#it's like oh public school is evil homeschooling is still learning and requires parents to actually be involved and do shit to do it correct

[im2tired4usernames]

Unschooling should be illegal it's child neglect and abuse it should be labeled what it is

[madllamamomma]

I Think I Have a Problem.... (A personal true story).

So as the title suggests, I have a strange problem…. Just as a warning, this is about my view of my younger self. It is about religion, and gender identity. This is not how I see the world anymore. It was how I told how the world should look. If you are offended in any way, please know this is a vent post and nothing to hurt anyone else. This is just what happened to me as a child. Shit….. This is about to get very long winded, so buckle up and here we go… *takes deep breath*

So a little backstory on your Mother Llama: I was raised in a weird backward ass “Independent” Baptist church most of my young life. If you guys don’t know what those are, be thankful…. But I guess I should explain it the best way I can…. they are a borderline cult. Yes. I said it. I’m not sorry. It may sound like an extreme accusation, but hold on. Just listen to me.

Now, I have no problem with Christians, or religion. You should believe whatever you want to believe in…. I do however, have a problem when religion is used as an excuse to not educate minds about the real world, force them to not let them think for themselves, and when someone questions any of it, they are punished or shamed for it instead of thinking about an answer. If you can’t tell, I am still a little angry about that shit. Imma try to keep on topic here….

I wasn’t taught science (real science anyways, it was all about ‘creation’ bs—OH! And being anything but a cis straight person was compleltly unexceptable. Woman were the weaker sex and were made to raise babies and take care of the husband. Men were superior and should be taken care of.) nor about World history or about other cultures, other than biblical of course. And when they were mentioned, they made them look evil and behave like heathens because they didn’t believe the same as they did. Everything changed when I went to public school half of fourth grade when my family moved to a different state and there wasn’t any church school like I went to. I learned a lot those years, that ‘The World’ wasn’t as bad of a place as they said it was. It was vast and had many things to offer. (No, not the World, Dio’s stan power from Jojo’s bizarre adventures—that is what our pastors called anything outside of the Baptist approved realm. Something ‘Worldly’ was basically something sinful and ungodly and therefor was bad and wrong).

So this may seem like a strange Segway in to what I am actually getting at, but I had a huge crush on this boy back when I was young and it started when I was about 12 or 13 years old and ended when I was 16. He was the same age as me, and he was the son of a pastor of a small church of about 20 people, mostly military families— we will call him.... D.... for dick...

I thought for a long time that I ‘loved’ D. I thought that ‘God made him for me’ (yes I really said that and it hurt to even write it). I really thought I knew what love was back then, but I was very wrong.

D was homeschooled, he didn’t have many friends and was also a navy brat like I was. So, naturally, we got along very well, and I would hang out with him at his house sometimes. We mainly played video games I was terrible at and he would always bet me. But I liked hanging out with him, so I didn’t care if I won or not. My heart for some reason was totally head over heels over D. And he liked me too for a while… or at least I thought he did… He however never made a move. I always thought D was just too shy, and didn’t know how to ask me. Any time I tried holding his hand, I’d chicken out. It was a stalemate. But this particular church did a thing where people had to court. Yes... COURT someone, not DATE (Courting is where you had adult chaperones keeping an eye on you two, you were never really alone. Ever, because apparently you can’t be trusted?). When we both turned 15 yo, D started a private Christian school. Being the awkward girl I was, I never told him how I felt, I just waiting for him to say something. Time passed, and I still waited and waited for him to ask me out.

But here’s the thing! He didn’t know the real me.

I was in public school, in middle school, and I started to become a weeb. Like a super cringy weeb that didn’t like anything else but anime—I was also kinda emo/punk kid thought I was edgy. (Yeah rock music was bad too, it was ‘Worldly’).Not a very good mix for Baptist I know. At school, I was one person, and at church I was another.

Well, being an anime fan meant I was exposed to a lot of things like the LGTB+ community for the first time. A lot of my friends at the time started to come out other than straight and that was very new to me.

