[SOLOS] Indu's Fantabulous Halloween 2k15 Solo Party

[amicableAggressor]

Quote:

Home Decor
Prompt: Decorate your dorm room to make it as spoopy as possible! You may do this in a PRP, or as a Solo.

This was the day of days - the most important time of the year. Indu had been raised to be a proper Halloweener, and was going to make sure that it would be celebrated as was the tradition. Of course she couldn't go frighten humans herself, not yet anyways, but she could and would be as festive as possible. Eschewing her usual purple, purple and more purple for some appropriately festive black and orange garments, and had gone out to seek supplies.

Her room was - at the best of times, a simple affair. Indu was a big believer in appearances, but she was also a believer in making things easy to clean. She had all the spangly mystical accoutrements, veils to drape over her bed, twirling chimes and mysterious mechanical devices, but for the most part they were kept locked neatly away in a dresser. If someone was visiting, she'd pull them out and arrange them as necessary, but when it was just her the room was neat, simple, and easy to get around. Unless of course, there was a special occasion such as this.

The shops were, as always, insanely busy this time of the year. Arriving back at the dorms with around fifty bags hanging off her shoulders and wrists, she had barged past other students in her rocketing attempt to finally arrive back at her room. It wasn't that they were particularly heavy, but the pure volume of them made Indu anxious to drop them and massage some life back into her limbs. After a few minutes of recharging by lying face-down on her bed, she was up and about, tearing open her bags and bringing out the prizes of her conquest of commerce. Authentic giant spider webs. Organic brains in jars - farm grown! A bag weighing about as much as she did contained nothing but candy corn. First to be hung up was her family's traditional ornaments. The curtains and bangles that were always locked away were meticulously pinned into place, giving her room the appearance of a dark, glittery cavern made of taffeta and gauze.

On a roll again, Indu proceeded to tear the rest of the shopping bags apart in her eagerness. A jar of eyeballs was fumbled with until it burst open, and they were placed, blinking at her, over the pins that held the curtains up. Bats were firmly coerced into position, where they would occasionally wiggle and squeak. Part of her did feel odd doing this without a family, but she pushed that down. It was part of growing up and becoming an independent ghoul. Plus, she would get the final say on where all decorations were placed, and how many dead spiders were appropriate for a tasteful display. That was always a trick question, as Indu felt strongly that the only limit for that was how much space was remaining. There were never too many spiders. She upended the bag of candy corn into a few bowls that she placed around, artfully cluttering up the room. Another bag of still-wriggling gummy worms was torn open and they were tastefully arranged on top of each bowl in a twitching heap. Marvellous.

Standing back, with her hands on her hips, she surveyed the damage. It was, as she would only admit in her heart of hearts, slightly overdone. Indu was aware, in a way, that she was overcompensating due to the sudden freedom to arrange her decor without a parent butting in. But it looked Halloween as anything, and you wouldn't mistake her for being anything other than completely patriotic. Maybe she'd get better at toning things down next year.  

[amicableAggressor]

Quote:

Sugar Rush
Prompt: What is Halloween without candy and snacks? Have your character, either solo or in a PRP, try to bake up some sugary sweets or delicious treats. Make sure they're Halloween-like!

This was the final test that Indu would be conducting. The final cooking experiment - to determine if someone had truly placed some sort of curse on her and an kitchen coming together. Every time she tried to prepare something since coming to the school, it had ended in reality tv shenanigans, or gnomes everywhere, or something else equally inane and stupid. To add insult to injury, it was always in a crowded and public environment. The ghoul's ego was more fragile than she'd willingly admit, and she felt that cooking was the kind of skill she should have down. It was just being organized, following instruction, and basic time management, three tasks that she'd list off as some of her strongest. Even at home, while she'd never been dragged into the kitchen, she had occasionally helped her parents out and it had been fun. Now, the sight of a cookbook made her eyes narrow and her fists clench. It was time to get scientific on this weird phenomenon and figure out if the third time was the charm, or merely the third embarrassing experience in a row. Thankfully, Indu had prepared this time. This time, she was cooking alone.

She was back in the Home Wreck classroom, there was no question of cooking in her room, and the dormitory kitchens were too crowded for her taste. That had left the school cafeteria, which was unlikely, or asking to use the classroom when there was no course going on. She had used the words 'independent study' and lo and behold, had gained permission. It turned out a reputation as a studious and diligent student had many perks, including teachers trusting you to not burn the entire building down. Indu couldn't help wonder, as she pushed the door open with a foot and stepped in, arms full, how well-placed that trust was. After all, she was currently the potential carrier of a culinary curse.

Waddling over to a table, trying to see from behind a jumble of raw baking goods and a teetering cookbook, Indu dropped everything on the counter with a huff. After chasing a few errant ingredients that had rolled away and setting up her workplace, she flipped the book open. It was shiny and new, she'd never owned a cookbook before. Her mother had owned plenty, but everything she had done at school had been from a given recipe, or drawing back on something prepared at home from her childhood. She wondered if this is how everyone began to amass 'adult' objects - through weird solitary experiments to determine how in control you were of your life. Finding the page that she had previously marked with a surprised-looking dried frog, an anxious look flashed across her face as she re-considered what she had chosen to prepare.

Spider cake (with fresh spider) was always tricky. The trick was to avoid a crunchy texture - what you'd get if you left too many feelers in. It was also preferable that the spiders didn't survive the baking process, no one liked a piece of cake twitching off their fork halfway to the mouth. A few minutes in to the recipe however, and Indu had yet to have any horrifying disaster strike. While this served to make her slightly more twitchy in anticipation, she dismissed the idea that the reason behind this was she was actually paying attention to her work. She always devoted herself one hundred percent to the project - and if she also happened to get distracted by chatting with someone else or something, the situation didn't strike her as any different.

However, she had to admit to herself that the curse was not striking this time. Free from the distractions of other students or other students, invisible food, and tv cameras, the cake came together without much fuss. One spider did make a run for it and find a bright new world under a cabinet, but for the most part Indu had let it go unmolested. The cake had sat quietly in the oven as she had leafed through the rest of the book, critically dissecting the flavor profiles in her mind. Finally the fresh cake sat on the counter, the rest of the ingredients had been cleared away, and Indu sat in front, wracking her brains over how she was going to eat an entire spider cake on her own. On reflection, something smaller would have probably been a better idea, but as always, she had overshot. Thankfully, this time the results were delicious.  

[amicableAggressor]

Quote:

DETH Registration
Any student can request to become a member of DETH. This is NOT a student club, so anyone can join, it is more of a following, think of it like "Boy Scouts". You do NOT need to talk to any NPCs to join, there are tonnes and tonnes of DETH STARTER KIT BOXES lying in the office, for any student to claim. All your student needs to do is claim a STARTER KIT BOX in order to start (either icly or off screen is fine).

Indu sidled into the office that was decorated most predominantly in a light green that hinted vaguely of mucus - but also of the kind of bright palette that wasn't often seen around Amityville. It was so eye catching that she'd spotted the place when she had first arrived at school and taken her first tour around. It had sat on her list of 'organizations to sign up for' for a while, but now it had arrived at the top. Indu had, she felt, been on such a roll lately with completing goals she had set out for herself - that now was the time to finally learn more about DETH and how she could use the services provided to be a better ghoul in general. The office was empty and quiet, the same as it always was whenever she peeked in. Shuffling over to the wall where a pile of boxes were stacked neatly, Indu reached over and took one. Afterwards, she spent a few moments looking around to make sure there was nothing she needed to sign, or any jar for fees. It felt a little disorganized, but she supposed that sometimes life was just disorganized and she'd have to deal with it. Nevertheless, she left a little scrap of paper noting that she, Indu ibn Qurra, had removed one box to become a DETH Scout, tucked under one of the remaining boxes.

Returning to her dorm room, the reaper sat down on her bed and eagerly opened the top of the box, examining the contents inside while tapping her feet excitedly against the bedframe. A doll - Indu was far to old to be playing with dolls, but she had brought her collection to school - she cut off that thought abruptly. This was a serious model replica to be used in training activities, she would not be buying any outfits for it and setting it up with her other dolls along the bottom of her bed. A movie? Snacks? Various exotic looking human products were removed and examined, and Indu spent a long minute staring at the expiration date on the food. What was an Aug? She was absolutely certain that she would not be consuming those - it was probably some kind of safety hazard if she so much as opened the bag.

Putting all the cultural artifacts to one side, Indu sat back with the two informative parts of the kit, the calendar and the scout guide. Flipping through the first for a few moments, she set it aside to thoroughly read the scout guide. With a pillow behind her head, she began to read. Save a human, save a life! She didn't really understand the motto - wasn't it self explanatory? Humans did have lives - in fact they were supposed to be far more fragile than Halloweeners - so obviously if you saved one you'd save its .... she was probably overthinking it. Looking through the rules she nodded in approval, although her eyebrow did quirk at the 'working with humans' bit. Was that entirely smart? Or even possible?

