#strawberry scripture

strawberry scripture

thank you @curiouspupsicle and @copperplatebeech for getting the ball rolling on throwback thursdays, and to @quitequaintrelle and @carry-the-sky for further inspiring me to participate!

from the time this game started, i knew i wanted to participate, but i wasn't sure where to start. a few days ago, however, i got a new comment on one of the first fics i published for good omens on ao3, called strawberry scripture. it's one i haven't revisited in a long time, so i thought that rereading it and sharing the story behind it would be a great entry point to getting into the throwback thursday routine.

this fic was conceived because i was inspired by a work of fanart, which had been posted by someone i had become acquainted with mere days prior, on 31st december 2023, via a comment she had made on my story I'm Beginning to See the Light. this comment included the fact that she appreciated the austen references i'd put into the story. i replied on 4th january 2024, saying we should appreciate jane austen together in the dms sometime!

i reblogged the original art with the tags below on 7th january 2024, and we actually started messaging, with her permission granted for me to write this fic.

in classic ineffabildaddy fashion, what was intended to be a ficlet ended up becoming more, rounding up at 6.5k words when i was finished and ready to post on 12th january (an alarmingly quick turnaround for me, as i'm not usually a speedy writer!).

the great thing about using art as inspiration for fic is it really allows one's mind to wander freely. this is one of those fics where i just started writing and let the story go where it wanted to, while sending the artist the occasional snippet along the way. during this time, she and i started talking in depth every day, and soon moved from talking on tumblr to whatsapp. we met in person for the first time the following month.

those of you who know me will be unsurprised to learn that the artist in question is the one who very quickly became my confidante, creative collaborator and best friend in the world, and eventually became my partner: the love of my life, @omens-for-ophelia. this fanart by her, the one that inspired this fic, was a big catalyst in starting our conversation, and for that i'll forever be grateful🩵

now, onto the fic itself. this was the first explicit story i had written that was purely pwp with no post-s2 angst. it was set post-s1, when armageddon had just been averted and the body swap pulled off, in a moment where aziraphale and crowley take a creative and lighthearted approach to navigating their first time.

the only part of the fic that i could actually remember with any clarity before rereading it was this, and it's still a (rather filthy) passage i'm proud of:

They came, in long rolling waves, at once, breaths squeezed out between yeses and fucks and darlings and angels, sweat trickling off skin and heat emanating off scales and fire casting two souls in iron, never again to be melted into separation. Aziraphale's spend leaked from Crowley's cunt and gushed down the plated finish of her thighs when he pulled out, and it was pure, it was good, it was right, it was just.

i hadn't written sex in such detail before ever, and this fic was a great exercise in that, because aziraphale's intention is to be thorough and methodical with crowley. i was properly grappling for the first time with balancing description of action with a character's internal life; this has always been challenging for me, as someone who was trained as a screenwriter and therefore became used to having to communicate everything to the audience without accessing a character's inner world. this is something i have since improved on quite a lot, but it's still a conscious effort for me sometimes to include the way things feel for a character and not something that always comes naturally.

my screenwriter's brain definitely came through in certain moments, this one being a prime example:

Aziraphale's eyes followed the path of his fingers as they meandered up her nimble foot, and then stroked the scales faintly speckling her ankle, and then traced a line up her supple calf, and then eked a jerking motion from the underside of her knee, and then crawled up her vibrating thigh towards her-

reading this sentence back, it was clear to me that i was imagining how i could get the audience to follow aziraphale's gaze like a camera panning upwards, revealing pieces of a picture slowly as opposed to the whole image at once.

overall, reflecting on this fic has been a wonderful way to look back on how my writing has developed, including how i developed the style of writing sex scenes in particular, but also how my writing has improved with regard to making descriptions engaging, as this fic was largely centred around describing subtle movements. it's also been an absolute joy to go back over my first few interactions with ophelia, marking when they occurred🩵

thank you for reading! here's the full info on the fic if anyone is interested in reading it: