spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Smut: Like What You See?)
Last year, Dante had surprised them all but good with his Roseapalooza and decision to make breakfast. Kathy wasn't quite that crazy - that was reserved for Christmas, with minor bleedthrough for Thanksgiving - but she wasn't going to let this year go without a return volley.

Which meant baking. In a tiny red pinup apron over never-you-mind and heels definitely not intended for use in the kitchen, but still...baking. And, you know, a bit of tempering and molding chocolate, too. But by that afternoon, she had a two dozen roses for Dante and two dozen roses for Anders.

And a couple extra each for herself because she wasn't stupid thank you. She loved them, but the boys were bad at sharing.

Food, anyway.
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Summery Smile)
Okay, so for all the complaining about having to get up early - especially after a night chock-full of pollen - this was Kathy's favorite weekend of the year. Surrounded by kids who called her mom, arguing over breakfast, listening to them babble on about their likes and interests and hopes, singing them to sleep at night. Even with as a late an evening as they'd had, she was still up, bright and early, humming around the public room of the suite, readying it for tiny visitors.

A hotel room meant that she had to rely on room service for breakfast, but she made due, making sure to order plenty of fruit (heavy on the strawberries), and juice, and more bacon and sausage than any one room really ought to have.

Now to wait for folks to start showing up!

[Open for all tiny children and their parents, whether related or not!]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Olivia Hussey)
It took several days (and several nights' worth of nightmares) for Kathy to face what she really needed to do. It wasn't LA that she was hoping she'd find alive.

It was her family.

She knew that there were other versions of her that existed elsewhere. There was Lady, in Limbo City, and every time something weird happened on Fandom. Maybe there would be one that existed here, too. Maybe she'd see her family, alive, one more time - just verify that they were safe, and happy, and doing okay. That was all she needed. Then she could collect the guys and her dog and go home to Limbo City. That wasn't too much to ask, was it.

They'd called Dante that morning to join them on their last day in the city and then, after lunch, she'd left them and Ronin behind to finish this one last task. This was just one of those things, she had to do alone.

It was uncanny, how much it looked like home. )

Kathy left several hours later, carrying a reusable shopping bag full of banana milk, various blends of tea and several jars of kimchi. More importantly, she also had a recipe for kimchi. Not just any recipe, either. Her mother's recipe, shared with Mrs. Park one winter day the first year the Lis had moved in. That alone was worth the trip.

And...her family was out there. Somewhere. They existed. Somewhere, there was a Sarah Li, brash and sassy, finishing up her last year of high school. And there was a Kathy Li, hopefully spreading her wings at a college some where, learning to be her own person. Mrs. Park didn't have - or wouldn't share - their contact information, but honestly? That was enough. There was another world with her family in it, neither bitten by zombies nor summoning demons, living and laughing and loving.

Today, that was enough.

[Mooostly establishy? But also for those guys she's with. And, surprising no one, I wrote a goddamned book.]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Shocked)
Kathy and Anders (and Ronin!) had arrived in the Los Angeles early Tuesday afternoon and had spent the last two days just being the most stereotypical tourists the city could ask for. There had been tours around Hollywood in double-decker buses (including a fifteen minute span where Kathy white-knuckled Anders' hand as they drove past Paramount Studios), taking pictures of various stars of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and visited the Korean Bell of Friendship. Everywhere they went, they were surrounded by throngs of people: other tourists, native Angelenos just trying to go about their day, students, even the occasional celebrity. It did Kathy's heart good to see so many people walking the streets, doing their own thing, just living their lives.

But the nightmares were still there. By morning on Thursday, she was reluctantly admitting that, maybe just sticking to tourist spots probably wasn't going to cut it. She wasn't attached to any of these places, not emotionally. They hadn't been her beats, hadn't been where she'd seen the worst of it.

So today, they'd gone to Griffith's Observatory. It had been one of Kathy's favorite places even before Fandom. It had been where Anders had surprised her with prom.

...It had been where she'd spent several weeks in the planetarium tied to a chair, entranced by the projection of the universe, as an ex. )

The opening strains of music swelled from the speakers and a star shot across the screen above them. And Kathy pushed herself to her feet and darted out the door.

