Embracing-the-shortness - Embracing The Shortness Since '96

We Do Not Part || Han Kang ★★★★★ Started: 08.05.2025 Finished: 21.05.2025 One morning in December, Kyungha is called to her friend Inseon’s hospital bedside. Airlifted to Seoul for an operation following a wood-chopping accident, Inseon is bedridden and begs Kyungha to take the first plane to her home on Jeju Island to feed her pet bird, who will quickly die unless it receives food. Unfortunately, as Kyungha arrives a snowstorm hits. Lost in a world of snow, she begins to wonder if she will arrive in time to save the bird – or even survive the terrible cold that envelops her with every step. But she doesn't yet suspect the darkness which awaits her at her friend's house. There, the long-buried story of Inseon's family surges into light, in dreams and memories passed from mother to daughter, and in a painstakingly assembled archive, documenting the terrible massacre seventy years before that saw 30,000 Jeju civilians murdered. I went into "We Do Not Part" with incredibly high expectations, owing to the overwhelmingly positive reviews it had garnered, and I can wholeheartedly say, they did not lie. Han Kang's latest novel is nothing short of remarkable. It's heavy, it's emotionally impactful, it is, in one word, extraordinary.

We || Yevgeny Zamyatin ★★★★★ Started: 22.02.2025 Finished: 23.02.2025 Set in the twenty-sixth century AD, We is the classic dystopian novel. In the totalitarian society of the OneState of the great Benefactor, in a glass-enclosed city of absolute straight lines, is a world where people are numbers, there are no individuals, only numbers. Life has been reduced to a mathematical perfectly balanced equation, an ongoing process of mathematical precision. Free will is a disease. Primitive passions, instincts, and creativity have been subdued. Even nature has been defeated, banished behind the Green Wall. But one frontier remains: outer space. Now, with the creation of the spaceship Integral, that frontier, and whatever alien species are to be found there, will be subjugated to the beneficent yoke of reason. One number, D-503, chief architect of the Integral, decides to record his thoughts in the final days before the launch for the benefit of less advanced societies. But a chance meeting with the beautiful 1-330 results in an unexpected discovery that threatens everything D-503 believes about himself and the One State… the discovery, or rediscovery, of inner space, and that disease the ancients called the soul, and Love. If you are interested in dystopian literature in the vein of Orwell's 1984 and Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, We is a must read!

Yumi and the Nightmare Painter || Brandon Sanderson ★★★★★ Started: 15.02.2025 Finished: 23.02.2025 Yumi comes from a land of gardens, meditation, and spirits, while Painter lives in a world of darkness, technology, and nightmares. When their lives suddenly become intertwined in strange ways, can they put aside their differences and work together to uncover the mysteries of their situation and save each other’s communities from certain disaster? The second one of Sanderson's secret projects that I read (after Tress of the Emerald Sea, another five star read), and Yumi is just as good, if not better - the narration is similarly humorus, the world is completely different yet still whimsical and meticulously thought out, and the characters - simply lovable - you can't help but root for Yumi and Painter from start to finish. The action does take some time to truly pick up the pace, but the payoff is absolutely worth it!

Hi! I saw you were taking art requests about The Will of the Many, so hear me out: Vis falling from the window at Villa Telimus 😌

But seriously, something cute with Aequa, Callidus and Vis would be nice. I really love their friendship 💕

Thanks! ☺

Themst. Thank you for the request! This was so fun! I need to draw more art but alas...no time. Yet!

blood over bright haven by m.l. wang

because good people can turn desperate when the horrors are upon them—especially people whose culture of plenty has left them with no systems to cope with scarcity or cataclysm. good people will turn monstrous when it’s down to their survival or someone else’s.

Blood Over Bright Haven || M.L. Wang ★★★★★ Started: 01.02.2025 Finished: 08.02.2025 An orphan since the age of four, Sciona has always had more to prove than her fellow students. For twenty years, she has devoted every waking moment to the study of magic, fueled by a mad desire to achieve the impossible: to be the first woman ever admitted to the High Magistry. When she finally claws her way up the ranks to become a highmage, however, she finds that her challenges have just begun. Her new colleagues will stop at nothing to let her know she is unwelcome, beginning with giving her a janitor instead of a qualified lab assistant. What neither Sciona nor her peers realize is that her taciturn assistant was once more than a janitor; before he mopped floors for the mages, Thomil was a nomadic hunter from beyond Tiran’s magical barrier. Ten years have passed since he survived the perilous crossing that killed his family. But working for a highmage, he sees the opportunity to finally understand the forces that decimated his tribe, drove him from his homeland, and keep the Tiranish in power. Through their fractious relationship, mage and outsider uncover an ancient secret that could change the course of magic forever—if it doesn’t get them killed first. Sciona has defined her life by the pursuit of truth, but how much is one truth worth with the fate of civilization in the balance? Reading this line in the book description: “Magic has made the city of Tiran an industrial utopia, but magic has a cost—and the collectors have come calling.”, I thought the Bright Haven would come under an external threat that would have to be alleviated. What really happens is much more insidious, much more sinister, and much harder to combat, let alone overcome. The result is an exceptional standalone fantasy novel in the vein of R.F. Kuang's Babel.

More sketches from The Will of the Many! I loveeeee these two and I want to see more of them ofc.