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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 51m

New Stuff!

You buy! meredithmcclaren.storenvy.com
(If you want.)

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 2h

That a woman living RIGHT NOW, isn't being allowed access to that same amount of care is absolutely GUTTING.

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 2h

My mother, who went on to have me and my brother.
My brother has then gone on to have three children of his own.

We're at seven lives saved now.
Seven lives saved, because my grandmother was given the abortion, THE MEDICAL CARE, that she needed to live.

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 2h

On a personal note, that I repeat more often than I like. (But will do so until the message sticks.)

My grandmother suffered an ectopic pregnancy. The birth was not viable. She WAS Catholic. HER PRIEST urged her to have the abortion that saved her life.

Her next successful birth WAS MY MOTHER.

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 2h

I remember when the referendum passed.

I remember an interview with an elderly man who was celebrating. Loosely paraphrased, he said, 'We had this ban, and we shouldn't have. Please don't make the mistake we did.'

He specifically named America as a nation that should not repeat their failures.

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 2h

This entirely preventable death of a vibrant well loved woman ignited discussions around Ireland's abortion bans and actually made the inroads necessary to repeal the ban in 2018.

Allowing abortion services to commence in the country in 2019.

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 2h

In 2012, An Indian woman named Savita Halappanavar, died in Ireland from a miscarriage. The fetus never left the body, allowing sepsis to set in.

When she asked for an abortion, the midwife told her 'Ireland is a Catholic country.'

To which Savita replied, 'I am neither Irish, nor Catholic.'

Mockingbird, MPH, CHES @amockingbird.bsky.social · 9h

Spoiler alert- it was a Catholic hospital. I’ve been reading stories about people being denied miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy care at Catholic hospitals for well over a decade now, and people have definitely died because of these policies, but maternal mortality data is imperfect.

Kelly @broadwaybabyto.bsky.social · 10h

“Please someone listen to me, I don’t want to die”

These are the words of a woman named Harmonie who had an ectopic pregnancy

Her obgyn refused to help, citing a
1% chance the fetus could survive

She lives in a blue state & still couldn’t access the life saving care she needed

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Reposted by Meredith McClaren

ELK64 @elk64.bsky.social · 1d

How is october going for you ?

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 17h

I have seen, like, five different food recalls for lead poisoning today.*

*Hey hey hey, remember who gutted FDA. DOGE. It was DOGE. And the GOP. Everyone was like 'this will be very bad.' And now it is bad.

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Reposted by Meredith McClaren

Katherine Lam @katherinelam.bsky.social · 1d

I'm an illustrator who has worked in editorial, publishing, advertising, animation, and games. Recently though I've been drawing mechanophilia in MS Paint 🤖💦 #PortfolioDay

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Reposted by Meredith McClaren

Rob MacWolf, Werewolf Hitchhiker @robmacwolf.thevoice.dog · 20h

When we write or draw porn or erotica, we get banned from having a bank account and our livelihoods get seized even if we give it away for free.

When billionaires steal what we've written or drawn to churn out a slop-approximate of porn, they're allowed to charge for it.

Matt Burgess (WIRED) @mattburgess1.bsky.social · 23h

Oh good, ChatGPT is getting "erotica for verified adults" later this year

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right.

Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases.

In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing).

In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults.

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 19h

CRUMBLE is a middle grade book that asks the important question, 'what if you could eat feelings for real? and what happens when you eat the bad ones?'

Written by me. Drawn by Andrea Bell. And published by Little Brown Young Readers

www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/mered...

Crumble (A Graphic Novel)

A heartfelt and magic-filled graphic novel for fans of Sheets and Real Friends about baking, friendship, and feeling every kind of emotion—no matter the fl...

www.hachettebookgroup.com

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 19h

National Dessert Day!

Thought I'd celebrate by doing a doodle of me and @andyharvest.bsky.social's two kids, Dae and Emily from the fantasy baking book CRUMBLE.

Andrea was the one who brought my script to life with her art, but I thought it would be fun to draw the kids once myself.

An illustration of a light airy kitchen. In the foreground we see two kids, Dae on the left, and Emily on the right. The two work at a separate work table with bowls and ingredients. Emily is perched on a stool, pouring flour into the bowl. She's the mastermind of this operation.

Dae leans into the table, one hand against their face, the other holding the spoon. They know if they wait long enough they'll get all the spoils of Emily's baking.

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 1d

So stupid, apparently, that we will use a program, that will tell us outright lies, encourage us to murder others, and kill ourselves--
--to deskill ourselves of what little brain power we have left.

And make ourselves stupider.

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 1d

...
...we really are just the stupidest fucks alive aren't we?

Business Insider @businessinsider.com · 1d

Some military leaders are turning to AI chatbots for help with decision-making, seeing this tech as a way to get the advantage.

Even top generals are looking to AI chatbots for answers

Some military leaders are turning to AI chatbots for help with decision-making, seeing this tech as a way to get the advantage.

www.businessinsider.com

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Reposted by Meredith McClaren

bleary @bleary.off-the-records.com · 1d

If anyone needs me I will be in the museum, lying down next to the bog bodies.

Did people really memorize phone numbers before cell phones, or is that just a movie thing?
2? Questions
I was watching some old shows from the 90s and noticed people would just dial numbers from memory - like they'd call their friends or family without looking anything up.
Made me wonder if that was actually normal back then? Did people genuinely have all their important numbers memorized, or did most folks keep a little address book or written list nearby?

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Meredith McClaren @iniquitousfish.bsky.social · 1d

You can read all publicly available pages on my patreon.
(And paid members can read the whole thing.)

But otherwise, publicly available updates occur every Monday.
patreon.com/meredithmcclaren