spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Red: Intense)
Was Kathy nervous about tonight? Pfft, of course not. Don't be silly! Kathy was totally not a ball of anxiety over Dante and Barry meeting! Why would she be? It was just the first time her beloved boyfriend and her oldest school friend were going to be introduced. And decide if they liked each other. Not that either were weirdly touchy about things, either!

Thank god Anders and Barry were old friends or she might have had a complete meltdown at some point.

But now dinner was almost done cooking - they were having bulgolgi and it was delicious, thank you very much - and she was wearing something cute and pretty and everything was going to be fine.

Now just to practice the little introduction speech she'd already memorized...

Which was a totally fine and normal thing to do!

[For the nerds, no OCD]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Red: Cute)
It had been ten days since the kids had left and Kathy was mostly back to normal. The fact that it was the end of the semester had probably helped a bit in that regard - it was possible to be maudlin and to study your ass off, but it took a lot more energy than Kathy really had to spare.

Her immediate plans for the evening - more studying, finals started on Monday - had been immediately derailed when Dante had declared it a night off, carrying her downstairs to a pillow pile, made from what looked to be every pillow in the damn house. As if that wasn't dirty enough, he plied her with a mixing bowl full of ice cream, whipped cream, and caramel sauce, a similar-sized sundae for him on the other side of the nest.

Ice cream, blankets, pillows, and boyfriend. The perfect recipe to get rid of post-kid and pre-finals blues.


[Dante modded with permission!]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Smileyface)
Kathy knew that she was probably one of the very few who thought this way, but the weekend after prom was pretty much her favorite time of year. Certainly her favorite of all the weird tricks the island pulled.

So late last night, she and Dante had decamped from Limbo City to the hotel; Anders had an important surgery that was expected to last hours, but he'd promised to come along if he could. But for now, it was just the two of them and...well, however many happened to show up.

"Wonder who we'll get this year," Kathy murmured, looking out the window towards the park.
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 (Faraway Eyes)
This is what happens when you stopped listening to the radio for the island; you were taken by surprise when you stepped on the island and saw that half of it looked like it belonged somewhere and somewhen else. Like, even moreso than usual.

Even with all the differences in the island, the first rift took Kathy by surprise as it opened up under her feet, too wide for her to bounce out. It reminded her a little too much of that column of light that had grabbed her to bring her to LA. Only this time it was down instead of up and when she looked around...

"Okay, I am not in Kansas anymore."

[For thems what are there with her.]
spin_kick_snap: (zzz20yr--Champagne and Cleavage)
Due to owning a business, Kathy sometimes got very weird, not-at-all-related-to-her-business offers from vendors trying to establish a working relationship. Most she tossed, but occasionally something really cool would end up in her inbox. Like a pair of tickets for a Murder Mystery Dinner, taking place on a newly-renovated luxury train from the 1930s. People would sign up, choose a character from the list of possible dinner attendees, and then show up and ride the train around Limbo City for a few hours, having dinner and trying to solve the whodunnit.

Kathy had been charmed from the start and had pretty much decided to go immediately. The question of who to take was answered when she spotted that one of the characters listed was a "rich rock star."

That made it easy.

One conversation of 'You don't have to dress up and you can bring your guitar!' and 'pleeeeease, it sounds like a ton of fun!' later, and Kathy and Dante had their tickets and were waiting to board the extravagant train cars of The Flying Pussyfoot for four hours of delicious, murdery fun!

[For the poor sap who agreed to this]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Work Out Hair)
With her mom's kimchi recipe now in her possession, Kathy figured she should try to make some. Without a proper kimchi fridge, she couldn't make much, but she figured she could probably get away with one or two jars in the back of the fridge. With her mom's recipe in hand, her children behind her and the gijesa of her whole family on Monday (though her parents got short shrift compared to Sarah), family was kind of on her mind a lot.

Her usual strawberry Yakult had been swapped for banana milk and she had a bowl of injulmi rice balls to snack on when her hands weren't covered with red pepper flakes or salt. She sang as she worked, TARA and BTS and Super Junior blaring from her phone, dancing around the kitchen chopping vegetables, salting water, simmering the glutinous rice powder.

For the first time since she moved in, the house - or, at least, the kitchen - really smelled like home.

[Open for visitors or phone calls or them guys what live here!]
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 (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: (zzz20yr--Chin in Hand Solemn)
Kathy was still glowing from yesterday's museum trip with Anders and now tonight Dante was coming over for the evening, too. She appreciated the lengths they were going to make sure she didn't feel too lonely or lost while she was still adjusting to being back. She'd had a whole evening planned out as a thank you to Dante over it...

But then there had been puppies. She'd come in from her shower and decided to take a minute to refresh her Tumblr before drying off and getting dressed, and then she'd stumbled over a link for a pet adoption website that curated pictures of dogs that needed to be adopted from nearby shelters if you put in your zip code. Which Kathy, more fool her, had done.

And now was scrolling through picture after picture of adorable romping puppies and distinguished older dogs all looking for forever homes and who even knew what time it was anymore, there were puppies.

[For that guy]
spin_kick_snap: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Default)
All the lights were on in the house, chasing away the settling dusk. It made the house look warm and homey, a golden glow pouring out of every window. For the first time since she'd arrived back on Fandom, Kathy felt like she wanted to cook, just bibimbap, simple and easy, but delicious and easy and friendly. Spices scented the air, smelling like home.