[For that guy!]
spin_kick_snap: (Zombie 02 (Forlorn))
The ex that had once been known as the superhero Banzai shambled along the overpass of the highway. )

Decision made, it didn't take long to turn 'plan' into 'action.' She'd made rounds of all her bug-out bags recently, checking to make sure they were still stocked and ready to go whenever the guys had been out of the house. It took just a second to grab the one under her bed, add Ronin's paperwork, and sling it on over her shoulder. Portal was faster than flight, plus they made less fuss over dogs. And weapons.

Yeah, okay, portal to Los Angeles based on nothing but bad dreams. Sounded like a great idea.

[For that guy who might have concerns]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Collar Smile)
Sure, some people were busy fighting rampaging snow monsters and stuff today. But for those who were friends with Kathy and Dante, they had another option available to them: Kathy's 21st birthday party!

Their venue for the evening was Koreoke, a Korean barbeque restaurant that doubled as a karaoke bar. Kathy had rented out the back room for her party, which included three long barbeque tables, a stage with up to four microphones (in case of boy bands and group numbers), and a bartender along the far wall to serve drinks all night until last call.

Because if turning twenty-one wasn't a good reason to stuff yourself full of grilled meat (well, veggies and tofu in Kathy's case), get drunk, and sing your heart out to the largest selection of karaoke tracks Kathy had ever seen in one place, then what was?!

[Up VERY early for SP because holidays are a THING (and so are BDEs). Open to pretty much anyone who is/was Kathy's friend (or Dante's friends that Kathy also knows)!]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Wide Eyes)
Breaking into the small building that the 'After Death Fellowship' had taken for their own was child's play for anyone with a lockpick and a reason to get inside. Anders and Ezra had both. The unassuming exterior was matched by the interior as well; the front door opening to small entryway and the entryway led to a pair of double doors at the back. The building had been used as cheap seminar space, back when the Mount had still been Paramount Studios and things like 'seminars' still existed.

The doors at the back were slightly ajar, showing a large, open room that was not quite big enough for the hundred metal folding chairs crammed inside of it. The chairs were lined in ten rows of ten with only a narrow space down the middle to serve as an aisle, all of them facing away from the doors and towards the back of the room where the floor was raised about four or so feet up to make a little 'stage'. On that stage stood a podium, from which Christian Ngyuyen was addressing the congregation.

"When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth," she said, delivering that line with all the fervor of a Southern Baptist preacher delivering some fire and brimstone to the damned, rather than quoting lines from Daybreak of the Dead. From the scattered clapping and calls of "Amen!" and "Preach," she had apparently found a willing audience.

The whole thing would be absurd, if it wasn't for two key details. The first was Kathy, standing in a white nightgown, roughly two sizes too big for her, staring past Christian's right shoulder in horror.

The other was the zombie, handcuffed to a radiator, its jaws clacking continuously in a sermon of its own.

Zombies. Why did it have to be zombies? )

[Finale 1 of 2! Many thanks to the amazing team of [personal profile] not_every_mage and [personal profile] smilestopscars for all their hard work and compelling writing for this. <3 I can't fangirl everyone in this plot enough, omg. NFB, NFI. Previous post Next Post]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Ewwwww)
There were a lot of preparations to be made and slightly less than ten hours in which to make them, if all of Max's calculations were correct. There were spells to cast and rituals to devise and worst-case scenarios to prep for, which meant this was the absolute worst time to be interrupted for nonsense.

Which was, of course, why a crowd chose that moment to flow around the south corner of Gower Street. There were about three dozen of them, including children holding hands with parents. At the front of the crowd was Christan Nguyen. She was talking with a few people around her, and every several steps she'd raise the Bible in her hand a little higher for emphasis. When she saw the heroes, she waved and the crowd shift in their direction.

Kathy took an uneasy step backwards. Ms. Nguyen had been perfectly pleasant every time they'd spoken, but she still left Kathy vaguely uncomfortable, like she was a plucked chicken at the butcher's and Ms. Nguyen was waiting for the price to go down just the right amount.

A chance meeting... )


[Preplayed with the darling [personal profile] not_every_mage and adapted from Chapter Twenty-Three of Ex-Communication by Peter Clines. NFB and NFI. Previous post next post]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Considering You)
Max had waited until all of Kathy's friends had been tracked down and brought to the war council chamber. His nominal reason was because he figured they'd have a vested interest in knowing the timetable had moved up a lot, since they were the ones with a way out. Kathy was pretty sure that both he and Stealth were coming up with ways to convince the Fandom contingent to stay and help out.

Kathy wasn't sure how either of them hoped to pull that off. Neither Stealth nor Max had made a great impression the last time they'd dealt with anyone in Fandom.

