#Muriel's murders

[murielsmurders]

True crimes, good times. New episode every Wednesday.

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

I love Crowley's hopping, especially at the end :D❤

[y0anna14]

Nuzi Child

Yeah, I love Uzi x N so I made and oc.. Hahaha, I hope she can make me feel better after me feeling bad that Murder Drones finally ended🤧🥺😔😩😭

[greenthena]

Fanfic update...

*looks for the most heart-wrenching Crowley gif* doot be doot doo

“God fucking damnit, Crowley!”

Crowley spun to see Anathema stomping into the teachers lounge.

“I drew the Five of Wands this morning, but I didn’t think you’d be the problem!” she very nearly hissed, swatting Crowley’s shoulder as she walked by. “What did you say to her? Why is she crying, Crowley? Muriel? You okay?”

Muriel nodded and wiped a tear from their cheek. “Oh, I’m fine.” A hearty sniff. “I’m fine. It…it wasn’t Mr. Crowley, Miss Device. He wasn’t yelling at me,” they said. “I know you said he can yell quite a bit, but it’s not that.” (Crowley rolled his eyes dramatically at this.) “Mr. Crowley and I were just going to have a cupperty and I started telling him that I…”

“What is going on here?”

Crowley glanced over his shoulder a second time to see Pepper Moonchild striding down the hall looking like Justice incarnate.

Keep reading on ao3...

[ao3cassandraic]

Clothing and identity in Good Omens

Angels and demons are color-coded. Angels wear gray, taupe, and white; demons wear black and dark shades of red or blue or burgundy or similar.

In Heaven, clothing also carries connotations of rank. Aziraphale's modern-day phalanx has a kilted uniform; so does Muriel (with the cutest gold-accented saddle shoes I think I have ever seen). The archangels wear pantsuits. Similar design distinctions are apparent in earlier eras; in the Job minisode, Muriel's robes are simpler and have lesser gold accents than Aziraphale's, and Aziraphale's have less gold than Gabriel's and Michael's.

The color thing is so calcified in Heaven that Crowley gets away with his staggeringly hideous bee!demon disguise; Michael and Uriel walk right by him and don't realize who or what he is.

The archangels take Gabriel's clothes away because he's been demoted. He ends up naked because he absconds from Heaven before they can mindwipe him and give him clothing befitting his new 38th-level rank.

Clothing also stands a good chance of being why the archangels (except, in my view which is not shared by everyone, Saraqael) don't recognize the Metatron, who walks into the bookshop in a black suit, black overcoat, black tie, and black shoes. (White shirt, admittedly.) He's not wearing angel garb!

(The Metatron has contempt for everyone and everything and every system. He's trolling the archangels because he despises them and enjoys making them look foolish. Extremely punchable guy, the Metatron.)

Here's the funny bit, because Gaiman and Finnemore are masters of the delayed-reaction funny bit. When Crowley goes up to Heaven in his demon-black garb and explains about bees and camouflage, Muriel protests: "But you don't look like a bee! You look like a murder hornet, or a snake!" (In passing, I love Muriel's interest in Earth fauna. Geese are big cross ducks!)

We all know Crowley's a snake.

That leaves the extremely punchable Metatron looking like the murder hornet. How very fitting.

[azirafuck]

muriel looks like the most precious being ever created, ray of sunshine, blood type B+, will cuddle and will cuddle you back, but I do be kind of hoping for them to go. batshit crazy

[lyssq]

Sure, maybe your dad disapproves of your partner – but did he kill them then turn you immortal, ensuring that even in death you will not be reunited? No? Then it's fine.

[kaesaaurelia]

trembling with the beauty of the word

For @whumptober day 28, using the prompts "bloody knife," "sacrifice," and "you'll have to go through me."

This is the last installment of this fic.

Continued from Day 3, wherein Muriel went to Heaven to get access to their old records, from before they can remember things, and discovered some troubling things written in their own handwriting, and Day 12, wherein Muriel discovered some troubling things they'd written (implied to be after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah) which were used as evidence against them in the trial where their memories were erased.

Content warning for attempted child murder.

After trying and failing to read their own strikeouts for a bit -- no miraculous restoration seemed to help -- Muriel moved on from that exhibit and kept going.

There were more entries from their journal there. One exhibit was a List of Collaborators, which was apparently a bad thing. They seemed to be angels, mostly, although a couple of the names looked human. What had Muriel done? Who had they got in trouble?

They flipped back to the front of the filing and read, but none of it made sense. It said they were intentionally sowing Doubt and these people were helping them, but Muriel didn't see anything to that effect in their writing, and they knew they wouldn't just lie about that sort of thing. Apparently everybody on the list had had their memories corrected, so at least any mistakes they had made weren't permanent, but they felt guilt clawing at the center of their being anyway.

