This is aMAZing. You've managed to compress into one glorious image exactly the kind of intensity I was striving for - but it took me 80,000 words and you've accomplished it within a single frame! Holy fuck. The colors and textures are just breathtaking. Harry's body in particular is gorgeous, beautifully tinted and contoured. It cries out to be touched, with those thick strokes of pigment, and the shadows along his side, his slight boniness, and the way the firelight shimmers on his skin. I love the red-gold threads reflecting the flames and edging their hair. Harry's arm is fantastic, painted with such detail and, God, character, and the sheer breathholding tension of him cupping Snape's throat, his lips hovering over the runes - wow. Incredibly erotic. Just what I could have wished for.
I join majmunka in her admiration of Snape's lips. So vulnerable, as is his whole pose. I'm especially fond of the way Snape's hair sweeps his shoulder. And the runes, Jesus. The snake rising with its fangs bared? Just perfect. I also like the way the fire coils, the way the briars mirror the flames, the way both of them echo the twining of the snakes. You've conveyed a whole plotline here by having the roses darken in color as they climb. That red rose bursting open above Snape's head, glowing in triumph - yes, exactly. That's it exactly. God, it's brilliant, how you hint at the story's climax despite the horrible, ravishing death closing in around them. And you've turned these two symbols, roses and fire, into an embodiment of Snape and Harry's complex passion, how inevitably they intertwine, how mutually destructive and yet blazing with life and beauty they are. Yes. In a single picture.
Excuse me while I stare. And repeat myself like a gibbering idiot.
I don't think there could be a better visual interpretation of what I intended than this, distilling so much heat and radiance and magical intensity and that sense of being trapped inside a roaring explosion of erotic power. I'm stunned. I'm honored. I'm so fucking thrilled by the way this turned out. I can only stare in rapture as the fire consumes them. Thank you, Ven, a thousand times thank you. I'm so jittery with excitement that I have to go pace around my house now to calm down. *hugs you madly*