HeyJaredBent But True
Raw memoir, dark fiction, and fractured fairy tales for people who feel too much and refuse to disappear.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 17
- Latest publication
- Oct 1, 2026
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- Earliest in this view
- Aug 11, 2026
Latest issues
It Does Not Belong to Me (opens the original)
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Day One of The Second Indulgence presented by The prompt: the ritual worked exactly as intended. The problem is what came through afterward.I decided the worst thing that could come through wasn’t a demon.It was the thing you were trying to forget.<a class="image-link image2 is-viewable-img" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!zo_N!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdc9f6a5d-d52d-4996-a31f-aafa1c1980
St. Dymphna’s Archive, File 4: The Institue (opens the original)
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For the past three weeks, we’ve been opening files from St. Dymphna’s Institute of Paranormal Psychiatry.A Chupacabra who faints at the sight of blood. A gargoyle terrified of heights. A banshee who finally stopped screaming.Every file asked the same basic question in a different way: what happens when the thing you are expected to be no longer fits the person you have become?But there has always been another subject hiding behind those reports.The place that wrote them.For the final file from t
A Suitable Plus-One (opens the original)
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Apéritif Prompt for Scriptorum’s Second Indulgence challenge offered an invitation to Lord Devereaux’s masquerade: choose the venue, bring a guest, and see who else turns up.I chose an abandoned military airfield and the neighbor from downstairs. Everyone else was busy. Sheldon Cooper was available.Yes, that Sheldon Cooper.Here is how our evening unfolded.<a class="image-link image2" href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!KUk-!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstac
The Halls: Return To Sender (opens the original)
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Some things disappear suddenly.Others break, get lost, or are carried away in ways we understand only afterward.But what if they came back first?Marianne Vale has been married for thirty-one years. Her life is ordinary, comfortable, familiar in all the ways that make ordinary life matter.Then a package appears on her porch.Inside is something she already owns.A few days later, the original is gone.Then another package arrives.And another.At first, Marianne thinks they are replacements.Then she b
Glass Slippers and Iron Fists (opens the original)
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Some of you have been here long enough to remember Fairytales from the Damaged.These stories have appeared on the Substack before—familiar fairy tales pulled apart, turned sideways, and looked at through the cracks the happily-ever-afters usually cover.Now they’re becoming something more.We’re working toward publishing Fairytales from the Damaged as a collection, with original artwork from bringing each story into its own strange, damaged world.And there seemed no better place to begin than with
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