There was also mention of a Prior Incident wherein they had (allegedly -- although of course, if Heaven alleged it, it was true) knowingly defied the will of the Lord, and they flipped back through the exhibits to see if they could find that, because that sounded dreadful and they couldn't imagine doing that, but it wasn't attached.

Was there an earlier filing? They decided to ignore the Petition to Recall Angel from Earth for now since it seemed to be based on some sort of mistaken reading of something, and flipped through the earlier parts of the folder. There was a handwritten note from someone -- one of the humans on the list, by the looks of the signature, who'd been some sort of scholar or student or something.

Muriel began reading it, because, after all, it was addressed to them! Only a few lines in, they realized that this was a very... human... piece of writing, and decided to pretend it didn't exist. Had Old Bad Angel Muriel kept this? And not burned it? They were surprised it wasn't an exhibit as evidence of... well, it seemed awfully damning.

They kept going, though they didn't know what they were looking for. They found what appeared to be a shaky drawing in charcoal on the back of a blank report form. On one side of the picture there was a regular-size human, scowling, and brandishing a big... axe, maybe? and then a drawing of an angel (they could tell because of the wings, and the squiggly lines surrounding them, and the flying) clutching some kind of indistinct four-legged creature that seemed to be made mostly of swirls. The angel was smiling. On the other side of the angel was a small human, who looked very sad.

Something about this gave them that punched-in-the-stomach feeling again and they didn't know why, so they moved on.

And here was an incident report, once more written in their own hand. They winced, because this was going to be bad, but they were going to have to read it. They had to know.

As you are no doubt aware, amending humans' memories requires endorsements from the humans' attending Principalities, guardian angels, etc., for each individual human, all to be approved by the Office of Faith and Good Works. This process must be done for every single human whose memory is to be changed.

The Office of Faith and Good Works is currently dealing with a three century backlog while they sort through the 478 proposed Commandments. I believe they're trying to narrow it down something between one to three Commandments, as human memory unfortunately cannot retain 478 of them. I imagine it will take them quite a while.

I now continue my report, having hopefully established to your satisfaction that memory correction is not currently a practical option under the circumstances.

This seemed wildly irrelevant, and Muriel judged their old self once more for being inexplicably inefficient, although maybe they were making a point about how bad that policy was. It had definitely been changed, although Muriel couldn't recall when, so probably not very much after this incident. They read on.

My understanding of the mission was that it was to test and strengthen Abraham's faith in God, and I think in that sense it was a great success. However, I would strongly recommend against any further attempts to test humans' faith with child sacrifice, and I am so confident that you will understand my reasoning that I have gone ahead and told them that the Lord would never require such sacrifices. I was very clear on this. I told Abraham to tell everyone else he knew about this, because my experiences on Earth suggest that child welfare is one of humans' greatest motivators. I think it would be particularly good for our optics to be known as the faith option with a guarantee of no child sacrifice, and by now there should be several hundred humans who are aware of this policy, which I maintain can reasonably be inferred to be in line with current Heavenly policy from the following materials:

There followed a lengthy list of citations. Muriel was not familiar with most of them, but they looked real enough. Perhaps they were no longer relevant due to changes in policy since this incident. But the whole thing seemed horribly clear to Muriel. They had decided, without consulting Heaven, to claim something was policy and then make it impossible for Heaven to take back without undue strain on the bureaucracy.

On the other hand, Old Bad Angel Muriel was right; humans were very keen on child welfare. It was a whole thing with them.

They skimmed the rest of the report -- Old Bad Angel Muriel explained that it had been an alarming amount of work to convince Abraham that he had to kill his son, and that, as they had used up all their miracle allotment on Abraham, there had been none left for the child's mother, who had punched Muriel. Punching is something humans do when they're very angry. It can be very painful for everyone involved, they added, and I would suggest that this and other common acts of aggression be added to the standard curriculum for Earth agents. (It had been, although Muriel hadn't had time to actually go through that. They had happened to read about it when it was entered into the code at some point after the Flood.)

There then followed a lengthy account of purchasing the ram and getting the ram up the mountain without being seen, which seemed largely unnecessary except that Old Bad Angel Muriel was asking for the money for the ram back. They admitted they had been overcharged, but they pointed out that they did not have enough time to haggle, and that 52 of the proposed Commandments had to do with not stealing, so it seemed like a bad idea to steal the ram. (Muriel had to admit this was a good point.)

At the end, there were no less than three pages about the boy, Isaac. Old Bad Angel Muriel had described his character and personality, what his favorite color was, what he thought of every member of his family down to the dogs, what every member of his family thought of him (excepting anyone who couldn't talk, such as the dogs), and what he wanted to do when he grew up. He said he wanted to be an angel because he wants to be able to fly, but I told him that unfortunately Heaven is not hiring, so he's considering his options. It was... irrelevant, Muriel knew, but it was a portrait in writing of a human, a person who was irreplaceable and individual.

