I think they are more likely to feel "tricky and weird" when coming from a higher level language like c++ or Java that has linked list data structures in their standard library.
Higher- or lower- level domains, I feel, would be more accurate; when I code my c-with-templates embedded code there's no STL, so I'm quite aware of intrusive containers, even though I rarely code straight-C. My favorite variant is multiply-included linked lists---which I've seen in a number of one-off embedded JITs.