tampered | This Is Halloween {Open ; Ongoing}

This Is Halloween {Open ; Ongoing}

When; October 28^th, 3 o'clock through evening
Rating; Let's keep it to PG, people
Characters; Sakura {

bealright} & Alice {

othersideofwhat}, and you! (log is open, ongoing, and for mingling~)
Summary; You are cordially invited to a pumpkin carving party!
Log;
It had been a great deal of work preparing everything: the pumpkin pie, the apple cake, the tea, the pumpkins themselves. Of course, Sakura had done most of the work, really. And it was her idea, more or less. In fact, she'd been the one to grow the pumpkins and find the picture of the pumpkin boat in the first place.

Perhaps Alice should think of herself as merely being helpful. Well, it was good to be of use, of course.

The pumpkins were astonishing! They were perfectly immense. They must have been rolled to where they now stood in Xanadu, gleaming and bright in the sun. The smaller ones would make splendid jack-o-lanterns--and perhaps more pies, of course. And the larger ones would be made into boats. A pumpkin could only be one or the other. A jack-o-lantern boat would likely leak.

It was still difficult to believe that it was possible to make a boat from a pumpkin. It seemed perfect nonsense at first. Boats were made of wood and shaped like boats. But, then again, there was something of it that made sense. After all, the hollow caps of acorns floated very well, and so did blades of grass, and flowers and leaves. So why shouldn't a pumpkin, once made into a boat, serve as well as a boat?

That was perhaps the source of Alice's greatest curiosity: how did one make a boat from a pumpkin? Or, rather, what was it like to use a pumpkin for a boat? Perhaps it was a little like something from a fairy tale or a nursery rhyme, but the thought of sitting in a pumpkin, floating down a stream--well, it was better than swimming in a sea made from her own tears, certainly.

And, of course, once the pumpkin boats were launched, Alice would make certain not to look nearly so cross as the man in the picture of the pumpkin boat did.

There were only a very few things left to do--the tea was made, the cakes and pies were set on a table, the pumpkins were ready and so were the knives and spoons for them. So now it was only time to stand and wait, as impossible as that was, and play at being a good hostess until the first people arrived...

[ooc: Really informal mingle and play post here~ Chat with each other, nom some pie, carve a pumpkin! In the later afternoon, once the biggest pumpkins have been hollowed out, there will be pumpkin boating! And, after dark, a grand lighting of the jack-o-lanterns :3 Lots of good Halloween fun ♥]

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Doll was rather astonished at how well set up everything was. All those pumpkins - and some of them were simply enormous! Not to mention all the food set out.

It really did look like it was going to be fun, but she hadn't seen anyone she recognized yet and was feeling a bit too shy to just go ahead and take part in anything. So for now she wandered around, calling Tiger back to her heels whenever the puppy excitedly wandered too far off.

While Cat was making an attempt to analyze the pies for something Klartch could safely eat, the baby griffin caught sight of the puppy. An off he went, finding easy traction for talons and claws in the grass, though his gait was still quite ungainly.

"Klartch!" Cat half cried, half moaned, and ran after the griffin.

"Play!" chirped the beast in return, looking with immense interest at the far smaller dog. Could he griffin proof a puppy, Cat wondered? He hastily threw a spell of that kind at the dog, but in the meantime, advised, "Don't touch."

Klartch paused, left talon in the air.

Tiger no sooner spotted the baby griffin than he was running towards him as well, yipping happily at seeing someone who was clearly as eager to play as he was. He ran circles around the much larger Klartch, sniffing in interest and barking every few seconds, not even noticing the spell Cat put on him.

"Tiger, don't!" Doll had been distracted for just a second when she noticed Tiger had run off yet again and ran after him, stopping in amazement a couple of feet away and staring at the griffin, her visible eye going even wider when she heard him talk.

"Blimey...what are ya?"

Ellington is as big as a house now, and that's not counting his tentacles. Before he stops in at the party, he checks in on the bright blue Star Baby to say hello, and make sure that he doesn't terrify anyone. But Ellington doesn't come up to the surface; Blue assumes he's not a fan of all the people on the shore. The Star Baby is a little shy at times.

