Fandom High School

Things looked normal in the Home Ec classroom this week. Hopefully even your TA was fully recovered from her bout of greyness. None of this week’s cupcakes were grey either, though you wouldn’t be able to tell that yet since they were all still covered.

"I hope everyone is well," Stark said, looking over the students after they arrived. "Recovered from last week. Everything that happened. And if there’s anything we can help with," yes, he was volunteering Anders for support services too, "please, let us." If nothing else, you know these two will offer baked goods.

Anders gave Stark a surprised look for just a second, but he was all right with being volunteered, he supposed. "And I’m just gonna throw this out there so you know before trying it yourselves in a situation. If you’re gonna use old stale cupcakes as a weapon, aim carefully, and be ready to run if they decide your ammo’s tasty." He cleared his throat and uncovered a large tray of chocolate-based cupcakes. "These are -- tasty in theory, but maybe the idea that chocolate makes everything better ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. What do you guys think?"

To be fair, the dark chocolate cupcake with the caramel cumin buttercream frosting looked pretty good, and the maple syrup cupcake with brown sugar smoked bacon . . . well, bacon did make everything better, right? On the other hand, there was that chocolate cupcake coated in potato chips, and the one with the jalapeno on top. It was really a mixed bag -- or plate, more accurately.

"Chocolate or bacon," Anders went on, snagging one of the maple syrup and bacon cupcakes for himself. "That’s your discussion for the day, and there’s plenty of both in with the ingredients when you get to baking."

Today, along with the usual setup of baking paraphernalia and cupcake trays, there were a couple of racks of clothing up at the front of the classroom. Anders waited until everyone was assembled before he clapped his hands, pushed away from the counter he’d been leaning against, and began to speak.

“Cupcakes are serious business, we got that part down,” he began, pacing back and forth in front of the clothing racks. “We mostly care about the baking part in this class, but sometimes you gotta think about the right kind of gear for the job. Sometimes wearing a uniform just . . .” He waved both hands vaguely. “Gets you in a real gametime sort of headspace.”

Sports nerd.

“‘course, what kind of outfit makes for good baking gear is a personal call.” They didn’t have the budget for uniforms; if he’d had his way after the idea had come up, he’d have gone with numbered jerseys with students’ names and everything. Again: sports nerd. Anders, unphased by or maybe just unaware of his own self-deprecating narrative, shrugged. “Just . . . I’ve seen someone on the Food Network wearing a poodle skirt, and . . . yeah. Anyway, you guys can take a few minutes to poke around the fully moddable racks here and pick out a good cupcake-baking outfit for yourselves. After that, hit the mixers and go to town.”

The classroom was set up in the usual fashion. And the alien boys were up front as usual.

"This is our last week together," Stark said, a little sadly. He would miss them. Or possibly he’d miss having a captive audience to talk about cupcakes with. Perhaps, and most likely, it was a combination of the two.

Anders patted Stark lightly on the shoulder, and if he was betting on the answer to Stark’s narrative he’d bet on "a combination of the two." Which he wasn’t doing at the moment. (Maybe later.) "You’re not getting away without a final," he put in, "but it’s a final where you get to eat. That’s okay with you guys, right?"

( Well, in theory; cupcakes behind the cut are both decadent and disturbing . . . )

Once again the Home Ec room looked like itself. The two aliens up front also looked like themselves.

"Welcome back," Stark said. "Again. I hope you’re all yourselves." He hadn’t been anyone, or anywhere, else this weekend but he was aware that the island had done something odd yet again.

"For you newer kids, this kind of thing has been happening in Fandom forever," Anders added helpfully. Even though it had usually skipped him. "Sorry to tell you, though, it usually doesn't last long enough to get you out of classes."

"In honor of this, er, occasion, we’ve brought some cupcake examples today that aren’t really themselves. Well, they are. Themselves. But they are pretending to be something else." Stark’s statement wasn’t entirely accurate, but it was close enough.

( Even cupcakes can end up as weird AU versions of themselves. Trufax. )

Upon entering the classroom today, students would find the usual baking setup (including, up front, the two alien boys in charge of the workshop) and two large covered trays of cupcakes, but in the center of the front counter was a large strainer bowl full of vegetables. Carrots, celery, red and green peppers, a particularly leafy bunch of green kale, cucumbers, radishes . . .

( Vegetables? In your cupcake class? It’s more likely than you think. )

The Home Ec room was set up to look -- like a Home Ec classroom, if one with a very single-minded purpose: every station was set up with stand mixers and a generous supply of cupcake trays and cup liners, plus frostings and sprinkles and all kinds of cake-decorating paraphernalia. The teachers . . . didn’t look like the type of teachers you’d expect to see standing at the front of the room. Well, anywhere outside of Fandom, anyway.

( Cupcakes are serious business, mmmmkay. )

[OOC: ETA -- argh, I knew I forgot an OCD thread, so feel free to mingle all you want in the introductions thread. Sorry, guys. Really off my game this week.]