mckiwi

[mckiwi]

say what you will, but aziraphale is absolutely going to be giggling in every one of my fics. that mf is a giggler and i’ll die on that hill

[mckiwi]

Ngk.

Yes, this is meta on ngk. I know, right? Possible origins and other layers of meaning? Ngk.

When Crowley uses it, "ngk", as we know, is the sound of a very clever word nerd just being so floored, confused, overwhelmed, or otherwise incapable of speech that we might think that what he says sounds like a bunch of random letters. It comes out like a curse at times... or a !!!!!... or it would be a squeak of frustration, if only his voice weren't so deliciously low. People read it as the verbal equivalent of a short keysmash and, emotionally? It probably is, but... those letters are not at all random.

The reasons why these letters were chosen are so. very. Crowley. that I think you'll find that the character's (and Pratchett's) interesting word kink might, as Mrs. Sandwich would say, put a smile on your face. 😊

I am pretty sure that ngk is two, different but interconnected, word history jokes related to the Greek language. Why the Greek language? Because it, along with Latin, is at the core of basically every language that etymologists refer to as being part of the Indo-European language family, which is pretty much every language of European countries, the Persian Plateau (sometimes referred to as the Iranian Plateau), and the northern Indian subcontinent. If you ever do word history research on words in English or Indo-European languages, it won't take you longer than two minutes to start finding your way back to the Greek roots for many of the words you look up. Greek is both a language in its own right and also the part of the origin story of words in dozens of other languages. Greek is at the core of the etymology-inspired figurative language in Good Omens and in Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels.

Because Greek has existed as language for literal ages and is so foundational to the study of other languages, etymologists needed a way to differentiate between the before and after period of big change in the Greek language.

Known to date, there really was one, massive shift that the language underwent over a period that has been narrowed down but the exact time and cause is debated. The most common theory is that it is related to The Fall of Constantinople and the collapse of the Byzantine Empire. The point is that, during this semi-disputed period of time, Greek underwent some big shifts that are, by and large, what differentiate between what we'd call "Ancient Greek" when looking at word history and how Greek has been written and spoken since through today. It's all the same language but it's just shifted so much, especially during this one period, that there are differences in it that people looking at word history need to be aware of when looking at the origins of words versus what things might mean or how they might be spoken in Greek in our current times.

In order to do that, etymologists created the term "New Greek" to mean Greek as spoken after this period of massive change to differentiate it from the Greek of more ancient Greece. NGK or ngk is the etymology world's acronym for "New Greek." Making this even more confusing? At some point in the last couple of decades, etymologists began calling "New Greek" by a different name-- "Modern Greek"-- but it means the same thing and, from what of it I've seen, they have largely kept the same ngk acronym. (The change to "Modern Greek" happened after Good Omens was first published.)

So, the first thing of the two things that ngk is? It's Crowley being so speechless or over everything that he's like argh, it's all fucking New Greek. He's cursing or exclaiming in frustration using the acronym for the shift in languages that underpins all of the languages he most frequently speaks, the evolution of which he lived through. Even word-nerdy poets have moments of FUCK WORDS and that appears to be one level of what ngk is. This also might be a little joke as well on the controversial old idiom that exists in different forms throughout different languages-- "it's all Greek to me"-- that was popularized in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. For more on that, I'd refer you to this really interesting Atlas Obscura article on the idiom.

Ok, so, that's the first of the two Greek-related things that ngk is. Let's look at the other one so you can see just how great a Crowley joke this...

While ngk is an acronym, it also, separately, happens to be a double consonant sound in Greek. Do not worry if it's been awhile since you studied a language, I will simplify. 😊

In English, a double consonant is when a consonant appears twice in a row in a word, like the two times in a row the letter l appears in the word balloon. In Greek, it's a different thing. A double consonant in Greek is a combination of two consonants that make one, collective sound together. Greek double consonants are closest to (if not exactly equivalent to) what is called a digraph in English phonics, which is the sound made by two letters commonly put together, like sh, qu, ch, etc. When you were first learning English, you were taught things like how sh makes a "shh" sound, in addition to learning the individual letters of the alphabet, right? That's kind of what some double consonants are like in Greek.

One of the Greek double consonants is the combination of the letters gamma + kappa in the Greek alphabet. When you say the double consonant of gamma + kappa aloud?

You are saying: "Ngk."

The letter gamma here in this double consonant is pronounced a little differently than usual and has what's known as the "gamma nasal" quality that causes it to be pronounced like "ng." Kappa here is pronounced and written like the English letter k, for which it is the direct ancestor. The pronunciation of the gamma + kappa double consonant is the sound that Crowley says in the bandstand in S1.

So, Crowley is actually cursing/exclaiming out a double consonant of the Greek alphabet...

Why? And why this one, when there are a bunch?

Start by checking out how the uppercase and lowercase letters for both gamma and kappa are written below:

Uppercase gamma is the crank part of a crank tool. Lowercase gamma is the origin of the English letter y-- homophone: the signature word of questions: why?

Gamma is a term used all over the place in math and science, including gamma rays from electromagnetism and gamma waves, observable neural movement that is connected in the mind to large-scale, high-level cognitive activity, often related to memory, perception, creativity, and attention. These are also some of the brain waves most impacted by mental health issues and that are also some of the most affected by things like meditation.

Gamma is also a Greek word for the camel. (Lest you think that Good Omens forgot a rideable animal for their never-ending horses/transportation euphemism fiesta... found the missing camel! 😂) The word gamut also comes from gamma and originally referred to music-- the entirety of the musical scale-- but now you can say "runs the gamut" about anything in a way that means the same thing as the idiom "from soup to nuts"-- just everything, from beginning to end. From creation to completion and back to the start again.

Kappa has ties to some Crowley-related science and spirituality, such as The Kappa Effect, which is a theory explaining how the mind's perception of distance can affect its perception of how much time has passed. In early Buddhist scriptures written in Pali, a kappa-- referred to as a kalpa in later writings-- refers to a very long period of time between the creation and the destruction/recreation of a world or universe and related to the lifetime of that world or universe.

So, we have memory, time, the creation of the universe, crank tools, asking questions... these letters are turning into a whole list of Crowley-related things, yeah? There's more...

Kappa is written in both cases like the letter k-- homophones: 'kay (as in, ok/okay) and cay.

The etymology of ok is actually an example of a briefly-existing cant vocabulary, which... heyyyy. That feels relevant, yeah? 😲

In the late 1830s, a (very limited) cant vocabulary emerged in New England that created new slang out of making acronyms out of intentionally misspelled existing phrases. It is thought to have started or been encouraged by a Boston Morning Post article that mocked a competing newspaper by saying it was spelling things the way its rival did-- spelling "all correct" as "oll korrect." A lot of issues of newspapers from this time period no longer exist so the exact issue that caused this paper to troll its rival is unknown. There is some speculation that it might have been something of a class warfare battle being played out between papers who appealed to different groups of people, given that the mocking "oll korrect" sounds, when spoken aloud, to be of the same pronunciation quirks of the 'pahk the kah in hahvahd yahd' variety of Boston accent.

"Ok" is believed to have originated as an abbreviation of "oll korrect." This article either prompted-- or was an example of-- a cant vocabulary that did a rare thing-- united Boston and New York lol-- for a little while in the late 1830s. There were other abbreviations used as words like this, for which you had to understand one of Crowley's favorite word things-- homophony-- and know the pattern to understand. KG meant "no go", off of the homophonic "know go," for example.

Ngk, like ok and these other words, is an abbreviation being used as a a word. Not of one that's misspelled but one that is from the cant vocab of etymology nerds, making it fun in an especially meta sort of way.

The most famous of these phrases from this late 1830s Boston/New York cant-- and the only one to survive-- is "ok", which etymologists think was probably was helped to remain by being picked up and used in President Martin Van Buren's failed reelection bid in 1840.

