Ever had one of those moments where you cram your foot in your mouth or make a rash decision, only to wonder later…what got into me?

We like to believe we’re fully in control of ourselves. It’s comforting to think that.

But C.G. Jung pointed out a catch—the more convinced we are of our total control, the deeper, the inkier, the shadows in our unconscious become. Deny their existence, and they slip further underground, where they gain more power to shape our lives without our say so.

😶‍🌫️ Jung called these hidden patterns complexes. But forget the pop-culture version of that word—a complex isn’t just “daddy issues.” It’s an emotionally charged cluster of ideas, feelings, and images, like a psychic splinter lodged beneath the surface.

(Complexes are also potent energy generators that can be used in magic, but that’s a topic for another space. Curious? Check out my guide,​ All the Feels: The Inner Architecture of Spellwork​.)

Complexes often carry intense archetypal energy, those universal patterns we all know in our bones: love, betrayal, the hero, the shadow. When constellated (Jung’s term for “activated”), a complex floods our system with affect—emotional energy that can temporarily override our conscious will.

It can feel inevitable. It can feel like fate.

I am who I am. Life just is what it is. That’s how I’ve always been.

But sometimes? It’s really a fragment of ourselves we’ve refused to examine, steering the wheel from the shadows.

As Jung famously warned, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate.”

And yet, even though we can never be fully conscious of ourselves, we’re still responsible for what we do. That’s the maddening, magical paradox at the heart of being human.

It’s also one of the obsessions behind my Twin Flames series.

🔮 You might have noticed I’m weaving tarot symbolism into these stories. ​The Fool & the Threads of Time​ is Book Zero for a reason—the Fool card in the tarot is numbered zero, representing the beginning of a journey, full of possibility and risk.

But this isn’t just an aesthetic choice. For me, the tarot is a map—a guide to the process of waking up inside our unconscious patterns. A way to recognize when archetypal forces flood our system… and when we might, just might, reclaim our choice.

My characters wrestle with fate. With shadow—both their own, and the shadows cast by the many villains you’ll meet along the way. But they also wrestle with free will—the exhilarating, terrifying work of making conscious choices when it would be easier to sleepwalk through life.

And holy hell, isn’t the siren call everywhere?

Endless scroll. Clickbait. The commodification of our attention, carefully engineered to keep us numb, distracted, compliant…and profitable. 😵‍💫

But story? Story invites us to wake up.

Here at Through a Crooked Door, and within my books, you’ll find that I keep returning to those hidden intersections—fate + free will, shadow + light, truth + illusion.

Because the boundary betwixt opposites is blurrier than most people think.

(Something I live every day as a nonbinary person.)

Take the “line” between imagination and reality.

What if the worlds we imagine exist beyond the page?

And what if they grow stronger the more people think about them?

Next time, we’ll take a trip to the astral—a place where every story leaves its mark.