frith_in_thorns | Let's chat about h/c today!

To go with

naye's lovely post about comfort tropes, tell me your favourite kinds of hurt for your fictional characters! Do you have ones you like to read but not write, or vice versa? Are there some you will read endlessly in any fandom you're in? Are there some h/c tropes you can bash out a 2k oneshot for at the drop of a hat?

Also, do you find you're equal-opportunity with your hurt, or do you hoard it all for one particular character or character archetype?

I'll start, and say that I'm really into hurt resulting in altered-state, as provided by many things but especially concussion/drugged/fever etc. It's something I find endlessly enjoyable to write -- the vulnerability caused by the skewed perspective, and how that plays out in character interactions, but also I... just like... the hurt bit itself *gg* And currently I have a definite Thing for Shen Wei magically exhausting himself and coughing blood and stumbling in a floppy way and having to be supported by Zhao Yunlan. (I don't suppose this is a revelation to anyone. But I'm so glad to know that I'm not alone!)

Anyway, please share your own likes! And recs!

(This is a positivity-only post. Very uninterested in hearing how h/c is OOC or a moral failing or how some people write it badly or whatever, thanks.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

indywind

BTW for reccing this post,

sholio, that's what brought me here.

::checks threading:: If I am reading up the thread correctly, the sensitive/triggery thing you would like to read is psych/emotional recovery from noncon, as distinct from like physical hurt, or other kinds of emotional hurt?

... Would you be interested in recs? Because I might have a few. Or more than a few, depending how expansively you define the essential elements, and what fandoms you'll read in.

From:

sholio

You are correct! And yes, recs would be very much appreciated. :> There's a relatively limited subset of fandoms I'm reading in right now (mostly MCU and the related shows, with a smattering of various other things like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Stranger Things), but you can go ahead and dig up whatever you've got, because I do read outside my core fandoms if a work looks intriguing, and I'm sure there are other people reading this thread who might be interested as well!

FWIW, I'm interested in emotional recovery afterwards as well as immediate post-trauma support and recovery, including a character being rescued in the middle of a noncon event. Physical hurt is fine too although I prefer not to have the details dwelled on (but if that part is too much for me, I can just skim past it; it's not triggery for me).

Thank you! :D

From: (Anonymous)

Soon as I have a little time and access to AO3, I'ma set you up with a heap of suggestions about Clint Barton's recovery from being mindcontrolled by Loki in Avengers, and Bucky's recovery from being mindcontrolled by the Red Room in Captain America: Winter Soldier (you probably already know of

recessional's epic take on the latter).
MCU loves abusing their good guys. And fans have apparently loved milking the canon for the h/c opportunities.

If you were thinking more like sexual noncon, I think I can find some of those too.

From:

sholio

Ohhhhh, I just realized that I completely misread your question! (If it was you that asked the question above.) I actually did mean sexual noncon. I think in my head, mental/emotional violation is filed completely differently -- I mean, it's still something that produces enjoyable recovery fic, but it's not what I'm thinking of when I talk about noncon/rape. No, I thought you were asking if I was interested in fic about the emotional recovery from rape, or the physical aspects!

I think I'm less interested in fic about the Bucky/Natasha/Clint variety of mind control recovery just because I read heaploads of it back when I was particularly active in MCU. XD (And yes, I did read Recessional's fic; it's great!) Recovery from sexual noncon was what I was thinking of.

However, I've also just realized that probably a topic like this is touchy/triggery enough that it would be a good idea to ask if

frith_in_thorns wants recs for it dumped into her comments. So I'm going to throw that question over to her and let her decide if that's a conversation that she wants happening here or not. Frith?

From:

frith_in_thorns

Very fine with it! Sorry, I haven't been participating much in the comments because I've had an exceptionally tiring week, but I've been enjoying reading!

From:

sholio

Oh no, I hope you get to rest on the weekend! <3

It has been a very fun conversation. :D

From:

indywind

I probably didn't put my question very clearly, sorry!
For me, noncon sex, and mindcontrol, and a few other sorts of noncon/violation push the same button of taking away character's sense of safety and autonomy in their own body and leaving them with shame and doubt of how they'll be perceived by others.
Different brains sort differently :-)

... and I was gonna put recs here, but... I want to list sexual-noncon separate from noncon-other-type so folks who do/don't want one kind or the other can take the recs path of their choosing and I'm honestly not sure which category some of these belong in. Some of them (AUs) are just So Many Bad things Happen, Who Can Tell Where The Trauma Came From?