As you can probably tell from the fact that I said that it was used in a Presidential campaign, the cant vocabulary spilled into the mainstream and, so, lost relevancy as it was no longer something that not everyone understood. "Ok" was kind of like the "brat" of the 1840 U.S. presidential campaign, in some ways? Once everyone got the joke, people still used it in the mainstream because it was a quick thing to say or write as an affirmative but its subversion was lost by its meaning becoming commonly understood.

While this 1830s cant vocab was *much* smaller, the best anyone can tell-- more like a handful of phrases and not much more-- it's kind of similar to Polari, in terms of the language burning out but leaving lingering words in mainstream English.

Ok, so the other word from kappa: cay.

A cay is a low island. It has a synonym-- one definition of the word key (Key Largo, The Florida Keys, etc.). So, we have a low island-- the use of the beach/the sea/fish/bodies of water as figurative language for sex in Good Omens-- and its also the word that is a key. Keys you use to start engines to drive and also to unlock language. A key is the necessary component to interpreting hidden language and here's one of the keys/clues to taking apart the use of language in Good Omens right here in ngk.

Kappa is from the Phonenician kaph, which meant the hollow of the hand (the palm) when it is forming a cup shape... as in when praying/meditating or when creating or presenting something...

...and the sole (homophone: soul) of the foot-- its arch, in particular. Arch, alternative meaning: playful, knowing, dry teasing.

In other words, kappa, etymologically, is the movement of the hands and feet-- it's living on Earth. It's using the hands to make magic and art, to worship and give to others. It's the the cobbler walking the Earth-- living life.

Crowley's story is the double consonant of gamma+kappa. Not just the angel he was and his life on Earth since his fall but how they're really all intermixed into one person because he's always been the one person. Ngk is who he is and that is why, of all the possible sounds, he says this one.

While it was both an acronym and a sound prior to the novel, ngk was, to the best of my knowledge, not written as a word in its own right prior to the publication of Good Omens. Crowley's exclamations are the first utterances of ngk as a word and our understanding of what it means comes from the context of when and how he uses it in the novel and in the series. In that way, ngk is Good Omens' own contribution to language evolution.

Terry Pratchett, who wrote his Discworld novels and Good Omens with etymology-based figurative language, made word history such a big part of Good Omens that he had the book itself contribute to language evolution by having it birth a word in Crowley's ngk.

From interpreting its meaning by the context of how Crowley uses it... from researching from where this grouping of three letters as a word could have originated... from incorporating the word into fan art and fanfic... and from using it amongst ourselves in real life and explaining it to other people if they ask for the last couple of decades?

We've all been collectively helping Terry Pratchett contribute a new word to the English language.

Let's get it into the dictionaries next. 😊

[mckiwi]

stargazing

[mckiwi]

"I want them to kiss" "I want them to hug" I want Crowley to very gently hold Aziraphale's hand in both of his own and kiss his knuckles and smile softly at him.

[mckiwi]

[mckiwi]

Angel

||

The day Aziraphale went from “Angel” to “angel” in Crowley’s eyes

show: “Good Omens”

||

McKiwi Edits: YouTube, Instagram, & Tiktok

[mckiwi]

Dear Good Omens fandom,

I love you so much. I love your resilience, and your strength and your power and creativity and your love of detail. 

The stories I've read from this fandom are among the most eloqent, clever, breathtaking, heartbreaking, insightful and hilarious things I have ever read in my life. 

Stories that inspired me to try new things, grow, see things from a different perspective, learn and feel with an enormity I couldn't have foreseen. It is simply amazing for me to see that a fandom centered around a story written by such a vile creature of a man can be so warm-spirited and welcoming, so resilient and full of force and it never ceases to amaze me. You've made me find a new joy in reading I'd never thought I could rediscover. Thank you. 

