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My Fics of Yore “Oz,” Take 1
Oct. 17th, 2023 04:35 pmOh, Oz, you dark, twisted, unrelenting, and brilliant show. How I loved you.
(My FK friends, even the darkest FK episodes have got nothing on Oz. FK’s "Last Knight"? In Oz, that kind of thing is just breakfast.)
Oz was set in a maximum security prison. The show was tense and compelling, but violence, sex, murder, rape, gangs, drug use, manipulation, and profanity were all par for the course. It could be a hard show to watch. So why watch it? It was sooooooo well done. Scathing social commentary with layers upon layers to unpack. Fantastic acting and writing (well, until the final season's writing, sigh). Characters that you couldn't stop watching even as they did terrible things because even the worst of them were human beings with engaging stories and redemptive moments (not that such moments ever lasted).
When I was active in the fandom in the mid-2000s, lots of friendly and creative people converged to talk about and write fic for this absolutely brutal show. I wrote more in this fandom than any other (though not a ton, just a lot for me).
I uploaded one story to AO3, but in re-reading the others, I couldn’t remember some of the contexts for the story events very well. Which made me want to re-watch the show before I upload the rest. (Plus I’m trying to track down one that was in a print zine though I’m not holding my breath on that.)
The one I did upload is the tamest and shortest and possibly my favorite of the bunch.
Two Truths and a Lie
What's going on in this story? I'll tell you.
Inmates Chris Keller and Tobias Beecher were two of the most popular characters on the show. The two men were very different, but had an electric chemistry and tumultuous romantic relationship, which served to address the question of whether love can exist in a place like Oz. The answer? Yes and nooooooooo.
It's no surprise to me that of the 2,000 Oz fics on AO3, damn near half of them are Beecher/Keller. I don't think anyone could watch the show and not get sucked in by their intense and toxic love affair. I was certainly no exception.
In "Two Truths and a Lie," Beecher and Keller are killing time in their pod (a.k.a. prison cell) before lights out. Beecher prods Keller to open up about himself and Keller suggests they play the titular game. Beecher agrees. The rules are straightforward, but nothing about Keller or his relationship with Beecher is straightforward. It's a lesson Keller delivers in true Keller fashion and that Beecher has to live with because what else can he do?
No violence. No sex (but references to it). Just mindfuckery.
(My FK friends, even the darkest FK episodes have got nothing on Oz. FK’s "Last Knight"? In Oz, that kind of thing is just breakfast.)
Oz was set in a maximum security prison. The show was tense and compelling, but violence, sex, murder, rape, gangs, drug use, manipulation, and profanity were all par for the course. It could be a hard show to watch. So why watch it? It was sooooooo well done. Scathing social commentary with layers upon layers to unpack. Fantastic acting and writing (well, until the final season's writing, sigh). Characters that you couldn't stop watching even as they did terrible things because even the worst of them were human beings with engaging stories and redemptive moments (not that such moments ever lasted).
When I was active in the fandom in the mid-2000s, lots of friendly and creative people converged to talk about and write fic for this absolutely brutal show. I wrote more in this fandom than any other (though not a ton, just a lot for me).
I uploaded one story to AO3, but in re-reading the others, I couldn’t remember some of the contexts for the story events very well. Which made me want to re-watch the show before I upload the rest. (Plus I’m trying to track down one that was in a print zine though I’m not holding my breath on that.)
The one I did upload is the tamest and shortest and possibly my favorite of the bunch.
What's going on in this story? I'll tell you.
Inmates Chris Keller and Tobias Beecher were two of the most popular characters on the show. The two men were very different, but had an electric chemistry and tumultuous romantic relationship, which served to address the question of whether love can exist in a place like Oz. The answer? Yes and nooooooooo.
It's no surprise to me that of the 2,000 Oz fics on AO3, damn near half of them are Beecher/Keller. I don't think anyone could watch the show and not get sucked in by their intense and toxic love affair. I was certainly no exception.
In "Two Truths and a Lie," Beecher and Keller are killing time in their pod (a.k.a. prison cell) before lights out. Beecher prods Keller to open up about himself and Keller suggests they play the titular game. Beecher agrees. The rules are straightforward, but nothing about Keller or his relationship with Beecher is straightforward. It's a lesson Keller delivers in true Keller fashion and that Beecher has to live with because what else can he do?
No violence. No sex (but references to it). Just mindfuckery.
