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"Our Own Little Slice of Verdant Hell," Chap. 2

I will return to "All the Kinds of Broken" soon! Just needed a break for a little sweetness and healing in the AU, and I've had a partial draft of this chapter forever.

I think your last point is SO important. These people (like Bear) want someone attractive (usually out of their league, although Bear wasn’t too bad lol) to devote themselves entirely to them. So, Bear wants Nikki because Nikki made him feel happy and wanted, but in a way that only ever served him. He never actually got to know her as a PERSON, at least that’s the impression I get.

It speaks to the “nice guy” type person Jorning is as well, that believe they’re entitled to every person they find attractive. It’s also so horrible because Bear knew Nikki didn’t have autonomy or something was off in the first dating montage, and was content to keep her that way, just like every person in Tilrey’s life for a long time.

In terms of Bear asking a character I can feel sympathy for him of course, what he undergoes in the movie (while his fault entirely) is also virtually inescapable after the initial wish. However, the way he acted and his cowardice throughout is so deeply disgusting to me.

Bear was such a coward! And I’m glad the movie gave us that one initial scene with the real Nikki so we could see what she was actually like and how they were and weren’t connecting. I’ve seen people arguing about whether she secretly liked him, but in the end, I’m not sure it matters whether he “could have had a chance with her.” Everything he does after the wish suggests he wasn’t interested in her as a person, and she seems like the type who wouldn’t put up with that in a real relationship.

And you’re so right, Bear is perfectly attractive—just like Jorning! If it was only about that, Jorning could have “had a chance with Tilrey” as much as Bror did. But Jorning doesn’t know how to see Tilrey as anything but a coveted prize for him to win. He doesn’t know how to be genuinely interested in him. 😢 It makes me sad to think about, because I’d like to think empathy is learnable and teachable, but … I don’t know. There are so many real relationships out there that are based on people using each other for their looks, for economic resources, for convenience, without really connecting.

I just watched Obsession and OH MY GOD. I literally left the theatre sobbing 😭. That was a tough movie but definitely a 10/10. When/If you watch it I really want to hear your thoughts and review on it, especially in regards to Tilrey.

I saw it several weeks ago and totally agree. Spoilers ahead!!

I keep thinking of Nikki saying, “You’ve never been with me,” the absolute horror of that (as she briefly regains control of her body), and how Tilrey could say the same to most of the men he’s “been with.” They don’t know him at all. They’ve only interacted with the persona he’s been forced into. Yet some of them think they have real relationships with this persona because they want it to be real enough to ignore the obvious consent issues. In so many of these encounters, he feels like a prisoner in his own body.

The movie landed especially hard with me because I can also empathize with Bear up to a point. He’s shy, awkward, and has trouble relating to people—not unlike Gersha! He made a stupid wish that he never expected to come true. But then he willfully ignores all the signs that he’s done something horrific, because he wants it to be real.

Maybe Gersha does some of that too? But this saga isn’t a horror movie, and Gersha isn’t the one who originally forced Tilrey into his persona, so there can be (eventually) a happy ending. A happy ending, of course, is what differentiates a love story (which can be one-sided or tragic) from a romance, the distinction Nikki brings up and Bear doesn’t seem to grasp.

The movie brought home to me that there are so many people who don’t even understand consent because they don’t know how to listen to their partner or do anything but project a fantasy onto them. It’s like they’d rather have a cardboard fantasy than a human being, which is depressing! No wonder Tilrey is so cynical. 😏 But anyway, I’m curious to know your thoughts as well.

Has Jorning ever had a boyfriend/girlfriend? Or does he just float around pining away after people way out of his league, putting their beauty on a pedestal while completely missing their humanity? Ugh Jorning 😩🙄 (Says I, floating around seduced by Jorning's POV of Tilrey so beautiful all the way down to the shape of his ears 👀)

I actually haven’t thought about it till now, but I suspect that’s exactly what Jorning does. In a very “nice guy” way, he’ll spend his life complaining about the beautiful boys who friendzoned him. And he’ll probably complain to his long-suffering wife, whom he eventually marries because it’s expected and she’s supportive and undemanding. And he’ll never consider that maybe he doesn’t feel safe actually relating to people and so he tries to control and coerce them instead.