I can't know what S3 will bring. I am hopeful that this story will find an ending which we can agree with. But I want to take a moment and appreciate the sheer abundance of stories and content that we have created and that can never be taken away from us. There are entire worlds out there that belong to us in which these characters find their happiness and a world of their own and we can all be so goddamn proud of ourselves for creating and cherishing that.

[mckiwi]

I’m glad ppl on tiktok are doing ok

[mckiwi]

I’ve actually got this one saved to my camera roll. This is the TikTok Post.

little appreciation moment for this

[credits to the pinterest creator]

[mckiwi]

thanks guys

[mckiwi]

[mckiwi]

Telepathic aliens enjoy that humans will "play music" for hours at a time. When it's too mentally quiet on deck, they just announce the catchiest song titles they know and the humans will start thinking about it automatically.

The humans hate this so, so much.

Zorf: Human Steve, can you please play that song I like, the one with all the females

Steve: what

Zorf: A little bit of Monica in my life

Steve:

Steve: mother fu--

[mckiwi]

Good Omens Fics

McKiwi Writes on: AO3

Title || Rating || Category || Words || Status* || Summary

Multiple Chapters*

"An Angel and a Demon Walk Into a Hotel" || Gen || Multi || 6,327 || Complete

Gabe is just trying to get through his shift as a hotel Front Desk Agent when two strange men come in looking for a room. Just when he thinks his night can't get any weirder, life finds a way to prove him wrong.

"Christmas is Better Spent Together" || Gen || Multi || 8,568 || Complete

7 times Aziraphale and Crowley spent Christmas together (and 1 time they didn't)

"The Dance of 1650" || Teen || Gen || 11,925 || Complete

“I did the ‘I was wrong’ dance in 1650, in 1793, 1941–” -Aziraphale S2:E1 39:45 If 1793 was the crepe incident and 1941 was the magic show, what happened in 1650? Or rather, what happened the time Crowley was accused of witchcraft?

One Shots

"Abraham’s Side" || Gen || M/M || 1,143

The time came when the beggar died, and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. (Luke 16:22) Angels are said to guide humans to their deaths, but what about other angels? Or rather, fallen angels?

[mckiwi]

Marvel Fics

McKiwi Writes on: AO3

Title || Rating || Category || Words || Status* || Summary

Multiple Chapters*

"Oblivescence" || Teen || Gen || 6,032 || Incomplete

Oblivescence: noun [ob-luh-ves-uh ns] the process of forgetting. The human brain has a limit, Stephen of all people should know that. To view those fourteen million futures, he had to sacrifice something. His memories. It started with the first few hundred timelines, a few deaths from Dormammu, neurology facts he'll never need again… but the spell became greedy. Now, he can't remember why his hands hurt.

"Strange Tales of Halloween" || Gen || Gen || 3,071 || Complete

Hosted by A Strange Server. Each prompt will be treated as a daily journal entry written by Stephen Strange.

"The Raven" || Teen || Gen || 13,114 || Complete

Raven: Symbol of prophecy and insight, the bridge between the material world and the spiritual. Though very intelligent and clever, these creatures are said to bring misfortune upon those in their path. Call it a nightmare or call it a revelation, either way, a psychopath hellbent on universal balance is on the horizon. Even if they were to defeat Thanos, what threats would come after him? Was this world as safe as it seemed? Stephen held the power of time in his scarred hands, why not use it? In fact, just to ensure this world stayed safe, why not use all of it? All the power. All the infinity stones. It's his job to protect this reality, and he's never been one to take his job lightly. One stone down, five to go. The avengers were growing more and more aware of the sorcerer's intentions. The line was drawn once Wong called for help. With three stones in his possession and an ambition to rival even the gods, it would take everyone to stop him.

One Shots

"Delusions Of Happiness" || Teen || Gen || 1,105

What good is a Sorcerer Supreme to a world that's lost it's magic? What good is a heart to a man with no one to love? Sinister does this Stephen, like so many others out there, a favor.