The last sentence was I will not be taking further actions that cause humans to attempt to harm children. No at this time, no until further notice, no unless you confirm it with the relevant committees. No justification or explanation.

Muriel closed the folder, because it was making them feel unpleasant things, Bad Angel things, and it suddenly occurred to them that perhaps Crowley needed help finding the thing he had forgot, which he was looking for, and which definitely existed. If they were helping someone they couldn't be a Bad Angel. Although perhaps because he was a demon, that wasn't true. But he was a Good Demon, so, therefore...

Well, all right, no, that was a nonsensical line of reasoning, but they still didn't want to look at the folder anymore.

So they got up to go and find him. "Crowley?" they called.

The bookshop wasn't actually all that large, but it was surprisingly easy to get lost in, Muriel reflected, some time later. Perhaps there was more of it than they'd realized. Perhaps the books all got together in secret while they were out, up on Heaven retrieving files they shouldn't be retrieving. Perhaps Muriel really was inexplicably going in a circle, and the room they thought was behind those shelves wasn't there, and instead it was just a really long corridor of nearly identical bookshelves.

Or, also, perhaps demons had ways of hiding themselves in bookshops they knew extremely well, from angels who were new to Earth and also to said bookshops.

Muriel sighed, snapped their fingers, and the endlessly repeating bookshelves dissolved, and there was the room they thought they were looking for. Crowley sat at a circular table. There was a dark glass bottle in front of him, and an empty drinking glass, one of those miniature ones that didn't seem to hold enough liquid to be worth it.

He did not look very happy, but Muriel was glad of the company anyway.

"Did you find your thing that you forgot?" Muriel asked.

"No," said Crowley, sounding mournful. "Nope. 'Snot here."

"I thought you said it definitely was?"

"Mm." He put his head in his hands.

"Why were you hiding?" they asked.

"Didn't want to be bothered," he said, rubbing his eyes.

"Oh," said Muriel, feeling unaccountably guilty.

"By you," he added.

"Oh," Muriel said again, supposing that accounted for the guilt. "Am I... bothering you?" they asked.

Crowley looked at them for a long moment. He seemed very sad. Finally he said, "Nah. Come on. Sit down. Have a drink."

"No thank you," said Muriel, because things in dark glass bottles were alcohol, and were therefore sinful, and also smelled terrible.

"Did you find out what the nightmares were about?" he asked, pointing at the folder. Muriel had forgot they brought it with them.

"Erm. Not really," said Muriel. "I found out some other things."

"Oh?"

"They're all horrible," Muriel said. "I was definitely a very bad angel."

Crowley grinned. "Yeah? Did you forget to submit a form or something?"

"No, I. I made up something and told the humans it was God's new policy, and then I made sure Heaven couldn't contradict what I'd said without a lot of paperwork."

"You what?" Crowley's dark glasses slipped slightly down his face as he leaned forward.

"I did it on purpose, I think. Either that or Old Muriel was very stupid, and I don't think they were."

"What did you tell them?" Crowley asked. At least he was feeling cheerful now. Or spiteful. It was hard to tell.

"I told them God didn't want them to sacrifice children," said Muriel. "I think I thought it... was policy, somehow, even though it clearly wasn't. And I remember later, I remember there were things where... I mean. It wasn't God's policy. It... it would have been a good policy, though, if it had been," they said. "I remember there were... things God authorized... that weren't... I mean I didn't realize... it was..."

They recalled a long scroll unrolling before them, and the then-Principality, now-Supreme Archangel standing in front of them being a bit silly (they'd thought at the time) about human children not being easily replaceable. They hadn't met any humans back then.

They felt that punching feeling again. Maybe they had been punched in the stomach before. They hadn't specified in their report.

"I think I might still be a bad angel," they admitted to Crowley, in a very small voice.

"Yeah, maybe," said Crowley. "But like I said, all the best angels are bad angels. Any angel worth knowing, certainly."

"Also I think a human wrote me a love poem?" said Muriel. They had just remembered the child's drawing, realized it was probably Isaac's, and then, seeking refuge from the weight of this thought -- the child they had endangered with their miraculous vision and then saved with their overpriced ram had used some of his tiny human lifespan to make something for them, and Heaven had wiped him entirely from their mind until now -- their mind had sought refuge in the absurd.

"What?"

"I don't know, I didn't read it. I didn't read, er, much of it, anyway," said Muriel.

"Was it any good?"

"No! I mean, I don't know, I didn't read it," said Muriel, horrified.

"Can I see it?"

"No! You don't want to anyway, it was... surprisingly anatomical."

"Oh, yeah, humans do that," said Crowley, making a face. "I thought you didn't read it."

