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wikagirl · 3 months

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We'll bite for the hand that feeds us

Oh the humiliation.

He was supposed to be judge of hell, messenger of god, warrior in the lords name, unshaken, undefeateble, eternal as the glory of the lord himself. And yet here he was, defeated.

He had never experienced something close to this before, not in the battles he guided with hidden hand on earth and not in the battles he fought against the demon hordes and fallen angels before he became the judge. A machine, man made, creation of gods creation, had bested him. No trickery, no scheming, it had bested him fair and square in a show of skill through battle.

He had fled the battlefield in a mighty outcry of rage, the fury over his loss bruning bright. But then, back in heaven, he suddenly felt...exhausted? He had felt tired before, from fighting, from carrying out the endless mission to spread the lords light and uphold the holy oder of things, but he had never felt exhausted, not to this extend.

The moment he appeared in heaven, just behind the mighty golden gates, he sank to the floor. No limb would move, no matter how hard he tried. He had been wounded, a thing he was used to as a warrior, but for some reason these wounds stung so much more as his body tried to heal and close the holes the bullets had left in his flesh where his cuirass did not cover or failed to stop them. And so he had no choice but to simply lay there, patheticly, as he bled out onto the white and gold marble walkways that made up the paths leading through heaven, staining it's pristine beauty with his dark red blood.

A simple virtue was the first to notice and approach him, the blue winged orb circeling his body and giving of a slight hum. There was a concerned, almost sad, tone to the otherworldy noises it made as it observed before dashing off with a wail not too different from a songbirds warning cry to alert the rest of the swarm.

He tried to pick himself up a couple of times, attempting to at least prop himself up on his arms, but his body failedd him and gave out after just a few seconds every time he tried. But he didn't need to try for long, he soon found himself picked up by the elbows, barely held up by who he found to be other heaven made angels. They wore armor similiar in style to his, maybe a bit less detailed, and their hands that weren't draggin him around by the elbows wielded gold and silver spears. They were soldiers, plenty of which he himself had led into battle many of times.

One might think that, as a higher ranking angel, the soldiers would be nice enough to at least help him up fully, let him lean onto them as he patehticly limped to meet with the council, but no. They simply dragged him by the elbows, twisting his wounded and allready hurting arms to only make them hurt more, the metal of his tassets and thighboots screeching disgustingly across the floor, leaving behind scratches and smears of blood as they dragged him along. He wouldn't be surprised if lucifer himself could hear the disgusting screatching sound all the way down in his little frozen pit.

It felt like an eternity of humiliation, getting dragged through the streets of heaven like an unruly childy by the scruff of its shirt, they hadn't even made it past the gardens yet and still for some reason the guards...stopped? Garbiel swore he could hear the joints in his neck creak like an old chair as he slowly lifted is head to see what was going on. And there they were.

Mankind.

Or rather the humans that had made it into heaven. Virtues, both lesser and greater, and they were blocking the way.

Well it definetly wasn't ALL the human souls that made it to heaven, the gardens weren't big enough for that, but still a sizable crowd had sown up, and they seemed angry. The lesser virtues sung tunes similiar to the one that had inspected gabriel earlier, their wings fluttering angrily and some of them zipping about restlessly. The higher virtues, those granted a bodily form, looked equally angry, especially those that had been granted to keep human or at least human-like faces in their heavenly bodies. No angry wasn't a strong enough word for that, they looked outright PISSED.

The soldiers that were dragging him commanded them to make way, but the virtues refused. An earshattering outcry rang through the gardens as the virtues dared to refuse the orders of higher ranking angels and some especially brave ones even dared to step forward and crowd them.

„Where do you think you're taking him??“ one of them boldy questiond. A greater virtue, but still on the smaller side, stepped right in front of the guards, her hands braced on her hips, stance wide and stable, and wings flare wide open. She wore a red sash draped around her body, a board with a candle and paper was tucked into it around her hip, she was one of the scribes under metatron no doubt.

The soldiers told the virtues once more to get lost and that they were taking him to the council, to recieve judgement over his failure.

