sputtering.

“Oh you fucking snot,” he spat, and both Damien and Oz flinched before they could get any more flustered (watching those two try to interact and connect was the funniest shit ever, everyone agreed). “So when I asked for you to hang out with me when I was doing my homework, do you remember what you told me? You told me to get fucked!”

Was it just me, or did Brian genuinely sound hurt? It must've not only been me, because Scott started to pout and put a gentle (albeit big and hairy) hand on Brian’s shoulder, which at least made Brian relax at his touch a bit (if anyone had the power of friendship at their fingertips, it was Scott). Even Liam looked up, vaguely distraught.

“That was only because you had Liam and Miranda over,” Damien, sniffing indignantly. “And if I went, I knew you wouldn't stop making heart eyes at Miranda, so I blew it off to commit tax fraud with Amira. But if you really wanted me to come, then you should've just, you should've just–”

Damien looked at a loss.

“Told him how you really felt?” Vicky prompted, and Damien snapped his fingers.

“Yes!” He exclaimed. “That.”

“What would you do then, Brian and Vera? If you had fifteen minutes?” Miranda asked this time, her eyes shining with curiosity.

“Spend all the millions I’ve earned to hire a gang and assassinate anyone who had ever crossed me,” Vera said without hesitating. “Then, I shall have them skinned and made into fabulous purses. And then I will sell those purses to earn me even more money, and use that to buy us all really expensive, furnished mansions, with servants and multicultural cuisines and everything, so we can live the rest of our lives in absolute luxury.”

Awww. That was actually quite adorable. Vera cares about our lifestyles too!

“And you plan to do this all in fifteen minutes?” Liam asked, deadpan.

“You'd be surprised at how efficient I am,” Vera sniffed, but I didn't think I'd actually be that surprised.

“Definitely not hang out with Damien,” Brian sniffed sourly after Vera had shared. “I guess try to finish off ransacking the new substitute’s office with horny epileptics with Vera. And then, I don't know. Relax and await my death.”

“Well, that's fucking depressing,” Polly murmured to me. “And I didn't know I was capable of getting depressed.”

I snorted. Was she still astounded about how somber Brian was?

“Wouldn't you still have to hang out with Damien to continue your plan with the horny epileptics, though?” Liam asked.

“Well, yeah, fine,” Brian said, not making eye contact with his demon friend (who was trying to make eye contact with him, and honestly, it was shocking how much Brian and Damien got into their own squabbles). “But I don't have to talk to him. That can be Vera’s job.”

“I'm not being your owl!” Vera hissed at him, and she actually hissed. Her small green snakes on her head did too, showing how much she detested the idea.

“What if you were paid?” Miranda queried, probably just out of curiosity, but Vera’s hissing ceased immediately.

Before Vera could discuss any specifics, Vicky butted in.

“I’ve thought about this one,” she said smugly, and no one was surprised. Number one, Vicky had thought about scenarios for everything. And number two, she probably would've thought of this before if she knew the song beforehand. “I would make it my life's goal to find the tastiest flavour of ice cream in all the dimensions! And once I find that ice cream, I will use a device that I would have Calculester make me, that clones the ice cream! And then I will bring all the ice cream back to this dimension and invite all of you guys over and we can eat the ice cream together!”

Everyone seemed to enjoy that idea, except one frowning ghost.

“Um, hello?” Polly asked, raising a hand and gesturing to herself. “Did you forget about me?”

“Of course not!” Vicky exclaimed emotionally. “Caculester is now working on a device that makes food into incorporeal substance that you can digest, Polly. Because, seriously, it breaks my heart that you can't eat. It really does.”

Polly seemed satisfied enough with that answer.

“How did you get Calculester to do that for you?” I ask.

Vicky winked. “Let's just say I turned on my unwavering charm to that library computer. And he didn't stand a chance.”

“If I had fifteen minutes left, I would want to be coronated,” Miaranda said, poshly. “I would invite you all to my coronation, of course. And then once I am mermaid queen I will throw an amazing national party for all of us to enjoy, whilst forcing my endless numbers of slaves to fight each other to the death for our entertainment! Oh, I can see it all coming together!”

