#Critical Access

[hislop3]

The Financial Struggle of Rural Hospitals: A Growing Concern for Healthcare Access

Among the many healthcare sectors I follow, rural healthcare has become my favorite. Oddly enough, it’s not because of the policy issues that exist, though it should be. It is because it is an overlooked sector and one that has a real risk of collapse. Last summer (2023) I wrote a post about the plight of rural hospitals and the risk of closure…

[currymanganese]

"Bold strategy cotton, let's see if it pays off!"

[ettle]

Hey from one disabled person to another:

If one accessibility device available to me used ten thousand bagillion pounds of precious water, stole from a bunch of people who didn't consent, led to mass economic disaster for millions including my fellow disabled people, AND was objectively just shitty and poor quality, I wouldn't want to use it or advocate for it in any way. I'd maybe look at other accessibility devices.

[nellasbookplanet]

In the wake of FCG' fate I've been thinking about death in ttrpgs, and how it kind of exists on three levels:

There’s the gameplay level, where it only makes sense for a combat-heavy, pc-based game to have a tool for resurrection because the characters are going to die a lot and players get attached to them and their plotlines.

Then there’s the narrative level, where you sort of need permanent death on occasion so as not to lose all tension and realism. On this level, sometimes the player will let their character remain dead because they find it more interesting despite there being options of resurrection, or maybe the dice simply won’t allow the resurrection to succeed.

Then, of course, there’s the in-universe level, which is the one that really twists my mind. This is a world where actual resurrection of the actual dead is entirely obtainable, often without any ill effects (I mean, they'll be traumatized, but unless you ask a necromancer to do the resurrection they won’t come back as a zombie or vampire or otherwise wrong). It’s so normal that many adventurers will have gone through it multiple times. Like, imagine actually living in a world where all that keeps you from getting a missing loved one back is the funds to buy a diamond and hire a cleric. As viewers we felt that of course Pike should bring Laudna, a complete stranger, back when asked, but how often does she get this question? How many parents have come and begged her to return their child to them? How many lovers lost but still within reach? When and how does she decide who she saves and who she doesn’t?

From this perspective, I feel like every other adventurer should have the motive/backstory of 'I lost a loved one and am working to obtain the level of power/wealth to get them back'. But of course this is a game, and resurrection is just a game mechanic meant to be practically useful.

Anyway. A story-based actual play kind of has to find a way to balance these three levels. From a narrative perspective letting FCG remain dead makes sense, respects their sacrifice, and ends their arc on a highlight. From a gameplay level it is possible to bring them back but a lot more complicated than a simple revivify. But on an in-universe level, when do you decide if you should let someone remain dead or not? Is the party selfish if they don’t choose to pursue his resurrection the way they did for Laudna? Do they even know, as characters, that it’s technically possible to save someone who's been blown to smithereens? Back in campaign 2, the moment the m9 gained access to higher level resurrection they went to get Molly back (and only failed because his body had been taken back by Lucien). At the end of c1, half the party were in denial about Vax and still looking for ways to save him, because they had always been able to before (and had the game continued longer it wouldn’t have surprised me had they found a way). Deanna was brought back decades after her death (and was kind of fucked up because of it). Bringing someone back could be saving them, showing them just how loved and appreciated they are. Or it could be saving you, forcing someone back from rest and peace into a world that's kept moving without them because you can’t handle the guilt of knowing you let them stay gone when you didn’t have to. How do you know? How would you ever know?

[kerosene-in-a-blender]

It sort of got buried due to the sheer amount of other stuff that happened, but it is very funny that Veth has, at least once, employed the services of the Plank King of Dartow to track down her errant teenage son

[zombiestarillustration]

An Ashton

[art-making-grat]

how is taylor swift going to have that whole thing with joe and how she couldn’t deal with the fact he had mental health issues so she cheated on him and has basically done everything she can to make his life worse since breaking up with him (her fan base also going after him) but then go and romanticize asylums and mental illness and stuff like that with her new depressed poet persona. like am I the only one who thinks it’s weird that she would act like she’s struggling with her mental health while also making songs outing joes struggles with depression and how he should have gotten over it so they could marry

[saturdaysky]

hunger is whatever shape the moonlight pulls your shadow into.