During that time, I soon was starting to secretly question my faith, my understanding of my own sexuality and gender. Like, maybe people liking the same sex or both is actually not a bad thing after all (if you haven’t seen any of my works, hopefully you guys know that I know better that what I was taught—I am a proud fuckin’ ally! I still consider myself cis-straight, but some days I feel like I’m bi-curious, and that’s ok! It took me a long time to realize that, but I’m here now. Gender roles are dead and stupid.)

So here is the kicker~ One faithful day we had a guest pastor join us for a few weeks from another church. This mother fuckin’ nasty ass old white man from Alabama came with his ‘perfect quiet godly’ wife. Who badly ever spoke a damn word. She always just sat in the corner all ‘ladylike’.

—Oh!!! Another fun fact, I didn’t wear pants for a year when I was 10 yo becasue that was considered “cross dressing”— I’m dead fucking serious. My parents then decided after attending sporting events and stuff like that to drop that ludicrous lifestyle, becasue it was stupid. So, Outside of church, my family and I still wore pants and shorts and whatever, but in church we pretended that we didn’t wear anything but modest skirts, dresses, and long culottes. (That’s a little damaging…. don’t you think? Telling people your one thing, when in reality you're not like that at all??)

Anyways— I hated skirts, especially wearing them in the state we lived in, it was way too hot and I’d get chafed (these had to be knee length or longer btw). And of course that guest preacher would preach about the sins of women wearing pants, but I didn’t care. I wore them for so long, it just made me angry anytime someone would bring that up. I liked my jeans and I was starting to become a rebel teen who gave less than a fuck and started to speak my mind. Which was dangerous to that community…. Also I had a bad tendency of not keeping my legs together when I bent down, and one time I accidently showed my underwear (that’s really embarrassing btw, it’s not cute, it’s not funny, it’s awful when you're 14 yo-- really any age actually).

So, one day I wore a long jean skirt for a youth outing with the church. I was required to wear it, but I always wore leggings underneath so I wouldn’t accidentally show my undies if I fell down or the wind blew it. This fucker had to say something about it. The old man turned to me with a wrinkled smirk as I was passing by him and dared to utter, “Now, don’t you feel most femine and ladylike in that skirt? I’m sure Jesus would like seeing you like that.”

My shoulders clench up tight, my brow furrows. All I can remember seeing is fucking red and actually trembling with fury. (This was happening in my pastor, D’s father’s, own living room mind you.) D was there watching as I blanched about ten shades of red in anger and embarrassed because that prick of an old man called me out in front of everyone. I turned to him and half shouted, “NO! I don’t!” I could see my pastor’s mouth drop to the floor as I began to completely obliterate this old man. But I couldn't stop myself as I started to further cut into him. “—I hate wearing skirts! I don’t feel ladylike! In fact, they make me feel vulnerable! What if some guy tries to rape me! They won’t have any problem getting to me!—Why is something with a whole on the bottom more ladylike than something that actually covers me?! I like pants! They are comfortable and they make me feel safe! Why is that a sin to wear something that is more covering?!?! I’m not cross dressing, my mom bought them in the girl’s session!! [Keep in mind that was a long time ago, I don’t feel like people should care about what section they get their clothes from, wear what you want] And what do you know about wearing a skirt?! You’re a man! You try wearing them! They suck! You need to stop telling me what I can and can’t wear! I’m not dressing like a whore for wearing something with a crotch!! SO LEAVE ME ALONE!!” Everyone in the living room was just stunned at my audacity to dare speak to this pastor like I did. But he was so fucking quiet after that. And I stormed out of the house and the guest pastor never spoke to me again about it. Luckily my mom came and picked me shortly after that. She was angry too after I told her what happened. That old fuck singled me out and I was pissed off. I was a teenager and that shit was embarrassing!

But I made the mistake of showing my true self. I think after that moment, D stopped liking me after that.

Some shit went down south with my parents behind closed doors of my household, and eventually they got divorced. They left the small church because the pastor didn’t approve of it. Pastor said that my parents just needed more counseling but he didn't understand that they just needed to not be together. Sometimes you can’t make things work. Especially when your dad is a toxic piece of shit that only cares about himself.

