Meredith McClaren's Blog, page 16

This asshole

This asshole

Description: An illustration in black and white, of me sitting in my bed with my computer. In the foreground are my two cats. Little Lady is sitting and minding her own business. CHAKO however, is jumping into frame, aiming at f**king her shit up. Because he’s an asshole and can’t leave a peaceful moment alone. I am watching the moment unfold, horrified, and helpless to stop this.

Vietnam . Jan 2024

Vietnam . Jan 2024

Hello, I’ve been a big fan of Hinges ever since I’ve read it and I’ve been wondering. Do the Puppet people need to eat? They don’t seem to need to breath (Orio is nonplussed about the fact that she was underwater and wasn’t holding her breath at all). Q2

Oh, my gosh!

Thank you!

I'm really happy people keep finding HINGES year after year.

To answer your questions:

Nobody needs to eat or breath. Except for Bauble. Citizens, Orderlies, and Odds just do it as a luxury. Bauble is the only truly living thing, as we understand it, in this universe. Though, if I had explored the world a bit longer, this might have panned out differently. In my head he was never the only one of his kind.I'm gonna level with you, that close to the climax, I probably forgot to age his bubbles. But if you wanna read more into it, maybe he was just dropping the act that he was like them at all... I could pretend to be that kind of deep thinker.There's not much in the way of extra art. Most of it ended up in the books or Kickstarter promo material. I kinda just jump into projects without a lot of brainstorming. I'm trying to be better about that... but it's an ongoing thing.

Seriously though. Thank you so much! It really makes my day that people still come back to HINGES.

^_^

Vietnam . Jan 2024

Vietnam . Jan 2024

Pretty sure this was the Temple of Literature.

Description: A photo of the grounds of the Temple of Literature in Hanoi. There is a beautiful ornate gate, brick walls and trees on either side. Next to a red stone path is a low, vibrant green, garden. An illustration of myself walks along the path, looking at the plants.

hi, i’m your local laid off discord employee, here to talk about exactly how safe it may or may not…

anotherdayforchaosfay:

persisting:

hi, i’m your local laid off discord employee, here to talk about exactly how safe it may or may not be to talk about Political Activism on discord. my credentials here are that i was a senior member of discord’s trust & safety team, which is the team that handles bans, legal investigations, and legal compliance. (my speciality was in child safety, anti-grooming, and taking down CSAM, but i also worked occasionally in low level terrorism issues and assisted that team in investigations.) i also know most of the people still working there in these capacities.

the tldr and most important thing to know is: i do not recommend you plan, discuss plans, or use any kind of hyperbolic (or not) language about violence to government officials or anyone in that vicinity on discord. please use signal instead.

a discord trust & safety employee is technically able to see any message you’ve sent under your account, going all the way back to the beginning of your account. unless you have manually deleted a message, it is viewable to a tns employee. now: it is a tremendous part of being on a tns team that we did NOT invade user privacy without cause. cause was usually: another user reported something you said, and we thought the reported message indicated you might be doing something elsewhere that was illegal (for example: a user says “i’m talking to this girl but she’s in high school lol.” i would then try to find evidence as to whether or not there was a child safety issue there. in this example, we’d require clear admission of age from both the user and the alleged high school girl, and then clear evidence of sexual talk between them, and go from there.) finding evidence required looking though all of that user’s messages.

most of the tns team, as i know them, are pretty resolute about not going further in looking than would be needed for action. most of the tns team that i still speak to is very much on the side of blue. your general conversations are probably perfectly safe, and we were very good at figuring out quickly if someone has reported you maliciously. i don’t believe you need to worry too much about your porn and fanfic and all that.