The cover and first two pages of a comic about Essek and touch, set just after episode 97 and the reveal of his treachery.

There are nine pages. I will post them in batches as I finish them, and each post will be updated with the links to the other pages. 💜

I've had this idea sketched out for several years (check out my user icon, which hasn't changed since I made this account 😉 ), and I am excited to finally sit down and finish it! Here's a close-up of the Rosohna and Xhorhaus panel on page 2.

An absence is also a presence, no?

Poetry source is ONE SIDE OF AN INTERVIEW WITH THE GHOST OF MARVIN GAYE by Hanif Abdurraqib.

[cometcon]

I've been getting increasingly pissed off at stuff like this with Helluva Boss for a while now so I'm running out of room for patience and giving the benefit of the doubt.

I'm not Deaf/HoH but I do have audio processing disorder and I have been involved with the Deaf/HoH community through learning Auslan and needing some of the same accommodations in my life so it's becoming increasingly apparent just how much they get short-changed by a society that does not care and has to be pressed constantly for the bare minimum of accommodating anyone other than the expected default abled demographic.

I'm sorry but while having a character who signs was fucking amazing to see even as a Hearing person

and it's been genuinely great to have the last episode of Season 1 with actual subtitles and all of Season 2 up to this one having actual subtitles

SEASON 1 STILL HAS FUCKING AUTO-GEN

We have to read T R A N S C R I P T S to understand what's going on in the entirety of Season 1 except for the final episode because while Hearing people who aren't affected by needing actual subtitles seem to think autogen and otherwise having to engage with just a transcript is good enough, news flash, IT ISN'T. Autogen has been getting better but it still fucks up (if your accommodation doesn't bring everyone up to speed with the same access as abled people your accommodation isn't good enough) and if your video is older like Season 1s are then they're FUCKING AWFUL. Even good autogen takes more energy to engage with than proper subtitles making it still more difficult than it needs to be to engage with a video.

This has annoyed me for a while but I was hoping they just needed some time to sort out someone to go make subtitles and put them up.

At the very least I figured ok, they're at least putting proper subtitles up for Season 2. Took them until OOPS came out to do it if I recall correctly, but they did it. Strange they stopped at the end of Season 1 but ok, whatever. Give them time.

Nothing has changed. It's been 3 years and nothing has changed.

Then The Full Moon dropped directly after Mammon's Magnificent Musical. I was expecting there to be proper subtitles since Season 2 now is being given them upon release.

...

So basically fuck anyone who needs proper subtitles.

This

is officially lip service to look good, not proper representation.

You can't follow this with fucking autogenerated bullcrap pretending to be accommodation.

I saw someone sending an ask in an hour or so ago to another blog to talk about The Full Moon and mentioned offhandedly in it that they had to look at the transcript to catch a line they wanted to understand and talk about.

I'd been hoping they would just put the subtitles up maybe a day or so later at least.

IT'S BEEN A WEEK.

Vivzie doesn't care about Deaf/HoH people. She chucked the kid in for brownie points. And hey, sure, brownie point rep is better than no rep, but it isn't actual representation and really doesn't deserve that much praise if you immediately follow it up with a fucking AUTOGEN ENGLISH ONLY EPISODE.

Sincerely, fuck you too.

EDIT: There are proper subtitles on The Apology Tour, so I'm glad for that at least. It came out like two weeks after The Full Moon meaning it had to be in production at the same time so idk why they could put subtitles on release for TAT and not TFM, but whatever. And hilariously (read: mystifyingly and infuriatingly) enough, THE FULL MOON STILL ONLY HAS AUTOGEN AS OF THIS EDIT BEING TYPED ON THE 25TH OF JUNE 2024. Why? Why is it the only one without subtitles in S2? Why is S1 still all auto-gen even now, right up until the Kesha-song episode? Spindlehorse continues to confuse and annoy me with their flipflopping on their supposed caring about accommodation.

