#waiting for the day someone gets mad at for not drawing myself white where r u mfs

[diewhitegirls]

franken horror hole or something idk

[liriostigre]

hey! I wanted to ask what your favorite poetry books are? I have a few but I want to read new and interesting stuff, and I trust your taste :D

hiii ♡

tbh i only started reading poetry collections like,, last year. i'm subscribed to poetryfoundation's newsletter (poem of the day) so i usually just read random poems

anyway, i'm not sure my recs could be considered new (cause i'm gonna start with Mary Oliver ♡) but feel free to message me if you want to know the themes, style, feeling (vibes, if you will) or anything you want to know about these collections. for now, i'm linking my favorite poems in each collection, i hope this helps you choose! ♡

here you go:

Dream Work —Mary Oliver (“Wild Geese.” “Dogfish.”)

Red Bird —Mary Oliver (“Summer Morning.” “Love Sorrow.”)

Blue Horses —Mary Oliver (“To Be Human Is to Sing Your Own Song.” “Loneliness.” “Little Crazy Love Song.”)

The Wild Iris —Louise Glück (“Sunset.” “Retreating Light.”)

Haruko/Love Poems —June Jordan (“On a New Year’s Eve.” “Mendocino Memory.” “Toward a City That Sings.” *under the cut)

Extracting the Stone of Madness —Alejandra Pizarnik (“Primitive Eyes.” “Summer Goodbyes.” *under the cut)

Ariel —Sylvia Plath (“Tulips.” “The Rival.”)

Prelude to Bruise —Saeed Jones (“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat.” *under the cut)

Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth —Alice Walker (“Coming Back from Seeing Your People.” *under the cut)

I Must Be Living Twice —Eileen Myles (“Edward the Confessor.” *under the cut)

Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth —Warsan Shire (“Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre.”)

The Black Unicorn —Audre Lorde (“Hanging Fire.” “Sister Outsider.”)

Bright Dead Things —Ada Limón (“The Riveter.” “Glow.”)

Night Sky With Exit Wounds —Ocean Vuong (“Thanksgiving 2006.” “Logophobia.”)

Postcolonial Love Poem —Natalie Diaz (“Manhattan Is a Lenape Word.”)

Crush —Richard Siken (“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out.”)

Once —Alice Walker (“So We've Come at Last to Freud.”)

“Toward a City That Sings” by June Jordan

Into the topaz the crystalline signals of Manhattan the nightplane lowers my body scintillate with longing to lie positive beside the electric waters of your flesh and I will never tell you the meaning of this poem: Just say, ‘She wrote it and I recognize the reference.’ Please let it go at that. Although it is all the willingness you lend the world as when you picked it up the garbage scattering the cool formalities of Madison Avenue after midnight (where we walked for miles as though we knew the woods well enough to ignore the darkness) although it is all the willingness you lend the world that makes me want to clean up everything in sight (myself included)

for your possible discovery

“Primitive Eyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

Where fear neither speaks in stories or poems, nor gives shape to terrors or triumphs.

My name, my pronoun — a grey void.

I’m familiar with the full range of fear. I know what it’s like to start singing and to set off slowly through the narrow mountain pass that leads back to the stranger in me, to my own emigrant.

I write to ward off fear and the clawing wind that lodges in my throat.

And in the morning, when you are afraid of finding yourself dead (of there being no more images): the silence of compression, the silence of existence itself. This is how the years fly by. This is how we lost that beautiful animal happiness.

“Summer Goodbyes” by Alejandra Pizarnik

The soft rumor of spreading weeds. The sound of things ruined by the wind. They come to me as if I were the heart of all that exists. I would like to be dead, and also to go inside another heart.

“Postapocalyptic Heartbeat” by Saeed Jones

I. Drugged, I dreamed you a plume of ash, great rush of wrecked air through the towns of my stupor. And when the ocean in your blood went toxic, I thought fire was what we needed: serrated light through the skin, grenade in the chest—pulled linchpin. I saw us breathing on the other side of after. But a blackout is not night; orange-bottled dreams are not sleep. II. I was a cross-legged boy in the third lifetime, empire of blocks in my lap while you walked through the door of your silence, hunting knife in one hand, flask in the other. I waited for you until I forgot to breathe, my want turning me colors only tongues of amaryllis could answer for. It owned me, that hunger, tendriled its way into my name for you. III. In a city made of rain each door, a silence; each lock, a mouth, I walked daily through the spit-slick streets, harbingers on my hands in henna: there will be no after Black-and-blue-garbed strangers, they called me Cassandra. (I had such a body then.) Umbrellas in hand, they listened while they unlistened. there will be no no. after

the world will end no.

you are the reason it no. ends

you no. IV. I didn’t exactly mean to survive myself. Half this life I’ve spent falling out of fourth-story windows. Pigeons for hair, wind for feet. Sometimes I sing “Stormy Weather” on the way down. Today, “Strange Fruit.” Each time, strangers find me drawing my own chalk outline on the sidewalk, cursing with a mouth full of iron, furious at my pulse. V. After ruin, after shards of glass like misplaced stars, after dredge, after the black bite of frost:        you are the after, you are the first hour in a life without clocks; the name of whatever falls from the clouds now is you (it is not rain), a song in a dead language, an unlit earth, a coast broken— how was I to know every word was your name?

“Coming Back from Seeing Your People” by Alice Walker

Coming back From seeing your people You were So wonderfully Full Of yourself.

But now You have supped With vampires They have fed Feasted On you.

They arise Bright-eyed Fit.

You alone have lost Not only Your sleep But also Your glow The luster of Affection Heart welcome Your people Sent home With you.

Beloved You must learn To walk alone To hold The precious Silence To bring home And keep the precious Little That is left Of yourself.

