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Today marks 30 years of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine! Here's an appreciation post featuring some more episode artwork I've made over the past few years.

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Pumpkins!!!

Please ignore my messy desk and instead enjoy the pretty pumpkins!

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X

I feel sick. I'm so scared. Things are going to get so much worse for trans adults in the UK when the Levy review for adult trans care comes out in November. My GP clinic already tried to not prescribe my T when the gender clinic endocrinologist first recommended it, I had to fight them so hard on it, and I'm terrified at any point they will stop.

Please share this. It is so disheartening that when I make posts about US trans issues they have thousands of notes within a couple hours, but UK trans issues barely get 100 notes. Our struggles are linked. The letter, in fact, uses the American spelling of certain words like 'realize' - Which has made some suspicious that this is a form letter provided by the American anti trans hate groups that have been pushing for more transphobic discrimination in the UK lately.

This WILL affect trans people in the US eventually. They will use the UK as an example to follow, when they are (at least partially) the ones who created the conditions for our growing medical discrimination. Our fight is your fight. Please, please care about it. Help people be aware of this at the very least.

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Please reach out. I'm shy, despite evidence to the contrary.

Messaging people for the first time is so hard. What am I supposed to say? Like, "You seem really odd and your blog intrigues me. Do you want to have philosophical conversations or perhaps talk about fictional characters?" What! Whatever. I will just follow you back and stare at your blog with my big beautiful brown eyes.

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Sometimes you just have to do a self indulgent DS9 sketch.

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appalachia is devastated. towns i loved, towns i visited all the time, are gone. not damaged, GONE. they are leveled to the ground. there is nothing left but rubble and ruin. people are dead. appalachia is poor to begin with and relies on tourism for a lot of its income, and multiple of those tourist locations are just...gone.

my town is okay, but it's flooded and wrecked. trees are blocking all but one way out of our neighborhood. power lines are hanging limp in the roads. we've been without power for over 24 hours and will continue to be without power for likely another 24+. disabled people and poor people are GOING to die from this. gods save appalachia.

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Random sketch I did last night! He might end up being a character at some point. I like the thought of a demon or dragon with a wishy, swishy tail tip!

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Ildánach Center discord is starting to take new members!

After a long while of being put on the back burner for many reasons, I think I'm finally really to tackle the discord part of the center at least. It will be a start and eventually, I'll get the tumblr up and running, too. If you are a pagan, polytheist, or witch/witchcentric or magical practitioner with a love of art and skills, please come join us! For now, you'll have to send me a message so I can get you the link, but I'm excited to see you all!

Ildánach Center is named after Lugh, deity of many skills. Ildánach itself means many skilled. The center is a place for artists and artisans, but also anyone who has a skill they enjoy or are wanting to learn or share. We have chats for art, math and science, writing and world building, cooking, singing, and newly have a chat just for home ec and shop style lessons to get people started learning what our schools really should have taught us about daily life skills! The center is and always will be a LGBTQIA2S+ safe space. So please, come join us if you want to learn or share about skills!

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I just had a thought. People complain about doing critical analyses and such in English in highschool. They say "What good will this do me? When will I use this?" But I cannot stress enough that, beyond even being able to pick up complex societal themes and what the author intended more clearly, it's just so much more fun to consume media with the extra dimensions being able to understand it more thoroughly allows you access to. It also allows and encourages rewatches and rereads, because oftentimes threads of themes only really come out on a second or third pass.

There's a reason good media is good and the very depth you don't want to learn how to interpret is the reason. It's still going to probably hit at a subconscious level for a lot of people, but being able to consume media in extra dimensions on purpose is just a joy.

So if you are wondering what you will use literary analysis and the like for in the real world? Even if the answer is only bringing more joy to your life, isn't that enough?

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I used the same skills I use to make tags to decorate a box that I'm going to seal and then probably use for my spindowns.

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Tags I've been making and decorating lately! Show me your current projects!

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I have a couple commission slots open! If you've been thinking of commissioning me, now is a great time! I'm in a very artsy mood lately!

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I really needed to hear this today. Thank you.

I Think You Should Wear the Brace, Actually

I think you should wear the brace, take the nap, ask for help, accept help joyfully, I think you should use the cane, the chair, you should sit down

I think you should put a cool or warm or one then the other cloth wet and clean against your face and focus on the temperature and if things align to allow it the aroma, and if not, then the cloth, I think you should focus on the weight, the texture,

again

the tempreture

to help

you relax.

I think you should take the ibuprofen. The asprin. The thing that works, for you, when you have this pain, that is available, handy, in your purse, in my purse, in someone's bag, in your bag, in my bag, we hand it to you, fetch you water. You thank me, them, yourself, for the water and manners are lovely and your appreciation is felt even if you do not thank them because

right now

talking is

the

last

thing.

I think you should buy the pre-cut pre-cooked just reheat just warm up just eat as is just sorted and I think you should remove the word "just" from these sentences you say to yourself as this is vitamins and minerals and carbohydrates and proteins and fats and the mechanics of being feeding your body and I think if you can adjust it to make it tastier than you should

salt butter cheese chocolate little snips to help

I think you should understand that most things in this world are neutral. Embracing neutral aids are good, so, neutral positive.

