The most anticipated event in October for Animalia and its colonies was finally beginning: Spookyville 2023. The theme this year was to explore Spookyville's many attractions while trying to find slats of bamboo wood, tied together with leather straps, and covered with Chinese writings. If found, they could be turned in for bags of extra candy, whether they were found by kids, teens, or adults. Though in some places, Spookyville was celebrated a little differently.
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The best example of this was Heiya Island's Spookyville celebration. First, rather unusually, it opened up with a Dragon Parade because Three Kingdom's Period Warlord Cao Cao (with "cao" being pronounced "shao") presenting Wo Long to the Wanli Emperor. However, a group of Chinese and Japanese demons suddenly attacks but are easily fought off by Wo Long and his allies. However, the most ominous thing about the group of demons was their leader: a man dressed in gaijin (meaning "foreign") armor and black robes, but what made him especially ominous was the iron mask he was wearing, which didn't have any eyeholes, or any means to see through, though he could fight as well as any sighted person.
After the demons were defeated, and the strange man-thing forced to retreat, Gandalf and Merlin, who had been attending the parade, revealed that the man-thing was a "lesser Nazgūl", a human soul that had been completely dominated by one of the Nine Rings of Power. One LOTR fan in costume was able to confirm this based off his own observation ("No ring on the finger.").
This seemed to confirm that Sauron had not only found the Demonic Elixer Cao Cao and Wo Long were pursuing through Cao Cao's military campaign but had also "enlisted" Chinese and Japanese demons for his war machine.
Most of the "battles" recorded were made using motion capture suits and props, but a few required some more creative CGI effects. For example, Taotie (one of the four Great Evils of Chinese Mythology) was "created" from a bundle of long-sleeved sweaters, covered with light-sensitive sensors, and manipulated by puppet strings. This would later generate a, rather amusing, meme comparing what we see to what the gods see.
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Another thing that was going on was the Kabuki and Noh play being shown at the Animalia Theater. While everyone had been informed beforehand of the prop handlers, it was still a little unnerving to see them setting up, moving, and taking down the scenery, if you weren't used to it.
The play that was being shown was the Song of Sohayamaru: a combination of real historical events prior to the beginning of the Edo Period of Japan, heavily influenced/embellished by Japanese Mythology (and partly inspired by the Nioh series of video games). The most memorable part of the play was, every time a nigitama was passed to Hide, the prop handlers would use black rods to raise a white sheet from the front of the stage and a modern projector, hidden in the back of the stage, would play a small movie showing some unexpected information.
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There was also the classy party at Fennec Hall, where Miles got to meet some of the new "super-rich" members of Animalia, who had joined due to "corporate stress". While there were still those who "attacked" them on the website for one thing or another, they were lucky to get at least one like on their comments.
What was undoubtedly the most popular Halloween party was the one at the Slaughterhouse, especially since the costume contest this year was actually more like a nude bodypainting contest. While winners wouldn't be announced until closer to the end, what was clearly the most popular, so far, was Afia painting an enormous jack-o-lantern on her pregnant belly, with a full moon on one breast and a bat flying in front of a cloud on the other one, with her draped in faux jewelry. While Arnold clearly enjoyed Afia's display, it was also clear that he was more anxious about being a good father to their upcoming calf than Afia "showing too much". To distract himself, he'd been working on negotiations with the IFBB over Animalian Bodybuilders, especially since both female and couple competitions were rather confusing to them. So far, he had managed to drop the requirement of the fake, spray tans that most bodybuilders are known for, but the debate was still ongoing for tattoos in competition, especially since some bodybuilding Animalians (all converted) had started getting tattoos after conversion.