HOWEVER: reported content must be investigated, and discord can, and has been, legally subpoenaed to turn over user information. again, this has nominally been in Very Evil cases (CSAM and grooming, school shooting threats, murder admissions, etc.) but that could change, either at the federal level, or at the discord policy level. discord, like any social media company, could easily be pressured or forced into taking on different internal policies that could get you in serious trouble if you are organizing violent or “illegal” resistance. if that happens, there is a scenario where this incoming administration is given access to your messages.

again: please do not organize your political or social resistance on discord from now on. please use signal to ensure your maximum safety. do not panic if you have already talks about things on discord: you can easily delete your messages, and that WILL remove from an employee’s view. do that and use signal from now on.

stay safe. i love you. 💕

@torque-witch

Readers, make sure you have all your favourite Ao3 fics downloaded.

swordandstars:

hug-your-face:

illusinia:

purplezeldana:

Readers, make sure you have all your favourite Ao3 fics downloaded.

Writers, make sure you have copies of all the fics you have posted on Ao3.

I don’t want to be alarming, but things could get really bad really fast. OTW shared this today on Twitter, and I’m a bit worried about it 😅

Ao3 is a non-profit organisation. If they have to start paying taxes, I have no idea what will happen.

I’d like to remind everybody that this isn’t just about A03 or civil rights organizations. This could be applied to any 501 organization. That includes churches, schools, museums and library support organizations. All sorts of support organizations like soup kitchens or places like goodwill. Those are all non-profit organizations and they all have a 501 status. This is a threat to every civil organization we have that is meant to help the public.

So please contact your representatives. Please look this up on Twitter and click the link so you can call your representatives and voice against this. Because there’s a hell of a lot more at stake with a bill like this than just ao3. People’s lives could be at risk.

fftf.link/no9495

The House will vote THIS WEEK to determine whether the incoming Trump administration will have the power to shut down non-profit organizations with no due process.

Congress has already tried to fast-track this legislation once and failed because of the onslaught of calls to their offices. We can’t let them do this quietly. Congress giving Trump the power to crush dissent and target organizations fighting for justice is a betrayal. Tell your representatives to vote NO on this dangerous bill!

fftf.link/no9495

URGENT: Tell your reps to vote NO on H.R. 9495!

I have some good news and some bad news.Bad news: the resolution passed in the House.

This means that it’s heading over to the Senate, where they’ll tinker with it and vote again.

If it passes the Senate, it goes to the President, who has the option to veto.

Which means NOW you reach out to your Senators (both of them) and tell them that you want them to vote NO on this Trojan horse of awful.

But: we have two more chances to keep this from becoming law. The fight’s not over yet.

And that’s not even the good news!

For various reasons of political fuckery/ rules lawyering, this bill had to go through TWO rounds of votes in Congress to get through.

It didn’t pass the first time because it had a higher threshold of votes to meet (2/3 Congress Critters had to vote yes) and it failed because it couldn’t clear that bar.

So the people behind the bill sent it through AGAIN in a way that needed fewer votes to pass (only ½ of Congress Critters had to vote yes). This time it got through.

But along the way, almost 40 people changed their vote to “No”. ALL BECAUSE OF YOUR OUTREACH.

That’s huge.

Here’s the home page for the bill. Check out the “Roll Call Votes” section to see how your Representative voted:

H.R.9495 - 118th Congress (2023-2024): Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act

Personally? Mine flipped her vote from “Yes” in the first round to “No” in the second.

Outreach. Works.

So, what do we do now?Click the link above, and see how your Rep votedSend them an email thanking them for their support/ telling them how disappointed you are. Why? Because it’s important to let them know you pay attention to how they vote.Contact your Senators (both of them) and ask them to vote NO Contact the White House and let President Biden know you want him to veto this thing if it hits his deskResources

Not sure who your Representative or Senators are? Click here and type in your address:

Find Your Members in the U.S. Congress

Not sure how to contact your US Representative, Senators, or the White House?

I personally use Resistbot. It’s free, fast, and easy:

Resistbot

Black Cloak Issue No. 10 out today!

Black Cloak Issue No. 10 out today!