„Judgement? In this state?“ she greater virtue spoke up again, her voice proud and mocking „The man is barely with us anymore, how is he supposed to recieve judgement if he can't even hear the councils verdict?“ she said, sending a round of chatter through the crowd of virtues followed by some few outcries from the other higher virtues present.

„Let him rest!“ one of them cried out from the crowd.

„Hasn't he done enough allready?“

„He looks so tired.“

„Give him a break!“ the virtues demanded.

The soldiers reminded them one more time of their position in heaven, and that all the virtues would recieve punishment if they kept interfering with direct orders from the council, their words fell on deaf ears a nother wave of protest rang out from the crowd.

The daring virtue with the red sash spoke up again, surely this one must have been sent to heaven for her sense of justice and fearless pursuit of it. She stepped forward, got so close that he had to crane his neck to see more than just her greaves.

„ So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.“ she quoted from the holy scripture „Those are the teachings, those are the words of the lord brought to us by his prophets when we still walked on earth. If I were wounded and weak, I'd hope for the help of my fellows, I'd hope at least one of them would be willing to extend me their hand, especially if I spent all my existence fighting in their name when they were too weak to do it by themself. By denying us to extend our hand and denying him the help and rest he clearly needs YOU are in direct defiance of the will of the lord.“ she accused, jabbing a finger pointedly at the helmet of one of the soldiers.

The accused soldier smacked her hand away with the pole of his spear „You are not like us, we are heaven born and as such it is our most holy duty to enforce the lords will, by failing to do so he has violated our highest of commands and therefore he must be judged accordingly. As is the will of the heavenly council“

„is the council the lord?“ the girl asked simply as she took a few steps backwards, to which the guard replied with a confused and stuttered „n-no? They simply rule in his absence, until the father returns“.

„Then why is the council acting like their oders are above the lords word? So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.“ she quoted once more and shook her head in disappointment „ The council has fallen victim to their own self-importance it would seem. And yet they dare to claim that they are reenforcing these teachings when they are clearly going against them, and against one of their own too! Seems like the council is made up of just a bunch of HYPOCRITES.“

Her last words rang loud and clear through the gardens of heaven, even the crowd went silent for a moment, a moment in which he could feel the grasp of the soldiers slipping on his arms as he saw them point their spears at her while he himself made a quick decent towards the floor.

A small lesser virtue, the one that had inspected him before mayhaps, quickly squeezed itself in between his chestplate and the cold marble, softening the fall and keeping him up just enough to see the mass of both greater and lesser virtues turn from the calming bright blue that they usually were to a sea of hot burning red as the soldiers charged the brave greater virtue that still stood there, unmoving.

Her hands were calmly clasped behind her as he stared directly into his vizor, her fellow virtues quite literally throwing themselves at the attacking soldiers „Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends We both know that what ever the council may decide will not be a true and just judgement for the scale of your percieved offence. You and your brothers have fought for us all your life and we understand that's what you were made for, but still, we never got the chance to return the favour. So, just this once, let us be the ones fighting for you.“

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Some tidbits (words and explanations for shit that might be unclear):

A Cuirass is a metal chest plate, the backplate is called a plackart

Tassets are the metal bits on his hips, in medieval armor they are normaly attached to a thing called „faulds“which is an armor piece that is supposed to protect your waist and attached to the cuirass bzt gabe is clearly missing it cuz his whole ass waistline and tummy is just out and about, so he has them on a belt instead.

I called his boots thighboots bc that is what that type of legarmor is usually called in mmorpgs, but technicly those are a full set of a cuisse (the thigh bit), a poleyn (knee bit), greave (shin bit), and sabaton (the feet bit)

I wrote that lucifer is in a frozen pit because the game is loosely based off/inspired by dantes inferno and in the inferno our boy luci, along with all the other traitors, is frozen up to his nips in a lake at the deepest point of hell (the humans that were sent there are deeper in the ice than just that but that's not important here) But yeah for heaven I did NOT take notes from the divine comedy (the thing that dantes inferno is only part 1/3 of) because...yeah what the fuck even is that??? so I just took inspiration from the Mt.Gulg dungeon in ffxiv bc shit do be looking pretty angelic.