Anyways, everyone in my family left the church, but I stuck around that shit-hole just to see if D would ask me out. I was so desperate, I felt like I waited forever, but really it was like 2-3 years, and I felt like I couldn’t give up. Eventually D and I turned 16. He started to become distant and a little mean towards me and I became confused and started to realize the worst. Finally, I was tired of waiting so I asked his older sister if he liked me on the way back taking me home. I could see it in her face, that she didn’t want to have my heart broken, but reluctantly she told me no. He actually liked another girl at his new private school and was going to ask her parents to court her instead.

I was so devastated.... It hurt so much, I cried myself to sleep that night, and most of that week I was very sad.

Obviously, after that, I stopped going to church entirely, I couldn't show my face anymore. Finally let myself question my faith, sexuality, gender roles, and humanity all together. And realized that religion was stupid (in my opinion at the time) and I came u with the conclusion that people can be sheep. I was a sheep for a long time. And I refuse to be one ever again.

High school was very enjoyable after that, and I let myself grow and started to love other religions and world history, and tried to stop being so judgmental of others and what they felt like. I even got into a relationship with a sweet boy around my age.

Eventually in college, after a break-up with my high school sweetheart, I reconnected with D via FB. Apparently, the church went under and his parents moved away to Greece to be missionaries or something. D still lives in the same town I’m in, but graduated from a “Christian academy”—not Catholic, Christian. Catholic colleges are accredited at least. But he basically told me he was a secret “bad boy” now. He lost his virginity in highschool, (like I did) and he was totally trying to booty call me. Not even hiding it either! He was like, “Hey, Llama, you wanna fuck?”.

And I was like, “D! You broke my fucking heart when we were young! Don’t you remember that???”

And he was like, “Oh no! I had no idea! (the fuckin’ liar). Well, we can fuck now!~ *wink, wink*”

🤨

This is where I was a jerk.... Because he broke my heart. I led him on, told him I would meet up with him at his house to sleep with him, and just didn’t show up—ghosted him ever since. The worst part about that, is I still don’t regret doing that to him. I hope I hurt his feelings and felt like an ass like I did.

So years have passed, I consider myself as a rather successful woman now. I’m 27, I consider myself Buddhist (I am a terrible Buddhist I know), I am an Occupational Therapy Assistant and I have a great husband (I married the guy I was with in high school). And he loves the real me—the crazy closet weeb, cartoon watching, creative, expressive, me! The person who also writes fanfiction about a romance novel and he is fine with it. Because he is a huge nerd too and we are both nerds together.

My husband is my best friend and I don’t know what I’d do without him. When I write about Rhemi and Muriel, I draw a lot of inspiration with our conversation we have and how relationship dynamics are and I think it makes the writing more authentic and makes them feel a bit more real.

I love my husband more than anything… So why do I keep dreaming about that stupid asshole that just liked the fake me? D was and always will be a total tool. He is like the basic bitch of a man. And yet I still find him creeping in my dreams and I try to cheat on my husband with him in them. I wake up feeling totally terrible and weird after them too. D is a terrible fucking person—the worst person you can be in my opinion—The kind of person why lies and tells people one thing, but hides the fact that he’s really just a nasty fuck boy. If you are one, just be honest! Don’t tell another woman you're a good christan man, when really you’ve slept with not just one, but multiple girls! That how you get fucking STDs! I hate being lied to, and I’m sure other girls do too! So I guess that’s why I do, because I felt like I was lied to my entire life. Then again, why should I even care?! Why do I feel like I still obsess over him? I hate him so much now! So why do I even care? Why do I still find myself stalking him on social media? Why does it even matter? Why do I want him to see I’m happy without him? Why do I want him to see what he could have had with me? We were just stupid teenagers! Why did I care so much? Why did it hurt so much when I found out he didn’t like me?! It’s been over a decade, and we didn’t even really date! Why did this affect me so hard? …. FUCK!

So yeah. That’s my long ass rant for you all… thanks for coming to my ted talk.

