“Artists use lies to tell the truth…” – Evey Hammond
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A little something for you!
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Coffee, Magic & Pixie Dust
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Yugen. What is it?
Readers of dark fantasy aren’t just chasing darker worlds. They’re chasing truer ones—stories where the monsters outside mirror the ones inside, where trauma actually changes people, and where justice is never simple. Yugen sits right in that sweet spot: a dark fantasy novel with rich psychological complexity, centered on Vian—a betrayed Guardian recruit cursed with…
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In Fantasy the Mentor Dies
In fantasy, we’re used to a particular kind of heartbreak. The mentor dies. They go down in a blaze of light or a quiet sacrifice, leaving the hero with a sword, a prophecy, and a grief so sharp it forges them into who they were “meant” to be. Think of all the robed wizards, battle-scarred…
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Burning the Throne: Real Justice in Rotten Systems
When you realize the system is rigged, it’s tempting to give up on justice completely. If abusers keep getting promoted, if complaints go nowhere, if whistleblowers are punished — what’s the point of trying to make anything right? In Yugen, Vian reaches that breaking point. Faced with a god’s empty throne and an institution that…
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Found Family After Betrayal
One of the cruelest tricks of corrupt institutions is convincing you that they are your only home. “That’s just how it is everywhere.”“You’ll never find a place like this again.”“We’re your family.” So when you finally leave — or get forced out — the loneliness can be suffocating. You didn’t just lose a job or…
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You’re Not Crazy. You’ve Been Betrayed: Trauma, Gaslighting, and the Guardians of Yugen
Long before people leave broken institutions, their bodies and minds start keeping score. Sleeplessness. Anxiety. Dissociation. A constant sense of walking on eggshells. From the outside, it looks like you’re “not coping well.” From the inside, it feels like you’re disintegrating. And when leadership tells you “everything is fine,” you start wondering if the problem…
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“Not Leadership Material”: How Institutions Crush the Vians of the World (Yugen and Real-Life Betrayal)
If you’ve ever watched someone far less ethical leapfrog into a promotion above you, you know the peculiar mix of rage and self-doubt that follows. You start wondering: In Yugen, Vian is the kind of person any sane order would want to promote: disciplined, gifted, fiercely loyal. Instead, he’s systematically sabotaged and discarded. And that’s…
Got any book recommendations?
Janessa Keeling 