Metatron is often credited as the heavenly scribe

„So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.“ Matthew 7:12

„So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.“ Galatians 6:10

„Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.“ John 15:13

...so yeah um this whole fic was born out of this beautiful youtube comment

under a lyrics video from „with hearts aligned“ from ffxiv (don't look it up if you're planning on playing the endwalker expansion, big spoiler!) and also kinda by how humans will get very passionate about the people they bond with and will do a lot of risky shit in order to help eachother. In this case I though that the humans and gabriel have shepheard/hearding dog kinda dynamic...and in this case the other dogs find out what the herd does when you decide to take a bite at their bonded hearding dog (there is this lady one village over who has sheep and a dog that lives with the sheep 24/7, the dog got attacked by a person with a knife once, the sheep did not like that at all)

#ultrakill #ultrakill fanfiction #ultrakill oc #the scribe #she has no name yet #me surry #gabriel ultrakill #gabriel pov #fun fact: before dantes inferno the idea of hell was simply a void with complete absence of god #so absicly like the void was before god started creating things #in other words: the current iteration of christianity that is being portrayed and sold nowerdays #is based 100% off of bible fanfiction #and we see how that turned out #an early warning of whats to comed with the whole wattpad book printing situation #/j #but ey now you have an introduction to almost all my ultrakill ocs #only the ferrymaiden is missing #but they‘ll get their time to shine dw

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euphoric-melancholyy · 1 year

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Romantic Fantasy & Fantasy Romance Book Recs

I recently made a post looking for the book/reader community on Tumblr and I found a lot of you! A couple people asked for book recommendations so here they are. All of these have varying levels of spice unless otherwise mentioned. I do recommend going into all of these blind and just see if you like them with zero expectations. I find it makes the reading experience better if you aren’t expecting something to be the greatest thing ever. Then you can only be surprised if you like it (or hopefully love it!) All of these are fantasy romance!!

Tagging some peeps who said they also love fantasy romance or seemed like they would like to know about some book recs: @imhilien @raven-reads87 @accidentalspaceexplorer @the-dust-jacket @melindacopp @taylorsversion213 @siruisreader @faerie-smut-merchant @gwelwynn @hitchhikerbooks @astrid162 @arewedancer99 @bookwyrmtaz @sourpatchkid99 @caffeinated-bibliophile @books-and-cookies @eaterofbooks @franticvampirereads @carissabroadbent - sorry if I forgot anyone or if you did not want to be tagged. Happy reading!

- Daughter of No Worlds, the first book in The War of Lost Hearts trilogy by Carissa Broadbent. You’ve got grumpy/sunshine, badass female protagonist, a “who did this to you?” scene, and so much more!! It’s dark but still has so much love and is just. So, so good. I will never shut up about how much I adore this criminally underrated series. There is absolutely nothing I disliked about this book. This is my favorite trilogy ever, up there tied with my favorite series ever. There’s no miscommunication and the characters handle hard situations maturely. It’s dark at times and deals with slavery, torture, and the injustices that entails, but it’s also empowering and full of hope and funny quips. The characters are lovable and complex. The pacing is the best pacing of any book. The romance is sweet yet still full of tension. The plot is incredible. I cannot recommend this book enough. It flawlessly balances the mundanity of living with the largeness of this universe and literal world ending stakes. She balances joy and grief, laughter and sorrow, trauma and healing. It’s a true feat when your heart aches with all of it at the same time. Each book is incredible. The character I was hesitant to love in the first book had me sobbing with the realism and heartache that I felt for her in the last book. If you listen to the audiobook, the narrators were perfectly cast as well. Tisaanah, the FMC has a language barrier and it’s done so incredibly well, especially when listening to the audiobook. It remains one of my favorite things about Daughter of No Worlds. This series is criminally underrated and I will never understand how it isn’t at the top of booktok. 12/10, move this up to the top of your TBR. Each book is just as good as the one before it. I’m obsessed with this series. This series is on KU!! It’s a completed trilogy!!