[arcticdementor]

In the David Fincher produced, 2017 Netflix series, Mindhunter, two FBI special agents travel the country interviewing serial killers in the 1970’s. The series, based on the non-fiction book “Mindhunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit” by John Douglas, chronicles the beginnings of advanced criminal profiling techniques developed by the FBI in response to a number of high profile, and gruesome crimes carried out during the era, beginning with the Manson Family murders of 1968. Throughout the show the fictional special agents Holden Ford and Bill Tench meet with frequent resistance from other law enforcement personnel as they attempt to unravel the minds of the serial killers they meet. Everyone from their bosses in the agency to the local police officers they encounter along the way express extreme discomfort at the thought of empathizing or attempting to understand the killers Ford and Tench interrogate. These men are just evil. There’s nothing more to it. Nothing can be learned from them. No insight can be gained. They’re simply, purely evil, and attempting to say anything more on the subject is an affront to the victims, their families, and to human decency and capital-J Justice in general.

Fictionalized though the series may be, in our own time, in the era of mass shootings, one doesn’t have to go far to find similar responses to this uniquely contemporary category of violent crime. Media coverage of the killers oozes sensationalized language that depicts them as dark, evil, twisted, vile, abhorrent, insane. The public, in internet comment forms across social media, offer up their thoughts and prayers, and inevitably, the discussion devolves into a debate on the second amendment and the merits of gun control as politicians and journalists quickly move to steer the national conversation to more politically fruitful areas in order to amass momentum in passing various pieces of long desired legislation targeting gun owners or the NRA. The killers themselves, their personalities, their motivations, their worldviews, the experiences that shape them, every time quickly slip through the cracks of the conversation and are forgotten long before their respective cases are ever brought to trial.

…

Over the course of hundreds of hours beginning in 1959, Ted Kaczynski, the future unabomber, participated in an intense psychological experiment conduced at Harvard by Dr. Henry A Murray. During World War II, Murray had worked for the Office of Strategic Services in developing personality assessment techniques designed to test potential recruits on how well they would endure interrogation and torture by the enemy. At Harvard, Murray went on to further develop his method, transforming it from a diagnostic assessment of mental anti-fragility, into the basis of a radical personality modifying procedure he hoped could be used to forcibly evolve human consciousness in order to prevent the nuclear annihilation he feared was inevitable in light of mankind’s petty national prejudices and self-interest during the period of the Cold War. Kaczynski was among his unwitting test subjects, and though his personal, radical Luddite beliefs would ultimately diverge from the kind of technocratic globalism Murray intended to inculcate in Kaczynski, in a strange way, Murray was also more successful than he could have possibly anticipated.

…

No case provides better evidence of this possibility than that of Adam Lanza, the 2012 Sandy Hook shooter. After years of denied requests, more than 1,000 pages of evidence relating to the Lanza case were finally released to the Hartford Courant in December of 2018. Lanza, who killed himself following the attack, left behind no manifesto. He had even taken the precaution of smashing his devices’ hard drives prior to the shooting. In the end hundreds of pages worth of Lanza’s writings were ultimately recovered by the police, and it’s only from these scattered fragments that his beliefs and opinions emerge. Like Holmes in the weeks and months leading to the Aurora massacre, Lanza was no stranger to psychiatric evaluation. Throughout Lanza’s entire life, from the age of 3, when he was first diagnosed with speech and developmental problems, he knew little else but the offices of therapists and counselors and psychiatrists. A rotating cast of mental health professionals drifted in and out of his life. They all recognized the so-called ‘warning signs’ all too well, but even with a lifetime’s worth of treatment, they completely and utterly failed to prevent his transformation into mass murderer.

…

Lanza goes even further, and characterizes the years of psychiatric treatment he received since childhood explicitly as abusive: “I was molested at least a dozen times by a few different adults when I was a child. It wasn’t my decision at all: I was coerced into it… What do each of the adults have in common? They were doctors, and each of them were sanctioned by my parents to do it. This happens to virtually every child without their input into the matter: Their parents sanction it.”