I suspect he was in love with his CO (on some level) and wanted to be dominated by him, and acknowledging those desires might have helped him. But he will never, ever admit that.

Well... Linden achieved his goal.

He was so upset he couldn't possess the boy.

Now, he's carried out an act with Tilrey that the boy had never done with anyone. Penetrated him in a way that's very different from regular sex and more overwhelming, for both of them but especially the boy receiving it.

So, he has, now. Possessed him. As old and frail and half out of it as Linden is, he can rest assured Tilrey can't be around him anymore without seeing his hand, knowing what his fist feels like, what he feels like being so full of him more than anyone else, what he feels about himself now having experienced his body's defenses being overpowered in that way - Linden carving out a place for himself in Tilrey's soul.

And the horrible irony of all this is that Tilrey doesn’t know Linden as a person at all (not that he would want to), and Linden doesn’t know him. As we saw in that one scene from Linden’s POV, he looks at Tilrey and just sees an extension of Malsha, whom he failed to possess—but also a person who has no power and can’t say no to him, unlike the younger Malsha. He doesn’t even appear to know Tilrey’s real name.

But this person who doesn’t know Tilrey, who isn’t capable of knowing him, will be stamped on his psyche forever. The memory will possess him long after the man is gone. 😢

"All the Kinds of Broken," Chap. 61

I noticed they just reissued Dennis Cooper's 1989 novel Closer, which is where I learned most of what I know about the act described in this very dark chapter. I still have the copy I bought when I was in college.

I keep thinking I need to take a break and return to the Harbour AU because this is getting very misery pòrn, but then I write another chapter anyway. I do want to close the circle and bring us eventually back to the opening of A Serviceable Boy and the less awful trajectory that starts there.

Let me open by saying: I hate AI with a burning passion, let alone AI used for writing. It needs to be destroyed and the land it sprung from salted. Post haste.

Now that that's out of the way...

A thought experiment:

If you all of a sudden had a doppelganger who could write anything from your Oslov universe exactly as you'd write it (because you're amazing!!!) what would be your dream chapters or stories to just sit down and read - that don't exist yet and may or may not ever make the leap from your incredible brain to the page? Saving you the work, leaving you the enjoyment.

I’ve been thinking about this! (And thank you for noting the gen AI hate, btw. It is my nemesis, both as a writer and an editor.*)

I haven’t had time to write the Harbour AU with Tilrey and Malsha that I started, and I’d love to read that. Also the coda/final story where Tilrey brings Einara back to Harbour. (I’ve planned it but again haven’t had time.) And I’ve had some ideas about Malsha’s backstory and weaving the younger him into a sort of-fantasy with Harbourer characters.

More than anything, though, I want the experience of actually writing those things! And then reading them years later and feeling almost as if someone else wrote them. I love the full writer experience. That said, if someone was inspired to write (NOT prompt a machine to write) “fanfic” by this story, to add elements or scenes or AUs I never thought of, I’d probably enjoy reading that, too. (And be flattered, of course!)

Okay, question back at you (or anyone): Are there any unexplored bits of the story or “deleted scenes” you’d especially like to read?

*Random note: I was thinking recently about how I started writing. I was 8 and reading everything I could get my hands on (we had no TV, no internet), and writing was just another way to give myself stuff to read. If I were a kid in that situation today, and I did also have access to AI, would I just generate stories and see that as normal and fine and even creative? I hope not, I really do, but I wonder.

The way I see people talking about their AI “writing,” it’s clear they believe they are actual writers with ownership of the text, because every writer does process everything they’ve read into something new, and no one is truly original. I don’t know. It’s giving me a bit of an existential crisis tbh. All I can say is that I like writing too much to let a hivemind machine do it for me.

