I ♥ Miscellany. But not.

♥ I'm terrible at meeting fandom deadlines. Two seasons later, I still haven't finished my iconography challenge fic, and Giles lingers in LAX, waiting for direction. On a whim I signed up for lasultrix's HP flashfic challenge and received two pairing requests that I have no affinity for. Moreover, I've long thought them both absolutely cracked, but like a good little fan, I'm soldiering on with the Hermione/Millicent. Somehow it's taken on a Sophocles vibe, with Draco and Pansy scheming. There are days when I just don't get my brain.

♥ It's funny. I've been working so much that I haven't had time to go online in the last few weeks, but I'm clocking ever more geek-hours. I've settled into the comfortable re-read process, starting with CJ Cherryh and planning to finish with Douglas Adams. I spent an entire paycheck on used CDs, commandeered the player at work and put in the Right Kind of Music. I now spend more time talking about music with customers than I do serving customers. Latte? You don't need no stinking latte! Shut up and enjoy the Sloan. Also, I can't seem to stop buying comic tees. Yes dammit, I do need another Green Lantern tee. Yesterday I spent three hours in the Silver Snail, and just managed, by the skin of my teeth, to keep myself from buying a huge Aragorn poster. Woe. I am weak.

♥ Speaking of Tolkien, sajasma suckered me into reading The Silmarilion and I... I want to write Silfic. Turinfic, to be exact. *coughSopheclesripoffcough* It's all so tragic and deeply amusing. Can anyone rec me some Turinfic? I've looked, but it all seems to be Elfsmut and Hobbitsmut and horrific combinations of those.

♥ I want pie. Pumpkin pie.

♥ I'm tired. Very, very tired. That is all.

Chris Keller of Oz is a bad, bad man!

Is anyone else disturbed by the pandemic of Beecher/Keller fluff and even worse, AU fluff where Keller is psychologically stable? I'll admit to taking a guilty pleasure in the very inspired stories of this kind, but I wonder at the sheer mass of them.

Keller is a both a highly sexual and violent character. Obviously the mixture has a certain attraction but I think that many people (purposely) overlook how inextricably these things are linked in him, for him. He is a pleasure killer. Beecher himself points this out in the final episode - Keller is driven by his desires and lacks the kind of limits that normal men, even the other inmates in Oz have. How much can he get away with, and still be live? How far can he go before the state is forced to kill him? How far can he push Beecher, or Schillinger or even Sister Pete, before they snap on him? And then how can he work his way back into their graces to start all over again.

He is not driven by anger - he doesn't carry the extreme malice toward Schillinger as Beecher does, or Schibetta to Adebesi. There is no sense that Keller could ever be lost the way they were - as though no matter how much face he might lose, Keller can't be humiliated in quite the same way. There is a coldness to his character, evident from his first scenes. Most things don't touch him and what does is subject to his plans. Like O'Reilly he's always looking to his own advantage.

A comparison to O'Reilly might be valuable, come to think of it. Keller is like O'Reilly's hypersexualized, sociopathic and psychopathic red-haired step cousin. Keller and O'Reilly share a love of fucking other people over, but Keller's need for control is applied far more narrowly onto himself and his victims.

I don't say that Keller is in any way inhuman - he's capable of love, affection and tenderness - but he's deeply disturbed. He's a fascinating character because of his conflation of sexual and violent pleasure, and because of the enjoyment he takes in manipulating and hurting others.

Fluff!Keller is just some poor schmuck who happened to get fucked in prison when he was seventeen and then fell in with a bad crowd. He's a loser who ended up with life, after fucking up a simple robbery. Hard to explain why he kept fucking and killing college boys, but we'll blame that on Schillinger's bad influence. Oh the drama! I mean trauma.

On the other hand, canon!Keller got carried away during a robbery and ended up with life in prison, and while that may suck, he's still having fun.

Come on, people! Who's more fun?