For this fic! I believe it's by @shark-myths (if this is you hello I need to talk your ear off for 20 years about this fic)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
A couple of weeks ago I read the fic I'm A Wing I'm A Prayer on AO3. I don't have a lot of experience reading fanfiction or fantasy, and I was completely floored by the craftsmanship in this story. I'm still (clearly) reeling from how moving it was. Art begets art and I couldn't stop thinking about painting the fic, but especially the graveyard scene.
I think part of what captured me about this scene is that I have often felt like Pete. Sleep deprived, run ragged, working faster than a human should but still never fast enough. Stinging hands and a difficulty communicating.
But where words fail and connection feels full of red tape, sexuality is a path back to feeling human. A language I can speak. Slow and intimate and silent, plucking clothes off one another like swan feathers. Sex as a confession of devotion, sex as a forgiveness to the self for having desires or wanting love. When the world is spinning out and you don't have control over your body, sexuality as a reclaiming of your vessel.
And I love the scene for the symbolism it's layered up in its story telling. Swan song comes to mind as this is the final act of humanity before losing each other. The beauty of the feathers falling among the graves and moonlight and stinging nettle, among the constant reminders of death. The difficulty Pete has with his hands, and the choice to use them anyways. The insistence that when the world doesn't recognize you I do. When you don't recognize yourself I do.
I want to grow in art so badly, and so I've challenged myself to use more references and to push meaningful details when painting. You can watch the process on my reels but it doesn't show how I was jumping between images of graveyards, swans, hands, Pete and Patrick, stinging nettle, bodies non stop. I really feel like it paid off and I'm happy to feel like for the first time I have a painting where the environment is equally show cased and adds depth to the subject. Thank you so much to the writer of the scene not only for telling such a beautiful story, but for making this moment so visually and emotionally full.
