Pop Culture Overthinker bit.ly/guygirlsmedia

I shall jump straight to the point: people online did NOT seem pleased with Aziraphale and Crowley's last kiss. However, unlike them, i believe this was a deeply meaningful, touching and romantic moment for us to see and i thought I'd give my two cents about it too.

For starters: this was an APOLOGY kiss. That's right people, not a simple "I love you" or "I like you back" kiss but a PROPER apology kiss. Aziraphale reaches for it first, it's the first thing that comes to his mind when he realizes this might actually just be the last time they ever get to see each other. He wants to start over, do it better, and in order to do that he needs Crowley's forgiveness for everything that has happened in the past few years for things to finally be RIGHT.

He also touches his lips the same way he did when he first got kissed by Crowley at the end of season 2, except this time he does it to "give it back". It simbolizes Crowley's feelings being reciprocated, a tender act of apology for not kissing him back the first time but finally doing it right this time. He no longer thinks of that touch to his lips with sorrow or hatred or confusion, but rather as an answer, as something beautiful, as the love he's always felt but could never find the courage to openly reciprocate until now.

As for a possible additional meaning, here in Europe a kiss given by the fingertips can symbolize many things. One of them is "farewell" (and given the context of this scene i might add this kiss was the perfect choice), it's a sign of respect and profound admiration, it's a tender act to say goodbye in a polite and innocent way: it's pure, just like them.

Additionally, in my country, a kiss by the fingertips is most commonly known as a religious act, a sign of devotion and adoration done to the feet of sacred statues and holy sculptures; it symbolizes complete submission to our deepest love for the holy and to surrender to the greatness of the saint we behold, to give them our complete and undoubted faith.

it's loyal, It's devoted and faithful, It's endlessly filled with love and respect, it's playful and innocent but also clever and bold: it represents Aziraphale PERFECTLY. ❤️

i believe we were very lucky to be able to see the different ways these two characters express their love for one another, we get to see how Crowley expresses his love through a kiss and we get to see how Aziraphale does it in his own way. They both come straight from the heart, both dripping with need and affection and love, but each in their own, unique ways.

Limpet by veronamay (T) John's reaction to Sherlock's constant touching.

In the Still of the Night by MoonBeams (G) Herein lies Sleepy Sherlock, exhausted but stubborn, and Adoring John, putting his love to bed.

Caring by belovedmuerto (T) John figures something out about Sherlock.

The Basics by wearitcounts (lesbianchrispine) (T) Morning snogs, and coffee.

Equilibrium by patternofdefiance (M) Sherlock doesn’t just come out and say: ‘John, I think it’s time you moved into my room with me, and I’d like it very much if you did just that.’ No, that’s not his way, especially in this not-his-area.

The High-Functioning Sociopath Who Walked by Himself by ChrisCalledMeSweetie (G) Hear this tale, O my Best Beloved, of when the High-Functioning Sociopath was Wild. He walked by himself, and all men were alike to him, which is to say all men were idiots. Until he met John Watson…

Tags under the cut. Thanks for reblogging!

If I understand correctly, medieval French folk tales considered chestnut-colored horses to be deceitful and tricky; the Old French word for a chestnut or dun horse was fauvel, and so the Old French expression correier fauvel, literally "to brush the chestnut horse", meant lying or being hypocritical for personal gain. This turned into "curry favel" in 15th-century English, and then mutated into "curry favor" over the next few centuries as people forgot about the horse.

So "currying favor" is really "brushing the Horse of Lies", and the reason you can't curry goodwill, or love, or hatred, or even disfavor is that we didn't have Horses for those.

I realize, looking back on this post, that regular readers of my blog may have thought I made this up. Making up a ridiculous etymology is certainly the sort of thing I might do; in fact I've been meaning to start a sideblog dedicated solely to sufficiently accurate etymologies, and have a notebook with dozens of them jotted down, I just haven't had the time to do anything with them.

But I want to stress that this is not one of those cases. This is, to the best of my knowledge, the very real etymology of the phrase "curry favor".

The Old French fauve or falve referred to the light-brown color that's sometimes called "fallow" in modern English, but since it also sounded similar to faux, meaning "false", it was also associated with deceit and trickery ; the idiom estriller Fauvel literally meant "to groom the fallow one" but idiomatically meant "to lie or trick people".