[passionesolja]

Okay so I need Non-Early Access Baldur’s Gate 3 fans to understand how much they pacified Wyll in the full release. Wyll in Early Access was assertive as hell. None of the meek and mild pushover shit we got in the full game. Like if you didn’t get your ass to that Goblin Camp, bring him along, and act accordingly in that Camp, he would leave. In Early Access, Spike the Torture Goblin took his eye out so if you weren’t bout that action, he would get fed up and just drop all y’all. He didn’t give a fuck he wanted them goblins dead. Like tbh good for him. I haven’t played Early Access BG3 in a minute but I remember Wyll more than I remember anybody else’s Early Access Characterization. That’s how memorable he was.

So I when I played the full game I was a lil shook because Wyll went from this driven guy who was like “tick tock when are you going to goblin camp, you better bring me to Blighted Village or I’ll leave” to somebody who hardly has presence in a room. Early Access Wyll never came across as rude or mean, he just didn’t play about them goblins. He had a lot more of the “My dads a no nonsense duke” in him. I wish Larian had never changed it. When Early Access Wyll is like “my dad is the Duke of Baldur’s Gate and the leader of the Flaming Fist” you’re like “oohhh I see why you have such a driven and motivated personality”.

On one hand, it was nice to not have Wyll breathing down your neck about the Goblins but in the longterm you’re like “but at what cost?”

[hislop3]

Rural Hospital Program: Extra Cash for Emergency and Outpatient Services Stuck in Neutral

In 2021, Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021. Within the Act, a new Medicare provider was created – the Rural Emergency Hospital (REH). The final rule is available here: Rural Emergency Hospital Final Rule REHs were created to improve and increase, access to emergency services and ideally, expanded outpatient services in rural areas. Starting in January 2023, Critical…

[antianakin]

No Order 66 AU where Anakin leaves the Order after the war ends and he and Padme end up retiring to Naboo to try to raise the twins together, but neither of them ends up feeling particularly satisfied with life on Naboo (for Anakin it just doesn't give him any purpose the way he desperately needs and for Padme it's always been this perfect rosy dream and reality doesn't measure up), so they end up leaving the twins behind a lot so they can pursue other things and are pretty absentee parents in general. They mostly end up getting raised by Padme's parents instead, and while they're perfectly good guardians for the twins and raise them kindly and love them a lot, there's always an obvious elephant in the room regarding who ISN'T there.

This causes a bit of a rift between Luke and Leia because while Luke is trying to keep the peace and give their parents the benefit of the doubt as he moves on and figures out his own life with what he DOES have, Leia is less willing to just forgive and forget.

Luke ends up becoming a pilot working for the royal palace for a while, but Leia goes into politics (something she'd entered while younger because it's what her mother did and she'd been hoping it would get Padme's attention and bring the two of them closer; it didn't work out that way at all and now Leia's sticking with it at least partly to spite Padme) as an aide for her cousin Pooja who is now Senator of Naboo.

And it's here, once she finally makes it to Coruscant and starts working in the Senate, that Leia meets Bail Organa, still working as Senator of Alderaan. The two of them click IMMEDIATELY and Bail ends up becoming Leia's mentor in politics, as well as the person who actually introduces her to the Jedi themselves. Anakin and Padme had never really bothered to do so, both because they were so rarely around, but also because they had chosen not to give Luke and Leia to the Temple and decided at that point that it would be easier to keep the twins and the Jedi separate. Bail of course has no such compunctions and even if he knew about Anakin and Padme's feelings on the matter, I imagine he'd find ways to allow Leia to accidentally bump into some of the Jedi while she was on Coruscant. If he just so happens to double book himself for lunch with both Leia and Obi-Wan, it's hardly anything malicious and they may as well all eat together!