Placing it aside as 'not remotely relevant right now' she went down the check list of items found in the starter kit, and finally flipped to the page with the activities. Here, Indu's eyes lit up, and the ghoul sat up to pour over the writing. Clearly defined training activities with set rules and guidelines, as well as shiny physical rewards that she could pin onto her clothes and show off to other students? Yes jacking please. Not only that, but they made sense. Each activity was clearly meant to be an exercise on understanding humans, and the fact that you were asked to reflect on them encouraged personal growth. Nodding quietly to herself, Indu got off the bed to find her to-do list. It was time to make some additions.  

[amicableAggressor]

Quote:

DETH Scount Activity
Human Cooker: Create a simple Human World recipe by following these steps below:
Step 1: Find any of these minipet ingredients: Veggies Masher, Veggies Bad for your Eyes, Veggies Tearjerker, Corridivius, Follyjox, Floresce, Common Magiban (stage 1)
Step 2: Take any of the combined ingredients and begin chopping them into very small pieces. Next, put them all in a bowl together. Season lightly with the leaves of a stage 1 Puck.
Step 3: Lastly, you will put this all into the haunted oven. Leave for at least one hour. When you are ready, take it out! You have made your first Human World recipe!

There was one activity in the DETH book that Indu had seen and earmarked for getting done immediately. She wasn't actually, when it came down to it, really fond of cooking. It just seemed to constantly re-appear in her life, like she was training to be a master chef rather than a famous ToTer. She had circled the cooking-based DETH activity not out of love for it, or eagerness, but simply to get it done and out of the way. The curse of the oven had been safely disproven due to recent testings earlier that week, and Indu was eager to do what was hopefully the last bit of school-sponsored cooking for the rest of her academic career. After all, she was a strong independent young ghoul, as she reminded herself often. It wasn't good for people to start thinking that your entire life revolved around shaking things into bowls in a kitchen. Stereotypes were there to be torn down, and all that. As she had re-read the instructions while out gathering ingredients, she realized with a faint tingling sensation that she would be cooking with minipets again. Well. It wasn't like she had become inherently biased against them after her experience at Hell's Kitchen - it was more that she kept imagining there were cameras around. And people yelling.

She had, of course, toughed out the tingling of her nerves and picked up the proper ingredients. This time Indu was also confident enough to cook in the dorm's kitchen, rather than squirrelling herself away in an empty classroom. She felt like some part of all this had payed off, as she went to work slicing and dicing the minipets. Maybe she had gotten more confident wielding sharp knives. She wondered, idly, if she should try reshaping her FEAR into some daggers. All in all, she'd gotten far more practice handling knives than her own weapons since she arrived at the school. There was a faint tinge of guilt there - it meant that she hadn't been keeping up with everything she had planned to. But really, Indu didn't find fighting to be any bit interesting. It was outdated - peacefully scaring humans was obviously the way to go. She didn't care about becoming a bogeyman or having any reason in the future to be aggressive, uncultured, and or warlike. Zoning out as she cooked, Indu quietly considered if perhaps she should be working on reshaping her reaper weapon into something entirely else. A crystal ball - easy to summon? A pack of tarot cards? It would take effort to conscientiously change it, but it was something that was worth investing the energy into. Your weapon was you, after all.

Snapping back to reality, Indu looked around at the table. The minipets were in the bowl and she was halfway through seasoning them, her body steering itself along on auto pilot as she got lost in her own thoughts. Giving the plate a thorough inspection, she frowned. It didn't look particularly human. In fact it looked very much like a halloween dish. While it was debatable just how different the cuisine was in the human world, she couldn't help but have a nagging doubt over if they even had minipets. Maybe it was the flavor profile that she was re-creating, rather than the exact recipe. That seemed more likely. Sliding the finished bowl into one of the haunted ovens, Indu took the time to affix a note saying to NOT TOUCH OR SHE WOULD HUNT YOU DOWN AND SEND YOU BACK TO THE PUMPKIN PATCH. She was all too aware that students looking for a quick snack would sneak in and help themselves to dishes left by others, the lazy so and sos. Cleaning up the remainder of her ingredients, and making a mental note to return in an hour, Indu trotted out of the kitchen, striking the task out in her planner. No. More. Cooking.