Then in the 1300s we get the French poem Roman de Fauvel, a satirical poem about a fauve horse, whose name is derived both from the color and from the fact that FAVVEL is an acronym of Flaterie, Avarice, Vilanie, Varieté, Envie, Lascheté (Flattery, Greed, Vileness, Fickleness, Envy, and Cowardice) - all the different vices that this horse embodies.

Fauvel (purportedly modeled after Enguerrand de Marigny [source], an advisor to King Philip IV) is a sinful, conniving, and very rich horse who has various religious and secular leaders fawning over him and brushing him; it was well-known enough that "grooming Fauvel" came to mean "sucking up to someone powerful" more than just "being evil", and when it was translated into English the grooming was translated as currying, which specifically is grooming a horse with a curry comb [wiktionary]. From this we got the Middle English expression "currying Fauvel", which then mutated via folk etymology (in the "reinterpretation of unfamiliar words as more familiar ones" sense, not the "people are wrong about etymology" sense) into "currying favor".

Curry favor in:

Wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/curry_favor

Merriam-Webster: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/curry%20favor

All to say, when my rabbi opened the door for Elijah, he yelped when I was on his door step with an appearance akin to surviving a war, a beyond exhausted expression, and an iced coffee larger than my head.

Ilya: that's not true! I did! In the shower!

Shane: I introduced myself to you at world juniors!

Ilya: that wasn't a move! That was normal introduction!

Shane: Ilya, baby, when have you ever known me to initiate a social interaction with a stranger?

And they were like "What?"

And I was like, "Agility isn't the ultimate form of preparedness. Contingency is. Agility still requires you to flounder and figure out a solution in the moment, but if you have a contingency plan, all you have to do is implement it."

And they were like "But you can't make contingency plans for every situation!"

And I was like, "Yeah, you basically can if you just identify all of your basic dependencies and contingency plan around the loss of any dependency," and then I gave a few examples.

And they all stared at me like I'm an alien.

As he described to the interviewer a moment of panic and how he he overcame, the interviewer said, in one of those, summarise-last-answer-given-with-appropriate-levels-of-respect-in-order-to-proceed-to-next-question phrasing’s, “Wow, so you rose to the occasion -“

1. You sound like a bot

2. You don't give anything to respond to

Remember Inigo Montoya

Polite Greeting: You will be assimilated.

Relevant personal link: Your biological and technological characteristics will be added to our own.

They said they’re all scared and tired. The amount of anxiety is through the roof and asked for fan art of Aziraphale and Crowley protecting the kids to help boost morale.

So I did. It’s the very least I can do right now. To all the #goodomens fans across America fighting the good fight, thank you! You are the REAL patriots.

Call your reps. Donate. March. But most importantly, keep showing up whether it’s art, music, baking, writing, coffee with friends, reading books to kindergartners.

KEEP SHOWING UP.

Share this with any good omens fans who need it.

Fuck ICE

Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.

Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.

my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.

in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.

so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-

PFFFFFFFFFRRRRRBTFTBTBFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

everyone froze. and then all ran off stage positively HOWLING with laughter.

Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.

The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.

Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.

Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.

Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.

Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.

Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.

Sunday Night:  Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise - apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.

It was awesome because when people saw the play and didn’t know the girls were identical twins, it literally looked like it was one actor doing multiple, uber fast costume changes.

One of our first performances was for our peers and it was a big school so lots of people didn’t know the twins. This - for some reason - was also the performance they chose to record.

Listening to the confusion of the audience during the playback was fantastic and completely topped by the moment Viola walked off stage left just as Sebastian walked on stage right and someone right beside the camera goes “OH WHAT THE FUCK” so loudly it drowned out everything else.

It’s like our third show and everything has been going surprisingly well. Hook and Smee climb to the top of the “tree trunk”, supposedly looking for Peter and not knowing they’re standing above his hiding spot the whole time.

Turns out someone didn’t close the trapdoor properly, because the second Hook steps on it, he plunges through the thing. He’s able to catch himself, but he’s got his ass and one leg dangling through this hole where it’s like a ten foot drop to the ground. All of us stage crew are literally two feet away from him offstage, just gaping at him because???? Y'all this fall looked BAD. Looked like my dude did the splits in mid air. The whiplash caused his fucking wig to come off. The audience is dead silent, all of us backstage are dead silent, the director is like already looking up how to treat a broken groin.