(Here’s a couple of my favorite panels.)

dear americans,

canadianwheatpirates:

enfinizatics:

dear americans,

as a polish queer woman and human rights activist, i know exactly how you’re feeling right now and what to expect from these elections. i lived through the 2015-2023 regime of pis, a right-wing populist party that divided families in the same way trump did. i’ve experienced the rise of fascism in poland, the influence of far-right parties like konfederacja, and their “santa’s little helpers”—ordo iuris, an ultra-conservative catholic organization (banned in many countries, mind you) that helped enforce a near-total abortion ban and runs anti-queer campaigns in public spaces. i supported the black protests in 2016 as a middle schooler when they first tried to ban abortion. as an adult, i actively participated in the 2020 women’s strike, running from police tear gas daily after they finally passed the ban. i supported friends who faced charges.

i’ve lived through intense homophobia in poland as a queer teen and adult. i survived the first pride march in my hometown, where far-right extremists threw stones and glass at us. i endured the anti-queer propaganda spread by the ruling party in state-owned media. i survived the “rainbow night,” poland’s own stonewall moment in summer 2020, when police arrested around 50 queer activists following the arrest of margo, a nonbinary activist. i survived the “lgbt-free zones,” the targeted violence, the slurs from strangers on the street, and the protests i held against queerphobia. it was hard as fuck, but i survived.

but just because i survived, it doesn’t mean others did. many women died because of the abortion ban—marta, justyna, izabela, dorota, joanna, maria, and many others who didn’t survive pis’s draconian anti-abortion laws. milo, kacper, michał, zuzia (she was 12), wiktor, and other queer and trans kids and young adults took their own lives because of the relentless queerphobia.

despite all of this, our experience in poland can serve as a guide now. here are some tips for staying safe and how we, polish queers and women, organized under the regime:

safety first, always. if you know someone who’s had an abortion, no you don’t. if you know someone is trans, no you don’t. if you know people who help with safe abortions, no you don’t—at least not until you know it’s 100% safe to share. if you are queer or have had an abortion, only share this with people you trust fully. most importantly, not everyone has to be an activist just because they’re part of a minority. if it feels unsafe to share that you’re queer, trans, etc., then don’t. it doesn’t make you any less queer.use secure, encrypted messaging like signal for conversations on potentially risky topics, such as queerness, abortion, organizing counter-actions, protests—anything that might be used against you.stay anonymous online. if you want to research or report something without surveillance, do not use regular internet. get a vpn (mullvad is affordable and reliable), download the tor browser (for both onion and standard links), and if you plan to whistleblow, consider using a riseup email account.organize and build networks. community is everything now. support each other, foster independence, because your government won’t have your back. set up collectives, grassroots movements. create lists of trusted professionals—lawyers, doctors, etc.—who can offer support. to lawyers and doctors: please consider pro-bono work. this is what got us through poland’s hardest times. your work will be needed now more than ever.for protests or risky actions: always write a pro-bono lawyer’s number on your arm with a permanent marker.get to know the anarchist black cross federation and other resources on safety culture: “Starting an anarchist black cross group: A guide”; Still We Rise - A resource pack for transgender and non-gender conforming people in prison; Safe OUTside the system by the Audre Lorde Project; for safe abortion info or involvement: get familiar with womenhelpwomen.stay radical, stay strong, stay informed: The Anarchist Library

if i forgot to (or didn’t) include something, don’t hesitate to reblog this post with other resources.

If you’re new to having to think about your security, this walk through of how to develop a security plan is pretty good.

The fight is best served by whatever version of you that survives

The fight is best served by whatever version of you that survives

SHE’S WORKING AS HARD AS SHE CAN.

SHE’S WORKING AS HARD AS SHE CAN.

Description: A three panel comic. The first two panels are nearly identical, showing my cat Little Lady curled up. In the first panel she’s trying to purr, but by the second panel she is interrupted and looking over her shoulder at something with annoyance.

The last panel shows that she was looking at me, curled up in bed and having ‘a crisis.’ To which she responds by purring MORE AGGRESSIVELY.