- The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L Jenson. And it’s included in your Audible Plus subscription if you have one. The tension, the conflict, the romance. I love a morally grey mc as much as the next gal, but Aren is the equivalent of a golden retriever and I would die for him and Laura. Enemy kingdoms. Marriage. A perfect Enemies to lovers!! Also on KU!! Completed duology, with a third book focusing on a different couple.

- The Witch Collector by Charissa Weaks. This is one of the best fantasy romances I’ve read! The FMC is a mute witch!! The plot, the tension, the characters, all of it is amazing. I fell in love with these characters and this world. Not to mention the ✨sexual tension✨ is some of the best I’ve ever read. It’s well earned too! Alexus and Raina have made my list of favorite ships. The sequel, City of Ruin, introduced a bunch of new characters and POVs (including the villains!) is a lot spicier, and just overall expands the world and the characters!! It’s action packed and made me look at the series in a new light! It does end on a major cliffhanger though, so be aware! Still read it. But it’s not tied up with a bow (yet!) I cannot express how excited I am for the third book and the direction this story is going. Highly, highly recommend! She also has signed copies on her Etsy!

- The Scribe by Elizabeth Hunter! This is a completed urban fantasy with romance series with 7 books. The first 3 books follow the same couple and can be read as a completed series - the other books focus on different couples and are just an extension. A race of beings ascended from angels are at war. Our main protagonist Ava is a human photojournalist who has heard voices in a nonexistent language her whole life and has always been told and believed she’s just crazy…but is she?? I love when we get a character thrown into a fantasy world who has no knowledge of it (like the reader!) it’s so fun. The romance is 🔥🔥🔥 and I love them. Ava is smart and savvy but not otherworldly strong like a lot of protagonists. She’s learning. And MAGIC! I love magic. I love the magic in this universe. The pacing is great and it’s a great balance of romance and plot. It’s a super interesting premise and I just think more people should read this series. I do not recommend the audiobook through - I hated the narrator. Book is great though! Also on KU!!

- I’ve found that whichever SJM series you start with is your favorite but Throne of Glass is next level. It was her first series and she spent half of her life writing it. You can see some of the groundwork for ACOTAR in it. But where ACOTAR is about the romance, ToG is about the plot. The romances are secondary to the plot. But for ACOTAR, the plot is secondary to the relationships and romance. ToG is so expertly planned out and it’s a slow burn into fantasy. It’s my number 1, favorite series. It’s definitely more YA but grows into what I would consider more New Adult towards the end of the series. Do not go into this series expecting spice. There is romance, but there are not any spicy scenes until the later books. The journey you go on with Celaena from Assassin’s Blade to Kingdom of Ash is unparalleled. It feels so special and epic. BUT I will say I went into the series completely blind with no expectations. So I suggest doing the same. And the first few books might seem slow. But KEEP GOING it’s worth it, I swear. And start with the prequel Assassin’s Blade!! It’s broken up into interconnected short novellas for the prequel only. The series has a more full circle feeling when you start with the prequel, and you don’t know things that you might otherwise know if you read Throne of Glass first. Starting with the prequel also made me love Celaena more. If you are just starting fantasy, start with Throne of Glass because it is a slow burn into fantasy. This is a completed series

- The Song of the Marked by S.M. Gaither. I was told this book would cure my Throne of Glass hangover. I’d agree! It also gives me major From Blood and Ash vibes, but with better characters. It’s got a great magic system, fun friendship dynamics and banter, a slow burn enemies to lovers, and some good ol’ fashion mystery surrounding the protagonist. I’m really enjoying it so far and if you like fantasy, I highly recommend!!

- Hollow Heathens (Tales of Weeping Hollow) by Nicole Fiorina - it’s like if Halloweentown met Storybrooke from Once Upon a Time, and had a child. It’s a gothic romance and is just so different from everything I’ve read. Also on KU!! This is a standalone.