Once everyone had been fetched and gathered, Max stood up again to explain why their situation had grown so much more dire with Josh's escape. For once, he didn't seem to be putting on a show for those benighted souls less educated in the ways of sorcery than he was; he seemed geuinely concerned about them understanding what was going on. Honestly, that worried Kathy a lot more than even the things he was saying. Max Hale hadn't done solemn even in the midst of the zombie outbreak. For him to do it now was chilling.

What do you do with a problem like a Cairax )

[Many thanks to all my beloved preplayers! NFI, NFB. Adapted and improved from Chapter Twenty-Three of Ex-Communication by Peter Clines. Previous post, Next post]
spin_kick_snap: (Zombie 01 (Hungry))
The irony didn't stop just at their location. The portal opened up inside the Observatory. For a building in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, it was in surprisingly good shape. Minimal destruction, no signs of looting, and there was only one streak of blood, long-since dried. It started from a room off the main entrance and ended in the pitiful remains of what had probably been a gopher or a woodchuck or something.

The room the blood trail had started in was some kind of observation room, featuring screen and several rows of comfortable seats. It was dark, but with the light from the atrium, anyone looking in could spot the remains of rainbow fabric caught in one of the chair arms, worn through the middle.

Just another typical day in Ex-LA )

[Much love to my fabulous preplayers, [personal profile] not_every_mage, [personal profile] rebelseekspizza, [personal profile] smilestopscars, and [personal profile] tigerundercover/[personal profile] vdistinctive. Bits and pieces of text taken from Chapter 21 of Ex-Communication by Peter Clines. NFI, NFB, OOC is always loved. Previous Entry Next Entry]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Deep In Thought)
Last night after finally exiting the tower, they had made their way back to Dante's place in Limbo City. Kathy had been half-tempted to get a portal back to the island, worried about Eliot, wanting to be home, but she'd been too sore and exhausted to do much more than look at her phone before letting it fall back to pocket.

At least her texts to Raven had gone through, even if she probably seemed like a madwomen in them.

Exhausted as she was, she didn't manage to sleep much past sunrise. Too many thoughts, too many memories, too many feelings crowding close to keep her asleep. She got up, limping a little unevenly downstairs, scrounging to see what kind of breakfast she could make from the remains in the kitchen.

The answer was apparently coffee, so she set that to perking and went to sit in front of the big window, staring out at the street, eyes blank and seeing very little.

[For them who are in Limbo City with her! SP for forever because BDE and also brain.]
spin_kick_snap: (Knife)
Kathy knew they were going to have to fight demons. She had yet to go to Limbo City and not fight demons. But she'd at least expected the fighting to wait until they'd gotten to the damn tower first. Demons were rude like that. )

[Preplayed with the lovely [personal profile] not_every_mage and [personal profile] rebelseekspizza! NFB, NFI, but OOC is always love! Comes after this]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Default)
Dante's phone laid on the kitchen counter, haphazardly discarded. Its warning light flashed a flickering red, advertising its dying battery.

Dante himself was nowhere to be found.

This bodes well. )

[NFI, but OOC & broadcast okay! Preplayed with the wonderful [personal profile] not_every_mage and follows this.]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Sleepy)
For a moment after her alarm went off, Kathy had no idea why she'd even set it. It was the weekend, she had neither work nor class today, she could sleep late if she wanted to. And, slapping blearily at her beeping phone, Kathy very much wanted to. She was warm, lying in a tangle of bodies, still more than a little tired from the night before, which had included a much better resolution that last year's prom.

Oh. Right. Prom. The wheels in her brain started to slowly turn as she put two and two together. Alarm. Unlocked front door. Day after prom. Yes.

"Get up," she said, poking at whoever was closest. "Kids are probably coming. C'mon, get up."

She wanted to be dressed and making breakfast by the time the inevitable horde descended on the house, dammit. But she wasn't going to be doing it alone.

"Get up or I swear I will send the first kid who shows up to come and wake you up proper."

Kathy that was just mean.

[Open to boyfriends, housemates, AU children of all varieties, and guests!]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Lovely)
The lack of private function space was perfectly solved by the empty apartment above the diner. Kathy had spent the afternoon cleaning and setting up for dinner tonight. Her anniversary dinner, if you would.

