#muriel update

[arcanaapprenticecatherine]

I'm having difficulty deciding how to finish "Something Lost, Something Gained" so I'm creating my very own poll

I'm not sure the Arcana Fandom is alive anymore so this is set for a week from March 6, 2023

[madllamamomma]

Hello my little trash pandas 🦝

…..Anyone want me to drop chapter 9 of The Visitor~ still?

[leon-swedfinqs]

Good Omens D&D AU Master Post - Character Breakdown

Aziraphale (Alias: Ezra P. Fell)

Human Cleric

Aziraphale grew up in what is essentially a religious cult that worships the goddess Ecliel, the goddess that birthed the universe and brought life to earth. She is the original bringer, the original light. The church believes that humans are part of her original creation, a world of everything pure. Magic is seen as supplementary, or impure, as it goes against the original plan of the universe that Ecliel created since it can be used to manipulate and change it. Members of this church are marked by their halos, an object imbued with a charm to make them impossible to remove without a magic source more powerful than its creation. It emits a constant soft glow. Aziraphale has an innate sense of magic, which is fueled by his pure faith in Ecliel and the life she brings. He hid his magic, using it sparingly in his youth. As he got older, it became harder and harder to contain his magic and hide his spells, due to the fact that they would occasionally produce residuum, and he was forced to hide it in the storage rooms of the church. Once the older bishops found the residuum, they did a sweep to find the magic user to dispose of them. Due to his nervousness, his fellow brother Gabriel became suspicious of him and lashed out with his sword demanding a duel to test his faith and loyalty. Under the pressure and fear, Aziraphale’s sword ignited in holy flame, giving him an opening to escape and run away from the church and go into hiding. He became a wandering low level cleric, struggling to learn spells on his own and make money, before he struck immense luck landing a high paying job. However, it came with a price: a partner he had to collaborate with.

Anthony J. Crowley (Previously known as Raphael)

Tiefling Rogue

Anthony, back when she went by Raphael, was a top student at an exclusive arcane academy. This academy specialized in the sacred art of zodiac elemental magic. There are those born with an innate connection to a particular zodiac, and those with this connection can utilize the constellation’s power to cast spells that mix traditional arcane magic with the elements. Raphael had an innate connection to the fire signs, and spent years studying the stars and practicing spells. She noticed, however, that her power fluctuations ran off of a different calendar from her peers. This curiosity lead her to discover a new potential zodiac: Ophiucus, or the Serpent Bearer. Her mentor, Lucifer (the holder of Aries), caught wind of her discovery. The introduction of a new zodiac would lead to a power dynamic shift, creating a domino effect that knocks all of the other holders down in their power. In order to assert his dominance over her, Lucifer challenged Raphael to a magic duel to prove that Aries will always be the most powerful fire sign. Raphael nearly lost the fight, her base level and experience being significantly lower than the near immortal Lucifer, and out of desperation made a minor connection to Ophiucus to draw power from him. This brief connection overwhelmed her, causing the spell to backlash and set the whole stage, the whole school on fire. Raphael fled, cutting the connection from Ophiucus as she went into hiding. She changed her name to Anthony, and swore away magic as he took up the art of being a rogue. The connection left him with small snake like features (slitted yellow eyes and scales scattered across his skin), which made it difficult to get patrons to trust him. He struck gold one day, getting a high paying job that came with a significant price: he had to work with a partner.

Insert Photo Here

Anathema Device

High Elf Divination Witch

Anathema comes from a prestigious family blood line known for their divination magic. Starting back with her great great great grandmother Agnes Nutter, the Devices became known for their foresight and predictions for the future. As an academic, Anathema has spent all of her life studying the different branches of unknown magic and the histories of the smaller gods that are worshipped. Hired as a tutor for Adam Young, to help him guide his desire to learn magic (and his uncanny ability to cast elemental-based magic, one of the more unusual types), Anathema starts getting visions into her future. A weary pair interwoven by fate, grand battles with her at the front lines, and fire. So much fire.

Newton Pulsifer

Half-Orc Artificer

Newton was never really for the extraordinary. He lived a simple life in his small village, tinkering with machines and making his own strange creations. As he got older, he struggled to hold any sort of job, especially one that involved magic. This is due to his unnaturally ability to dispel any casting by trying to cast his own magic. And sometimes magic gets dispelled just by standing near the caster. Desperate for some work, he takes up a sketchy job from a man named Sergeant Shadwell: his bosses are looking for a serpent and a saint, who were just recently spotted to be traveling with a witch.