…

The United States spends more per capita on primary and secondary education than almost any other country. As of 2014 the U.S. is in the top 5, below only Switzerland, Norway and Austria. Despite this however, year after year, a majority of Americans report dissatisfaction with the quality of K-12 education in their country. Alternative education remains a persistent source of controversy within the public consciousness. Private schools, charter schools, school vouchers, homeschooling, all are topics that filter in and out of the national political conversation. Democrats, on the whole, maintain an unyielding support for the compulsory nature of public education in America, while practices like Homeschooling are largely written off as the exclusive province of religious fundamentalists and political separatists. The same goes for the diverting of public resources to charter schools by means of a tax exemption or credit. The argument that has formed over time to circumvent these controversial alternatives boils down to a single word: Socialization.

Public schools not only educate students in facts and skills, the argument goes, but also serve to socialize children by serving as a microcosm of the pluralistic, diverse society in which these students will one day have to live and contribute to. A private, all male school, for instance, will fail to prepare its students for the modern workplace, where they’ll have to cooperate and even take orders from female colleagues or superiors. Likewise, desegregation busing is required to ensure students experience a sufficiently diverse environment. When it comes to a wide variety of controversies in public education, the socialization argument continues to form the backbone of liberal resistance to conservative attacks on the public schooling monopoly.At the same time, as liberals defend the practice and theory of socialization, the scourge of bullying has, on-again off again, served as a cause célèbre among many of the same people. Since 2010, October has become National Bullying Prevention Month, a campaign by the non-profit PACER organization in coordination with companies like CNN and Facebook, among others. Television shows and documentaries have tackled the subject, and celebrities like Ellen regularly champion anti-bullying causes. But what is bullying but the core of Socialization? In a sense the two can almost be considered synonymous. Bullying is, after all, the school of hard knocks which children undergo to learn the complex, unspoken rules of social game playing. Socialization is about instilling conformity, and bullying remains the core experience for many children in learning about all the ways the deviate from the norm. When children are unresponsive to bullying, that’s when things are kicked up to the teachers and administrators and school counselors, and that same unpliability and unresponsiveness is re-conceptualized by well-meaning adults as developmental disorders.

In 1975 Autism was diagnosed in children at a rate of 1 in every 5,000. Today that number has soared to nearly 1 in 100. This has ignited a public controversy over the source or cause of what by every definition deserves to be called an public health epidemic. 75% of children diagnosed with Autism today are boys. There’s no need to go searching for a cause. Vaccines aren’t behind the explosion in Autism rates. Teachers and school psychologists are. School psychology today is a booming industry, one which the US Department of Labor identifies as having some of the best employment opportunities across the entire field of psychology. 75% of school psychologists are women, with an average age of 46. It is this same group of people most empowered to conduct psychological monitoring of children across the country, and over the last 30 years, they have come to classify a larger and larger percentage of young boys as having developmental issues, to the point where it’s not clear whether there is anything wrong with these children at all, or if school psychologists have simply written off a wider and wider range of behaviors which they find problematic or incomprehensible as constituting autism.

…

In 2013, a Texas teenager named Justin Carter was locked up for threatening a school shooting. Whether or not the threat was legitimate is another matter entirely. In a bout of online shit talking over League of Legends Carter wrote “Oh yeah, I’m real messed up in the head, I’m going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts…” in response to a quip by a fellow gamer calling him crazy. He quickly rejoined: “lol jk,” likely realizing the fact he could get himself in trouble saying such things. Whether or not it was a good idea for him to make such a comment is immaterial, what matters is the violent, disproportionate response that followed. A Canadian woman, thousands of miles away, reported Carter. He was arrested and locked in jail. Bond was set at half a million dollars, which his family couldn’t afford to pay. He languished in jail, was assaulted by fellow inmates, and then locked up in solitary confinement for his own safety. After 4 months in jail an anonymous donor paid to have Carter released on behalf of his family. The state dragged out the matter for years, delaying the trial as long as possible on tenuous grounds. In the interim Carter was banned from using a computer. It wasn’t until spring of 2018 that a plea agreement was finally reached and Carter was let off with time served.

