#backbone's the closest I've ever come to doing full brainwashing

[bedlamsbard]

Sometimes you just gotta, uh, flirt constantly with the idea of a brainwashing and kidnapping plot, always doing spins and variations on it, without ever quite doing a straightforward version of the core idea. Yknow?

I get way too sad every time I try to do actual brainwashing! Same reason I've never actually pulled off a true ~evil is sexy mirrorverse. like I definitely see the attraction (of both) and I understand why other writers do it and readers like it, but despite numerous attempts it is just Not For Bedlams. my characters are going to be fully aware the horrible shit they're doing is horrible. which is why I'll never go all the way with a Steve-is-the-Winter-Soldier or Natasha-is-Taskmaster AU, or go the Loki-was-mindcontrolled-in-NY route. I actually pulled back from going that far with Steve in Horizon literally while writing the rescue chapter and kept it as everyone's worst fear instead. (There's no alternate version of that sequence, but it was in the plotting mix well into writing that chapter and it was fully planned out into the next chapter as a potential route to take, which is why there's so much set-up for it throughout the story.)