Tear Jerker / Yumi and the Nightmare Painter

• The constant constraint of Yumi's life, every step ritualized, is kind of sad. The really bad part, though, is that her warden Liyun is very good at making passive-aggressive statements (because actually contradicting the yoki-hijo is forbidden), constantly putting her down for everything. To the point that Yumi thinks she's average, at best, despite breaking records left and right. She manages to make Yumi feel like a terrible person for suggesting she might have a day off, on a day where it's impossible for her to call the spirits anyway. Liyun "thanks her" for suggesting spending the day in silent meditation instead of going to a festival.
• There's an off-hand mention that Painter's parents never cared about his art and disparaged his choice of career. Despite him being the best artist any of his friends had ever seen.
• Why did Painter lose his friends? He told them he was accepted into the elite Dreamwatchers, they planned their lives around becoming his companions, only for them to find out a year later that he had lied about it the entire time. Why? Because he did try out, his art was dismissed as trash, and he had no idea how to tell his friends that their plan to ride his coattails to success were gone. Ever since, they've built him up in their minds as a coward and a con artist instead of a guy who got trapped in a terrible lie because he didn't want to hurt anyone.
• Yumi finds out her rituals and restrictions are worthless; the spirits don't care what humans do, outside of the actual art. Not a huge surprise to the readers. Painter saw it coming a mile away, and even Yumi admits that it makes sense in hindsight, as she's spoken to spirits and none of them ever seemed interested or even intelligent enough to care. The kicker? Everyone else in her culture has known this for centuries. Yumi is, unknowingly, one of the last two "traditionalist" yoki-hijo, while the other twelve are allowed to feed themselves, dress themselves, occasionally visit their families, and have days off. Most "reform" yoki-hijo apparently work roughly every other day; Yumi has never had a day off, and was expected to work even when sick and weak.
• The reveal that the Dreamwatch has been reduced to a bunch of well-connected Glory Hounds sitting back and lazing around while their "companions" do all the actual work. Painter never had a chance to join them. They told him he was worthless, completely crushing his dreams, because they couldn't be bothered to come up with a better lie.
• The truth behind the Shroud, Torio, and the Nightmares. The Torio scholars created a machine to summon the spirits, but it went horribly wrong when it started sucking up the souls of the people of Torio, killing everybody except for a few nomads who would later create Kilahito. The detritus of their souls becomes the Shroud. Torio in actuality is a dead wasteland inside the Shroud, with 14 settlements to keep the yoki-hijo, who were strong enough to reform from the Shroud outside of the control of the machine, in containment so they can't stop the machine from doing its duty. The Nightmares are the lost spirits of the people of Torio that come out at night, when the machine stops focusing on them. The yoki-hijo were forced to live the same exact day for 1700 years until Yumi got so good at stacking that she drew a spirit away from the machine.