A nice place to come and visit, perhaps.

[Open for visitors! And also visitors of visitors.]
spin_kick_snap: (Knife)
Making their way through the city looked ridiculous, but still beat trying to fight their way past all the exes clamoring at the gate. St. George was flying, carrying Eliot in a makeshift sling. Max clung to his back, bitching about how stupid they probably looked and pointedly ignoring any and all questions about the possibility of levitation. Dante was using some complicated series of jumps and a grappling hook...chain...thing. Max had been fascinated by it from the moment Dante had pulled it out and St. George was doing his best not to wonder where it had been hiding and why it sometimes changed color.

And, a goodly distance behind then fluttered a small, unobtrusive bird that just happened to be flying in the same direction.

As stupid as they all looked - and, in fairness, it was a little stupid - they were making decent time through the city, searching for Josh to hopefully find him and convince him to return to the Mount before Cairax finished worming his way inside the former hero and the possession was complete.

Many of those exes from the gate staggered after them, like paupers to a banquet, their arms raised in a futile attempt to grab and snatch at the heroes passing overhead. They crowd only grew as they flew back and forth across the neighborhood. Some fell behind, but there were always more to join the chase. By the time true dawn broke, there were sixty or seventy exes trailing behind them in a loose fan. They shuffled between cars, dragging against the sides, and added that scraping noise to the sound of their clicking teeth.

They'd been out for well over an hour, but still no sign of Josh.

This is it! )
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: Kang Min Kyung as Kathy/Banzai (Serene Smile)
The last time anyone from Fandom had been in Kathy's LA, the heroes had been living inside the walls that surrounded Paramount Studios, with the exes and the South Seventeens laying claim to everything else. Since then, they'd expanded; the Big Wall pushing the borders out almost a mile in all four directions. In some spots, it was hard to tell that there had ever been a zombocalypse; the streets were clean, the buildings repaired, the blood all scrubbed away. There was a proper school, lots of farms and gardens, several churches, and even a small library. The studio was still the heart of the community, but people had started to spread out and settle. It was still a tight fit, several thousand people into one square mile, but honestly not much worse than Los Angeles used to be, back before the world died and reanimated again.

Life had fallen back into a rhythm again. People got up, got ready for the day. Kids were sent off to school, adults took themselves to various jobs, though there were fewer sales people, baristas, and aspiring actors and a lot more guards, scavengers, and farmers these days. There was a brewery down on Larchmont and a still over on Monroe. Burns Park let people enjoy a bit of nature where the kids could run around and burn off steam and a Gold's Gym practically against the Big Wall. That was where the Unbreakables spent most of their free time, with curious gawkers watching them put more and more weight onto the machines.

It was a bustling little community of survivors, as safe as a place could be, surrounded on all sides by millions of undead waiting to find a way inside to devour them all.

[For them that are there! NFB, and please wait for the OCD is up! Previous entry Next Entry]
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 (Drinking: Plastic Cup)
The door to 33 Apocalypse was almost in sight when Kathy realized that she'd forgotten her phone back at The Perk. She must have left it on the counter while grabbing a bunch of 'thank you for coming to help me move' strawberry creams to bring back for everyone. And then she'd been having so much fun chatting with Ezra and Dante that she'd never thought to bring it back.

She blamed the patriarchy for her lack of phone-sized pockets, dammit.

"Hey guys," she said, drawing to a halt a few yards from the door. "I left my phone back at The Perk like an idiot. I'm just gonna run and grab it, okay?"

Nothing bad ever hides under a cut. )

[Preplayed with the amazing [personal profile] rebelseekspizza and dashing [personal profile] smilestopscars. For once, open for interaction, but NFB! And so plot kicks off, which many apologies for the amount of spam incoming.]
spin_kick_snap: (zzz20yr--bwah)
Last week, Kathy had been an utter lump, eating ice cream and playing sad music and watching a lot of TV while she got used to life without the guys. This week wasn't actually much easier, but Kathy's tolerance for her own moping had run out and left her needing to do something that wasn't just dwell.

Fortunately, it wasn't like she was lacking in options. With the guys gone and Raven spending most of her time out in the woods, the house was just too big and full of memories. So she was moving back to the apartment above Luke's - along with Raven, at least nominally - and this week she'd really gotten her ass in gear when it came to packing. Most of the upstairs was packed, even if those boxes were still mostly stacked downstairs, and now she was just cleaning out their old rooms of the detritus the always seemed to accumulate under furniture and in corners.

Like this old credit card bill of Dante's from...April of 2017. Kathy snorted and rolled her eyes, preparing to toss it into the bin that was half-full of junk when she noticed that one of the items on there was in Hangul. Wait. Had Dante been learning stuff in Korean?

Wait. 김치 크림 파이. Was that a-- Kathy grabbed her phone and did a quick search and yep. It was pretty much exactly the kind of website she'd been expecting with a name like that. Definitely didn't have to do with desserts, that was for damn sure.

"Oh." She wasn't entirely sure what to make of it, especially since that was back when everything had still been really...rough...between them. They'd been friends, in a tentative kind of manner, but no more. So then why...?

"Hi, Portalocity? I've got a portal scheduled to Limbo City for later on this evening, but I was wondering, could I bump it up to earlier than that? Something this afternoon would be good, yeah."

[Open for calls, texts, and visitors before she goes, and LC folks afterwards!]
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.]

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