After that he takes a leisurely stroll to where the party is happening. Blue mostly stays on the outskirts of the party, for now; if only because he doesn't want to interrupt the fun. He watches, and waits, and if someone approaches him, well, then he has a smile for them.

Pumpkin carving! So even in weird nameless-city-places with tyrant deity overlords there was still stuff like Halloween! Momoko wouldn't be entirely satisfied, of course, until there was candy -- but pumpkin carving was a great start. She didn't know what the heck pumpkin boating was supposed to be, and she thought with a little pang of homesickness that maybe the Professor or Ken-chan would've been able to explain--

...No, no, no. Pie first, homesickness later!

This City place was big and confusing, so it took her a little while to find the party, but it sounded like so much fun that how could she complain? Besides, she had flown a good amount of the way, it wasn't that bad. Momoko wasn't sure if she knew anyone there, but it was always a chance to meet new people, right?

Besides. Pie.

Syaoran would admit that parties weren't his favorite thing in the world, but Sakura had asked him so very nicely to help, and he could never resist her requests. So shopping done yesterday and everything in place, he headed out to Xanadu to where the pumpkins lay, like gigantic apples fallen from a tree. He touched one thoughtfully. He wasn't so sure they'd float, even at this size.

Edited 2009-10-28 23:14 (UTC)

I think if mom were to see this, she would definitely get a little over excited. Tohru hadn't imagined that it was possible for a pumpkin to grow to this length. It was huge, and she barely knew what to do with it. All of the pumpkins were enormous, and she had heard that the largest of all were to be made into boats. That shocked her even more.

She didn't even know if a pumpkin could actually float! Or hold someone up anyway... she kind of wanted to see it. In the mean time though...jack-o-lanterns!

Smiling brightly as she stood before the smooth pumpkin that had been lifted onto the table for her, all of the needed materials were at the ready. Both her companions stood to either side of her as she beamed cheerfully.

"Well now that we're here, we might as well get started! The pumpkins won't clean themselves out. It'll be a lot of fun!"

Edited 2009-10-29 18:03 (UTC)

He shouldn't have been surprised to find himself participating in an activity with both Yuki and Tohru. It hadn't been an uncommon situation to find himself experiencing in the last few years, but he'd really gotten used to doing things one on one with just Tohru. Couple things, like...dates...and walks...and things alone. She was his wife now and sharing her again wasn't easy. Normally he would just allow her to go do things with Yuki on her own since it had been so long since she'd seen him. Sometimes, Tohru just wanted everyone together.

As strange as it was to find himself sharing her again with Yuki, he had to keep reminding himself that the awkwardness of it had to be a thousand times more difficult to handle for Yuki. Which was hard...especially when he'd spent all weekend cursed into what had seemed like someone who had a lot LESS patience for his cousin as he had currently. Or rather, what he'd been a long time ago... The urge to scream "She's mine." before dragging her away from his cousin's side still was difficult to manage, but manage it he did.

Still, pumpkin carving hadn't ever been on his list of things to do.

But for Tohru...

"I've never done this before," he admitted, self-consciously looking around at the other carvers for hints of what they were supposed to do. "Are we just supposed to cut the top off?"

Edited 2009-10-29 18:35 (UTC)

Yuki had never felt like such a third wheel in his entire life- not that he truly minded, of course, because surely Tohru didn't think of it that way. In some aspects, it was almost nice. This sort of setup was familiar- the three of them together, at least, because Yuki stared at the pumpkins in curiosity, being just as lost as Kyou.

"Yes, I've only ever seen this sort of thing on TV." He grabbed both sides of the pumpkin, feeling its shape and texture. It seemed much too hard to cut easily. What if Tohru hurt herself?

"They certainly are very big, though." He had to appreciate that, at least, having a green thumb of his own. He wondered how these pumpkins reached such an enormous size. Was it natural? Was it something about the City? He wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.

He knocked on the pumpkin. It sounded a bit hollow. Odd!

The truth was Tohru had never carved a pumpkin before either. Halloween wasn't celebrated all that often in Japan, except in places like maybe Disney World. But she was used to handling a knife and trying out new things. Sometimes it could be a lot of fun.