- The North Wind by Alexandria Warwick. It’s a fun enemies to lovers Beauty and the Beast and Hades and Persephone retelling. Mix elements of those stories together and you have The North Wind. Also on KU!! Can be read as a stand-alone. The next book, which isn’t out yet, focuses on a different couple.

- An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. You’ve got a spy posing as a slave to save her brother. A trained assassin brought up in a merciless, brutal school where he wants to escape. There’s a love triangle of sorts, which I usually hate but I didn’t mind it in this! It’s action packed and has made me love YA again. Dark, with themes of generational trauma, the importance of storytelling, the ✨power of love✨, breaking generational cycles, mercy, and tragedy of war. Lots of character growth for everyone!! Inspired by the gladiator times in the Roman Empire. Young Adult but very violent. No spice, all fade to black.

- The Serpent and The Wings of Night by Carissa Broadbent!! I had high expectations for this book. Carissa’s other series, The War of Lost Hearts, is my favorite series ever. And now with one book out so far, Crown of Nyaxia is making that list too. The world building. The characters. The complexity and emotions and just everything about it. It’s a masterpiece. I love the relationships!! And the last quarter of the book had me on an emotional rollercoaster through the end. I wanted to reread this book the moment I finished it. If a dark, gritty, high stakes fantasy romance with Hunger Games meets vampires and swoon worthy, epic romance (and some spice!!) sounds like your thing, drop everything else your reading and start this. This is the first book in a series and was just released. Carissa is my favorite author and one thing that she does really well is write strong, healthy relationships. Her characters don’t fall into lust and then in love - it’s a buildup of respect, trust, friendship, and then love. (And 🌶️🌶️ of course, but the relationships are more than that.) Raihn is my new #1 book boyfriend!!

- The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen is a new comfort read for me. but if you want a super fun, quirky, romance with You’ve Got Mail vibes set in a fantasy universe that also has zombie like creatures, this is it. I know that sounds weird af, but it is so cute and I can’t stop smiling as I read it!! It’s a new favorite and is just SO CUTE! And I cried!!

- A Deal With the Elf King by Elise Kova! This is a standalone, enemies to lovers, arranged marriage fantasy romance!! I love all the characters in this, especially the growth of the MMC! The FMC feels a lot of responsibility to take care of everyone around her and she doesn’t allow others to disrespect her (especially the MMC!) There are lots of swoon worthy lines that had me smiling and blushing and some spice! Highly recommend!!

- The High Mountain Court by A.K. Mulford. It has witches, fae, a fun magic system, mates, natural LGBTQIA+ and POC representation, spicy, enemies to lovers, touch her and die (and the opposite touch him and die!), a truly wonderful and swoon worthy romance, and is just a great NA fantasy romance! Each book focuses on a different couple and follows a cohesive storyline!

- Between Wrath and Mercy by Jess Wisecup. You’ve got a mom hellbent on getting her kidnapped teenage daughter back. She needs the help of the Crown Prince - her first love - to do it. A spicy fantasy romance that is both character driven and plot driven. It’s so refreshing to read “older” (ie not 16 - 25 years old) characters in a fantasy romance!! The tension is high and the grief and love that intermingle to form the emotional backbone of these characters is so poignant and beautifully done. It’s also nice to see a mom who has an identity outside of being a mom! But she’s still a great mom! It was so refreshing to read and the second book is even better than the first! Very dark and yet also sweet and romantic and intense.

- The Cruel Prince by Holly Black! Also known as The Folk of the Air trilogy. If you’re looking for a spicy fantasy series, this isn’t it. There’s no spice. But if you’re looking for an AMAZING YA fantasy villain arc with enemies to lovers, fantastic storytelling, plot twists, and just an overall faerie adventure, read this series. I was hesitant to read it because of its YA rating/audience. But it’s easily one of my favorite series of all time! I love the characters, the plot, the arc, and the writing style! I read each book in less than two days. Highly, highly recommend. I also read them on audiobook and the narration is fantastic!

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