[mysterious circle of robed figures] JK Rowling: hello children Rowling: I was just thinking about how transs people should be eliminated from ssociety Jonathan Chait: whoa whoa whoa! joanne! Chait: you can’t say it like THAT Chait: so uncouth Chait: you have to say it with your pinky finger extended
Elon Musk: si! issa no good! Musk: issa too mucha trans genocide Musk: you shoulda only post the right amount offa da trans geocide Musk: lookita me, i lika da trans genocide Musk: but i also like many other genocides Rowling: oh MY GOD Rowling: my empire is crumbling!
Chait: we’re not saying you can’t still be transphobic Chait: you just have to, you know, cool it a bit Chait: be genteel about it Jesse Singal: mommy mommy i have concerns mommy! Chait: see? just like that
Chait: maybe put a little disclaimer Chait: “this transphobia is for entertainment purposes only” Rowling: do you not know who I am?? I’m JK Rowling! Rowling: JK FUCKING ROWLING!!! Rowling: I MADE YOUR CHILDHOOD MAGICAL!
Rowling: no one tellss me to cool it! Rowling: i own the courtss! Chait: joanne Rowling: and another thing!!! Rowling: SSTOP CALLING ME JOANNE!
[midnight society] JK Rowling: hello children Barker: oh look who it is Barker: what are you doing here joanne? Barker: did your terfs tell you to cool it again? Rowling: Rowling: why doess everyone call me joanne
Rowling: i’m extremely mad about thiss transs football referee Barker: what? Rowling: this transs football referee Barker: Barker: what?
Rowling: there’s a transs football referee and i’m really mad about it! Rowling: what, haven’t you heard? Barker: joanne, why are you here Rowling: and another thing! Rowling: sstop calling me joanne!!
Rowling: people are alwayss all “joanne this” and joanne that! Rowling: wah wah wah joanne joanne joanne! Barker: do you not like your name Barker: you could change it Poe: clive Poe: just let her tire herself out Barker: no no I’ve got something here
Rowling: people are alwayss “oh wah wah wah joanne, how can you ssay that! your bookss are all about tolerance and love wah wah wah!” Rowling: bitch i think i know what my booksss are about! Rowling: i fuckin wrote them after all!
Rowling: blah blah blah ohh joanne Rowling: i hate when people call me joanne!! Rowling: they should fear to say my true name! Barker: oh damn look at that Barker: looks like we’re having a good ol’ fashioned mothers day meltdown Poe: clive don’t encourage this
King: but joanne! how can you say that? King: after all the lessons of harry potter? King: you made our childhoods magical!
Rowling: people are all “blah blah blah joanne how can you like naziss now when you ssaid they were bad in harry potter” Rowling: first of all, harry potter iss fiction! Rowling: secondly, the death eaters are actually a ssinister coalition of evil transs, sspooniess, fat people, free masonss, and diane duane Rowling: always have been! Rowling: thiss iss NOT a retcon!
Rowling: that sshould be obviouss if you’ve read the book Rowling: UNLESSS Rowling: you’re a fake potterhead, ssteve King: no of course not! i love harry potter
Rowling: DO YOU Rowling: perhaps then Rowling: you would be willing to take a blood oath to the dark lord Rowling: to belong to the dark lord body and ssoul Rowling: who is always correct King: i uh don’t think i’m going to take that oath, sorry Rowling: UGH! Rowling: this is just like Radcliffe all over again!
Found this in the original post tags and I just… SIGH
Here’s the thing, anon. Squick isn’t just ‘I don’t like this’, it’s ‘I think this is gross and it makes me deeply uncomfortable but I pass no judgement on those who enjoy it, because I acknowledge that everyone is different and those same people may have the same visceral reaction some of the things I enjoy’ and was originally made popular in the kink community.
So yeah, if you want to say that every time you come across a trope or whatever you find icky then go ahead, say that every time.
Also, this term dates back to Usenet in the early nineties, so sure, go off.
This frustrates me so much because squicks and triggers are fundamentally different things and as someone with PTSD, the distinction is super useful!
Squicks are things I find personally gross but may not be gross to someone else. They don’t upset me or provoke my PTSD, they simply do not pop my corn. Example: Omegaverse. I don’t like it, it makes me uncomfortable and I’m not going to read it, but if you like it, you do you.
Triggers are things which directly provoke my PTSD. This means that my triggers may seem completely normal and innocuous to someone else, because my triggers are so personal and intrinsically linked to a specific event in my life. My reactions to these triggers can include panic attacks and flashbacks to this traumatic event. Sometimes being triggered can affect me for several hours or even days.
Describing something as either a squick or a trigger allows me easily establish the difference in my potential reaction to something without having to go into painful detail about why bodily fluids might make me back button quickly but poker games might leave me a crying wreck.
Making this distinction, and having a specific word for something that is not your slice of pie, but also not an actual psychological trigger, is also REALLY important for making sure that the word “trigger” can retain its original, specific, purposeful, and collectively understood clinical meaning (both inside and outside online fannish communities).
If we encourage everyone to lump things that just make them slightly uncomfortable or simply aren’t to their taste in under the word “trigger”, it actually dilutes the meaning of the word. It makes it harder for us all to, for the most part, collectively agree on and understand what exactly is being described when the word gets used.