So, Saldegren missed his latest chance to be with Tilrey. (For noble reasons in his own mind!) I'm so curious what sessions between those two must be like these days. Tilrey hated being near him later in life, when Saldegren kept showing up for family dinners with Gersha & Ceill - so much so that Ceill noticed the tension in Tilrey sitting beside that man. Yet, by his mid-20s, Saldegren was one of the first Tilrey tried to talk back to or stand up for himself with, though he backed down when Saldegren wouldn't let him. And of course, Saldegren himself remembered everything yet understood nothing: being Tilrey's first as Malsha's sent-out kettle boy, how uncomfortable and intimidated he was back then, everything he's witnessing now as the Island's. Next time they're together during this time should be interesting!

Funny you should say that, because I think they’ll have an encounter in the next chapter, which is partly drafted. I’m also curious to see what happens after they’ve had a couple of years apart (to Saldegren’s chagrin but not Tilrey’s). Their meeting at Gourmanian’s house was painful for poor Tilrey. And in the forthcoming chapter, he’ll have some other things to worry about.

I recently saw the movie Obsession, and while I won’t spoil it, there was a moment that reminded me of Saldegren and Tilrey. Basically two people are having a relationship in which only one is capable of consenting. The one who wanted the relationship asks, “Is it so bad being with me?” and the one who didn’t want it responds, “I’ve never been with you.” I think Saldegren (the “nice guy”) and Tilrey could have this exchange. Saldegren thinks they have a meaningful relationship and he knows the real Tilrey (having watched him age and mature). But in Tilrey’s mind, none of it was ever authentic or wanted, and he’s done his best to dissociate throughout. The “real him” has never been with Saldegren. 😥

I was rewatching Shawshank and the Andy and Tilrey parallels kill me.

Weirdly enough, I’ve never seen Shawshank! And I’m just realizing I really should because I would like it. 😏

"All the Kinds of Broken," Chap. 60

More dysfunctional coping mechanisms from Tilrey. But you knew that.

I braided a flashback from the later story Crosscurrents and Consequences into this chapter, which led me to reread, which led me to think ... it's not bad? I admit, I wouldn't mind revising and publishing the saga so I could have my own physical book versions. At the same time, the stories' current home feels right. I suppose that's why I'm working on something else specifically for publication in the perhaps vain hope of earning a little money.

Hear me out on the time travel thing. As a GROUP, all at different life stages, Malsha, Veran, Tilrey, Bror, Gersha, and Besha all get transported into our time. Ik that’s like a nightmare scenario for Tilrey but I think it’d be interesting to see the dynamic! Especially since Malsha is such a fan of Harbour.

Lol, that would be very, VERY interesting! If they all got transported as a group, I think we would quickly see the power dynamics change. Verán (at his current old age, but probably any age) wouldn’t be able to adapt. He would probably lean on Besha to help him survive this cruel new world where he isn’t automatically respected by everyone. And Besha, who’s very adaptable and would love our world, would leave him in the dust.

Malsha is clearly more adaptable and speaks English, etc., but I think even he would struggle without his inherited privilege to fall back on. Gersha too. I think the Tangle would scare them because it’s just too much to navigate. Even Harbour is easier because it’s an offline society. They would be like Lestat at the end of Interview With the Vampire when he’s cowering in a room, terrified by the modern world outside (before Rice decided to retcon that).

Tilrey and Bror I think would fare the best by far. Bror can charm anyone, whether he speaks their language or not, and lonely people in our world are susceptible to charm. I can see him charming the two of them into jobs, an apartment, whatever else they need. Without all the rules of Oslov society, Bror would have a real edge. Maybe he and Tilrey could take coffee shop jobs in a college town and Tilrey could audit classes. ☺️ They would get away from the others as soon as possible, though who knows where Gersha would fit into this … depends on where he is in his relationship with Tilrey.

Maybe the three of them could be dysfunctional roommates. Gersha would probably bore the other two by freaking out daily about AI replacing human programmers, which is so, so not Oslov! I think he would like coffee though. ☕️

Random question - thinking back to the very awful time Tilrey went through, now that he's in this very awful time - the brothel Jena & Malsha sent him to for punishment: did that party of reveling soldiers know he was a newbie? They were just partying, celebrating a buddy's birthday, not there to be monsters or anything - but surely they must've been able to tell the brothel boy in the room was terrified and had no idea what to do? He clearly looked like what he was too, a beautiful young student. Requested a newbie, for fun?