Leia finally feels like she has a parent who gives a damn about her, someone who acts like a parent to her, the parent she's always wanted. Her grandparents had always been incredibly kind and they obviously had to do a lot of parenting, but they'd always been very strict about making sure the twins saw them as GRANDPARENTS and not their actual parents, which just make the absence of their parents that much more obvious and painful. But with Bail, she's finally got someone who doesn't care that Anakin and Padme aren't there and doesn't feel the need to create a wall between them for Anakin and Padme's sake. Bail takes her under his wing, teaches her everything she knows, allows her to explore things she'd never been allowed to explore before, connects her to even more people who can help her understand herself better than she's ever been able to before. THIS is what a parent was supposed to do for her and she knows it, THIS is what selfless love looks like from a parent and she THRIVES under it for the first time in her life.

She eventually decides not to stay on as Pooja's aide because she has no real desire to become a senator for Naboo at any point, but she IS good at politics and desperately does want to help people any way she can, so she starts up some sort of organization of her own to help people around the galaxy (and connects it to the Jedi because deep down she KNOWS she was supposed to be one of them even though that path is now closed to her). But she doesn't go back to Naboo, she doesn't make her home on her mother's home planet.

She goes to Alderaan instead. And this time, she gets to stay there for the rest of her life.

[atthebell]

you know i don't really want to get into a discussion about increased scrutiny for people who already care about things like diversity and accessibility but i do think it's frustrating to see creative projects from people who do really care about including those values in their work get completely disproportionate criticism because people have set their own expectations about them so high. i'll see people be like 'this should've had [thing no similar projects have and yet is being demanded like it's owed or required of this specific person over anyone else]' or absolutely blasting someone for not including such and such thing that people have decided is necessary solely coming from this one person/anyone they feel they can pressure in this way. and this disproportionately affects indie creators, to the point where i see people DEMANDING certain standards from people who have far less resources and funds than major media corporations. and it's like okay do y'all have any sense of scale or do you think berating people who actually care about this shit and are trying is better than advocating for progress and change in spaces where it's far less accepted and would be far more impactful. also do you think constantly berating people who do put effort into this stuff is a good way to encourage them to continue or like what

[astralleywright]

the Gods' conversation in the first episode of Downfall, about how they need to destroy Aeor in its entirety to prevent mortal knowledege of how to destroy them from spreading, is so dark. both from the perspective of watching a handful of people weigh the lives of thousands, but also because they do end up destroying Aeor; and it doesn't work. it prolongs things for another millenia, sure, but someone eventually discovers enough of the Factorum Malleus' plans for Ludinus to construct his own version and make his own plan, something he's motivated to do specifically by the original destruction of Aeor. not only does the Gods obliterating one of the last civilzations still standing in the Calamity (and all their children within) not bury the knowledge of this anti-god weapon, it becomes the very reason someone wants to try again.

(obligatory disclaimer that Ludinus is bad and doing bad things and we should not release Predathos and set him loose at the Gods buffet. thanks)

[lu-sn]

i am here today to talk about HORRIBLE OVERSIGHT in the pete fandom we NEED to correct our ways and see the light

but it is ok i will Explain

ok do u see this

this is a pha khao ma (spelling up for debate). it's a waistcloth commonly worn in south and southeast asia — you may have heard of it as a lungi / longyi. it's a rectangular, light, soft piece of cloth that (mostly) men tie around their (mostly) waists to wear in hot humid climates because it's very comfy and breezy and dries fast.

some fun facts:

it's very common to wear right out of the bath / shower because the dampness stays on your skin for a while after so this helps air it out

underwear is ✨ optional ✨ (although really mostly only at home. the fear of being pantsed in public is universal, after all)

it's often worn at home, but people wear it out as well and it is especially common in rural communities. if you've got a bunch of old uncles sitting outside on a veranda in a small town, they're all maybe sitting around in pha khao mas

(let me follow this up with: while it is common in rural regions, people in rural areas all over thailand do also just wear shirts and shorts and pants 😂 it is merely an option, not a rule)

what you see is the casual version. there are much more formal versions, and fashionable versions, and they are apparently having a resurgence with the thailand youth rn

the plaid-like patterning is a specific design that has centuries of history in thailand! different regions produce styles of designs with vibrantly different colors and dyes, and they're very proud of it

there's many ways to tie it: in these pictures, pete has it tied so that it hangs down well past his knees, but you can hoist them up to mostly be around your upper legs (leaving the knees showing). this gives you a TON more mobility to, say, run around or climb trees or beat up people

here is a reference of real people wearing pha khao mas. as you can see they are chilling

and the most important fun fact of all:

post-canon pete wears it ALL. THE. TIME.