Miranda’s expression turned dreamy, which was cute but also quite disturbing since she was thinking about bloodshed. Damien started to nod in approval, though. He seemed to like the idea. Bloody royals.

“I would want to take all of you to the park, where we can have a picnic, and hold hands, and give each other gifts to show how much we care for one another!” Scott said, his tail wagging happily. “And then we can sing songs and die happy with each other, knowing that we love us!”

Scott was so adorable, everyone looked misty-eyed. Vicky leapt up to wrap her arms around Scott, her affection for him seeming to be too overwhelming for her (Scott didn't complain, though). Brian was smiling, and seemed to forget about his brief argument with Damien, because now they were both grinning at each other. Liam was even beaming.

“Ew,” Vera finally said. “I can't believe you all liked that.” She pointed a finger at Scott. “Say that again and you will give me diabetes. I just hope you know that.”

But we all knew she secretly liked the sodding friendship story Scott came up with.

“What's diabetes?” Scott said, bushy eyebrows creasing.

“How about you, Amira?” Oz piped up, and all eyes were suddenly on me. “You haven't said what you would do.”

I mulled it over for a bit, but then spoke up without there being much mental contest.

“Probably make you all listen to the new Rex Orange County playlist,” I said, and Vicky and Damien sniggered.

“You're so predictable,” Vicky giggled.

“What can I say?” I shrug, breaking into a smile too. “My reputation precedes me.”

We all sit there in contented silence for a bit, just enjoying and treasuring one another.

“There's just one problem,” I said, drawing everyone's attention again. “How would we plan to do all of what we all want to do in fifteen minutes? Seems impossible.”

Brian started to smirk, and then Miranda started to smile, and soon Polly was also grinning.

“We’d figure it out,” Brian said. “I bet we would. We've already done so many impossible things in our weirdass lifetimes.”

I shared a smile with him.

“Yeah,” I said finally. “Fifteen minutes is nothing for us.”

[hollywoodgothique]

House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée is a true original, unlike anything else we have experienced in Halloween 2019. Though the name would suggest a themed popup bar, House of Spirits is quite a bit more than that. It incorporates eclectic elements: performance, immersive experience, interactive costume party, and even haunted house walk-through. However, in the end, House of Spirits is none of those things but rather its own unique combination.

The premise is that you are attending a party in a house cursed by the macabre art of a grieving painter, created in the final desperate days of his life, which opened a portal not to his lost love but to dark realms whose denizens now haunt the premises, blighting all who live there. How closely you encounter these beings depends on which activities you choose to participate in, the sheer variety of which is guaranteed to satisfy the cravings of even the most omnivorous Halloween enthusiasts.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Ghost Ship on Land?

House of Spirits is set in the mansion that used to house Delusion Interactive Theatre.

House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée is the creation of Meyer 2 Meyer Entertainment, whose personnel formerly ran the Los Angeles Haunted Hayride and currently produce Rated R: A Horror Speakeasy. House of Spirits might sound like juiced-up version of the latter, rebranded and moved to a new location for Halloween, but it actually has more in common with a nearly forgotten one-shot that the Haunted Hayride creators produced in 2011: Ghost Ship.

Ghost Ship was not a hit with the public; it was a great idea that failed to live up to its potential, offering a three-level experience – one for each deck aboard harbor cruise yacht, with ghostly hosts and entertainers on the main deck, a show on the upper deck, and a scary maze on the lower deck. The problem was twofold: the yacht did not provide a sufficiently spooky setting, and it was impossible to fit enough entertainment into its hull to fill the ninety-minute cruise.

House of Spirits takes this clever template and ingeniously applies it to an ominous mansion* in the West Adams neighborhood of Los Angeles, bringing to fruition everything that Ghost Ship sought to achieve. With the atmosphere and square footage Ghost Ship lacked, this magnificent venue houses an amazing three-level event in and around the building. On the ground floor, guests can mingle with their ghoulish host and hostess, listen to music, watch a puppet show, and imbibe a half-dozen cocktails (included with the price of admission). Upstairs, there is a strange sort of scavenger hunt of a most morbid nature. And in the basement are not one but two scare experiences. Additionally, there are gathering places outdoors, along with a strange little hovel where you will learn the secret responsible for the curse upon the haunted house.