"I remember seeing it in a western cartoon once...Tom-san and Larry-san? I can't remember its name very clearly," she giggled. As a child she hadn't watched many cartoons, however she seemed to remember that one. "But I think that's right. You simply cut the top off around the section where the vine was once attached," She said, gently circling the top with her finger. "and dig out the seeds and pumpkin filling inside!"

It was only then that they'd be able to carve the faces onto it that would make a true jack-o-lantern. Picking up the knife nearest her she moved to finally begin making the circle around the rim, before pausing.

"Oh!" That was right, she didn't want to forget. Pulling one of the large bowls placed on the table for them a bit closer, she explained in cheerful tones. "Make sure to save and separate the seeds though. They can be roasted and eaten later."

That was more than he knew about the subject, but he wasn't sure if he would believe anything from a cartoon as fact. He didn't watch much television, even as a child. So he wasn't a very good judge of any of those type of things.

"It doesn't sound too hard," he said, grabbing a knife off the table and imitating what someone at another table had just done. Which was similar to what Tohru had said. Sinking the knife into the top of the pumpkin, it didn't go in as easily as he'd expected it too. "It's thick."

It was more like sawing than cutting, from his experience.

Yuki understood things easily enough. Grabbing the knife to cut out the top - for him, it went it pretty easily - he made a somewhat lopsided and awkwardly too-large circle. He pulled off the top and peered inside.

"Ha... are you certain, Miss Honda? It's rather-" He didn't complete his sentence, only stares in mild horror at the goopy mess inside the pumpkin. Did they have gloves for this sort of thing?

The use of her maiden name was something Tohru didn't miss. She simply smiled at her gray-haired friend as he spoke, however. She didn't know the reasons behind why her first name was so difficult, but the fact was that it was and she respected Yuki too much to ever be upset by something so silly. It was a struggle for him, and the adjustment of her name must have made things that much more awkward. It wasn't something she'd correct. Not with him.

"It's a little messy," she admitted, pausing from her own pumpkin. It was a lot thicker than she had thought it to be. She was still only halfway done with her own lid. Even with how often she worked in the kitchen, it took effort to cut through. Kindly, she offered her assistance. Neither of the boys, Yuki in particular, often worked with or around food.

"If you'd like, I don't mind cleaning the inside out. I think it will probably be a little sticky and slimy. The texture can probably be a little off putting."

Finally tugging the top of his own pumpkin off, internally Kyou agreed with Yuki about the innards of the large pumpkin. It looked disgusting. Still, it was part of the experience, he supposed, and there were worse things to deal with in the world. It might feel weird, but at least it didn't smell terrible.

"Here, let me finish that," leaning over to take the knife from her small hands, Kyou gently removed the sharp instrument from her grasp. "These things are huge."

Finishing up the top, Kyou pulled the cap off the pumpkin with a slight force, the pulp still clinging in strands to the top. "There, you can deal with that disgusting stuff yourself. As gross as it is, that's probably part of the fun for kids."

Yuki pushed up his sleeves. Well, if he had to- without gloves and everything- he supposed he had little choice in the matter. After all, he wouldn't dare let Tohru do something like this for him- a man! No, that would be too shameful. Not even just because of their genders.

So for now, he scraped off the lid of the pumpkin into a nearby plate. That was something for starters, right?

God, he really didn't know what he was doing at all. It didn't make things any better that Kyou and Tohru were-

"Things that are scary or a little gross is the point of Halloween, right?"

Taking the lid back from Kyou she smiled as she reached for a spoon with the other. "Thank you." With a quick glance up at Yuki, it seemed he was doing okay. At least he was farther ahead than her. Reaching into her own, she had to stand up in order to be able to reach into her pumpkin. Using her strength, she began the task of scraping the insides out, orange strands of goo sticking wetly to her hands in the process.

"Once it's cleaned out, I wonder if we should draw the faces first. Does Yuki-kun and Kyou already have ideas in mind...?"

As a general rule, Konata didn't like hard work. And, she reflected as she dumped a load of sandbags out of the wheelbarrow: this was turning out to be quite a lot of hard work.