This is the paranoid system which today we entrust with rescuing at-risk young boys. This is what stands between us and more school shootings. Never mind the fact that as this system has grown, it has only led to a rise in mass shootings. Maybe the real cause of such cases is not guns, or a failure to identify and treat students, maybe the cause is these same students, following a protracted process of isolation and attempted psychological modification, learning to play the part the system has assigned to them, that of the security threat. When schools spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on active shooter drills and security systems, isn’t it just wasted money until someone comes along and gives them an excuse to use it? The complicated apparatus of psychological surveillance and socialization that prevails among schools today is, like the TSA checkpoint at the airport, nothing more than an elaborate piece of (psychological) security theater, and theaters require drama, and more importantly, villains. People like Adam Lanza and James Holmes are certainly killers of the very worst kind, guilty of evil, but on a larger scale, their evil is a only a reflection of our own, of the perverse societal mechanisms we’ve developed to give ourselves piece of mind, regardless of the children that must be fed to the machinery for it to function.

[cobythinks]

Don’t Say That

Soulmate AU. Major Roceit, minor Analogical. Platonic LAMP (platonic DLAMP at the very end)

*When you turn twelve years old, the first thing your soulmate says to you appears on your skin somewhere.*

TW: Sympathetic Deceit. He’s the main character. Literally, if he triggers you please stay safe. Self-hatred, bullying, neglect bordering abuse,  minor suicidal thoughts. 0-0 much angst.

Note! Deceit’s name is Damien it’s a human AU as well.

First fic on Tumblr... don’t judge too harshly?

Damien was born with it. He was born with the dark splotch across the left side of his face. A birthmark.

When he was a kid, Damien didn’t really care about the birthmark. His parents never mentioned it, and they homeschooled him so he hadn’t realized how strange he looked.

And then, for some insane reason, his mother decided he had to go to public school. Damien thought she just wanted him to have friends, and gladly accepted this when she told him one night. Then, when he was supposed to be in bed, he heard her. He heard both of them. Talking about him. About his face.

“I can’t stand it, looking at him every day. It’s ugly, he’s defective!” Damien had frozen outside their bedroom door, gripping his empty cup tightly.

“Don’t say that-”

“I mean it, and I know you feel the same. You go to work so you don’t have to, you never look at him! The doctors said it would fade and it hasn’t, it’s gotten worse! I can’t look at it all day anymore, let him go to school. Let them make fun of him, he has to learn what life will be like for him eventually!”

“...I never said he shouldn’t go.”

Damien rushed to the bathroom and locked the door, staring into the mirror. He was short, and could really only see his shoulders and head above the counter, but he could see his face clearly. The brown splotch was the same as it had always been, right? He leaned closer, squinting at the mirror. Sure, it didn’t look like his parents at all. He’d never seen many kids, didn’t some people look like this?

Damien bit his lip, thinking about all the movies and cartoons he’d ever watched. He never saw a character like him… was he ugly? Damien stared at the reflection in a new light. Half his face was different, deformed. A dark brown contrast to his pale skin - making that half of him seem… evil, almost. Damien hurried to his room and tried to forget what his mother had said, tried to just sleep. But he never looked at himself in the same way again.

000

School was worse. Everyone seemed to think Damien was some kind of freak. For years, all the way through fourth, fifth, and sixth grades, Damien tried to prove them wrong. He was a kid, he was normal, he was just a normal kid. He smiled as much as he could and tried to talk to people. But either they’d run away screaming, or they’d stay and fight. It was never much of a fight, more of a beating.

And then came the end of sixth grade. All the sixth graders were brought to the assembly, and that’s where they learned about Soul-Words. Or, as some people called them, Soul-Sayings.

That’s when Damien learned that, when he turned twelve, words would appear somewhere on his body. Another mark that he didn’t need. Those words would be the first thing his Soulmate ever said to him - if he did have a soulmate. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he didn’t have a soulmate, no one liked him. He didn’t even like him.

But, he did. He woke up on the day and stared at the ceiling, terrified. Would he have words? If he did, what would they say? Finally, Damien sat up and inspected his body. His arms were as pale and unmarked as ever. Same with his legs, the bottoms of his feet, his chest. That was it. Damien felt a sinking pain in his stomach as he got up and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth. He didn’t have a soulmate. Of course he didn’t, did he really think someone would love him? He glared at his reflection, then froze.