I wouldn’t be at all surprised if whoever organized the party did request a frightened newbie. Some of the others may have not wanted that and just gone along with it—I imagine not all of them were there for SA. But for some groups (frat bros come to mind), cruelty is part of the bonding ritual. Getting wasted can always be used as an excuse. And for these Laborers, getting a scared, unseasoned kid who looked like an Upstart (as people often claim Tilrey does) might be a special thrill.

Plus, Hulda was in charge of this brothel (before she got promoted to the Sanctioned), and you just know she would be working every angle to get “tips” of sap or whatever these officers had to offer. She took one look at Tilrey and knew his inexperience would be part of the attraction and found a group he would appeal to. 😢 And I think Tilrey guessed that (later, with more savvy), which is why he’s disgusted when he meets Irin Dartán again. He really can’t forgive Hulda or Irin for colluding in what happened, even if Malsha orchestrated it.

Ok I'm gonna contribute one to the list of "I wish some of us Oslov fans could write" AU list 😂😭

I am super intrigued by the idea of a time travel AU: what if Tilrey found himself in our world? 🤔

He was so delighted by Harbour - happily discovering the flowers, butterflies, trees, warm air. The startingly different way of life. Speaking one of the languages he self-taught.

Imagine if all of a sudden he were here in our world!

One of these pretty spring days. He does speak English after all... certainly with a very confusing unidentifiable but pretty accent 😅 And I'm sure everyone in our world would consider him beautiful too.

Let's say he just gets dropped here today, at 21. Heck, let's drop him on a college campus and have everyone just think he's an exchange student whose enrollment paperwork went missing ha. Would really love to see how he'd rebuild himself - suddenly free of being a kettle boy, dealing with everything he's gone though, but getting to figure himself out navigating a strange and wild society (to him).

If you write this, I want to read it! ☺️ A college AU would be so much fun. Of course I’m wondering about logistics—did he body swap with someone in our world? Will he have new parents to pay for college? Or will he just wander into a classroom and then start sneakily auditing lecture classes and hanging with students in the dorm? Maybe he’d get a job as a barista—under the table, since he’d be undocumented. He has some experience of cafe culture, so he might like that. It wouldn’t make much use of his intellect, but he could meet people, make friends.

Tilrey would have so many thoughts about the world of the “Tangle”! As a time traveler, he might see us on a bad path and want to stop the Unraveling from happening. He would be shocked by many things but also charmed by aspects of our world, I think. He would find us naive but (at least sometimes) in a sweet way.

Weirdly enough, long ago I wrote a campus novel that did involve Oslovs time traveling to our world. (Sap was revealed as a drug that can transport you into the past or future.) It was too much story and I ended up making the campus novel a separate thing. But I have drafts somewhere about Oslovs (not Tilrey but Linnett descendants—which I guess might make them Tilrey’s descendants too?) adjusting to the modern U.S. They called the natives “Users,” which I thought was very clever at the time. 😏

Hi! My favorite character is Janga (of course, besides Tirley and Gersha). He’s such a unique character, I don’t think I’ve ever read about someone quite like him.

And his relationship with Caile is so sweet. I just wish we had more of him.

I was wondering if you have any recommendations for characters similar to Janga somewhere out there?

I’m so glad you like Janta! He has a special place in my heart. I’ve been thinking about similar characters, and no one jumps to mind, but I’m sure they exist out there. I think of him as being neurodivergent and exceptionally empathetic, but then he also has a special aptitude for technology that could be called genius. If anyone has ideas for comparable characters, please comment!

I was thinking of maybe the Liveship Paragon in Robin Hobbs’ Liveship Traders trilogy, but he’s way more anguished and dysfunctional than Janta is, despite having some similarities. (The Liveships have empathy built into their very nature; you could say it’s forced upon them. Which may also be true of Janta, but he handles it better.) Anyway, I’ll keep thinking about this!

"I imagine that when Tilrey remembers this time, it’s just a blur of fear and humiliation and being out of control." 😩

The interaction of Tilrey and memory is such an interesting thread through the whole universe as everyone moves on.