But Sakura had asked her to take care of the pumpkin boats. Yes, that Sakura. The one with the cards. The one that had defined loli for a generation. And if Kinomoto Sakura wanted pumpkin boats (implied: that didn't immediately sink or tip over and spill her into the water), then by Mokona, Kona was going to give her pumpkin boats.

Konata had hollowed out some regular-sized pumpkins and tested them in the bathtub ahead of time, and she thought she more or less had the hang of it. For most of the really big ones, all they needed was ballast in the bottom - hence the sandbags. For the ones with a poor shape, a little less ballast, and empty milk jugs attached to the sides (except that Konata had only the vaguest idea how she was intended to attach them - she brought a power drill, nuts, bolts and plenty of rope just in case). She was pretty sure the insides of those pumpkins were going to get pretty gross pretty fast, so she brought several metal cans of sealant, and paintbrushes. And finally, propulsion, which was still basically an unsolved problem - the decidedly non-boat-like shape of the pumpkins made single-oar paddling nearly useless: for that, she had some salvaged oars and bolt-on oar holders and a good helping of wishful thinking.

She also had a small chainsaw for cutting the pumpkins, and a not-so-small DSLR camera for memorializing the results. Because pumpkin boats were serious business. And filling her SD cards with photos of lolis in pumpkin boats: also serious business.

A curious Chinese boy was watching Konata's hard work. And staying far enough away from the chainsaw, because it was Konata.

"Do you really think they need to be heavier?" he asked finally. Syaoran had no experience with boats, but he wasn't really sure about these sandbags.

Konata answered as she unceremoniously dumped a heavy woodcutting axe onto her pile of gear. "If the pumpkin floats too high in the water, it'll tip over as soon as someone tries to ride it. So you have to weight it down in the bottom to lower its center of gravity. It's called 'ballast'..." She spoke with the authoritative and slightly patronizing tone of someone who learned everything they know about the subject from Wikipedia the night before. "... Also, once you're in there you'll be able to sit on the sandbag instead of crouching."

Konata started to pick up the chainsaw, but thought better of it and reached for an electric reciprocating saw instead. "Shaoran, can you hold the ladder for me? It's time to break one of these suckers open."

Syaoran grimaced at the use of his first name again. Whether they lived together or not, Izumi was needlessly friendly.

"Okay," he said. He could hold it steady, he figured, and hopefully she wouldn't slice off any of her limbs. He had a thought though.

"This is probably going to fly everywhere, isn't it?"

Good question. "Um... I have no idea. Actually, I've never used one of these before in my life." That didn't seem to slow her down, though, as she climbed the tiny ladder to get a better position over her first prey, one of the roundest and largest pumpkins at the party. "It's okay, what's the worst that can happen?"

"You could slip, drop the saw, fall backwards off the ladder, make a gigantic mess, and possibly lose some fingers. Or some of my fingers," Syaoran answered sardonically. "So be careful."

That was quite a speech from him, not that he found any of those alternatives particularly likely. But sometimes Izumi jumped into things without considering the consequences, in his opinion.

That was true, and a fair warning, but Konata barely heard the words out of his mouth. Instead, she heard something like, "I'm being more talkative than normal, and I didn't complain when you called me Shaoran this time. I must be in a good mood today." So Konata responded with a grin and waved the saw in a less-than-reassuring manner. "It'll be fine." She did pull a pair of flimsy splash goggles from her pants pocket, almost as an afterthought, before unsteadily positioning the saw above the pumpkin crown.

Well, goggles were a good idea, but he could tell she'd never worked with power tools. Or at least this particular one. He made sure the ladder was very steady.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" he asked, his glare suspicious.

Konata replied cheerfully. "Nope!" Without further ado, she flipped the switch.

In fact, stuff did not fly everywhere, at least not much farther than Konata's clothes. And she didn't cut her fingers off either. The saw didn't have that much power on the lower settings, and the pumpkin wasn't nearly as hard as wood or something, so it worked out okay. She couldn't cut anything approaching a circle, but she soon settled for a polygonal opening, making long, straight cuts along the pumpkin's rim.