“Edward the Confessor” by Eileen Myles

I have a confession to make I wish there were some role in society I could fulfill I could be a confessor I have a confession to make I have this way when I step into the bakery on 2nd Ave. of wanting to be the only really nice person in the store so the harried sales woman with several toned hair will like me. I do this in all kinds of stores, coffee shops xerox shops, everywhere I go. And invariably I leave my keys, xeroxing, my coffee from the last place I am being so nice. I try so hard to make a great impression on these neutral strangers right down to the perfect warm smile I get entirely lost and stagger back out onto the street, bereft of something major. It’s really leaning too hard on the everyday. My mother was the kind of woman who dragging us into stores always seemed to charm the pants off the cashier. She was such a great person, so human though at home she was such a bitch, I mean really distant. I imitate her and I don’t do it well. She didn’t leave her wallet or us in a store. I’m just a pale imitation it is simply not my style to open the hearts of strangers to my true personhood. I hope you accept this tiny confession of what I am currently going through. And if you are experiencing something of a similar nature tell someone, not me, but tell someone. It’s the new human program to be in. It would be nice for at least these final moments if we could sigh with the relief of being in the same program with all the other humans whispering in school. I can’t quite locate the terror, but I am trying to be my mother or Edward the Confessor smiling down on you with up-praying hands. I am looking down at the tips of my boots as I step across the balcony of the church excited to be allowed to say these things. Outside my church is a relationship. On 11th street this guy and this woman are selling the woman so they can get more dope. All their things are there, rags and loaves of bread and make-up. And there was— this was incredible. Two men lying by the door of the church giving each other blow-jobs. They were sort of street guys, one black one white. I said hey you can’t do that here. They jumped up, one spit come out of his mouth. If you don’t get out of here I’ll call the cops. Don’t call the cops we’ll go, we’ll leave. That was a shock. That was more than I expected to see in a day. Something about seeing the guy spit come out of his mouth. He didn’t have to do that. I guess I scared him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was scared too.

[maandags]

Eidolon (Angel!Keith x Demon!reader) {part i}

OK HERE IT IS PLEA SE DONT KILL ME I DIDNT EVEN PROPERLY EDIT/REVISE BUT WE DIE LIKE MEN

---

Summary: Keith is an angel, and he’s completed mission after mission for the Upper Hand, the organisation controlling all of the Above. He’s only failed a mission once: when he was assigned to kill you, a surprisingly charismatic demon. He roamed Earth--Middle Ground--for years before he was caught by the Upper Hand again, and things quickly go south. 

Word count: 5.5K

Genre: Angst --  CW: emotional manipulation, hallucinations

Notes: masterlist -- {next} -- why do i keep hurting him i love Keith so much

-- -- --

go ahead and watch my heart burn 

with the fire that you started in me

~ &burn, Billie Eilish ft. Vince Staples

-- -- --

EIDOLON (NOUN):

-- a spectre; a ghost.

-- -- --

Keith almost doesn’t remember the last time he’d been back home.

A guard leads him to the Castle, and Keith feels the sudden need to straighten his spine and stick up his chin–ages and ages of training and manners and etiquette hammered into his very bones fluttering to the surface again. He is suddenly very aware of the state his hair and clothes are in and desperately tries to smooth them down in hopes of looking a little less like he just came rolling out a dumpster.

The guard notices and glances over his shoulder, his own suit immaculate and quite literally sparkling, his wings folded in and the tips just barely grazing the ground. Not that it mattered–the Castle’s floors were always perfectly clean. Keith’s steps echo in the halls, and he grows more uncomfortable by the second. There was a reason he’d avoided the Above for so long, after all.

The guard halts in front of a door Keith knows all too well. He looks down to the ground in annoyance and bites back a curse, feeling his back muscles tense and his wings puff up. The guard gestures vaguely to a backless stool that sits next to the door and says in a clear voice, “Wait there, please.” Keith plops down and folds his arms, sagging slightly in the seat. He pretends not to notice the way the guard purses his lips in disapproval.

“Do you know how long the wait’s gonna be?” he asks and flinches at the volume his voice takes in the empty halls.

The guard shoots him a cold look over his shoulder as he starts to walk away. “It’ll take as long as it does.” And he stalks away, hands clasped in front of him. Keith stares him down, glaring daggers into his back and blowing a lock of his black hair out of his face. This is exactly why he hates it up here, he thinks.

He waits for what feels like ages. There is a big clock on the wall opposite him, but the arms don’t move–they don’t ever move. The clocks are decoration only. Time passes differently up in the Above, and it leaves him disoriented every time. Keith bounces his knee, shaking out the stiffness in his wings and heaving a sigh. It’s too silent. The halls are too silent. He hates it.

It feels like hours have passed before the doors finally open.

Keith leaps up immediately, eyes widening. “Shiro.”

The man in the doorway sighs and beckons for him to come inside.

Keith hasn’t seen Shiro in years, and the first thing he notices is that he’s hiding his wings. Why would he do that? It’s a trick angels use down on Middle Ground, as to not scare the mortals shitless. Up in the Above, it’s pretty much useless; it’s an angel-only space. Despite everything, Keith can’t help but feel the small burst of warmth in his chest, merely an echo of the friendship they once had, but enough to make him feel slightly more at ease in this familiar yet so foreign environment.

Shiro’s office looks exactly like the last time he saw it. The wooden desk, its surface littered with trinkets of gold and silver, the paintings on the wall, the glass sculptures on the windowsills. Everything is in the exact same place as it was when he left. It’s like no time has passed at all and it’s unnerving.

Shiro sits down at his desk and gestures for Keith to take place in front of him. He does, albeit a feeling a little nervous. “It’s been a while,” he says, trying to alleviate the tension in the air.

Shiro looks up, his grey eyes stormy. “It has.” He frowns, folding his hands in front of him. “And nobody knew where you were.”

Keith flinches. That’s the whole reason he’s here, after all–if he could have, he’d avoided the Above for the rest of his life, but he’s immortal, and they were bound to find out his whereabouts sometime. He’s actually quite surprised that he held out this long. “I’m good at disappearing.”

Shiro purses his lips. “Evidently.” He sighs again. “The big guys weren’t happy with you, you know. I just managed to convince them to let it slide.” He doesn’t name them. That would be a bad idea, especially up here.

