okay so Tai compared Yang’s semblance (and her use of it) unfavorably to a temper tantrum and basically treated her like she gets on like a reckless idiot when she uses it

which doesn’t follow how things went down at all in her previous fights

but first let’s get into what her semblance actually is because that’s what’s really unclear

Yang’s semblance is that she builds up energy for every hit she takes, and that boosts her strength. we see similar semblances with Adam and Nora. the visible tell when this is in use is that her hair starts glowing (according to the commentary for volume 2), to indicate energy build up - it’s based in damage, not rage



here’s the thing - in the fights Taiyang cites? (all two of them, because that’s a pattern, sure) this never happens - hell, she doesn’t even get hit that much or that hard by Neon, and while she does take a few hits from Mercury (most of the time she was trying to dodge), it’s never enough for her to resort to that element - in fact, we only see that happen three times over the course of the entire series, the Yellow trailer, 2x04 and 3x11 (so in order; a demonstration of what she can do, she would’ve literally died if she hadn’t used it and finally, she didn’t have any other options and it was a highly tense emotional situation, ‘taking a step back’ and looking for another route could’ve gotten Blake killed and Yang isn’t that cold)

so what does Yang use in those fights? her fire ability, which does tie into her anger, but seems to function almost entirely separately from her semblance (it has different tells - red eyes like her maternal family -who also have strange abilities- and flames in her hair on occasion - and she doesn’t need to take damage to get into it, as seen in the numerous non-combat situations she’s brought it out in. she does use it in conjunction with her charge thing, probably because taking that much damage would piss anyone off) - and in those situations? in the Mercury fight all she does is fight more ferociously and ends it reasonably quickly. in the FNKI fight, she doesn’t come across anything like how Tai is framing her



when she finally lets loose with her anger after Neon’s constant pestering frustrated her (we see in 1x07 that she can get frustrated when too much is going on and seems to impair her ability to process things), she stops trying to catch up with and brute force the fight with Neon, instead resorting to ranged attacks to scatter Flynt and Neon (and used previously unseen fire streams, which are incredibly fast, in order to break up the arena with craters - a feat matched in the tournament only once, by Nora, who was fully charged, jumping from height and behind a hammer. Yang had been slapped about with a glowstick and was firing these things from her hands - and if she can do that just by getting angry, then that’s more reason it’s not part of her semblance, if she can dish out that kind of destructive capability without needing to get punched through reinforced concrete, then the charge thing is redundant). she then took on Flynt and Neon separately and defeated both with shots from her gauntlets - she’s also not that tired out afterwards (nor is she in the Yellow trailer, 1x06 or 2x04, the latter of which she should be given what happened to her, or in 3x06 - both the volume 3 examples have her pausing to take a breath but that seems more like she’s cooling off than because she’s tired), so Tai’s point there is invalid too (as is his ‘think before you act’ thing because she was playing tactically there)



so ‘relying’ on her semblance wasn’t really what’s happening when a) her semblance wasn’t in use and b) what was in use supplemented her fighting the way everyone elses does - and we’ve seen her fight without using it too, 2x11 against Neo (because she was surrounded by Dust crates, using her abilities, and even her gauntlet shots if she didn’t have a clear shot away from the crates, could’ve set them off and killed everyone); Yang’s biggest problem in that fight was that Neo is small and quick and Yang had been on the go all day and hadn’t slept for much of the night - she was the only one not shown sleeping at all - Yang even manages to catch up with Neo’s fighting style and grabs her, but Neo turns it around and knocks her out (helped because Yang’s already exhausted by that point) - possibly because continuing the fight would’ve led to Yang getting in a decent hit



it almost seems like Tai’s trying to invalidate/lessen her victories by treating her like she’s… well like she’s Ruby, who is reckless and more reliant on her semblance. Yang brings out her stuff towards the end of fights as a trump card and usually as a last resort, she doesn’t go into a fight and spring it right away, and she still doesn’t seem to use it terribly often, certainly not more often than any other character

it also seems to be knocking on her tendency to get angry which… isn’t necessarily a bad thing (she never lashes out, see 1x08 and 2x06, she gets angry and even taps into her fire thing, but no one gets hurt; even her shoving of Blake is very light and done to prove a point that Blake’s run herself ragged - if Yang wasn’t in control of herself there, we saw how immense her strength is at the beginning of the episode, she would’ve put Blake through the desk without much effort. in addition, 1x08 and 3x05 show that when she gets understandably frustrated, she actually has trouble focusing at all; releasing it benefits her more than bottling it up and suppressing it does), especially as the one time she’s gotten in trouble because of it is due to a trick taking advantage of a built-up perception of her (in tournament match-ups that were more than likely rigged to build that perception more), and so the criticism comes off as shaming her for a flaw she doesn’t actually have



i’m hoping this is deliberate misdirection - with Tai being an audience surrogate, making assumptions because he wasn’t paying attention/didn’t have all the info

i mean, Yang, from the start, has been associated with the message that she’s more than what’s going on on the surface (which is all anyone seems to focus on with her; even Tai is primarily focused on her arm and the way she fights, her issues and PTSD have gone unaddressed and he didn’t do much to help when she had an attack)



“Scathing eyes ask that we be symmetrical, one sided and easily processed. Yet every misshapen spark’s unseen beauty is greater than its would be judgement.“

the symmetry thing is obviously brought into play in 3x11, as basically a reminder of this, and right now i think we’re seeing the ‘would be judgment’ that she’s going to prove greater than - especially as nothing he said was really fully complimentary, and even when comparing Yang favourably to Raven, he didn’t go into specifics on her own merits and wasn’t looking at her for much of it, which makes his “i’m proud of how much of her i see in you” come off as slightly disingenuous

plus what he does compare positively doesn’t exactly ring true - like especially with “her ambition, her dedication to whatever cause she thought was worth fighting for” - that doesn’t line up with Yang’s self-admitted lack of motivation and how she always ‘goes with the flow’ (and indeed, only ever went along with what everyone else was doing - protecting her loved ones is the only thing she really dedicates herself too and that’s not really a ‘cause’). i think Tai may be projecting a little