we know pete wears these in the privacy of his home! they're his comfy post-shower post-workout jammies! every time we see him with one he has a different one! HE HAS LIKE SIX MORE OF THESE TUCKED AWAY.

he probably wore them a lot around his yaai. and now, at home, vegas sees him in them CONSTANTLY.

you may be looking at me, and then looking at these photos, and then looking again at me, and going, lu, noooooooo, this ruins the post-canon pete being unbearably cute and stylish and hot agenda!!! to which i say

no

it ENHANCES IT. it's about the DICHOTOMY

vegas watches as pete walks out of the bathroom wearing one of these and nothing else, and they're riding real low on his hips, and vegas chokes out a "what the hell are you wearing" and pete leans against the doorframe and wiggles his eyebrows and puts on his thickest northern accent and says "you wanna fuck me so bad city boy" and he's RIGHT OKAY VEGAS HATES THEM AND VEGAS DOES WANT TO FUCK HIM SO BAD ANYWAYS

macau gives pete sooo much shit for it but then he watches pete kick ass in one during training one day and pete looks like some rural film movie star in his tank top and pha khao ma and his fists of fury and macau goes, huh, actually, phi looks fucking cool, can i have one

when they visit yaai pete basically forgoes pants and just wears these all the time and blends in with all the old grandpas who pat pete on the back and ask him for his opinions on politics and vegas is so fucking confused and totally in love do you UNDERSTAND

anyway. all of this to say, if you were to write fics where pete wears a pha khao ma and/or draw him in one it would be HIGHLY CANONICALLY ACCURATE. and i would love you. thank u for coming to my ted talk.

(and thanks to @minorfamilysupremacy for being the first victim of said ted talk)

[witchhazelevesque]

Wait… I get that Venus’s warning to Reyna about how “no demigod shall heal your heart” hit her hard because it meant she and Jason wouldn’t be together, but it also didn’t completely rule out A LOT of her people because like… so many of them weren’t demigods, they were legacies.

And okay, yeah, maybe that could be explained but, no not really because in BoO, when Reyna tells Piper about it, Piper says: “There is someone out there for you, maybe it’s not a demigod. Maybe it’s a mortal or… or I don’t know. But when it’s meant to happen, it will.” (492)

Like… the narrative literally forgets that legacies as a concept existed??

And no, it’s not that Piper isn’t aware of that or was distracted by Leo’s death because: “Piper kept busy helping Reyna and Annabeth coordinate between the Greeks and Romans. To Piper's surprise, the other two girls valued her skills as a go-between to smooth over any conflicts.” (489)

Now, Piper gets the short end of the stick when it comes to being written with nuance (hello one off lines about her best friendship with Hazel with talking, crying and sword fighting in HoH), but we’re meant to assume that she’s doing more than is actually written, and she’d have to be aware of these dynamics between demigods and legacies, that SHOULD have been a significant element here since all of Camp Half-Blood are demigods while a large, if unknown, portion of Camp Jupiter are legacies.

But no, the conflicts are like: “Piper did manage to return some Roman helmets that mysteriously made their way into the camp store. She also kept a fight from breaking out between the children of Mars and the children of Ares over the best way to kill a hydra.” (489)

Like.

The narrative itself goes out of its way to make a one to one comparison between the camps in terms of how directly descended from the gods the camper are. With the same god’s two aspects and everything! Ignoring the other descendants of Mars!

But actually!! No, in the same book they do bring up legacies! Nico asks Reyna: “So… is your whole family descended from Bellona? I thought you and Hylla were her daughters, not legacies.” (284)

So why? Is it so inconsistent? (This is a rhetorical question, I know why but feel free to add more)

And all he had to do was change the word ‘demigod’ to ‘hero’. At least for Reyna’s situation.

TLDR: Legacies? Wasted potential. Reyna? Victim of inconsistent writing, vol 132.