And that destruction of shared precise definitions is a problem! It is really useful to have the communal language to be able to clearly and quickly delineate between “this grosses me out, no thanks” and “this is going to set off a trauma episode, rattle my brain, and probably throw off the rest of my day/week as a result” while also maintaining your privacy, and to know that you will be understood in what you are saying. Not having it is actually detrimental to the effort of making our communities safe and navigable for people living with trauma. Which is a goal that is much more important to me, personally, than the idea of not being “cutesy” (a word which in this case which sounds a lot like it’s being used as a euphemism for “cringe”).
(Also, one has to wonder if people told Shakespeare he was being childish when he made up entirely new words that are still widely used in the English language today…… ????)
My understanding is that “squick” was also created to avoid using more judgmental terms like “gross” or “disturbing”–like yeah, I do find X kink gross or disturbing, but that’s my personal feeling, not an objective fact about the world, and if I’m explaining to my friend who is super into X that I’d prefer they leave it out of the story they’re writing me in the fic exchange, I want to use politer language!
“Squick” does sound silly, like onomatopoeia, but I think that’s part of its role–it’s a word that defuses if, again, you’re saying something squicks you in front of an audience that may include its connoisseurs. When I say I’m squicked, I’m clearly not getting onto a high horse of dignity and moral righteousness. At the same time I’m not being so indirect for the sake of politeness–”oh, it’s not my favorite thing, I’m not sure it works for me, I haven’t found a fic about it that clicks for me”–that someone could misunderstand how much I do not want to see it.
And, to reiterate, it is a grown up word made by grown up nerds in the 90s so if you think it was somehow born on and limited to Tumblr I’m going to need you to actually do some fandom history research before you ever speak authoritatively again about anything fandom-related or adjacent.
I love and deeply miss the term “squick” and really want to see it brought back. It allows dislike for its own sake and without judgement. It’s polite, gentle, and has an air of “you do you.” A squick is not a trigger. Triggers are related to trauma. You’re allowed to not like things and not have them related to anything other than just finding them unpleasant. And that aversion can be strong! That’s okay! I really don’t like watersports. Like, gag-reflex levels of aversion, but it’s not triggering. I just really don’t like it.
I feel like we’ve lost the right/ability to just… quietly not like things and move on with our lives. Not everything is for everyone, and you don’t need a reason to not like something. Just politely and quietly excuse yourself. No need to draw attention, and if someone asks you why you just say, “No, it squicks me out.” No judgement. No narrative necessary.
There is a sad trend of trying to make everything you personally dislike morally reprehensible in some way to justify your dislike of it. You’re allowed to just not like something for no real reason. You do not have to justify why you dislike something, and the word “squick” is perfect for that. It say “look I really really don’t like this thing, but it’s ok if you do” and that is useful.
I think the biggest problem is that a lot of these kids are VERY into the whole fandom purity culture thing, so they actually DO want to make it out to be morally reprehensible, and they DON’T think it’s ok that other ppl might be into it.
Cheerfully using “squick” since 1992, because it means a specific thing and other words do not mean that thing.
female raptors (eagles, hawks, falcons, etc) are larger than male raptors in pretty much all species. this happens even in groups not closely related to each other (ex: hawks and falcons), so its beneficial enough in their niche that its evolved independently a few times, though its unsure exactly what that benefit is atm (bc unlike males being larger in a lot of mammals, female raptors dont make a habit of fighting each other or using size to attract mates as far as we know). ex: heres a male and female Cooper’s Hawk
somewhat mentioned above but falcons are more closely related to parrots than they are to hawks
Gray Catbirds and American Robins have been witnessed raising young in the same nest at the same time. In one instance (reported by Mulvihill and Murray), they were recorded caring for the young of both species in the nest, and when the Catbird young fledged, the adult Catbirds continued to provide food for the not-yet-fledged Robins. heres a pic of the nest from the report
the worlds oldest known bird as of 2024 is a wild Laysan Albatross named Wisdom who’s 72-73 years old (at minimum, we dont actually know her birth date, just that she was at least 5 years old when she was banded in the 50s) and still raising chicks. here’s her with one of her chicks
also Albatrosses have wingspans of up to 3.5m/11.5ft and have been recorded flying 49,700 miles without touching land (they do land in the water to eat tho)
this is from personal experience but if you walk around in a north american grassland for long enough, you Will get jumpscared by a Mourning Dove bc they make their nests on the ground in the grass and like to hang out on the ground in the grass and they also like to wait until youre right overtop of them to freak out and fly away from you
Bald Eagles don’t get their fully white heads and tails until theyre about 5 years old
A lot of birds have been observed incorporating cigarette butts into their nests, and a study in Mexico on House Finches found that this actually results in drastic decreases in parasites affecting young compared to nests without them
Cedar Waxwings (and Waxwings in general) just look so smooth. they look like someone airbrushed them. look at this shit
in Jacanas, females lay eggs in multiple males’ nests, and then the males raise the young by themself. Also they carry their babies under their wings like this
Horned Guan. Theyre endangered and live in a small area of central america. both the males and females have the little horn fez, the males just have taller ones