"I read enough of it to know I didn't want to," said Muriel. Crowley laughed at that. "What was the thing you came here to find, anyway?"

Crowley shrugged. "Dunno. I forgot."

"You forgot the thing you forgot?" Muriel asked.

"Yup. You're sure you don't want a drink?" Crowley asked.

"Maybe I'll just... look at it," said Muriel.

He produced another of the miniature glasses and poured from the bottle. It was a warm amber liquid. It smelled terrible, and as per usual, they did not taste it, but it looked all right.

While they were examining the drink, Crowley stole their folder. They let him; if he went looking for stupid poetry and ended up stumbling across a long-dead child's drawing instead and having too many feelings, that wasn't on Muriel, and he probably deserved it.

[thesocialjusticewitch]

In Honor of Angela Lansbury, each of the Arcana M6 as Characters in a Murder Mystery

Julian: The doctor who pronounced the victim deceased. Is convinced that he's going to help you solve this mystery through Sherlockian levels of inference. Shouts "AHA!" often when he thinks he's found a clue. "Murder's a nasty business. Not this one, though. Jimothy was an ass. Owed me a tidy sum, too." Asra: Is assumed to be wealthy but actually has a string of lovers bankrolling his naps (he doesn't ask for anything, the dears just offer it, can you believe it?). Claims to have been sleeping upstairs at the time of the murder. Will not reveal who he was sleeping with, but that seems to have varied depending on the hour. "Oh yes, I knew Jimothy. A few times, actually." Nadia: The hostess of the dinner gala and owner of the lavish estate upon which it was held. There are suspicions she was being blackmailed by the victim over a supposed affair she's been having with her aide, Portia. "Why would I have him killed, detective? I'm not penniless. In my circles you're not anyone unless you're bankrolling two or three interesting (but delusional, you understand) characters." Muriel: The aggravated officer assisting you with the case and making sure nobody leaves. Stands at the door and glares down anyone who thinks now is a great time to take a stroll. Pretty much convinced they somehow ALL killed the victim. "We could just lock them all up, it would be quicker. Most of them probably deserve it." Portia: Most trusted aide (and lover) of the hostess. Is absolutely convinced that her lover is guilty so she plants a series of fake clues to draw away suspicion and frame Lucio. It's not that she's jealous of Lucio, she's just sick of him trying to invite himself in between her and Nadia. Besides, she really wants to be in charge of his commissary money so she can find out just how much eyeliner he goes through in a month. Lucio: Is actually the killer but gets so excited by the proceedings and watching you work that he often forgets this and cheers you on, promising he's going to punish the villain to the fullest extent of whatever law he can get on the books by tomorrow afternoon. Will probably get off on a technicality and think nothing of taking you to lunch later to congratulate you on solving the murder.

[murielsmurders]

The Brothers Grimm collected a bunch of crazy ass fairy tales. Muriel found three of the most bizarre and made Nick listen to her tell them her version. Muriel's Grimm 1-3 up now on all podcast platforms. Rated PG-13 (we think).

[letterboxd-loggd]

The Night of the Party (The Murder Party) (1934) Michael Powell

May 26th 2024

[y0anna14]

I have re-designed her outfit lol

[delicatefaedaydreams]

Now that my drawing tablet isnt having a meltdown im tempted to draw my villain and superhero world

Its a thing that ive been working on for sillies but i genuinely love them sm,, my favorite messed up women

[withsomejam]

The Sign of the Devil, Oscar de Muriel

The Sign of the Devil, Oscar de Muriel

5/5 stars! A wonderfully-thrilling final book to the Frey and McGray series, The Sign of the Devil is full to the brim of twists and turns with family secrets revealed and bombshells dropped mercilessly throughout. It was everything I had hoped it would be and so much more. Multiple grave-robberies? Murdered asylum patients? The sign of the devil reappearing everywhere? Nothing is adding up in…

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Muriel is holding The Crow Road by Iain Banks book which has been spotted several times in the promos 👀

From wiki: The novel describes Prentice McHoan's preoccupation with death, sex, his relationship with his father, unrequited love, sibling rivalry, a missing uncle, cars, alcohol and other intoxicants, and God, against the background of the Scottish landscape.

The novel combines menace (it contains an account of a "perfect murder") and dark humour (note the opening sentence: "It was the day my grandmother exploded.") with an interesting treatment of love. Banks uses multiple voices and points of view, jumping freely in both time and character. Even minor characters like Prentice's grandmother, the fictional town of Gallanach, and his family's home in Lochgair receive careful description, giving Prentice's life depth and context.

The book follows Prentice's journey of discovery about himself, those he loves, and the ways of the world.

"The Crow Road" is the name of a street in the west of Glasgow, but serves as well as a metaphor for death, as in "He's away the Crow Road". The appropriateness of this title becomes apparent as the novel progresses.