#class tension

[wondereads]

Review of Fireborne by Rosaria Munda

Genre: Fantasy

Age Range: Young Adult

My Rating: ★★★☆☆.5

This book was directly recommended to me, and it's often lauded as a great dragon-riding fantasy book that properly builds its world out with great characters and an interesting plot. For me, it really only delivers on some of those things. Fireborne follows two main characters, Lee and Annie (Antigone). Even though they are both orphans and childhood friends, they couldn't come from more different worlds. Lee is the son of a dragonlord, the previous rulers of Callipolis that were unseated in a violent revolution. Annie is a former serf who was among the worst affected by the dragonlords' tyrannical rule. Now they fly alongside each other as the new era of dragon riders after the revolution, and they are facing each other in a battle for the prestigious position of Firstrider. However, as war begins to encroach on Callipolis, they will have to face the brutal reality of what it means to rule.

On a surface level, Fireborne is everything I love in a book. There's basic tropes I love, such as dragon riding, cutthroat magical academies, and a light friends to lovers subplot. The plot of this book is interesting, and I like that it takes place after the big revolution. It tackles a lot of interesting dilemmas concerning the decisions rulers have to make, and no one has easy answers. A lot of YA books with class differences, especially when the relationship occurs between a class difference, tends to kind of gloss over it, but Fireborne takes a lot of time to consider how Lee and Annie's backgrounds impact their lives and decisions. This is doubly important since they are public figures of a new government.

However, a lot of this book is not executed in the best way, and most of it comes down to the writing. This book is over 400 pages long, but it skips through a lot of important things. Basically, it has a big issue with telling instead of showing. Instead of getting Annie's big speech she's been working on, we essentially get the gist of it described to us. There are a lot of moments like that where characters will be talking for a while and conveying important information but we as the readers just get a description in the narration rather than the actual dialogue, and it irked me. This kind of quick-paced, sparse writing works well for the action, which were often the scenes that went by the fastest, but it makes a lot of big plot and character moments fall flat. It also made it very difficult for me to get properly invested. It definitely picks up in the latter half when war is hanging over everyone's heads and those ethical dilemmas I mentioned start cropping up, but the first half is kind of a slog.

Because of the writing, I don't feel as attached to the characters as I'd like, but I do find them interesting and generally like them. Lee and Annie are both great main characters with well-established personalities, motivations, and weaknesses. Most of the side characters didn't really catch my eye except for Power, who is a character you love to hate. Lee and Annie have pretty amazing arcs throughout the course of the novel, and I was very invested in both of them. However, and the writing contributed to this, the romance didn't do it for me. For most of the book it doesn't even feel like they're that into each other; them trying to move past each other and possibly getting involved with other characters had a ton of potential for big emotional moments, but they were often dry and lacking feeling. Overall, this book was very good in terms of base character, the worldbuilding, and the plot once it picked up, but the writing fell short and any emotion the story held suffered as a result.

[cometblaster2070]

i'm making myself laugh thinking about this but I wholeheartedly believe madame morrible absolutely HATES the thought of glinda and elphaba being together like the mere mention of gelphie would probably send her into immediate cardiac arrest and it's not even because she's homophobic or anything I just fully believe she dislikes glinda so so much she's just like this is absolutely NOT happening in my house.

glinda and elphaba are having their gay ass moment and she's like "I sense a disturbance in the force; the wind is telling me those fucking lesbians are at it again."

like IK this woman hates to see glinda's fruity ass coming for several reasons but first and foremost I believe it's because she's so fucking ANNOYED by how much elphaba loves and cares for her, like this pink bitch is throwing a wrench in her plans just by EXISTING and being herself.

and she can't even really do anything to glinda because it'll make elphaba upset and she really can't have that so she just has to sit there and be like

[juliettejwnewinesa]

Stay a little longer

Word count: 600 Pairing: Ahn Suho x You (Y/N) Genre: Fluff, school setting, quiet confession POV: Third person, “Y/N” as your name

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Class had ended an hour ago. The sun was already beginning to dip outside the windows, casting warm streaks of gold across the scratched desks and smudged whiteboard.

Y/N sighed, broom in hand, staring at the same corner of the classroom she'd been sweeping for the past ten minutes.

Because Ahn Suho was still asleep in the back. Face down on his desk, arms folded into a pillow, hair messy, lips slightly parted.

And, as always, looking stupidly beautiful doing absolutely nothing.