Add it all up, and House of Spirits provides multifarious forms of malevolent entertainment nook and cranny of its haunted house – more than enough to justify the recommended two-hour stay.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Arrival

An outdoor lounge where guests relax before their appointed entrance time.

House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée offers two arrival times on weeknights and three on weekends: 6:30pm, 9pm, and 11:30pm. It is not necessary to arrive precisely on time, but it’s a good idea if you want to see everything. The event can be crowded, with a line on the sidewalk to get through the security search and another line in the front yard to validate tickets.

If you happen to get in before your appointed time, there is a “lounge” (a small mobile bar beneath an awning, with some limited seating), where you can wait. This is one of two cash bars on the outside grounds, where you can pay for drinks above and beyond the half-dozen that come included with admission.

Eventually, you ghoulish host, Raul, shows up and fills you in on whatever details you need to know about the “party” he is throwing inside the house, whetting your anticipation with a promise of drunken revelry on the main floor and terrifying demonic encounters in the basement.

Perhaps most important, you receive a punch card for the six bars inside the house, where you will spend most of the ensuing two hours. Though it is easy to overlook in the excitement of the night’s debauchery, this card includes suggestions and questions that will assist your exploration of the mysteries haunting the House of Spirits.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Ground Floor

On this level, spirits both ectoplasmic and alcoholic flow freely, creating a gay and magnificent revel, with the help of six bars offering free drinks. Both Raul’s wife and his mistress float about, engaging their party guests in conversation and dropping suggestions about what parts of the house they may wish to explore. There is no preferred order to the evening’s diversions and delights, but there are lines to get both upstairs and downstairs, so it’s a good idea to divide your time wisely.

An invisible hand answers your questions.

Pastimes on the ground floor include a giant ouija board, with a planchette moved by an invisible hand spelling out answers in responses to spoken questions. (Sadly, the ghost’s identify seems to be that of Anton, the hosts’ recently deceased child.) There is an out-of-tune piano, but we wouldn’t recommend playing it, since there is entertaining live music in the next room from a variety of performers, on electric guitar or accordion.

Best of all is the macabre puppet show, in a small room just off the main entrance. While a ghoul-faced narrator recites grim and grisly ghost stories, two sinister puppeteers – their dark, skull-like visages almost invisible against the black backdrop behind them – enact the action, the movement of the puppets enhanced with novel sound effects: liquid poured from a cocktail shaker to simulate vomit, a plastic bottle crushed to simulate broken bones. Don’t miss your chance to enjoy at least one of these short performances.

This malevolent mistress of the house invites you inside.

Party Guests

Great party, isn’t it?

House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée Halloween Review

Out of tune piano

Your Ghostly Hostess

Ghostly Accordion Player

Your Ghostly Hostess

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Macabre Artists Named Francisco

Goya’s Saturn Devours His Son

There is one more important element of the ground floor presentation. In the gruesome Goya Gallery, art lovers may peruse a handful of disturbing canvases, such as Saturn Devouring His Son, one of fourteen “Black Paintings” created by Francisco Goya (1746-1828) during the final years of his life – a series which also included “Witches’ Sabbath.”

Though not on display here, one of Goya’s most famous works is The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (1799), which depicts a sleeping artist tormented tormented by nightmarish visions of bats and owls, as if these apparitions will soon enter our world via the medium of the artist – a theme evoked in the back story of House of Spirits, which seems loosely inspired by Goya’s “Black Paintings.”

However, when you leave the ground floor to explore upstairs, you will learn that the artist whose work doomed the House of Spirits is Francisco Vega – not the renowned Spanish painter Francisco Preciado de la Vega (1713-1789) but a fictional character whose work was even more demented than that of Goya.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Upstairs

The staircase leads to a bizarre scavenger hunt.

