This is not the Bat-Cow

[swatkat]

I like that ff.net has a bazillion epic Azula redemption stories.* I love a good redemption arc. I like it when a narrative takes a character who has done horrible things/is a horrible person apart, piece by piece, and then makes them something far more than anyone ever thought they were capable of. It's a narrative kink. And I'm even willing to trawl through reams of badfic to fulfill that need because hello, narrative kink! But ugh, I hate it when well-written stories - stories I have invested sixteen chapters in - end up with things I like the least, causing me to backbutton: Marty Stu OCs, ~past sexual abuse and healing penises**, not to mention a botched Ursa-Azula reunion. And it was going so well! It had the right build up! It had one of the best Character is Accidentally Heroic/Jaded Character Receives Benediction moments ever. *wails*

I get that sexual abuse/healing penis is a standard h/c trope that many readers are fond of, but I wish it wasn't such a cliched shortcut to ~explain away a character's shortcomings. That's just lazy writing (see also: Korra fandom's FIXATION with miscarriage/infertility in Lin's backstory. BEING SINGLE/CHILDLESS IS NOT A TRAGEDY).

And while we're complaining: Tahno is not Zuko. Tahno/Korra is not Zuko/Katara. Please stop.

* It's an interesting phenomenon, sort of like how Buffy fandom had a bazillion epic Faith redemption stories, a lot of them action-y stuff written by fanboys.

** I don't always mind healing penis/vagina. But not an OC and healing penis.