A year ago today, she'd woken up in Eliot's house, surrounded by tight, worried faces. Her friends, pretty much en masse, had gone through a portal to LA and fought through hordes of exes to bring her home, in hopes that Nanika could bring her back to life. Or maybe just so she'd stop chanting Kathy's name. For whatever reason they'd done it, though, they'd succeeded. Kathy was alive again and had been for a full year.

A dizzying, challenging, terrifying year.

It seemed only right to hold some kind of commemorative dinner for it, somewhere between a celebration (which she still didn't think she'd earned, exactly) and an appreciation dinner. Not just for what they'd done, but for sticking with her this past year, for weathering the ups and downs, for reaching out and checking in, for reconnecting and promising to be better and stronger friends from here forward.

And, well, even if that didn't all come through, it would still be a delicious dinner cooked by Eliot and would give her a chance to just spend some time with the people she loved best, getting caught up with those she hadn't seen in awhile and offering an opportunity for them to get to know one another better, too.

If nothing else, they could all just stuff themselves silly with whatever delicious things the kitchen downstairs had whipped up and the super, extra, very chocolatey desserts Kathy had promised Alluka in her invitation.

[For those invited and up early for SP. No OCD, feel free to just ping in and around.]
spin_kick_snap: (Knife)
It had been a really long time Kathy had gone on patrol, but her body had immediately fallen into the old rhythm. It felt like warming up muscles that hadn't been used in a while and Kathy was pretending she didn't notice how easy it was--or how good it felt. She was also ignoring the real reason she was out here, goaded into action by her conversation with the AlternaDante yesterday.

Whatever. Forget him. These slugs were gross as hell and they needed a good killing anyway.

She picked through the trees, keeping her eyes open for any signs of slugs, the nebulous 'danger' that AlternaDante had warned her against, and, most importantly, of Raven. She wasn't stupid enough to think that her bestie couldn't handle herself out here and probably do so better than Kathy herself, but that didn't mean she needed to handle it all herself.

And thanks, Fandom, way to ruin her plans of spending the weekend getting a Christmas tree. Dammit.

[Expecting two, but open!]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Sleepy)
She probably should have expected the nightmares. Raven's text had upended her sense of safety; even thought she wasn't on the island now, knowing that her home was gone and all of her supplies were inaccessible had messed with her pretty hard. Sleep had been long in coming, even as exhausted as she'd been, and when it came, it had brought old friends along with it.

Nightmare )

The taste of blood filled her mouth as she struggled up towards consciousness, hitting and kicking and trying to scream but blood, so much blood she was going to choke.

[For the guy with her. Violence and such under the cut.]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Cute AF Smile)
Kathy hadn't cooked much since the housewarming party where she'd discovered just how really not okay she was with meat. Heating up leftovers and microwaving pre-made meals didn't really count and yet, here she was trying to make a meal that wasn't too spicy (Anders), or too vegetable-y (Dante), but that she would be okay with eating, too.

In the end, she ended up making a bunch of dough, prepping a bunch of veggies (and fetching some meat from downstairs, though she made the staff prep that), and getting some jars of pasta sauce. First, she made some dim sum to eat as hearty appetizers while they all pitched in for the main course:

Personalized pizzas with a variety of handwavy toppings. Everyone could make what they wanted and nobody was stuck eating anything they didn't. One day, Kathy would like to make a real Korean dinner, complete with banchan and everything, but baby steps. She figured tonight would be better if she just kept everything as simple as possible.

Okay, the dessert of a strawberry-covered chocolate mousse cake hadn't been simple, exactly, but she knew her audience. She figured they'd appreciate that kind of complicated.

Now just to wait for them arrive. Hmm, what paired well with pizza? And also soothing jangling nerves?

Ah right. Dark and stormies. Kathy went to fetch the ginger beer and limes while she waited for the guys to arrive.

[For they what know and up early for SP!]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Teasing Smile)
So, Anders had graduated and he and Dante were leaving for a two-week trip tomorrow. Kathy felt that was enough of a reason to splurge on a fancy dinner-date, so after putting in a ridiculous order for tapas downstairs (with enough to feed Raven, too, of course), she set about making her room into a romantic little evening hideaway. Her desk with a cloth over it made for a lovely table for two, candles scattered about gave the whole area a nice kind of ambiance, and while a pitcher of sangria wasn't the most romantic drink in the world, it was fruity and delicious and that was really what mattered. She turned her ipod on low and, confident that everything was ready, sent Anders a text:

Hey graduate. Shift almost up? Dinner's ready whenever you are. <3

[For the one named and SP!]

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