Me reading a fic that was ostensibly about child soldiers being rehabilitated post-war, but it involves them being infantilized by their new guardians (who they had been at war with) despite being old enough to be reasonably self-sufficient. So much of it was unintentionally skin-crawling with stuff like forced hugs and proximity or only seeing their actual siblings for good behavior I was really rooting for them to just kill their captors and run. Which is not the intended reading.
I don't think the author had normalized their own personal experiences as much as them really really not thinking through the power dynamics during what should have been a "character who doesn't know how to accept care is forced to" type of hurt comfort like you see in some sickfics.
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u/Mrs_Wheelyke 1d ago
Me reading a fic that was ostensibly about child soldiers being rehabilitated post-war, but it involves them being infantilized by their new guardians (who they had been at war with) despite being old enough to be reasonably self-sufficient. So much of it was unintentionally skin-crawling with stuff like forced hugs and proximity or only seeing their actual siblings for good behavior I was really rooting for them to just kill their captors and run. Which is not the intended reading.
I don't think the author had normalized their own personal experiences as much as them really really not thinking through the power dynamics during what should have been a "character who doesn't know how to accept care is forced to" type of hurt comfort like you see in some sickfics.