vanillalime

Thanks to a recent positive review by the_emu, I just finished reading "World War Z" by Max Brooks, a book about a world-wide zombie apocalypse. I really enjoyed it and found the concept fascinating (yeah, I know I'm a little late to the zombie game). I loved the format of the book, too, written as a series of transcripts of interviews with various survivors.

Anyway, NOW I'm craving ALL THE OZ APOCAFIC THAT EXISTS IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.

I've assembled a list of stories that I know are out there, and here's what I got so far:

Written for oz_magi:

• Island in a Sea of Zack, by marythefan


• Secret by the Unmourning Water, by marythefan


• Equinox, by levitatethis

Written for spook_me:

• Apocalypse, by severina2001


• Chaos Theory, by trillingstar

Written for Oz Graffixation at oz_graffiti:

• The Road (drabble), by cmk418


• A Soul to Steal, by natlet

Written for hardtime100:

• Three Days After the Asteroid Hit, by actizera

No Emerald City series, by catheights


Does anyone know of any other Oz stories out there? (I've already checked the "apocalypse" tag on AO3 and also found a couple of Oz/Buffy the Vampire Slayer crossovers, but I wasn't particularly interested in that combination.)

I believe trillingstar is currently working on a new apocafic story, and hopefully one day I can add it to this list. *nudge, nudge* :D

This is a placeholder with links to the Oz fic I wrote last year for hardtime100 (4 drabbles and 1 flashfic), the Oz lyric_wheel Challenge, and the oz_magi holiday exchange.

I am currently in the process (finally!) of creating a master list here on LJ, as well as copying all my fic over to my AO3 account. (So when the big LiveJournal Armageddon goes down as all the doomsayers are predicting, I'll have my ass covered.) In the meantime, this helps keep me organized.

( Links behind the cut.... )
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In addition, I encourage everyone to read the awesome works generated by my oz_magi wish... two deliciously decadant 1970s AUs inspired by my prompt of "Disco Inferno":

the story Night Fever, by pride_of_erin, and
the treat Disco Inferno 77, by mazephoenix

Toby edged his way out to the kitchen again, and brought out a salted caramel peanut butter pie that might have been the best thing Elliot had ever tasted in his life.
~~ drsquidlove, "Someone Like You," Chapter 44

(Of course, I like to think that Toby is the best thing Elliot's ever tasted in his life. Heh.)

*****
As most Oz fans on my flist probably know, drsquidlove wrote the Pultizer Prize-worthy Oz/SVU fic "Someone Like You" and began posting it about a year ago. (I can't believe it's already been that long!) The story was full of incredible angst, humor, tenderness, sex, violence, and, perhaps suprisingly, a lot of really detailed descriptions of great-sounding food.

Consequently, I have been dying to make a salted caramel peanut butter pie ever since February, when I first read the above line from the chapter where Toby prepares Elliot's birthday dinner ("The Chicken"). I believe that both salted caramel and peanut butter should be a part of everyone's daily nutritional food intake, and putting them together can only be full of win, right?

But I've held off on any effort until now, because, frankly, I'm not that great a cook. I mean, nobody's ever died from my cooking yet, but I have a list of basic meals that I rarely stray from, since "trying something new" is almost always a culinary disaster just waiting to happen. However, a Google search yielded what sounded like a promising, fairly straight-forward recipe from Pillsbury, and....

Ta-da!!!  Here is my attempt at a Salted Caramel Peanut Butter Pie!!!  *waves hand in a flourish*




And it turned out pretty good! It reminded me a lot of a Snickers candy bar? It was also very, VERY rich. (Like, one slice was probably the equivalent of three king-sized Snickers.) And I'm really more of a salty-snack kind of person, rather than having a sweet-tooth, so I probably would like it more if it had more salted caramel and less... everything else. But the pie disappeared pretty quickly, so I guess it was a success!

As for the cooking itself, it was touch-and-go there for a while. There was an issue with the crust being too small for my pie plate, and then there was too much filling, and then I wasn't sure if it had cooked all the way through because the recipe didn't indicate how to check that it was done, and then even though I waited for it to cool down for as long as the recipe said, it was mostly a gooey mess when I first tried to slice it up. (It was much better the next day after being refrigerated overnight.)

But you know what? Whenever I started to get stressed, all I could hear in the back of my mind was a semi-hysterical Toby freaking out and banging plates down and saying, "It's not about the fucking chicken!" and I would laugh and laugh. 'Cause I think that might be my favorite line in the whole story.

Well, that and the "I love you." :-)

I still don't think I'll be de-boning a fish anytime soon, though. It's too depressing to think that an 11-year-old girl could do it better than me, even if she is a fictional character.