Insert Photo Here

Adam Young

Half-Elf

A boy who embodies chaos, Adam Young is a spry young half-elf who loves to play games with his friends and pester his parents with question after question. As he reached age 11, his father would find Adam sitting in his windowsill, gazing up at the stars. It wasn’t long before he started to display proficiency in magic, a strange type that mixed typical conjuring with elements (the fire he kept producing made his poor mother nervous). In order to control and properly teach him, the Youngs hired Ms. Device to tutor and train his new abilities.

Muriel

Human Bard

A member of the same church as Aziraphale, Muriel is one of the most cheerful voices in the choir. With a deep love of music, Muriel spends most of their time (when not training or going out to preach with their siblings) practicing songs that will be performed at the next service. Yet to be “ordained” with their halos, Muriel is desperate to lend a helping hand so that they may be seen as worthy of rising higher and joining the rest of their siblings. Due to this slight desperation, Muriel was picked to go on an essential mission for the church: find their banished magic user and see if he was even still alive. If so, gather information. Anything they can grasp. They need him under surveillance as the time was coming soon.

[gentle-giant-swag]

INTRODUCING THE 12 MOST SUGGESTED CHARACTERS!

Gonta Gokuhara, danganronpa, 5 votes

Milly Thompson, Trigun, 5 votes

Yasutora Sado/Chad, bleach, 3 votes

Muriel, the arcana, 3 votes

Caduceus Clay, critical role, 3 cotes

Big Friendly Giant, 2 votes (his face was covered by Jonathan)

Scorpia, She-Ra, 2 votes

Dedue Molinaro, fire emblem, 2 votes (I count the characters I added from the start as one vote)

Jonathan Joestar, JoJo’s bizarre adventure, 2 votes

Raphael Kirsten, also fire emblem (and also the same fire emblem game), 2 votes

Asahi Azumane, Haikyuu, 2 votes

Sandy, Lego monkie kid, 2 votes

Also I will be showing off the fandoms with the most suggested characters.

Fire emblem, 5 individual suggested characters

Transformers with 2

Psychonauts with 2

Percy Jackson with 2

Full metal alchemist with 2

Critical role with 2

Haikyuu with 2

The only reason I’m showing this is just in case we need to make some pre battle polls and there are 10 individual fire emblem characters submitted.

[paperstarwriters]

Just some Writing Updates

I feel like I'm constantly apologizing for this, but just to be clear for my own conscious, I'm really sorry I haven't been able to do much writing or post much fanfic currently!

School's just really kicking my ass right now and it's a very reading and writing heavy semester so my fingers tend to be kinda dead by the time I get some free time.

I'm still sorting out my schedule, seeing how long it takes me to do things, and working around extra events whether they be extracurricular (I'm gonna be strapped to an EEG for a psych experiment how exciting!!) to personal life (traveling with family, upcoming birthday parties, etc) But I'll try to write some things out.

I do have a lot of WIPs started, so I'll try to finish a few of them and have them posted eventually, and I have a lot of AUs and other content I really wanna share!

And then, of course, there is the Hermit's route fanfic. I do still really wanna work on it, but it seems like a very daunting task and It'll probably take me a while to finish it still considering how little I've been able to work on it due to school and life and how big of a fic it seems to be on outline alone. I do want to finish it though. I want to at least share it with others, but I'm really curious:

does anyone really even want to read it anymore? I'm sure we've sort of come to terms with the ending of Muriel's route in the arcana, and while I've planned on writing with much more magic and general variation in the story (though the core moments stay the same) I'm not sure if it's really... needed? anymore? I don't know. I'm tempted to just call it quits and write out a list of headcannons, and the general plot I had planned but I'm not sure.

If I go on with this, I might try to work on the story for NaNoWriMo. It'll be difficult between my classes, but worse comes to worse, I might give myself a little extension into December. To complete it then.

I don't know :/

Again though, I'm really sorry I haven't been writing much, and I really hope to squeeze in some writing soon. It makes me sad to see Muriel's hashtags only ever really gaining a few fics every so often, and not even really anything entirely devoted to him. I'm happy to see people talking about him at all, but still.

I hate that I feel an obligation to write, as if it's a job and not something I do for fun because it always makes it so much more harder for me to start in the first place :(

I really wanna write for Muriel some more. And maybe a little bit for Optimus as well. I'm sorry that I can't.