Also I just realized how many of the emotional-trauma recovery fics I've saved fall under the Recovery Through BDSM subcategory of Magical Healing Sex, which should probably be a separate list. I think I need to do some more filtering. and re-reading. Oh no. ;-D

From:

sholio

No problem at all, it's just really fascinating to me how different people categorize things, because I would never have grouped those two things under the same category! (Er, this makes me wonder if you feel the rape/noncon warning on AO3 should be applied to mind control fics as well? Genuine question, I'm just curious! And always reassessing how I tag/label things.)

Anyway ... your comment about Healing Sex made me realize that for me, this particular kind of recovery fic is really specifically a thing I want in its gen incarnation -- again with the caveat that if you're doing recs anyway, you may as well put in ones that aren't specifically what I'm looking for, since other people will probably be interested in them as well! But rape recovery fic with pairings is something I probably wouldn't read. (Ummm, I might with a rarepair, or poly fic? I think the issue is that it's really specifically something where I don't want to read fic for this that's particularly romantic or pairing-focused, as OTP fic often is; i.e. a get-together fic with rape as part of that is a really huge turnoff for me, even if the rapist isn't one-half of the pairing. Something that was established relationship or where the pairing was more low-key and background-ish, with other relationships foregrounded, might work better for me.)

And yeah, I know that I'm being incredibly specific about this. XD I mean, this has a lot to do with why I almost never read it and have never written it, because it's one of those things where what I do want has huge overlap with what I don't want.

Anyway, if you're making categories anyway, a gen recovery category would be very useful for me, if you know any fics like that!

From:

indywind

Ohhhh, AO3 warnings are awkward for me. Not just the rape/noncon one (which in A03 context I tend to read as just rape; I know most people don't categorize the way I do, and sometimes--say, when I'm searching through a bunch of tags that highlight what other people think is pertinent information--I actually remember it!) but several, or maybe most of them. I don't feel prescriptive about that; I figure tag and warning use evolves to fit the needs of the majority of users and that's fair.

I think part of the draw for me in mindcontrol(or other nonsexual noncon) recovery stories is that they are like rape recovery in some of the ways that are relevant to my interests, but it feels like they're much less likely to focus and rely on True Love or Magical Healing Sex, and that romantic angle is not generally what I want and can be a turnoff. (BDSM is a weird gray area, because sometimes it can be treated very gen-y and resemble, like, some kind of exposure and desensitization therapy with added ritual and props; other times it can be more sexualized, fetishized, romanticized, etc., and then I'm not interested in it as part of a recovery arc, it just feels like a Bad Idea to me.)

The huge overlap of what you do want with what you don't want? I get that. Most of my kinks or do-wants rub right up against my turnoffs or don't-wants, and occasionally something I'm really into will suddenly tip over the line into something I can't backbutton out of fast enough.

Seems like romance gets in everything so I probably don't actually know any wholly gen rape recovery fics. Haveta write one, I guess.

But here are some that might partially hit the spot for you or somebody reading. All AO3 links so I'll let the story headers handle the specific warnings and just give my comments.

GEN, except a love mutual love confession towards the end that can be kinda ignored or read as friendship+unrequited feelings complicated by sexual trauma (I actually forgot it was in there til I reread). Clint Barton POV: his time under Loki's control included sexual abuse. That the abuse occurred under magical mindcontrol hardly matters--the way it's framed is not about that, could have been accomplished by an ~~ordinary~~terrible human. This is the most rape-aftermath-y story. In addition to all the archive warnings, please be aware there's definitely hurt and comfort, but recovery only begins at the very end. I like to have something with more comfort and recovery lined up to read afterward so the taste doesn't linger in my brain.
There's a Runaway Train I'm On, by CallisteDawn, 6152 words.

GEN and all about recovery from noncon (but not sexual; quasi-sexualized coercion and behavioral conditioning), positive without being unrealistically easy or sweet. The caveat: it's a sequel in an AU world in which dominant/submissive orientation is a medical and cultural Thing parallel to sexual orientation IRL so there's that D/S element throughout. The previous story sets up the AU, the noncon situation, and how the character in recovery (Clint again, why do people love to hurt that guy?) was rescued. It's not actually necessary to read the previous story, just know Bad People manipulated Clint into doing Bad Things on the basis of his orientation and he's learning to become his own person again. With professional help and comfort foods.
Surfacing, by IamShadow, 3255 words.

More to follow.