“You’ve got to be kidding…” Damien finally choked out. As if the brown mark wasn’t enough, a phrase had appeared right on top of it. In curving red letters.

“Don’t say that!”

Damien gripped the counter tightly, tears welling up in his eyes. Of course. There was really only one reason his soulmate would ever say that. Damien was going to speak to them first, and they’d hear it, and they’d be horrified that their soulmate was a freak.

Damien’s parents stopped looking at him entirely by the time he started seventh grade.

000

Damien hated school. He hated everyone in it, including himself. He hated his home, and he hated the supermarket, and he hated the entire world. Maybe not the actual world, because if he was the only living person the world might just be a nice place. But he wasn’t, and every living person was a horrible person.

By the time Damien started high school, he was both a freak and a monster. He’d snarl at people when they tried to talk to him, shoving them away. They only ever wanted to make fun of him, why give them the chance? He hadn’t even spoken to his parents in months, he hadn’t had a friend all his life, and he hadn’t held a conversation in almost as long. They were right, he was a freak. Someone so disgusting, even their own soulmate hated them.

Damien convinced himself that he hated everyone. They all hated him, why should he act any different? He still couldn't help it, though, when in senior year a group of four boys started eating in the library at lunch. They were loud, and very obnoxious. The first time he saw them, he’d glared and turned away, browsing the internet until the bell rang.

But they stayed. And he got to know them, though none of them really knew his name.

The quietest one, who Damien was required to hate less because of his music taste. Not that they’d ever talked, Damien was just nosy. His name was Virgil, and his Soul-Saying was on the back of his hand in light blue.

The second was Logan. He was tall, and honestly came off a snobbish. In all actuality, he reminded Damien of his own father - so he liked Logan much less than the other three. His soulmark was along one arm, in chicken-scratch purple.

The third was Patton, who seemed nice. Too nice. Too much like how Damien had always tried to be. Damien hated Patton. No one was really that nice, it must all be an act. Just like his had been, before he accepted that he was a monster. Patton’s soul saying was on the back of his neck, Damien had only glimpsed it once, but it was in bright magenta.

Then there was the other one. The loudest. The most obnoxious, annoying person Damien had ever paid much attention to. Roman Prince. That was the only surname of a peer Damien had ever bothered to learn. He… sang a lot. He knew every Disney song by heart, which Damien found admirable - no matter how annoying it got. Roman was interesting. Damien didn’t hate him as much as anyone else, to be honest.

There was always something new or interesting to notice about Roman. Especially the fact that his Soul-Saying wasn’t visible whenever Damien saw him. Of course, it wasn’t strange for a Soul-Saying to be on a back, or a stomach, or legs that were always covered. Or even the bottom of a foot. And Roman certainly had a soulmate. If Damien hadn’t given up caring for people long ago, he’d be very interested in him.

But he wasn’t.

...That was a lie.

Damien listened to them for an entire semester. He learned all their inside jokes, and he knew about different things happening, randomly, in their lives. Virgil had anxiety. Logan loved the stars. Patton always made cookies on Sunday nights to bring the next day to school. Roman… Damien learned a lot about Roman.

By the time Christmas break was almost there, Damien couldn't tell himself he hated them. It would be impossible. Even Patton, who he’d loathed, wasn’t quite hated. Damien didn’t like him by any means… but he’d once offered Damien a cookie when the other three were late one Monday. It was the best thing Damien had ever eaten, and the only thing he’d eaten that day.

Christmas break was worse than school. Both parents ignored him, and Damien didn’t mind. He knew they hated him. They hated his face, they hated that his soulmate was going to hate him - though they weren’t surprised. They never had been. Never had his mother comforted him, never had his father told him he didn’t need a soulmate. They hated him, and Damien was just waiting until he was eighteen to move out and get some kind of plastic surgery on his face. Or just jump off a bridge. He hadn’t decided yet.

Then, finally, Damien was back at school. He hated school, all but one hour. Lunch. He couldn't help it, he wanted to see if the four boys would still be there, and he wanted to know how their Christmases had gone.