Ah, well. I'll get my writing time in there eventually.

Anyways,

[mossflower]

farewell raine you will be missed <3

[malaks-perch]

hello dearest patrons,

i hope today has been good to you. please remember to drink plenty of water, grab a snack if you haven't already, and if needed, take your medication.

this is an update to make you aware of writings coming your way. there's not much to report; muriel and his s/o attend a gala at the palace, [undecided character] and their firstborn child are awake at night, and julian and nadia with an s/o who has a small chest. i'm pretty excited about these new developments, you may or may not be able to tell which one i personally thought up, but the requested should be out soon enough.

thank you to everyone who has been kind enough to reblog and show their appreciation in the tags of my works, i adore you, my loves. please remember to reblog and comment. read the rules before you request and, again, thank you for your support.

— the shopkeep

[teeth-farie]

Happy Birthday Muriel! <3

[rattoenailclippings]

im slowly going back into my muriel era I’ve been thinking about the arcana and now 😈😈😈😈 I JUST RAAAAAA I LOVE MURIEL SO MUCH

[artanddaddyissues]

Requests Update!

My requests are currently closed besties :(

BUT

I see your requests in my inbox, I'm not ignoring you I promise. School just has my time for now. I will update in my bio / description whenever I open up my requests again, so keep an eye out for that!!

I release requests in the order i received them (oldest to newest) and believe it or not I still have super old requests in my drafts at the moment lmao oops.

Anyways, thanks for reading this and hopefully you all understand. The people pleaser in me had to make this post. Much love to everyone!!

If you're curious, my dms are still open to talk, vent, etc... I'm here for you guys! <3

[perditious]

‘i do not mean that every experience in me is forageable’

‘the living something worthy of amassing’

[inhonoredglory]

Aziraphale’s Choice, the Job Connection, and Michael Sheen’s Morality

Update: Michael Sheen liked this post on Twitter, so I'm fairly certain there is a lot of validity to it.

I’ve had time to process Aziraphale’s choice at the end of Season 2. And I think only blaming the religious trauma misses something important in Aziraphale’s character. I think what happened was also Aziraphale’s own conscious choice––as a growth from his trauma, in fact. Hear me out.

Since November 2022 I’ve been haunted by something Michael Sheen said at the MCM London Comic Con. At the Q&A, someone asked him about which fantasy creature he enjoyed playing most and Michael (bless him, truly) veered on a tangent about angels and goodness and how, specifically,

We as a society tend to sort of undervalue goodness. It’s sort of seen as sort of somehow weak and a bit nimby and “oh it’s nice.” And I think to be good takes enormous reserves of courage and stamina. I mean, you have to look the dark in the face to be truly good and to be truly of the light…. The idea that goodness is somehow lesser and less interesting and not as kind of muscular and as passionate and as fierce as evil somehow and darkness, I think is nonsense. The idea of being able to portray an angel, a being of love. I love seeing the things people have put online about angels being ferocious creatures, and I love that. I think that’s a really good representation of what goodness can be, what it should be, I suppose.

I was looking forward to BAMF!Aziraphale all season long, and I think that’s what we got in the end. Remember Neil said that the Job minisode was important for Aziraphale’s story. Remember how Aziraphale sat on that rock and reconciled to himself that he MUST go to Hell, because he lied and thwarted the will of God. He believed that––truly, honestly, with the faith of a child, but the bravery of a soldier.

Aziraphale, a being of love with more goodness than all of Heaven combined, believed he needed to walk through the Gates of Hell because it was the Right Thing to do. (Like Job, he didn’t understand his sin but believed he needed to sacrifice his happiness to do the Right Thing.)

That’s why we saw Aziraphale as a soldier this season: the bookshop battle, the halo. But yes, the ending as well.

Because Aziraphale never wanted to go to Heaven, and he never wanted to go there without Crowley.

But it was Crowley who taught him that he could, even SHOULD, act when his moral heart told him something was wrong. While Crowley was willing to run away and let the world burn, it was Aziraphale (in that bandstand at the end of the world) who stood his ground and said No. We can make a difference. We can save everyone.

And Aziraphale knew he could not give up the ace up his sleeve (his position as an angel) to talk to God and make them see the truth in his heart.