Keith looks up, surprised. “You talked to them?”

“Of course I did,” says Shiro with a glare his way. “I care about you. They were talking about banishment, Keith. I vouched for you.”

Keith sighs, slouching in his seat. “That was stupid of you, Shiro.”

Anger sparks in Shiro’s eyes–and for a second, it’s like they glow. “No. What was stupid was you running off to play Big Invincible Immortal, Keith. You could have gotten in serious trouble, and I would have been the one to clean up your mess.” He slams his hand on the desk, a gesture that causes Keith to jump. Shiro always knows how to keep his cool.

“Whoa, calm down. I knew what I was doing.”

“You were purposely avoiding the Above and its angels. I get it, okay? And you’ve had your fun. It’s time to grow up and be responsible for once.” He sounds tired, Keith thinks. He’s probably rehearsed this conversation in his head more times than he can count.

Keith opens his mouth, but Shiro’s eyes flicker dangerously again and he clamps his mouth back shut. “I saved you from banishment, not punishment. You’ll stay in the Above until one of the big guys says so. Understood?”

“So–like house arrest?” Keith says, upset. He feels the resistance seeping from his bones and shakes his limbs, desperately trying to keep some of the energy of Middle Ground in his system, but it’s no use. The Above has a way of draining people–and angels–of their energy, transforming them into empty shells to be used and manipulated by the Upper Hands. No! Keith thinks, setting his jaw. Not again! “But I–”

“No.”

“You’re not even going to let me defend myself?” Keith says, waving his arms around. “I can’t stay here. I’ll go crazy.”

Shiro sighs, lowering his face into his hands, visibly pained. “Sorry, Keith. But it’s for your own good.”

Keith wants to shout, but what good would it do? He doesn’t want to be here–but it’s not like banishment is such a better option. He’d lose his wings, his halo… He glances at the faintly glowing golden braided bracelet on his right wrist. He draws a shaky breath through his teeth, forcing his voice to stay level. “Do I have to wear this too?” he asks, showing his wrist.

Standing up, Shiro reaches down and touches the halo. It starts glowing and growing and soon he’s holding a full halo–a ring of pure golden light, thirty inches in diameter. Keith has to squint to see anything through the bright light. His shoulders sag as Shiro places the halo around his head, and his vision is blinded by the light. “That’s better.”

That’s better. The words roll around in Keith’s mind. He knows he’ll be able to find his way around just as well if he hadn’t worn his halo–he still hates it. He hates not being in control. That’s better. It’s not better. Keith feels the familiar numbness crawling under his skin again and he breathes a sad sigh, letting his head hang. Shiro takes place behind his desk again, folding his arms in front of him. Keith vaguely catches a shimmer of what could be the outlines of Shiro’s wings. The conversation is over.

For the next days, Keith behaves exactly as he should. He is where he has to be at the times he has to be there and doesn’t talk about the Middle Ground anymore. Truth be told, he doesn’t talk much at all.

He’s curled up in an alcove when he hears the unmistakable sound of someone approaching and cracks open an eye. An angel stands over him, brown skin standing out starkly against the white of his clothes and his wings out and shimmering a dark brown. They’re well-groomed, and suddenly Keith feels self-conscious of his own dirty and crooked ones, but everything about this angel seems well-groomed and clean, his shorts and white shirt crisp and almost reflecting the light from his halo. It makes Keith’s skin crawl.

“Who’re you?” he says dryly.

The angel scoffs and crosses his arms, and Keith notices that he’s not actually standing on the ground–he’s levitating over it, bare toes hovering just a couple of inches above the ground. Keith slumps down further in his alcove, casting a wary glance up.

“I’m Lance,” the angel says, “and I’ve been assigned to guard you.”

Keith almost falls out of his alcove. “I’m sorry?” he blurts.

Lance sticks out his bottom lip, rubbing his calf with one foot. “You heard me.”

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Keith says indignantly, and he sits up, rubbing his hair out of his eyes.

Lance is unimpressed. “Upper Hand thinks you do, apparently.”

Shaking his head, Keith leaps up and tries to push past the other angel, muttering something under his breath about the Upper Hand he probably shouldn’t have, but he was so mad at that moment he found he didn’t really care. “Go away,” he yelled over his shoulder as he stalked off into the annoyingly perfect forest.

Lance frowned, stunned for merely a second before fluttering behind him, giving up the act of floating as he dropped to the ground and hurried after him. “No, but you–I have to guard you,” he stammers dumbly, obviously not having expected Keith to run off.

“I’d like to see you try.” Keith whacks a branch out of his face and grins to himself at the startled yelp Lance gives as he narrowly avoids it. “Don’t try and keep up. I’m good on my own.”

“The Upper Hand don’t trust you, you know,” Lance calls after him. Keith doesn’t turn around.

“Evidently, if they think they have to send a babysitter after me.”

Lance scoffs again. “They think you’ll run off again.”

This time Keith does turn around to give Lance the evil eye. “Well I can’t do that, can I? Wouldn’t wanna end up banished forever,” he says angrily.

“Listen, man, help me out here,” Lance pleads, struggling to follow Keith as he trudges deeper and deeper into the woods, slipping through the trees with a speed and an accuracy that can only mean that he’s done this before.

Keith whirls around, narrowing his eyes. “Help you out?”

Lance shrinks back. “I know, I know, I’m sorry, but I’m not about to go against direct orders from the Upper Hand. I don’t have to, like, stand by your side all stoic-like and in uniform all the time–we’re just two angels hanging out. I can even ask some friends over and we’ll just pretend like you don’t want to kill me, all right?”

Although that sounded like the last thing Keith actually wanted to do, he sighs and lets his shoulders sag, again. The Above was sapping all of his strength away and there was nothing he could do about it. Besides, he thinks wryly as he studied the other angel’s face a little closer, this guy looks so hopeful–even a little desperate, maybe–that he wants to help him.

It’s scary, getting your first assignment from the Above–and from the way this guy as handling it so far, Keith goes out on a limb and assumes it’s his first. He’d handled his fair share of them, and will never forget the first time he got sent down to Middle Ground armed with nothing but his black-bladed knife and the instructions still fresh in his mind, and an eagerness to please–to prove himself. He’s lost that desire since, feeling nothing but resentment towards the Upper Hand.

“Fine,” he finally says, rubbing a hand over his face. “Fine. Call your friends or whatever. I’ll just–I’ll stick around.”

Lance grins. “Cool. Thanks, man.”

Keith has to resist rolling his eyes, and he stuffs his hands in his jean’s pockets as he follows Lance out of the forest. “D’you know for how long you’ll need to ‘guard’ me?” he asks, air quoting the word “guard” with his fingers.

Lance looks over his shoulder and gives an apologetic shrug. “Sorry. They didn’t say.”

Scowling, Keith kicks a small rock out of his path. “Right. Of course they didn’t say,” he mutters.

Lance’s friends are, thankfully, less obnoxious and annoying than he is. An angel with soft golden-yellow wings introduces himself as Hunk, and a much smaller angel tells him her name is Pidge. They’re nice, albeit a bit loud, Keith thinks. He stays as much to the side as he can, dangling his legs over the platform they sit on and staring at the sky and twinkling stars that always seem present. He drowns out the conversation around him, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, allowing himself for the first time since he’s here to relax.

He realises the severity of his punishment. As much as they tried to, the Above wasn’t the paradise that people made it out to be. There were strict rules and punishments if you didn’t follow them–it had always felt more of a prison to Keith than anything.

But that was when he had been able to leave whenever he wanted. When it got too much, he could just leave to Middle Ground and clear his head while the familiar rush of energy lightens his very being and adds a spring to his step.

Now, as he sits there, dazedly staring at the eerily similar but yet so different world around him, he knows he’s not going to last long. He’s going to go crazy–and probably sooner than later. He takes a deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut and lowering his face into his hands. Come on, man, keep your thoughts straight.

“Whoa–where do you think you’re going?” Lance’s voice pulls him back to the real world. Keith turns, only then realising his wings are out and he’s crouching as if he’s going to jump.

He manages to cover his surprise almost immediately and scowls. “I’m going to go to bed. Are you gonna watch me sleep, too?”

Lance hesitates, casting a look at his friends. Hunk gives Keith a sympathetic smile. “You’ll get used to it, don’t worry. Angels who’ve spent a while on Middle Ground are often a bit disoriented for the first few days they’re back.”

“Thanks,” Keith mutters. He spreads his wings.

“I’ll be there as soon as you wake up!” yells Lance cheerfully, and Keith shoots him a last glare before taking off.

Instead of going to the room he’s been assigned he seeks out a comfortable spot in the forest to rest. As he lies on his stomach on a thick branch high up, hidden by the canopy, he ponders the prospect of a life in the Above. The Upper Hand can’t keep him here forever, right? They’ll have to let him go sometime. Right? Keith has a vision of himself walking down the streets on Middle Ground with Lance, Pidge and Hunk by his sides like bodyguards. He shivers.

Besides, he’s managed to stay out of their vision long enough. He would have hidden for longer–but he made a stupid mistake, and it was that which had given the Upper Hand the ability to locate him.

The mistake had been you.

A rogue demon whom Keith had been supposed to kill–his last assignment. The only one he hadn’t completed.

A few run-ins and the same number of fights to the death with you had left Keith disoriented, bleeding and limping, retreating to his apartment with one single thought in his head: he couldn’t do it. He hadn’t been able to finish the job the first time and he wouldn’t be able to do it any other time, simply because you were you.

He’d killed demons before. Why should you be any different? He’d had countless opportunities to get rid of you, and yet he didn’t. It was infuriating.

It had been something in your eyes, Keith ponders as he rolls his head to the other side, gazing into the darkness of the forest below him. The night air had started to cool down drastically and nips at the bare flesh of his arms. He barely felt it. It had been something in your eyes that had radiated fear and anger and determination–he’d seen himself in those eyes the same way he’d seen himself in your fighting stance and the defiant snarl on your face.

Why hadn’t he killed you?

Maybe you reminded him too much of himself.

Whatever the case: he had hesitated and you had gotten away, and he’d spent his days wandering the cities and avoiding the Upper Hand ever since.

But he’d gotten curious, and he’d returned to where he saw you last and had taken to observing you whenever he could. It was like a magnet pulled him back to you at all times; as if he was walking in circles and you were at the centre of it all. He had stayed in one spot too long, grown careless in his attempts to catch glimpses of you wherever you went. For a demon, you didn’t seem to do very demon-like stuff, he remembers thinking.

He had always been taught that demons were–well, demons, in everything they did. Evil through and through. But the way you acted and led your life didn’t strike Keith as particularly demonic–in fact, you were nice to the people you encountered. You smiled. You looked everything opposite of what Keith had been led to believe his entire life, and maybe that’s why he’d been so intrigued by you.

It had resulted in his being tracked and coerced back to the Above (read: threatened, Keith thinks bitterly), of course. And here he was, thinking about the demon that had landed him in this very situation. He groans, covering his face and letting his wings droop down. Sleep, he commands himself. Sleep.

The next weeks are spent by Lance’s (and, inevitably, his friends’) side, and Keith seriously begins to regret having accepted to help out the guy with his assignment. It’s not so much the company itself he despises; it’s more the fact that none of them seems to be able to shut up.

“So I took little Marco flying for the first time and he was so wobbly and awkward, but it was so cute and he did so well! I remember when I flew for the first time I crashed, like, five times before I could pull a straight take-off,” Lance chirps, his hands buried in Hunk’s feathers as he picks out the little branches and leaves that got stuck there during their morning flight. Pidge had threatened to bite his fingers off if he tried to touch her wings and was awkwardly smoothing down her own feathers. Keith suppresses a smile. He likes Pidge.

She sees him look and frowns. Eyes widening, Keith quickly looks away, but he’s already got her attention and she flicks him with her wing. “Hey.”

He shifts so he sits cross-legged. “Hey.”

“I had a question,” she says, leaning forward, a spark in her brown eyes that promise nothing good.

Keith immediately has his guard up. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’ve been wondering why Lance was assigned to babysit you ever since I heard,” Pidge says, ignoring Keith’s scowl and grunt of “He’s guarding me”. “So I did some research of my own.”

Hunk visibly pales as she says this. “Pidge, you know that’s not a good idea–”

“And then I found out that you were the one who disappeared on Middle Ground,” Pidge finishes triumphantly and crosses her arms. “So what’s your deal? Why were you so important that you needed a personal babysitter?”

“Guard.”

“Whatever. I mean, if the Upper Hand’s got its eyes on you anyway, there’s no way you can leave the Above without them knowing. A personal guard just seems a bit much to me, you know?”

Keith stares at her for a minute. “Well,” he grunts, “it’s not like I had a choice.”

Lance frowns and throws up his arms. “Hey. You could have gotten way worse than me.”

“I’d rather have gotten no one at all.”

“But you got stuck with me, so deal with it.”

Pidge clears her throat. “You still haven’t answered my question.” She scoots forward until she’s sitting only inches away from his face, and Keith automatically recoils. “What makes you so special?”

Pushing her away, Keith fights down the flush creeping upon his cheeks. Lance and Hunk are looking at him too, now, and he’s not used to this kind of attention. He opens his mouth, ready to retort with some witty reply about the size of his private parts but refrains from it at the last second. What is it that makes him so special?

He just shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

Pidge huffs, blowing a piece of hair out of her face and cocking her head. Her brown eyes bore right through him, and he could see that she wasn’t convinced. Hunk shot them cautious looks, fiddling with his fingers. “Pidge, maybe–”

“I heard you befriended a demon.”

The silence that follows the words is thick enough to cut through with a knife. Hunk buries his face in his hands, and Lance hisses a startled “Pidge”. Keith can’t help the tensing of his muscles–as if his subconscious preparing himself for a fight. But Pidge doesn’t take the hint, and continues pressing.

“Is that why you need guarding every second of the day? Because you’re a traitor to the Above?”

Her voice resonates in his ears and he opens his mouth, but no words come out. All he manages to do is weakly shake his head. “That’s not–”

“They don’t want to let you out again because they’re afraid of you. Afraid of what you’ll do, afraid of you selling your brothers and sisters out to the Below. What’d they offer you? Gold, riches?” Pidge’s words each feel like a punch to the gut, one right after the other, and Keith unwillingly shrunk back. “You’re dangerous. They can’t trust you. Frankly, I’m surprised they even let you back here–”

“STOP!”

The word is ripped from his lips in a voice he doesn’t recognise. Pidge shuts her mouth immediately, recoiling at the sound. His breathing is laboured and whistles in his lungs, and he squeezes his eyes shut, head spinning. He takes a deep breath, trying to keep the thundering of his heartbeat out of his ears. A violet haze falls over his vision.

“I didn’t befriend a demon,” he says quietly, the low rumble of his voice startling even him. Pidge’s face has gone pale. She’s leaning away from him, eyes wide, and Keith realises it’s because she’s scared of him. Lance’s fists are balled, and Keith doesn’t understand why they’re so hostile towards him all of a sudden. They brought up the topic. They’re the ones that kept pressing him. They should have seen this coming.

He scrambles up and stumbles to the end of the platform, spreading his jet-black wings, ignoring Lance’s shout of “Wait!” as he jumps off.

He doesn’t know where he’s going, only focused on getting as far away from the others as possible. He shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the words, but they follow him as he zips through the trees, grateful for the coverage they give him. Traitor, a taunting voice whispers. They can’t trust you. You’re a danger; unreliable. Shut up, he yells back.

It’s funny how you can yell in your thoughts, shout your throat raw–the volume of them will never get any louder.

He flies deeper, deeper, deeper into the woods he’s ever been, and then he keeps going. He wants to be alone more than anything, and he promises himself he will keep flying until he’s outrun the wisps of thoughts still nagging at the end of his brain. He pushes himself faster than he’s ever flown.

A tear rolls down his cheek.

The deeper he dives into the forest, the denser the trees become, and after narrowly avoiding his left wing getting smacked against a thick trunk covered with lianas he’s forced to land and continue on foot, slipping out his knife and cutting his way through the brush, making himself a path to… where?

He doesn’t know. He hopes he finds something worth the journey.

As he walks he tries and banish every and all thought from his mind, focusing on the noises around him. Birds he’s never seen before zip past his ears, crooning their strange songs. Insects he’s only heard of float around his arms, curiously examining the halo he’s taken off and shrunk to its bracelet form again. It’s peaceful, he thinks, more peaceful than he’s ever experienced before. It’s almost too beautiful a place to exist in the Above.

For a while, the only sound to be heard is the crackling of branches as he forges himself a path through trees, bushes, other weird plants sticking up from the damp soil. His shoes are black with dirt and he stumbles every few minutes trying to keep up a fast pace. More and more animals gather around him and nudge him forward, beckoning him to keep going. Go on, they seem to whisper. Go ahead. Come with us. The light filters through the canopy in yellow-golden strips, illuminating just enough of his surroundings so that Keith can keep moving.

Soon the jungle grows too dense for him to continue and he finds himself getting tangled in vines left and right. He tries cutting them away–stomping them down into the ground–but they just keep coming, slithering around his wrists and ankles, pulling him in every direction at once and he can’t keep up. He tries to fight them off with a strangled scream, whacking them away with his wings. It does no good, and the vines wrap around his shoulders with terrifying speed, sticking his wings to his body.

