I Know That If It Follows Had Happened To Gay People We Would Be Putting A Walking Man Emoji In Our Grindr

Yknow what? Very true

Also? I know I’ve made jokes before about the plot lines of some of the more popular books in this genre, because there are lots of aspects of said plots that I find silly/ just not for me/ too full of tropes that reinforce harmful ideas about gender,,, but damn the margin between calling erotica plotlines silly or “cringey” versus accidentally shaming women for expressing their sexuality is uhhhh very small actually — I’m gonna remember to be nice the next time someone tells me about their cishet alien/werewolf/mafia whatever book porn & u should too

seeing straight men be disgusted by booktok smut recommenders has actually radicalized me to the side of booktok smut recommenders. girls your taste may be atrocious but i will never disparage you for exposing mainstream discourse to the concept of soaking through your underwear. spent my whole life listening to men talk about penises it’s about time they get jumpscared by women talking about pussy in crude detail on social media. go forth and goon my warriors

nevertheless, we ball

i think love is stored in nighttime conversations and “did you eat yet” and books left outside your door and “i waited to watch this with you” and splitting something in half to share and “im proud of you” and folded towels and “you can pick” and heads on shoulders and “you’re right, that was shitty. im sorry” and knocks on doors and “DINNER!” and stupid jokes and “hey i got this for you” and coffee made just right and… there are so many ways people say i love you silently every day over and over again if you only listen

no such thing as wasting your 20s your 20s are for recovering from whatever the fuck happened to you as a kid so that youre ready to get weird with it in your 30s

I talk to many people who say things like "oh I have trauma but I don't have PTSD", but then when I talk to them a little more I realize that they most likely do, they just can't recognize it as such due to how lacking PTSD awareness is, even beyond the whole "it's not just a veteran's disorder" thing.

The main reason they think they don't have PTSD usually has to do with flashbacks and nightmares, either they have one but not the other or have neither. But here's the thing, those are only two symptoms out of the 23-odd recognized symptoms. Flashbacks and nightmares are two of the five symptoms under Criterion B (Intrusion), which you only need one of for a diagnosis. The other three symptoms are unwanted upsetting memories, emotional distress after being reminded of trauma and physical reactivity after being reminded of trauma (i.e. shaking, sweating, heart racing, feeling sick, nauseous or faint, etc). Therefore you can have both flashbacks and nightmares, one but not the other, or neither and still have PTSD.

In fact, a lot of the reasons people give me for why they don't think they have PTSD are literally a part of the diagnostic criteria.

"Oh, I can barely remember most parts of my trauma anyway." Criterion D (Negative Alterations in Cognition and Mood) includes inability to recall key features of the trauma.

"Oh but I don't get upset about my trauma that often because I avoid thinking of it or being around things that remind me of it most of the time." Criterion C (Avoidance) includes avoiding trauma-related thoughts or feelings and avoiding trauma-related external reminders, and you literally cannot get diagnosed if you don't have at least one of those two symptoms.

"Oh I just have trouble getting to sleep or staying asleep, but I don't have nightmares." Criterion E (Alterations in Arousal and Reactivity) includes difficulting sleeping outside of nightmares.

"But I didn't have many/any trauma symptoms until a long time after the trauma happened." There's literally an entire specification for that.

Really it just shows how despite being one of the most well-known mental illnesses, people really don't know much about PTSD. If you have trauma, I ask you to at least look at the criteria before you decide you don't have PTSD. Hell, even if you don't have trauma, look at the criteria anyway because there are so many symptoms in there that just are not talked about.

PTSD awareness is not just about flashbacks and nightmares.

There's something hilarious about how so much subsequent media has positioned Vampires and Werewolves as, like, binary opposite entities, and then you read Dracula (1897) and realize that wolves are that guy's preferred solution to every problem. You'd say something to Dracula about "ah yes, werewolves, vampires' great eternal enemies," and he'd just be like "you mean my subcontractors?"

“There’s nothing heroic about suffering” okay but what if I suffered and I was kinda sexy with it. Like my shorts were a little too short and you could see my ass when I bent over. What then.

Would being called big dog fix me? Who knows?