It wasn’t unusual — Suho was known for passing out the moment classes ended, always in that exact spot. What was unusual was how you, of all people, had been left to do cleaning duty alone.

You glanced at him again. Still not moving.

“Of course,” you muttered. “Just me. And Sleeping Beauty.”

You swept a little more aggressively than necessary, but your eyes kept drifting back to him. Because the truth was... you didn’t mind.

You liked staying behind with him. You liked the quiet. You liked him.

You hadn’t meant to fall for him — but here you were, heart aching a little every time he yawned, or bumped your shoulder when passing you in the hallway, or offered his earphones during breaks without a word.

You leaned on the broom, staring at him. Then sighed. Loudly.

“Suho,” you said, not expecting him to respond. “If you’re awake right now, just know... I like you.”

Silence.

You blinked at your own words, blood draining from your face. “I was kidding,” you said quickly, even though you clearly weren’t. “Forget it. I was just—”

“I know,” came a sleepy mumble.

Your breath caught.

Suho shifted, still not lifting his head. “You sweep really loud when you’re nervous.”

You froze, the broom halfway to the dustpan. “Wait… you were awake?”

He slowly sat up, blinking lazily, his hair sticking up at odd angles. His voice was rough with sleep, but there was a small smile playing on his lips. “Since like... ten minutes ago.”

“Kill me,” you muttered, covering your face with your hands.

“You like me,” he teased, drawing out the words like it was his favorite sentence. “Y/N likes me.”

You groaned, trying to duck behind the whiteboard. “I swear if you tell anyone—”

“I won’t,” he said. And then, quieter, “I don’t want to share it.”

You turned to look at him, heart thudding. He stood up, stretching, walking over to you — his steps slow, like he still hadn’t fully woken up.

“Say it again,” Suho said softly, stopping right in front of you.

You swallowed. “What?”

He leaned in just a bit. “Say you like me.”

You stared up at him, cheeks burning. “...I like you.”

There was a pause. Then a gentle smile.

“Good,” Suho murmured, “because I like you too.”

And then, in the golden quiet of the almost-empty classroom, he kissed you.

It wasn’t rushed. It was shy, and warm, and tasted faintly of afternoon naps and pencil shavings and every tiny, unspoken feeling you’d been holding onto for months.

When he pulled back, his forehead rested lightly against yours.

“I fall asleep a lot,” he said. “But I swear I’m awake now.”

You laughed — light, breathless. “Better stay awake. You’ve got chalk dust in your hair.”

He smirked. “Guess you’ll have to help me clean it out, then.”

And just like that, the broom was forgotten, and so was the dustpan. Because for once, cleaning duty had turned into something a little more magical.

[seolinguk]

Fine. I understand.

[myraniellejkelly]

What in a strangers from hell is this?

[september-skeleton]

andrew garfield chicken shop date video of all time to ME. somehow simultaneously has the most (seemingly) romantic and natural chemistry while ALSO being the one that most blatantly acknowledges and almost criticises the pretence and orchestration fundamental to the format of the show. like it’s inherently paradoxical which makes it so FASCINATING. despite their flirting and dropping lore of their real life previous encounters (quote unquote meet cutes thanks for that one mr garfield) they also explicitly mention the facade of the show AND break the fourth wall- when he repeatedly touches the boom mic between them, and when they keep looking at the camera.

they deliver more successfully than ever on the central idea of the show while also actively deconstructing it! while breaking its established conventions! absolutely insane media experience 10/10

[questionable-idea]

rewatching the x-men movies for the first time in years and I'm shipping magneto and professor X so hard holy shit

[bossthebicon]

I don't often talk about kbls on here but I need y'all to know that heesu in class 2 has made me feel more in 9 eps than most bl shows I've watched in the past couple of years... it captures the queer teen experience so well imo I literally am dying over having to wait less than 24 hours for the last episode... give it to me now!!!

[royal-they]

chatting about dnd probably

[stardustvalentine]

kyoutani DOESN’T dance 😤⚾️

[dearmyloveleys]

WHC2 Ep2 Rewatch: The Weakest Scene

…sigh… it’s the scene where Hyuntak fights Sieun.

This entire scene, right up til Baku enters is a large waste of screen time in the grand scheme of things.

They fight, but we learn nothing new about the characters — except Sieun’s trigger is Suho (nothing that we don’t expect) and Hyuntak’s trigger is Baku (nothing that we don’t expect).

Juntae does nothing and is instead🧍the whole time. He could have run away for help and happened to run into Baku, then brought him to the scene at the tunnel. This will not only build more of his character but also provide a nice link to why Baku suddenly shows up later.

