How Obsidian Throne Went From “Spicy Romance Weekend Project” to “Oh… This Is a Whole World.” There are moments in a writer’s life when you suddenly realize you’re not driving your own story anymore. You’re gripping the wheel, but someone else’s taste is quietly pressing the gas, turning the blinker on, and adjusting your rearview mirror like they live there. For me, that moment with Obsidian Throne  hit like a pothole at midnight: I didn’t realize someone else’s taste had it

Here’s the thing: office romance tropes ambush me the way stray sticky notes cling to my sweater. I’ll be minding my business, outlining something wholesome and chaos-free, and suddenly two characters are locked in deeply questionable eye contact across a conference table while someone drones on about quarterly projections. I can’t help it. Fictional workplaces are infinitely more entertaining than real ones—unless your actual job includes ghosts or curses, in which case, pl

There’s this couple I watch on YouTube—yes, a sentence that still feels vaguely ridiculous to say out loud. Once upon a time we lived in a world before YouTube existed. (I don’t remember those days clearly, because my memory enjoys playing hide-and-seek, but I’m told they definitely happened.) Anyway. This couple lived in an RV when I first found them during my vanlife-curious era, and eventually they traded wheels for a sailboat. Something about that shift—taking your entire