I was messed up by Ineffable Bureaucracy (Boxfly) getting their happy ending when our Ineffable Husbands didn’t, but I see now that them running away served to prove something to Aziraphale. (And I am fully convinced that Gabriel and Beelzebub saw the example of the Ineffables at the Not-pocalypse and took inspiration from them for choosing to ditch their respective sides)

But my point is that Aziraphale saw them, and in some ways, they looked like him and Crowley. And he saw how Gabriel, the biggest bully in Heaven, was also like him in a way (a being capable of love) and also just a child when he wasn’t influenced by the poison of Heaven. Muriel, too, wasn’t a bad person. The Metatron also seemed to have grown more flexible with his morality (from Aziraphale's perspective). Like Earth, Heaven was shades of (light?) gray.

Aziraphale is too good an angel not to believe in hope. Or forgiveness (something he’s very good at it).

Aziraphale has been scarred by Heaven all his life. But with the cracks in Heaven’s armor (cracks he and Crowley helped create), Aziraphale is seeing something else. A chance to change them. They did terrible things to him, but he is better than them, and because of Crowley, he feels ready to face them.

(Will it work? Can Heaven change, institutionally? Probably not, but I can't blame Aziraphale for trying.)

At the cafe, the Metatron said something big was coming in the Great Plan. Aziraphale knows how trapped he had felt when he didn’t have God’s ear the first time something huge happened in the Big Plan. He can’t take a chance again to risk the world by not having a foot in the door of Heaven. That’s why we saw individual human deaths (or the threat of death) so much more this season: Elspeth, Wee Morag, Job’s children, the 1940s magician. Aziraphale almost killed a child when he couldn’t get through to God, and he’s not going through that again.

“We could make a difference.” We could save everyone.

Remember what Michael Sheen said about courage and doing good––and having to “look the dark in the face to be truly good.” That’s what happened when Aziraphale was willing to go to Hell for his actions. That’s what happened when he decided he had to go to Heaven, where he had been abused and belittled and made to feel small. He decided to willingly go into the Lion’s Den, to face his abusers and his anxiety, to make them better so that they would not try to destroy the world again.

Him, just one angel. He needed Crowley to be there with him, to help him be brave, to ask the questions that Heaven needed to hear, to tell them God was wrong. Crowley is the inspiration that drives Aziraphale’s change, Crowley is the engine that fuels Aziraphale’s courage.

But then Crowley tells him that going to Heaven is stupid. That they don’t need Heaven. And he’s right. Aziraphale knows he’s right.

Aziraphale doesn’t need Heaven; Heaven needs him. They just don’t know how much they need him, or how much humanity needs him there, too. (If everyone who ran for office was corrupt, how can the system change?)

Terry Pratchett (in the Discworld book, Small Gods) is scathing of God, organized religion, and the corrupt people religion empowers, but he is sympathetic to the individual who has real, pure faith and a good heart. In fact, the everyman protagonist of Small Gods is a better person than the god he serves, and in the end, he ends up changing the church to be better, more open-minded, and more humanist than god could ever do alone.

Aziraphale is willing to go to the darkest places to do the Right Thing, and Heaven is no exception. When Crowley says that Heaven is toxic, that’s exactly why Aziraphale knows he needs to go there. “You’re exactly is different from my exactly.”

____

In the aftermath of Trump's election in the US, Brexit happened in 2018. Michael Sheen felt compelled to figure out what was going on in his country after this shock. But he was living in Los Angeles with Sarah Silverman at the time, and she also wanted to become more politically active in the US.

Sheen: “I felt a responsibility to do something, but it [meant] coming back [to Britain] – which was difficult for us, because we were very important to each other. But we both acknowledge that each of us had to do what we needed to do.” In the end, they split up and Michael moved back to the UK.

Sometimes doing the Right Thing means sacrificing your own happiness. Sometimes it means going to Hell. Sometimes it means going to Heaven. Sometimes it means losing a relationship.

And that’s why what happened in the end was so difficult for Aziraphale. Because he loves Crowley desperately. He wants to be together. He wanted that kiss for thousands of years. He knows that taking command of Heaven means they would never again have to bow to the demands of a God they couldn’t understand, or run from a Hell who still came after them. They could change the rules of the game.

And he’s still going to do that. But it hurts him that he has to do that alone.

[laurashapiro-noreally]

So on my last rewatch I noticed how Aziraphale is gently amused (though never condescending) to Muriel and their "I'm a human police officer" routine.