"End Of Story" || Gen || Gen || 2,295

Part of her felt bad for the other dimensions, specifically their civilians. They always succumbed to Dormammu’s power without much of a fight, if any was given at all. That is until her uncle tried to invade Earth. “Dormammu, I’ve come to bargain.” (The story of how Clea and Stephen first meet)

"Fighting Your Shadows" || Gen || Gen || 100

Someone is tormenting Stephen's thoughts throughout Multiverse of Madness.

"Heat of the Moment" || Teen || Gen || 3,191

"Heat of the Moment": Asia, 1982. Something is invading and killing the villagers of Jotunheim. Now sitting as king of Jotunheim, Loki reluctantly summons Stephen to help him save his kingdom. Stephen gets to prove magic isn't the only thing he's good at.

"Knocking On Death's Door" || Gen || Gen || 743

Stephen Strange was a doctor, a good one at that– a great one. He and Death had never been on good terms. She took his family from him, so he took his patients’ lives back from Her. He always stood outside of Death’s door, guarding it, keeping it locked away from others as best as he could. But Death comes for everyone, in the end.

"Yesterday" || Gen || Gen || 3,107

"Yesterday": The Beatles, 1965. After the events of No Way Home, Stephen finds a Midtown High cup in the undercroft. Assuming an invader has somehow made it past the Sanctum's defenses, Stephen decides to investigate, which somehow leads him to a lonely teenage boy. Who is this kid and what was he doing in the Sanctum?

Whumptober 2021

"Day 1: All Trussed Up and Still Nowhere To Go (Barbed Wire)"

"Day 2: Talking is Overrated (Gagged)"

"Day 3: Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones (Taunting):

"Day 4: Trust Fall (Pushed)"

"Day 5: I've Got Red in My Ledger (Betrayal)"

"Day 6: Touch and Go (Touch-Starved)"

"Day 7: Blind to the Consequences (Blindness)"

"Day 8: Coughing Up a Lung (Exotic Illness)"

"Day 9: Rumors of my Death have been Greatly Exaggerated (Presumed Dead)"

"Day 10: Oops, I Did It Again (Hospital)"

"Day 11: Just Keep Swimming (Drowning)"

Whumptober 2022

"Day 1: A Little Out of the Ordinary (Adverse Effects)"

"Day 2: Nowhere to Run (Confrontation)"

"Day 3: Hair's Breadth from Death (Impaled)"

"Day 4: Dead On Your Feet (Hidden Injury)"

"Day 5: Every Whumpee's Needs (Tears)"

"Day 6: Proof of Life ("I've Got a Pulse")"

"Day 7: The Way You Shake and Shiver (Shaking Hands)"

"Day 8: Everything Hurts and I'm Dying (Stomach Pain)"

"Day 9: The Very Noisy Night (Caught in a Storm)"

"Day 10: Poor Unfortunate Souls (Stabbed)"

"Day 11: "911, What's Your Emergency?" (Self-Done First Aid)"

"Day 12: What Could Go Wrong (Sensory Overload)"

"Day 13: Can't Make an Omelette Without Breaking a Few Eggs (Dislocation)"

"Day 14: Die a Hero or Live Long Enough to Become a Villain ("I'll Be Right Behind You")"

"Day 15: Emotional Damage (Lies)"

"Day 16: No Way Out (Mind Control)"

"Day 17: Hanging By a Threat (Reluctant Caretaker)"

[mckiwi]

White Mustang

||

Them literally getting closer over the years

song: “White Mustang” Lana Del Ray

show: “Good Omens”

||

McKiwi Edits: YouTube, Instagram, & TikTok

[mckiwi]

How do you prefer to read fics that are about 10,000-15,000 words in length?

[mckiwi]

Aziraphale, Walking

I know we talk a lot about Crowley's saunter, but may I present:

The careful way Aziraphale walks?

The way he looks so solid and strong?

So sure?

He seems to like his body (corporation)

And that's so sexy

He appears to be always on a particular, precisely calculated path at any point

Anyway, I love the way he holds himself

And Crowley definitely appreciates that too: