Transgressions: Vices and Virtues Winners

We'd like to thank our lovely judges: raspil, betwixtthepages, SurrealCachinnation, neurotype-on-discord, LadyofGaerdon, LiliWrites and angeljunkie, as well as everyone who donated prizes/features and participated in the contest. 

You can read all of the contest entries in the Prose and Poetry folders. 

the Chandler's Around the WayThe hose slipped out again. Chan cursed, and shoved it back into the incision he'd made, adjusted his mask, and bent over the pump. He yanked the cord, and the pump started to life with a cough of biodiesel. It bounced on the sand as it grumbled away. Chan kept one hand on it and held the hose in place with the other.
If fucking Fathers would spend the bone on a new one, I wouldn't be all night at this, Chan grumbled. He ached for a smoke, but didn't have the hands to spare. Plenty of hands here, he thought as he glanced at the riverbank. Some of them even had a pulse.
"Hey," he said to whoever was closest.
It was a sunbather. A walker who drew enough bone to slot time on the beach without having to fight for it. She had each arm draped around a man, both of them tattooed in the same place with the same sigil. Chan was jealous. Someday he'd have his own numbers, but they'd be women. All of them. He was old-fashioned like that.
The walker answered without raising her sungl  You've Been Looking at Virtues, All WrongYou've Been Looking at the Virtues of Child, Man, and Woman All Wrong
In the end we're all myths, hermaphroditic deities.
Our names are the most real things about us.
        i. My mother named me for the Virgin
        and I carry her legacy in my blood—
        she is my spirit animal; the creature
        who crawled first across the placenta line
        outside my home. In truth, I imagine all
        are wolves or coyotes drawn by the smell
        of fresh blood.
        ii. There is no purity in childhood:
        we are simply jesters with blistered feet
        and the pu

PROSE 

Memnalar, The Chandler's Around The Way 

Zombie Monkey Plush from angeljunkie (prose & poetry)
2 critiques from neurotype-on-discord 
1 critique from LiliWrites
1 critique from SurrealCachinnation

500 points from lacoterie

AzizrianDaoXrak, You've Been Looking at the Virtues of Child, Man, and Woman All Wrong

Zombie Monkey Plush from angeljunkie 
2 critiques from neurotype-on-discord
1 critique from LiliWrites
1 critique from SurrealCachinnation 

500 points from lacoterie 

Second Place

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AGMeade, The New Justice

POETRY
CJWilde, A Snowflake and a Spider's Web

1 critique from neurotype-on-discord 
1 critique from AzizrianDaoXrak 
1 critique from SurrealCachinnation

150 points from LadyLincoln

300 points from lacoterie 

Third Place

Saving the Angels, Smiting the Demons     His hands were covered in blood. The steering wheel, the back seat, it seemed that it would never wash out. That everything would always carry that rusty hue, the coppery scent, no matter how many times he scrubbed and washed and sprayed.
     But it was all right. At least she was clean. Pure, innocent, perfect. She was in the passenger seat, leaned up against the door, eyes closed in peaceful slumber. He smiled. It had been a long day for both of them, but she needed the sleep more than he did. He would let her rest.
     Time ticked by, and he drove through the dark to the old quarry. He could have left the headlights off and felt his way there if he needed to. If there had been more cars, maybe. He'd been there enough times that he knew the way by heart.
     The quarry had long ago been abandoned in favor of the factories that moved in. They had come under the guise of better pay and safer working conditions, but his ruined knee and disability checks said otherwise.
     He e  StuckThe morals of men has been hurled so high
its demands, expands too much in our minds
now it hurts to think, so we listen and lie
and with gods on our side, righteously criticize
the inside turns outside, the world seems painful
we are raised with guilt yet eternally grateful
we tell our children not to eat with their mouths full
and that grey is a color, no matter how dull
there's teachers and preachers on every block
condemning all who's outside their flock
with their rights and wrongs; do's and do not's
they've dealt enough shame to fill up a book
we all know the way and that it is bright
but tell me then why we sneak out at night
to glance and dance at the ancient lights?
before telling ourselves it's a waste of time
I've seen your beliefs and what they require
to kill the aliens, and then to retire
your peaceful heart devoid of desire
as long as you are for thy morals admired
but you can't shoot them down, you can't shut them up
with a brain like the rest of us you have been struck

Tobaeus, Saving the Angels, Smiting the Demons

1 critique from neurotype-on-discord 
1 critique from SurrealCachinnation

100 points from thorns 

150 points from lacoterie 

Liedy, 02:21 AM

All winners will also receive journal features from the following: 

AzizrianDaoXrak
angeljunkie
SadisticIceCream
ATrue
Vigilo
ikazon
Memnalar
LiliWrites
HugQueen
SurrealCachinnation