So hey, since they didn't care enough about that fic Heart of Defiance enough to bother describing it, ya get it from me.
The author's summary:
"Your Semblance, Yang Xiao Long, is not fueled by taking hits or anger. Your Semblance is fueled by pain."
ohboy.jpg
A couple paragraphs in:
Typos/usage errors. Commas sprinkled about like confetti. The prose is feeling rather purple-y. The author has a particular need to append a basic color descriptor to everything. No dialogue tags, overuse of ellipses, not realizing that those which end sentences have a fourth period.
In the second chapter we find out that it's set fairly shortly after Yang lost her arm(?), and presumably features her as the central protagonist (somewhat predictable, given that she's the first character tag and there's a Yang/Blake tag). The author continues to remind us that Yang's eyes are in fact purple. Also setting off warning signs, a preference for constantly using turns of phrase like "so'n'so's eyes fell upon..." to mean "they looked at/saw..." tends to crop up among mediocre authors who think they're better with language than they actually are. An accompaniment to purple prose, usually, and often part of a wider obsession with peoples' eyes. Speaking of:
Breakfast was indeed fried eggs with bright yellow yokes and buttered, golden toast along with a bowl of oat meal with berries. The glasses were full of orange juice with plenty of ice. An empty coffee mug sat beside each glass, a pot of the black liquid sitting on an insulated pot holder on her father's half of the round table.
She'd noted the smell of toast and eggs not five seconds before, and we still get a full itemized list of breakfast. This is just about every paragraph, a long and methodical description of every mundane detail. Like Robert Jordan without the redeeming factors.
Nothing was ever going to be the same.
Good thing I don't have a cliche counter going.
Ruby was gone only a few days now. Where to, Yang did not know. Nor did her father. She brooded as she ate. Deep down, Yang resented being left behind by her sister.
By everyone.
But especially by her partner.
Awkward sentence structure. Full line spaces between sentence fragments, probably an attempt at creating weight or emphasis. Except that it's done all the time in this fic.
More typos of the "they never did a close reading for edits, just hit the spellcheck button and assumed all was well" sort. The conversation between Taiyang and Yang flared up my Wormfic canon Danny PTSD. More abuse of commas and ellipses, the poor things. Lots of angst that doesn't really feel in character for Yang, but let's let it slide for now. On to chapter three.
Ah. Looks like awkward breakfast-time was a flashback. Yang is in fact still with the unnamed "Master" from the introductory chapter.
Her teacher nodded slowly in approval. "This makes thirteen weeks you have trained with me; three full months of the hottest, worst weather Vacuo or the world has to offer. You have lost a lot of weight. Some of your more feminine charms have been stripped away."
Yang looked down at her top, her breasts a full two cup sizes smaller from cannibalizing her own body fat to survive. She had lost any hint of softness in her belly and her belt had to be worn a few holes tighter than when she started. Her pants would not stay up otherwise. Yang's beloved hair was frazzled and all split ends, her hand rough and worn. Her skin was leathery, faintly burnt and deeply bronzed from all the time in the sun.
She had not had a menstrual cycle in two months. Her body had shut that function down. Every bit of energy was put into just staying alive at this point. Just surviving this ordeal.
He swatted her in the chest, drawing a sharp inhale from Yang, her two broken ribs protesting mightily. Weeks ago, that would have taken her breathe away... now, it only hurt like hell. She clenched her teeth, but kept her lips together.
Classic case of telling rather than showing. "She's been stuck with this asshole for months. Hmm... Oh! Her boobs are smaller and her clothes are all tattered, and she's got a tan! Yeah, that's good enough." I'll refrain from offering any other commentary here, save that that last line
really doesn't feel Yang-like.
He shook his head, lifting a holstered magnum revolver from the rack by the door and pulling the weapon free. 'Vanquisher' was engraved into the side of the twenty-one centimeter weighted bull barrel, '.460 Magnum' on the large frame.
The revolver was massive, a true hand cannon made in the old fashion of blued steel and diamond-etched wooden grips. A simple set of sites rested atop the frame and barrel. It was a far cry from modern weaponry, but Yang knew Ruby would be in love.
Oh lord, it's got gun wank in the most stereotypical "I like the ones that go pew pew really loud" way short of the dude having a deagle.
He gestured Vanquisher toward the door while hanging the black leather shoulder holster and loaded bullet belt back up.
Yang went to the door, her feet bare, her pants tattered and her top sporting a few small and some not so small holes, one near the left edge of her bust. Her left nipple occasionally flashed through as she walked, but her teacher did not seem the least bit interested in her as a woman.
Only as a student.
Classy. Necessary. Fitting with the rest of what I've seen. This passage is one of those things.
Snarling, furious and angry, a Beowolf fought against the chain holding it to a post. It was wild and mad from the battering it had taken in the storm, its murderous red eyes focusing on Yang. It snapped at her, pulling on the chain, but unable to get free.
Her teacher walked up around Yang and stood beside her.
"I thought something smelled like wet dog..." Yang looked at her teacher, her blonde hair quickly defying the wind as water soaked into it and stuck it to her back and the sides of her face. "I'll need Ember Celica."
Author-san says within their own thoughts, "Hmm. Yang is supposed to be the funny one, right? I know!"
Of course there's the requisite edgy training scene where she's forced to fight it barehanded and almost dry on Aura.
Fuck it, I'm out. What it feels like more than anything else is one of those old Naruto fics where NINO gets turned into a tough badass by way of edgy violent speshul training X, Y, and Z. The author falls into that abyss of purple-tinged prose and annoying tics that makes their writing look superficially good to people who aren't paying attention or don't know any better. The premise is a battered, time-worn cliche. The execution is lacking. The quality of the writing is barely passable for fanfiction. If they couldn't handle something as simple as "make mostly 'armless Yang more OP in a readable fashion", I really don't want to see them mangle the romance, especially because the second chapter seems to be aiming for melodrama about Blake leaving. Mediocre at best, I have no interest in reading it and would not recommend it even casually to others, but it's just bleh rather than outright detestable garbage. 4/10
Derec.