Roman had gone on a cruise, he told the others about it before. Patton had gone out of town for family, and Logan and Virgil were spending it together. Damien had a sneaking suspicious that Logan and Virgil were soulmates, but that's none of his business.

As soon as the lunch bell rang, Damien was speed walking toward the library to get there first. He had his hood up and his head down, as usual, to avoid any unnecessary people seeing his face. And he didn’t see the boy with a red and white jacket, striking red hair, and bright green eyes until he’d already run into him and knocked them both to the ground.

Damien gasped as he heard the surprised yelp.

It was Roman.

“Oh- I’m so sorry!” Damien stammered, scrambling backward. He kept his head ducked as he reached to help Roman up. “Honestly, I should just… jump off a bridge or something… probably be better for everyone.” He hadn’t meant to say that last part, and it had been so quiet he didn’t think Roman would hear it. Until the other boy gasped.

“Don’t say that!”

Damien’s eyes widened as Roman put a hand on each of his shoulders. He jerked his head up to stare at him before realizing Roman could see his face, clear as day. He winced as Roman seemed surprised, but Roman didn’t look repulsed. The shock faded quickly, and Roman smiled.

“Uh…” Damien pulled out of Roman’s grip. He hadn’t been prepared for this situation. And maybe Roman wasn’t the one, maybe he was just nice - what a surprise. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t watching where I-”

“Don’t be sorry!” Roman beamed, grabbing his hand. “You sit in the library too, right?” Damien’s eyes widened again. Roman noticed him?

“Uh-”

“Come on,” Roman tugged him toward the door. “The guys are going to be so excited to meet you-you have no idea!”

“What do you-”

“Honestly,” Roman turned again, grinning. “Have you ever read that saying on your face? We’re soulmates!”

Damien was tugged into the library, where Roman was ecstatic to very dramatically pose with him in front of the others.

“Guys, you won’t believe it!”

“Oh, hi Damien!” Patton bounced up. “I made cookies!”

“Damien.” Roman echoed, then hugged him. Damien froze. No one had ever hugged him. Not since he was a tiny child before he knew his parents hated him. “What a great name! Guys this is my soulmate!” Then he turned to face Damien, who was still standing with his mouth half open. “Sorry, I’m Roman! Roman Prince! Patton already knows you I guess, and that’s Logan and Virgil.”

“Uh…” Damien flushed slightly, backing up. “Yeah, I know who you guys are…”

“I’d hope so, you’ve been eavesdropping on us for months,” Virgil said sarcastically. Damien scowled.

“No, I wasn’t! I’ve sat here since freshman year, and-”

“Oh, Virgil’s kidding!” Roman laughed. “I’m just happy I met you at last! Can you believe storm cloud over there met Logan in seventh grade?”

Damien had been right… Virgil and Logan were soulmates.

“Uh…”

“Come have cookies!” Patton declared, pulling another chair to their table. Damien sat next to Roman despite himself, listening to Roman dramatically tell them how they realized they were soulmates.

“And then he said sorry, and-” Roman stopped mid-story, frowning thoughtfully. Damien glanced at him.

“Roman…?”

“I was always worried about my soulmate because of that,” Roman finally admitted. Because of what…? Damien’s eyes widened as he remembered exactly what he’d said. He put his cookie down.

“Oh, uh…”

“It’s okay,” Roman bumped him with his elbow. “As long as you know it’s not true.” Damien glanced up at him, then around at the others. Virgil was on his phone, as usual, but Patton and Logan were looking between each other and Roman. Maybe they knew what Roman’s Soul-Saying was.

“Yeah,” Damien lied, shrugging.

“Because it’s not,” Roman turned to face him more. “After all, where would I be without a soulmate, right?”

The thought of Roman being sad had always made Damien angry. Once after a horrible morning, Roman had nearly broken down in tears while explaining his mood to Patton. Damien had been furious and took it out on himself later with nothing better to do. It was obvious that Roman took soulmates very seriously. Damien had once thought his would hate him… but it seemed it was the opposite.

“Yeah,” Damien found himself smiling for the first time since he could remember. “You’re right.” Roman smiled at him, and for the first time since he heard his mother that night, Damien wasn’t thinking about his face.