Quills Check

Porcupines don’t go looking for a fight. Their quills go up when they feel threatened. People do the same: a sharp word or a dig, or what you need buried under apologies. Both are quills up, and both make it harder for the other person to hear you. Quills down doesn’t mean backing down. The sharp edges go, and what matters stays.

• Sarcasm and digs, which can read as contempt even when you’re only tired. Respect, even when angry ›
• “Always” and “never,” which turn one time into a verdict. Describe, don’t diagnose ›
• A point buried in apologies, or a request that’s never made. Honest and hearable ›
• What already works, which stays.

Everything you meant: every point, feeling, complaint, request and no. It takes out the quills, not the message, and it never adds an apology or a promise you didn’t make. Sometimes your words point to something you didn’t quite say, like worry under the anger or what you’d like them to do. Then it says it for you, and lists it first under “What I changed,” so you can take it out if it isn’t true.

A short message carries less than it seems to. The same words can read as fine, hurt or annoyed, and you can’t tell which from the words alone. Paste one you got, and the Quills Check gives you a few honest ways to read it, then a warm question you could ask instead of guessing. Mixed Signals, our daily game, shows how differently people read the very same text.

• “Sorry if you felt…” apologizes for their feeling, not for something you did.
• A “but” after sorry can take the apology back. Your reason can stay, as its own sentence.
• Making it small: “just,” “a little.”

Porcupine never writes an apology for you. It gives you back your own words, with only what takes it back taken out. If you didn’t say what you’re sorry for, it asks. It won’t push you to take blame that isn’t yours.