But then, in the very same episode, without a trace of irony or self-awareness, our sweet angel dons his very best 1949 journalist cosplay and announces "I'm what's known as a newspaper man!"

He is just as excited, and almost as naive, as Muriel here -- down to not reading the big THE RESURRECTIONIST sign on the wall of the pub. "Gimme the facts!" He quips giddily. Might as well be saying "Wot's all this then?"

He's been here six thousand years but he is still an Eldritch being in a human suit and a giant goofball with no interest in keeping up with the times and it is fascinating and lovable that he can recognize Muriel's ridiculousness and not see his own.

How very like all of us.

[ Image Description: Two GIFs, the first of Muriel in a solid white old-fashioned British police officer uniform gleefully saying, "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello. What's all this then?" at Aziraphale's door. The other of Aziraphale dressed as a stereotypical old-fashioned journalist excitedly asking, "Is this the Resurrectionist public house?" End ID. ]

(update to add image captions)

[gentle-giant-swag]

ROUND 2 SCHEDULE!

Group 1 (Thursday 16/3, 17:00 CET/5pm CET)

Alphonse Elric (full metal alchemist) vs Dedue Molinaro (fire emblem)

Asgore Dreemurr (undertale) vs Jonathan Joestar (JoJos Bizarre Adventure)

Yasutora “Chad” Sado (bleach) vs Po (kung fu panda)

Aaarrrgghh (trollhunters) vs Muriel (Arcana)

Group 2 (Friday 17/3, 17:30 CET/ 5:30 pm)

Glamrock Freddy (five nights at Freddie’s) vs Baymax (big hero 6)

Kanji Tatsumi (persona) vs Sidon (legend of Zelda)

Dj (total drama) vs Kronk (emperors new groove)

Big the cat (sonic the hedgehog) vs Toriel Dreemurr (undertale)

Btw thanks for @pinkhairswagtourney & @delinquentbrawl for the inspiration (btw vote in the delinquentbrawl final!)

[paperstarwriters]

The hermit's route, please?

WIP Wednesday Ask Game

I am SO SORRY—I'VE BEEN PUTTING THIS FIC OFF FOR SO LONG.

also, if anyone wants to just keep pestering me with these to get me to work on and finish the fic I won't hold it against you honestly lol.

anyways, as requested for the WIP Wednesday ask. Here's what I wrote down so far for the fic, I think it's kinda shabby as it is, though I'm probably going to go back and edit it later, so this might change.

Fear struck clear across Asra’s face, like a fracture splitting glass. You waited for the placating smile to grace their face, ut the expression lingered, as they stared with wide eyes at the floor, brows furrowed as they tried to come up with some sort of plan.

For all you wanted to see Asra stop pretending that everything was alright, this wasn’t how you were hoping it would happen.

“You two go looking for the heart of the forest. I’ll…” Asra glances at you, and you know, with a twist in your chest that he’s going to say soemthing, to hide something again. You expect it to be for your sake again, but when he cuts his words short, he isn’t looking at you. He smiles at Muriel. “I’ll handle things here.”

Muriel does not reciprocate. If anything, his expression only grows darker in the face of Asra’s plesantries. “You’re planning on trying to handle Lucio alone."

Pain cuts through your chest again as Asra flinches at his bluntness, but all you can manage is stare at Muriel in awe and envy. It feels obvious in hindsight, but you really don’t know your master, do you? For all he’s hidden from you, he may as well be a stranger.

[maccaccino]

where is my wife

Amazon review on this Morrow edition of "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett I found this morning that left me laughing in tears right from the title.

... Actually, in hindsight, having seen the ineffable divorce™️ of Season 2, the fact that the only thing left on the cover is his glass of wine makes me so sad. It's like Crowley, having now been through all that, has left his glass of wine in the bookshop and is refusing to come back since Aziraphale is gone. Muriel doesn't really want to touch what Crowley left in the hopes he will be back soon and maybe still want his glass of "whine", whatever that is. He seemed sad last time they saw him, so that's probably what they meant by "whine".

.... Wait a minute though, did Aziraphale write this review?!? "WHERE IS MY WIFE?" ?!?!?

Okay it's time to tag him, this has gone off the rails and so have I. @neil-gaiman please explain. Thank you. (Love your work, actually. But also... What is going on here.)

Update, not even 10 hours after I originally posted this: Neil himself liked the post. I'm freaking out a normal amount about it.

PS: here's a lil thank you post for all the notes I'm getting, holy hell!!!