Syaoran had been skeptical, at best, when pumpkin boating had been proposed, but he was beginning to think it might actually work. He didn't know enough about physics to know if Izumi's theory was actually sound, but the pumpkins were certainly large enough to accomodate people, and once hollowed, didn't particularly resemble a boat, but looked as though they could possibly float.

At least Izumi hadn't managed to damage herself or others. Though Syaoran was getting splashed by the occasional bit of pumpkin, he had been expecting that.

"Not bad," he said finally.

Konata beamed. No praise stacked up to that grudgingly given by Mr. Chibi-Surly himself.

Five more straight cuts, and two changes in the position of the ladder later, Kona had her pumpkin top. As it happened, it was still connected to all of the pumpkin guts inside. With a normal pumpkin she might have just been able to pull it off with her hands, but with the giant ones it was a bit more difficult, and in the end she had to cut a notch in the side of the lid and pry it off with a big stick. It wasn't a pretty solution, but it got the job done.

"Now for the really messy part."

"You going to climb in?"

The idea amused Syaoran, except that if she did, she'd probably start throwing pumpkin guts down on him.

"Unless you're volunteering." Konata offered Shaoran a shovel with an amused expression.

"Still holding the ladder," Syaoran answered, not loosening his grip.

"Pfft." Nice excuse, kid. Konata climbed the ladder again with the shovel and went to work.

While she didn't throw pumpkin guts down on Shaoran (on purpose), unfortunately, she didn't really have a waste management plan either. Soon there was a good-sized pile of pumpkin insides building up on the ground on either side of the boat in progress. And everything started to smell like pumpkin. Especially Konata.

Syaoran wrinkled his nose. That was something else he doubted anyone had considered. They would all smell like pumpkin for a week. And what would they do with all of the pumpkin insides? From the sound of it, Sakura and her roommates had been giving away pumpkin products to anyone who would take them, and yet they still had all of these leftovers. When Woody got excited, that Card did not mess around.

"You still alive in there?" he called after a while. You could probably drown in these pumpkin guts.

Konata stood up and poked her head and shoulders out. She tossed another bucketful of guts out as she responded. "I'm fine. Just scraping all this gunk off the bottom. It's gonna be sort of gross to ride in these things.

"Also, it still looks really heavy. I'm not sure how we're actually gonna get it down to the water."

The question hadn't occurred to Syaoran either; however, the solution seemed obvious.

"Sakura probably has a Card that will work."

He wasn't sure about all of the new ones she had, but surely there was something that could facilitate the movement of heavy objects.

Konata was torn. On the one hand, she loved nothing more than seeing Sakura's magic... On the other hand, "I'm sure Sakura could have done most of this work too. I don't want to make her feel like she has to do everything for us."

Syaoran hesitated, looking up at the pumpkin. "We could... try. Pushing it."

He didn't think that Sakura would mind doing this part. Really.

"Umm, we can try. I dunno if just the two of us would be enough." Konata got in position to push anyway, but she looked skeptically at Shaoran.

Edited 2009-11-01 16:14 (UTC)

Hey, you were the one who didn't want to involve Sakura. Syaoran took up the same position and nodded at her.

It had seemed so queer, the way Halloween was celebrated in the worlds of most in the city. Pumpkins and costumes and trick-or-treating and "scary" decorations, spooky themes. Cat was disinclined to focus on how strange it was, because it was - well - simply the way it was. And it looked entertaining.

Already having every intent to go around for free sweets on Halloween itself, he and Klartch were curious about the pumpkins. So, there they were, and they paused at the entrance to gape a bit at the excess of cakes and the sheer size of the pumpkins. Cat wasn't very artistic, and as such doubted he'd be able to do a nice one... but, maybe that wasn't the point.

Lucy is never shy.

She is, however, a little nervous today. Not because she thinks that Cat dislikes her, but because the last curse was a little embarrassing. She likes Cat. He's her friend, and she'd like it stay that way, so when she sees him at the pumpkin patch, she takes a deep breath, summons her courage and walks up to him.

"Do you want to carve one with me?" she asks. Lucy isn't worried about the artistry, she just thinks it'll be great fun.

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This Is Halloween {Open ; Ongoing}

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