The light dims, and the forest doesn’t seem so gorgeous anymore. The trees are covered with slimy leaves, rotting plants decaying on the forest bed, the soil blacker than a starless sky. The once-pretty insects come at every bit of exposed skin, nipping and stinging and biting until every inch of him feels like it’s being painted in flames. The birds’ songs don’t sound as enchanting anymore–but hauntingly morbid in an almost beautiful way.

The vines encase Keith’s legs, pulling at his arms. He loses his balance. Falls with a sickening crack and an arc of pain shoots up his entire right side, stemming from his wing. He screams. Absolute terror courses through his veins, his heartbeat racing.

White flowers sprout from the vines. In the back of his mind–the very small part of his brain that isn’t engulfed in paralysing fear–Keith thinks about how out of place these flowers are. He even recognises them, which is strange only in the sense that he’s positive he’s never seen them before, and certainly not in the Above. The white orchids bloom in seconds, wilting right afterwards, shrivelling up and falling off, only to be immediately replaced by another. They smell like everything flowers shouldn’t smell like. It’s suffocating, and Keith starts coughing when he feels something tickle at the back of his throat. He retches, managing to spit out the thing that almost choked him. It’s an orchid flower.

This one is black.

Keith wakes up with a scream, the memory of vines slowly strangling him fresh in his mind. It’s a scream of fear that almost immediately morphs into a scream of pain. His wing.

Twisting around, he awkwardly tries to examine the damage, but it’s dark and he can’t see a thing. He wipes at his forehead, hands trembling, and takes a shaky breath. He tries to move his wing and flinches: he can do it, but it’s stiff and painful. He’ll have to have someone look at it soon.

Then he notices the hard surface digging into his back and he jumps up, ignoring the pain shooting up from his wing. Stumbling back, he blinks frantically, forcing his eyes to adjust themselves to the darkness. His legs hit another one of the hard things and he tumbles back with a scream, narrowly managing to twist in midair so he doesn’t fall on his injured wing. He scrambles up again, the only thought in his head a mantra of Keep moving, keep moving, don’t stop, keep moving, keep running.

He zooms in on the thing he tripped on, running a hand along its surface. He still can’t see what it is, but he feels a roughness that can only be stone and carved lines swirling across it. It’s a slab of stone jutting out from the ground. He blinks again. In the split second his eyes are closed there’s a weird feeling in his stomach, like he just did a backflip–and when he opens them again light blares at him from every direction and he yanks his head back from the rock. It’s a gravestone. His gravestone, he realises with a mounting feeling of horror as he reads the inscription, strangely ironic words engraved in a swirly font. Keith Kogane, Traitor. Around him, gravestones pop up from the ground, all identical, until he finds himself standing the middle of a graveyard.

He turns, his feet already starting to carry him to a place far away from gravestones and chocking vines but he finds himself face to face with a door. He whips around again, but the gravestones are gone. He’s in a narrow corridor. Blue lights line the stark white walls. There are no doors except for the one behind him. The corridor seems to go on forever.

Breathing hard, Keith reaches for the doorknob, half expecting it to come alive and try to bite his hand off, but it’s a regular stainless steel knob mounted on a regular stainless steel door. It’s square, sure, a rather odd shape for a doorknob, but there’s nothing inherently special about it. It’s somewhat warm to the touch–as if someone else had used it not too long ago. Keith grabs the knob. Turns. It clicks, the door inching open and a stripe of sunlight enters the corridor.

“Keith.”

His bones turn to ash and his blood turns to ice, because he recognises the voice, and it’s not one he wants to hear right now. He spins around, tears flooding his eyes, clutching the doorknob because he’s thoroughly convinced it will disappear if he lets go of it.

You’re standing right there. Only feet away from him, basking in soft blue light. You’re dressed in cleaner clothes he’s ever seen you in, and your hair is soft and brushed and flicking around your face as if you’re standing in a gust of wind only you can feel. That should have been enough for Keith to stop and think Something isn’t right here.

But his thoughts are sluggish and he's completely and utterly mesmerised by your appearance and his grip is slackening on the doorknob because you’re right there and you’re looking so hopeful, your smile very nearly begging him to join you.

And then he looks up, into your eyes–pitch black and devoid of any emotion, and he starts. This isn’t them, he forces himself to think, grip tightening on the knob once more. Ignoring your call–you sob his name, pleading with him to stay, please, Keith, stay--he throws his full weight into the door and stumbles out into a place he knows all too well.

Lights flash from all around him, hundreds of people talking into their phones or to the person they’re with, milling all around him. Buildings rise up around him, encircling the huge square he finds himself in the middle of. It’s the early evening, and street lights are starting to get lit. Billboards stand out against the darkening sky, advertising their respective restaurant, or grocery store, or tattoo parlour. No one seems to notice his sudden appearance.

Something tugs on his sleeve. Keith looks down. A small kid gives him a toothed grin, pointing at the wings--one crooked and hanging awkwardly off his frame--which Keith had forgotten to conceal. “I like your costume! You’re, like, a fallen angel, right? What with the broken wing, and all. ”

Keith nods, dazed, his eyes scanning his surroundings for one particular building. The one your apartment hides behind. He finds it. His eyes lock on it. In that very moment, he’s absolutely positive that’s why he managed to get out of the Above and to this square, of all places, knowing that it’s you who guided him here. Who guided him home, a small voice whispers inside him. His heart starts beating just that little bit faster.

The kid grins. “That’s awesome, man.”

He’s back on Middle Ground.

[wwounu]

vhc | i shouldn’t be here, but…

✧˚ * . pairing: vernon x reader

✧.⊹ * prompt: “i shouldn’t be here, but…” + cupid!au

✧· . ˚ word count: 749

✧°̥∗⡱ warning: mild angst

[ from: you make my day | you made my dream m.list ]

It was like stones being thrown at your window; Thud, thud, thud.

No one could throw rocks to your window with that arm power, but you knew someone who could��— minus the rock part.

You hastily get dressed prior to searching for your keys to the balcony window, an instant breeze hitting your skin. Bending over to run your hands along the floor, you hand is marked with light pink dust that shines once reflected in moonlight. Someone was here.

He was here.

“Alright,” calls you, “where are you?”

It wasn’t like you were mad — maybe you might’ve been — but it’s been a while since you and Cupid have had a moment like this. You stand, now exposed to all air and sounds from outside, waiting.

Reappearing in front of your eyes is the chocolate-haired boy dressed in white, pearl white wings sparkling like the dust on your fingertips, just noses away from touching. “I shouldn’t be here, but…” He speaks as shy and meek, knowing the trouble he’s in.

“I told you to knock, Vernon. The arrows are too much.”

Vernon turns sullen in return, “But you know they aren’t harmless, look,” a silver, glowing arrow appears at hand as he draws it with a translucent bow, looking like it was formed out of stardust.

(It was, actually.)

When he lets go, the arrow hits the window again, only to be dissolved away in glitter after hit. You sigh, giving the benefit of the doubt, “What are you doing here?” You question yet hold him close — you longed this, you were longing for him.

“Can’t I spend some time with you? For a god of love, I sure don’t get that myself y’know.”

And he’s right. He’s a cupid who’s not allowed to love, let alone loving a human. Not meant to be, some say. Forbidden, is what you called it. 

News like that in itself is dangerous and just the slightest thing going wrong, both of you would have to face consequence. Vernon more-so, being stripped of his abilities and punished for eternity, while you carry on with your life, except there’s no more Cupid.

You would be forced to forget him.

To the first encounter full of stolen glances, ‘by chance’ meetings (now knowing they weren’t by-chance), and stumbling words during when you had courage to ask him for coffee, to the first time he revealed his precious wings, trinkets he’d give you from when he did his ‘abroad work’ and the warmth you felt when your whole world came back to you.

He was everything to you and he certainly was aware of it, but god, one slip up and you think you could never forgive yourself for letting Vernon have to go through so much pain just by being with you.

“You’re thinking,”

“About you.” You finish, looking straight at Vernon with eyes of sorrow and adoration. This might’ve been your drowsiness, but he was glowing in your perspective, his wings above him like a heavenly figure.

“Here.” Vernon walks backwards, leading you with him until his wings touch the glass edge.

“What’s happening now?”

“Do you trust me?”

Falling silent, you think, but you already know the answer. I trust you with my life.

“Yes,”

Vernon takes your hand as he falls backwards and you’re pulled with him, now falling down a tall storey apartment, just you and Cupid. 

The rush of going down so quickly was scary, feelings running up, down and all over the place until arms grasp around you, the sudden fall stopping as your socked-feet dangle in the air, not ready to be breath-taken by the whoever miraculously saved you.

So when you did, you weren’t surprised at your own reaction, melting once you see his glistening pink lips form a smile. “I want to take you on a... Special trip around Korea. You in?”

You nod without delay, being carried further into the sky as the lights from below get smaller and smaller, the shine from the moon beaming above, Vernon holding you tighter than ever while his wings, now doubled in size (he usually makes the illusion to make them smaller as grand wings are too much to handle), keep you two in the air.

It was a dangerous world — a world of conflict concerning ideas of ethereal entities clashing with humans — but this was your world with Vernon; our world.

You certainly fell in love.

Must be a cupid thing.

[bub-the-voidling]

Custom Card Competition wk 18: Investigate

(This is a post about a private Card Brewing competition. Entries were not open to the public.)

This week of CCC or CCL! I still don’t know what the real name is honestly!

Before this all starts, I’m just going to have to say sorry that the quality of this write up is worse than the others (not that they were good judging on the minimal amount of people who actually read these. No need to lie, I know you’re here for your own cards.) but that’s for a very good reason! It was rushed, and if you don’t know yet why it was rushed. Please go to the CCL chatroom and read the latest message I sent with @card-makers. So the ratings in this write up may be a bit off or I might miss obvious stuff. Sorry guys.

This week we’re being the scoobygang and making investigation cards! Sadly no one made the scooby snox card, but I can always wish. **This is where you imagine me snapping my fingers** First card!

I’ll be honest, I’m starting off with this card because I just find it funny. Just look at the art and then despair when you realize that it’s somehow fitting. It fits the name, the flavor, and the effect. I love and hate it.

But what about the actual card? It’s like a Rhystic Study you have to pay for with benefits. Which in my opinion is how it should work, but even if you disagree with it this effect could be explained as different as it lets you sacrifice some clues for free to get the the dimir scry. Which is a pretty neat effect. The more I look at this card the more I like it. I’m also not sure that this is worse than Rhystic Study either since the power is now in your hands instead of the opponent.

9.4/10, Ape, I’m mad about how good this card is.

And after Long-Term we have another card which would be super fitting with that picture. But this would probably have some serious picture about the Scooby Doo gang being after Emrakul with a mask or something.

Anyway, actual card! A late-ish game slow card engine that if synergized with lets you tutor for “free” any card in your deck and eventually win. I like it, no I love it. This might be my control bias showing (I play Goblin control for crying out loud.) but I just like this card. If you’re in need of a specific card you can sac 5 of your needed 15 to win the game just to get a card that’ll help you secure the win, if you’re desperate you’ll actually read the tokens and use their effect to draw cards. The win part seems like something for against the odds, but still fun. Some games will be janked out by that line and I’m all for it.

This card should’ve been further down if they go in order of points. But I just wanted to tell you guys that this could have the artwork from “Idfk lol”

9.2/10, Don’t have much to say, I just like it.

This… this just screams mill mill, yummy yummy!

Like… If you really want to ruin someone, Ghost Quarter (before playing this to bait the opponent to search), play this card into Archive Trap. From there you basically win the game as you can take an extra turn while gaining 8 life, and in that extra turn you can mill the opponent and get a million clues that you turn into extra turns. The mana shouldn’t honestly be a problem given that some mill players already go Esper to have a stronger sideboard and better interaction in general.

This card honestly needs some extra lines that prevents some general mean things like letting you get clues from mill, or from the enemy casting spells (which is debatable), stopping the life gain from saccing clues to himself. Or just remove the extra turn thing, but that seems like the whole gist of the card, so please don’t. Also, holy moly On The Trail with this would be so silly. Actually this card plays well with all the cards here that alter the use of clues.

6.7/10, Wait… you can draw with clues?

More creatures! Looks like we’re assembling the scooby gang! And it’s a promo version at that.

Feels a bit strange to me that this isn’t a legendary, but she does seem fun in multiples. So, what does she do? She copies artifact tokens, be that Servos, Ancient Stone Idol tokens, or maybe even the intended Treasures and Clues. I must say I find it quite funny that this is not the only “Clues matter, but so does treasures/gold.” Which is quite fitting to both this card and the future card’s flavor.

I like the card but honestly it could pack more of a punch, I love how she can turn clues into mana if you’re in an excess of them (or infinite comboing with something like Whitemane Lion, Bygone Bishop, and this.) but it could do more without breaking the game imo, it’s rare so it’s allowed to have some more punch to it. Maybe it makes either a clue or a treasure upon hit and then makes a copy of target, maybe she copies each differently named artifact token, or maybe she even has some sort of evasion like most Scroll Thief effect cards.

But being a lord for specific tokens seems cool anyway :P

7.6/10, “She either trades information for gold or gold for information.“

Enough creatures for now! Let’s go to something less permanent, a sorcery!

So, the flavor here. Yummy, we have either an enraged creature that gets stronger with their rage for each piece of evidence or an impulsive punch to the face for each piece of evidence gathered this turn. I love it. And the effects? Eeeeh… Not sure. Now I’m no card designer but as far as I know the consensus is that if the when the mana cost is split the card itself should be printable as either color. Like, it should only do things that both colors can do. Investigate, unconfirmed for R as there hasn’t been a single red investigate card but it doesn’t feel off flavor for our impulsive color. Gaining attack, yeah that R/W. And going face… The elephant in the room. Dealing damage to face. There are next to no white cards that can deal pure damage to face, and the only ones I do know about are from waaaay back in the day. Back when red still destroyed creatures. So when colors didn’t have their identities yet. Even if you’re okay with red investigators, it’s hard to justify the last effect.

So, how do we fix the color identity problem? Deflecting Palm. As much as I love hybrid mana, this card should really be RW. That would also allow you to lower the CMC to 2 without making the card too… “I do everythingy.” It’s weird to not have a combat trick at instant speed, but I do know that the creator didn’t want to make to too powerful as it’s a common. So I’ll kind of let it slide.

7.4/10, Questionable artist tag imo.

Literally last-minute submission we have this! :D Another card that cares about Clues and Money!

So a colorless land that can produce clues? Interesting, funnily enough we do know the going rate for normal colorless lands drawing cards. It’s 5 mana, thanks Arch of Orazca. So that means this one is balanced, right? 3 mana to investigate and then 2 to draw, 5 mana total. That’s where the nature of clues comes in and ruins stuff. Creating a clue for 3 leftover mana is immensely better compared to simply not drawing a card if you don’t have 5. Clues are permanents, permanents you can cache in whenever you want for that 2 mana (And technically they can be shattered, but come on.) which makes investigating quite a bit stronger than drawing if it costs less. I’m not sure if I made sense as I can barely think myself right now, but the cost to investigate should be at least 4, even if you want to power-creep Arch of Orazca as it has a secondary effect which is both “Turn those clues we made into mana.” and “You can’t shatter any clues as I’ll just turn them into gold if you do.”

7.3/10, just like this write up. A bit too rushed. It’s still just common.

Flavor bomb time, you even have the right icon for where this would thematically be set.

Card effect! Basically, Cabal Therapy but stronger added to all clues if you pay an additional two mana. Which is spooky when it’s at instant speed, even if the whole ordeal is 4 mana. It’s still probably balanced as you have to play a 3 mana do nothing and then spend 4 mana next turn to draw a card and guess what’s in their hand. Good play and deck building can get around this, like sacrificing clues to some effect for free or Peek-ing into their hand beforehand.

Personally I think the losing life seems like a silly thing to add onto the card, punishing good play isn’t my forte.

8.3/10, “afaik Avacyn won the 1v1.” Also, how is the icon misaligned?

Hearthstone time! I couldn’t think of a longer joke!

Wow… Now this is something unique. It’s roughly a 4 mana 4/4 that makes 1-2 clues with the potential up to 4. The etb is so weird to evaluate. If you use cards such as Brainstorm you can get the MAXIMUM VALUE. 4 cards in the future for 8 mana. Nice. Even the second ability seems fun to play with. Manipulating the top to make Aria stronger and stronger.

The only drawback with this card I can think of is that some people will find the revealing top 4 and putting back in the same order confusing. I’ll be honest and admit I missed that interaction until I was doing the write up. Sorry, Xyrillow. And I’m name dropping you because you were really close to being the winner this week and you should be proud of your craft.

9.8/10, you do know they’re a Nightelf and not Veldaken right?

Next card!

This week it was hard to decide a winner. The last card and this one went back and forth and there was even a while I was thinking about maybe sharing the winning slot. But that feels like cheating, so I have to give the edge over to this card. I love this card. Super elegant. The flavor and flavor text is on point, the effect is on point, all the way down to the evasion that costs a card to gain two cards eventually later on in the game… I just love everything.

This is without a doubt the best designed card, proud to be in any set with investigation.

Perfection is impossible, but this is pretty damn near to it.

10/10, could maybe be uncommon. Idk.

I’m lacking words, but please congratulate DrKungFu for such an amazing card. And Xyrillow for being such a close second. And actually a lot of people as this week was quite stacked.

But Mainly DrKungFu.

Now, the next prompt is to make your own guild mechanic, something like Riot, Surveil or maybe even Dredge if you’re ballsy. Sorry that this is rushed, I didn’t even proof read it for crying out loud. But please do read the update in the chat. It’s important.

Thank you for all your submissions, you’re all lovely. Love, Sami.