Sieun fights exactly how we expect him to fight, and Hyuntak fights exactly we expect him to fight. Their fight leads to nothing and has zero consequences on the overall plot or the next arc. Their animosity ends in the first 10min of the next episode.

Hyuntak’s hurtful words and brash personality that triggers this fight literally doesn’t show up as strongly anymore after this. Would have loved for him to be more rabid and run his mouth. Would have been a great contrast in his cheeky personality when he’s with friends VS enemies. (He should definitely have chipped in when Sieun roasted Baku’s father.)

Hyuntak’s close up shots of his taekwondo fighting style is wasted on taking it out on Sieun. They should have written this scene with an antagonist (not Hyoman) to give his character a better shine, the way they did with Suho.

Hyoman is… still Hyoman. They shouldn’t have made him a comic relief character to the extent that they did. He should have been more of a threat to the main cast so that 1) we feel more tension for the earlier episodes 2) his change in heart later would have been more heartwarming. They should have stuck to him picking on Sieun way before Ep1 instead of a teacher breaking up the fight before it started (what?? I think they didn’t want to include the fight because of continuity issues which sucks). Sieun should have had a 1V1 with him prior (which Sieun wins, Hyoman retreats) and Juntae sees the fight, so his question to Sieun “how do I not be cowardly” has more weight. Sieun’s reputation in school would have weighed more and Hyuntak would have more reason to lash out the way he did—ok I’m digressing—

The three way fight between Sieun, Hyuntak and Baku completely has no dire consequences after Baku enters — so what’s the point of that 10 fight sequence?

I absolutely love Baku’s entrance. One of the best scenes in S2 imo and establishes his personality 🙏 But, it completely takes away any potential gravity of the three-way fight

And they wasted Sieun’s internal monologue on analysing Baku’s moves. I get wanting to inject humour, but we don’t even get a single monologue of Sieun doing that in his actual fights that have consequences later on.

My overall point is: The entire 15min fight sequence doesn’t have any significant impact on the following episodes other than introduce Baku to us. They wasted a fight scene on a trivial matter.

The fight between Suho and Sieun in S1E1 worked because 1) had high contrasting tension — it established very clearly that both boys had significantly contrasting desires at the point in time (Sieun just wanted to trash people VS Suho wanted to stop him). It also worked really well because we were all rooting for Sieun to trash Yeongbin and Sieun nearly did it (established before the fight) but we got cockblocked by Suho. Sieun was reasonably pissed and threw a chair. In S2E2 it was only a reactionary move for Sieun to fight Hyuntak aka not innately instigated.

2) The fight added a new layer to their personalities that was established before—Sieun doesn’t know/want to fight, but now, we see he has the penchant for it VS Suho knows how to fight, but now we see he has his own lines he doesn’t cross when it comes to violence. Of course the Sieun and Suho fight was edited really well too so there’s that.

[myraniellejkelly]

Spoilers: Weak hero class season 2

Bruh, not Geum Seong-je (Wolf Keum) saying, “You have such punchable face, just my type,” to Yeon Si-eun (if I remember). Lol, that got me knocked up by how shitty he is, but like what’s with him flirting with my boy, Si-eun.

[caramelmiacchiato]

bro my literature teacher started to explain the love square lore in the middle of the class i love her now 😭

[fellhellion]

johanka's dream being such a close of mirror of the burning of skalitz, in much the same way henry dreamed of demon faced cumans, but now the virgin mary intercedes to protect the repentant sinners where no saviour manifested for butchered skalitz. johanka reconciling her understanding of suffering by framing it as a moral trial, which if only she can succeed, will save not only herself but others. johanka's tearful voice confessing her affair to henry and the fear that her sin is the reason why matthias still lies ill (also the particular insane subtext to henry softly saying she isn't to blame for a noble taking advantage and that she did the right thing by stopping it when he can literally also have engaged in a one time affair with a noble woman) johanka........

[vicvanvin]

Is this somehow not flirting??? like dude, HYJ, i know you are in absolute denial about the fact that other people can like you but HYH literally GAVE YOU TO SHJ (granted its temporary but I feel like my point still stands given how brocon he is), i dont think you biting him will resolve this tension

[fjordline]

What are you even supposed to do after you finish reading something that cannot be beat. I felt like that after finishing Golden Kamuy, but now I'm really fucking feeling it after just finishing Usogui. That was the most insane incredible experience I've ever had reading a manga. I kneel.