On the second floor, a servant will inform you of the final, fateful days of Francisco Vega, who crafted six ghastly canvases shortly before his death. These Spirit Paintings, on display, contain clues to Six Keys, which may unlock the mystery of the House of Spirits.

After perusing the small gallery of horrors, you explore six rooms, each inhabited by someone or something depicted by the artist. These spectral phantoms (including a ghastly pregnant woman hoovering over crib containing a tiny skeleton- presumably Anton) may aid your in your search, but they will demand that you perform unpleasant actions to retrieve the keyes (reaching into bathwater for a rib bone is the least of it).

Some keys may not be easy to find, but if you persist in your quest, you will succeed, whereupon you deliver them to a strange character who marks you with a cryptic insignia on your hand or forehead, initiating you into the elite of the households inhabitants. Exactly what “benefits” accrue from this are unclear, but you may be sure they are of a nefarious nature.

Vega’s paintings hold clues to the Six Keys.

Expect to meet this creature in the flesh.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: The Basement

After the upstairs scavenger hunt, there is nowhere to go but down – into the basement – where the true terrors lurk.

There are two attractions in the basement, each with its own entrance. One is a brief and eerie pantomime performance depicting  Vega – deranged and eventually nude – creating his final work, a life-sized painting that opens a portal enabling a visitor from the other side to enter the earthly plane. Is this being angel or demon or neither? The answer to that question can be found elsewhere.

The second descent into darkness is the closest House of Spirits comes to offering a haunted house walk-through. Groups of half-a-dozen or so party guests are given mirrors and instructions to stand in pools of dim light, chanting “Molly Magpie, Molly Magpie, how did you die?”

This ritual extinguishes the light, allowing some denizen of darkness to manifest; then another pool of light appears, farther along, drawing your group deeper into the basement, where the ritual is repeated, again and again, each time with nightmarish results. There terrors invoked are all the more disturbing because they have materialized at your bidding, and the demons are not necessarily happy to answer your call.

Both experiences are delicious creepy, evincing the sort of demented artistry one used to see at the L.A. Haunted Hayride – less crude shock than carefully choreographed grotesquerie.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Exterior

The Mystery Solved

Exiting either basement attraction leads to the outside grounds, where you will find a second cash bar, a food vendor, and the Garden of Anguish, where you can relax among strange flora before reentering the House of Spirits.

Most important is a small hovel, easy to overlook in the darkness. An attendant should be outside to explain why you should explore its interior.

The entrance leads down to a confined space where you will see the pages of Francisco Vega’s diary projected on the wall, detailing the anguish that drove him to create his final sextet of uncanny masterworks and revealing the true nature of the being he inadvertently unleashed upon our world, dooming all future inhabitants of the House of Spirits.

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: Cocktails

Great party, isn’t it?

Six Spirit Paintings, Six Keys, Six Cocktails.

A key ingredient to the success of House of Spirits is the half-dozen miniature drinks included with admission. Guests receive one free drink at each bar inside the house, a bartender punching your card at each stop.

Offerings range from Goya’s Ghost (ginger, black currant, fire bitters, orange bitters) to Magpie (passion fruit puree, lime, agave, grapefruit, bitters. Each drink features a product by Don Julio, with guests choosing one of two options, such as tequila or vodka.

Though individually small, the creepy cocktails are collectively intoxicating, altering human consciousness to a level where it is more open to the contact with the spirit realm. By the end of the evening, contact with ghosts will seem like the norm.

Creepy Cocktails

Creepy Cocktails

Creepy Cocktails

Creepy Cocktails

House Of Spirits Halloween Review: conclusion

In case you have yet to unravel the mystery at the heart of this review, we had a supernaturally grand experience at House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée. The $65 price tag may seem steep, but it is actually a bargain in terms of cost-benefit ratio. The myriad elements excel on their own terms, combining to form an amazing Halloween event unlike any other.

Footnote:

This is the same location used by Delusion Interactive Theatre on several occasions.

House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée (Review) House Of Spirits: A Haunted Cocktail Soirée is a true original, unlike anything else we have experienced in Halloween 2019.