Reading Made Me Gay

“This isn’t real.”

“All of our dreams are real. They wouldn’t hurt so much if they weren’t.”

-from The Lotus Empire (book 3 of The Burning Kingdoms) by Tasha Suri

That scene from Lotus Empire 👀

Priya binding herself for Malini was so hot 🥵

Some scenes and concept art from my sketchbook. I like figuring out designs through sketching before I work on illustrations!

Will you do it as my ally? Ally. As if that encompassed even half of it. But Malini could not ask for this on the basis of whatever lay between them: A handful of furious kisses, a knife against a heart, a flower around a throat, a yearning that never truly seemed to abate.

Priya looked at her and looked at her, and somehow the looking had brought them closer together

——

Priya and Malini are peak yearning and restraint 😭❤️‍🔥

The scene is from Book 2 of The Burning Kingdoms (The Oleander Sword) by Tasha Suri

I also wanted to try doing something in an Ivan Bilibin fairy tale style illustration.

No one deserved to finally make love more than Priya and Malini, after everything they’d been through! ❤️‍🔥

In honor of the sapphic gaze and Malini being so down bad for Priya, I tried to panel some key scenes comparing how her view towards Priya changes as they grow closer through Books 1-3.

The way she went from thinking Priya was “unlovely and forgettable” in the beginning of The Jasmine Throne to “You are like ink and all I want is to make poetry of you” in Oleander Sword to “could stare at that face for hours” is so funny/cute to me, but also heartwarming. 😆

(All text quoted in the drawings are exerpts from The Jasmine Throne, The Oleander Sword and The Lotus Empire by Tasha Suri)

Tired gays of Parijatdvipa. Just wanted to paint Priya and Malini in a tender moment because hurt/comfort is my jam 😝 also wanted to draw Malini in her light mail armor from Lotus Empire!

From The Jasmine Throne to The Lotus Empire, I love the way Priya and Malini looked after each other, against everything that would’ve made enemies of them.

“Is that what love is, Malini? Is that how awful love is? Because if it is, then I love you, the way that roots love the deep and leaves love the light. And no matter how much I try to be good, to do right- I’m all flowers in your arms, for your war, for you-“

-from The Oleander Sword (Book 2 of The Burning Kingdoms) by Tasha Suri

“Scar me. Command me.”

happy pride from me and my favorite fictional jewish lesbians!

And you command me

Moss’d in Space is a new cozy sci-fi romance by USA Today bestselling author Rebecca Thorne (@rebeccathornewrites).

The art is by Eilene Cherie.   WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Happy (slightly belated on both counts) fifth birthday and 30,000 views to Ganaka Pit, my Murderbot Diaries animatic!!

It hit 30,000 views on the 3rd of this month and turned 5 on the 7th. Genuinely still staggered by the amount of love so many people hold for this - I'm proud of it, of course I am, and I was proud of it to begin with, but to see it still getting attention and so many lovely comments on a steady trajectory five whole years later is literally mindblowing.