I think you should accept the weight of your feelings and scribble and draw and yell and sing and cry and howl and then sit and rest and watch a movie or listen to a song or read a book or read a blog or read a story and allow the cold comfort of the anger and angst

and think the weight of the unfair and cruel burning in you powering the furnace should be allowed a winter's night's chill

and then allowed to quiet as the sun rises again

funny, that, the sun, it rises on days of horror and days of sublime

i think you should wear the brace, actually, because your wrist hurts, and it is a brace, it is metal and fabric and velcro so some kind of plastic

it is not a crime, that you got away with, that haunts your steps, will they catch you, wearing the brace, you've lived twenty years since needing a brace, you're sure to be caught now, sheriff on your heels, the law just around the corner, everything bound to be ruined, soon as they find out

i think you should wear the brace because it is a brace and it will lessen the pain and you are in pain

and

justification is not needed

this is reason

alone

i think i should say that again

justification

is not needed

this is reason

and it alone

is more than enough

i think you should wear the comfortable clothes and you should wrap tight the comfortable blanket and open the windows to let in the comfortable air and i think that you should take a measuring cup and figure out if a few hours of sleep or gaming or reading or art or just being alive quietly would help you and if it does then dip the cup into the pool of time and i think you should drink it, allow it to settle, and experience it

i think you should experience softness

as often

as possible

i think if the pre-sliced single orange costs as much as the bag of oranges but the pre-sliced single orange allows you to dig your teeth into this freshness, this preserved sunshine

then the monetary cost is the cheapest price on this earth

i think you should wear the brace

and embrace the neutrality of things

i think you should be comfortable

i hope you are comfortable

i hope as i pass i can run a single finger along the length of your arm to remind you i hope you are comfortable

and

that

i am here,

for you,

on purpose

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Entirely forgot to add this one.

So I mentioned before that I do journaling stuff and various crafty things. Here are some of the tags I've made recently.

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So I mentioned before that I do journaling stuff and various crafty things. Here are some of the tags I've made recently.

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Opinion Here’s how to get free Paxlovid as many times as you need it

When the public health emergency around covid-19 ended, vaccines and treatments became commercial products, meaning companies could charge for them as they do other pharmaceuticals. Paxlovid, the highly effective antiviral pill that can prevent covid from becoming severe, now has a list price of nearly $1,400 for a five-day treatment course.

Thanks to an innovative agreement between the Biden administration and the drug’s manufacturer, Pfizer, Americans can still access the medication free or at very low cost through a program called Paxcess. The problem is that too few people — including pharmacists — are aware of it.

I learned of Paxcess only after readers wrote that pharmacies were charging them hundreds of dollars — or even the full list price — to fill their Paxlovid prescription. This shouldn’t be happening. A representative from Pfizer, which runs the program, explained to me that patients on Medicare and Medicaid or who are uninsured should get free Paxlovid. They need to sign up by going to paxlovid.iassist.com or by calling 877-219-7225. “We wanted to make enrollment as easy and as quick as possible,” the representative said.

Indeed, the process is straightforward. I clicked through the web form myself, and there are only three sets of information required. Patients first enter their name, date of birth and address. They then input their prescriber’s name and address and select their insurance type.

All this should take less than five minutes and can be done at home or at the pharmacy. A physician or pharmacist can fill it out on behalf of the patient, too. Importantly, this form does not ask for medical history, proof of a positive coronavirus test, income verification, citizenship status or other potentially sensitive and time-consuming information.

But there is one key requirement people need to be aware of: Patients must have a prescription for Paxlovid to start the enrollment process. It is not possible to pre-enroll. (Though, in a sense, people on Medicare or Medicaid are already pre-enrolled.)

Once the questionnaire is complete, the website generates a voucher within seconds. People can print it or email it themselves, and then they can exchange it for a free course of Paxlovid at most pharmacies.

Pfizer’s representative tells me that more than 57,000 pharmacies are contracted to participate in this program, including major chain drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens and large retail chains such as Walmart, Kroger and Costco. For those unable to go in person, a mail-order option is available, too.

The program works a little differently for patients with commercial insurance. Some insurance plans already cover Paxlovid without a co-pay. Anyone who is told there will be a charge should sign up for Paxcess, which would further bring down their co-pay and might even cover the entire cost.

Several readers have attested that Paxcess’s process was fast and seamless. I was also glad to learn that there is basically no limit to the number of times someone could use it. A person who contracts the coronavirus three times in a year could access Paxlovid free or at low cost each time.

Unfortunately, readers informed me of one major glitch: Though the Paxcess voucher is honored when presented, some pharmacies are not offering the program proactively. As a result, many patients are still being charged high co-pays even if they could have gotten the medication at no cost.

This is incredibly frustrating. However, after interviewing multiple people involved in the process, including representatives of major pharmacy chains and Biden administration officials, I believe everyone is sincere in trying to make things right. As we saw in the early days of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, it’s hard to get a new program off the ground. Policies that look good on paper run into multiple barriers during implementation.

Those involved are actively identifying and addressing these problems. For instance, a Walgreens representative explained to me that in addition to educating pharmacists and pharmacy techs about the program, the company learned it also had to make system changes to account for a different workflow. Normally, when pharmacists process a prescription, they inform patients of the co-pay and dispense the medication. But with Paxlovid, the system needs to stop them if there is a co-pay, so they can prompt patients to sign up for Paxcess.

Here is where patients and consumers must take a proactive role. That might not feel fair; after all, if someone is ill, people expect that the system will work to help them. But that’s not our reality. While pharmacies work to fix their system glitches, patients need to be their own best advocates. That means signing up for Paxcess as soon as they receive a Paxlovid prescription and helping spread the word so that others can get the antiviral at little or no cost, too.

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