distort text in indesign

Nelson, it would be a good idea to learn about all the commands in the pathfinder palette, I find that most useful with regards to 'slicing things up' (under Window > Object & Layout > Pathfinder).

when I go to use the scissor tool it either makes it curvy or doesn't work at all

In any case—whether you choose InDesign or Illustrator, and the text effects you show in the first screen shot can be accomplished in either application—you have to understand how to work with anchor points. Briefly, because we can't teach this topic in a forum post, anchor points can be corner points or smooth points. If you are getting curves, you need to convert the anchor point to a corner point.

If you are going to work with editing the shape of the type, you'll need to put the time to learn how they work before moving forward. Personally, I don't do much with anchor points in InDesign training classes, but I cover them thoroughly in an Intro to Illustrator class. You might want to look around for local training, or find some online tutorials to get you started.

Illustrator and Photoshop have Warp commands to change the overall shape of the text. For example, in Illustrator:

In all three applications, including InDesign, you can convert the text to outlines, and manipulate the anchor points with the Direct Selection tool. Knowledge of how to work with anchor points and the Pen tool is required.