He remembers so clearly encounters that happened to him, unbidden so many times - all these terrible times are right there on the edge of his brain, living with him for years. Or different men's voice or smell or touch. Other things are, like you said, a blur: feeling disturbed when a Councillor wistfully quotes to Tilrey something Tilrey said or did with him that Tilrey himself truly can't remember - like part of him must still be held captive back there in those moments with them.

Such a great—and appropriately creepy—way to describe it! It’s like part of him is held captive in those moments that he’s managed not to remember but that his abusers do remember—with fondness. 😥 He and they have experienced two completely different versions of the past, which I guess might explain why Tilrey has a weird and fraught relationship with memory. The early years with Malsha and his first experiences with most of these men are crystal clear for him, but around this point, with the repetitive nature of what’s happening with Jorning and Linden, he’s starting to lose a clear sense of the contours of time, each night blurring into the next. The next chapter will get into that… 😕

I think Tilrey is shellshocked and deeply sad.

(Right now, I mean, but hey - maybe a little of it's stayed with him forever)

That chapter Facedown is where I feel like something just really bad took hold in him :'(

It was a really difficult experience, and coming as the first time vulnerable like that again with the Magistrate and Jorning. He went into with this plan to not be vulnerable somehow and then it was the exact opposite. He's spent so long steeling himself through sex with people, but then this time - it wasn't sex for anybody... except for him. It wasn't a service with a purpose, for someone to get pleasure out of it; it was simply something he was forced to go through to humilate and dominate and penetrate him. And then the terror elicited by Jorning's arms holding him during real sex, the feelings again from his near-murder. It's like that night carved deeply in him "this is what I am", after all his hard work to save himself from ever having to accept that.

That night, and the weeks of callousness with which he was treated after he got so injured. It's a mindfuck for him. :'(

This, all this. 💔 Thank you for your addendum/correction that the pivotal chapter is Orchestrating, not Facedown—I agree! They’re all too easy to mix up, though. I imagine that when Tilrey remembers this time, it’s just a blur of fear and humiliation and being out of control. Trying over and over to exert control in different ways and failing. Trying to become numb to it and telling himself he is numb, but still all too aware that with each of these encounters, he loses a piece of himself.

And you describe very well why this is different: Linden isn’t getting pleasure out of anything except the sheer domination and dehumanization. Malsha also took pleasure in that, but he was more like a scalpel. His way of dominating depended on Tilrey being an intelligent person who was sensitive to subtle insults. Linden is a blunt instrument who barely even notices how his victim reacts. And for someone like Tilrey, I think the blunt instrument is worse—not to mention that he’s now in danger of serious harm.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of Sporus(I wish we had some other name to call him by), but reading your story- it reminded me of him. People in power always go straight to sexual exploitation. It’s such a horrifying human experience. It does make you really question if humans are inherently bad or if it’s just that society really does corrupt. I’m curious to hear your thoughts on that age old question.

I hadn’t heard of him, but what an incredibly sad story! The perspectives of people like this have always fascinated me—people who are just written off and dehumanized as objects of exploitation.

Nature vs. nurture … that’s a big one. I do believe that the desire to dominate others is a natural human instinct, and for men it’s often sexual domination (women have plenty of other ways!). But that’s only one instinct. It’s also so clearly natural to most people to be curious about other people, which can lead to empathy, cooperation, reciprocity. Society can promote and foster either instinct or even both simultaneously.

Nero’s Rome had what Nietzsche called “master morality,” which doesn’t grant rights or even subjectivity to the underclass. We kind of have a mixture of that and Christian morality (what he called “slave morality,” which has its own issues) and Enlightenment morality where every individual has value. Oslovs have a toxic tech bro mentality (where it’s okay to dehumanize anyone you deem intellectually inferior) combined with a stark survival mentality.

The founder of Oslov’s system (Whyberg) would be horrified by what happens to Tilrey and see that as a return to the “decadence” of Feudalism that he was trying to root out. So maybe it’s a reminder that whenever you give people too much power, some of them will abuse it in horrible ways. Not all—maybe even just a few. But if there’s nothing to stop them, no oversight, no cultural disapproval, it will get worse. 😢

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