Psycho-babble-ologist

So. Last December, I had a bad cavity filled, and about a week later, I woke up with half of my face paralyzed. Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, freaked me the fuck out. Fortunately I had some level-headed Discord friends who a) told me what Bell's palsy was so I could look it up and b) reminded me to call my dentist for an emergency appointment. Dentist was also pretty sure it was Bell's palsy, but urged me to go to the emergency room to get checked out, because one-sided facial paralysis is also a possible indicator of a stroke. And you don't fuck around with strokes.

Bell's palsy, if you, like me of 6 months ago, don't know, is a harmless paralysis/muscle weakness on one side of the face that can be caused by a variety of things. It usually goes away on its own after a few weeks but also you can speed up the process with steroids.

I was pretty sure I was not having a stroke, because I'm Red Cross first aid certified and I know the symptoms of a stroke, and while one-sided facial paralysis is one of them, I didn't have any of the others. Also, I had quit my shitty job in October, which meant I had a shiny new marketplace health insurance plan and hadn't even touched my deductible. But I called my parents from the car and they urged me to get checked out and promised to help me pay off the emergency room bill if I needed it, because they're good people and they love me even if they drive me crazy sometimes. So off I went to the nearest emergency room.

Emergency room staff also didn't think I was having a stroke, because I waited ALL AFTERNOON, periodically having a new person come up to me and ask me to smile, hold both arms out to the side, press down on their hands, and tell them what month and year it was. (They don't ask who the president is anymore. Hmm, I wonder why.) One guy had me drink a cup of water while he watched. I cannot stress enough that I did not have any medical tests other than a physical examination: no CT scans or MRIs, no IV drugs or blood draws, nothing.

I get diagnosed with Bell's palsy and given a prescription for Prednisone. And then they give me a phone number and tell me to talk to this person about administrative stuff. So I call, and the dude on the phone verifies my name and date of birth and insurance information, and then he says, "It looks like your copay today is going to be $2400. How would you like to pay?"

I am, to this day, kind of impressed that he didn't even stutter over that number, but I assume working in a medical call center drains your entire soul. At this point, it's about 7pm, and I've been in the hospital since 2pm, and I'm stressed because half my face doesn't work, and I know that I can't afford $2400 because I quit my shitty job with nothing lined up back in October. But, I still remember every tumblr post I've ever read about health insurance and the medical system and how you can negotiate down a bill. I am not looking forward to this process, it sounds like a pain in the ass, but the alternative is paying $2400, so I say the magic words: "Send me an itemized bill."

I kinda expected the guy to try and get me to pay up front, but he just says "Ok" and finishes up the process. I get discharged, go to the only open pharmacy at that time of night to get my Prednisone, have the pharmacist tell me the prescription isn't written right and he can't fill it, go home, and have a screaming sobbing meltdown because I have used up every single milligram of cope in my entire body. (I got my steroids eventually, and the Bell's palsy cleared up in a couple weeks.)

A few weeks later, I get the bill in the mail. I brace myself and open it...

$300.

Turns out, after going through insurance and processing and everything, they couldn't actually find $2400 worth of stuff to charge me for. Shocking! Who could have predicted!

I might have been able to argue it down even more, but I was fed up with entire thing, so I paid the $300 just to be fucking done with it. Sometimes the cheapest way to pay is with money.

What if I had paid that $2400 up front? Do I think they would have been like, "Oh, oops!" and refunded me $2k? Well, possibly, but I am not optimistic.

So, thank you to everyone who has ever posted about navigating the US healthcare system on tumblr. Because of you, I knew how to handle this situation even when I was tired and stressed.

As if Joanne couldn't get any shittier, she misgendered and insulted a woman who called for support, all because the woman had PCOS/PMOS and "didn't sound feminine enough."

Fuck her.

KiScon is honoured to once again host the Philon Awards. Originally established by Jenna Sinclair and Shelley Butler in 1997, this annual event’s purpose is to honour outstanding authors and artists in K/S fandom.

Important dates: Nominations: 20 June – 15 August, 2026. Voting: 1 September – 31 October, 2026. Eligibility (works created & published): 1 August 2025 – 31 July 2026. There are 11 categories: Ficlet (word count under 1K) Short fic (word count 1K–5K) Medium-length fic (word count 5K–10K) Long fic (word count 10K–20K) Novella (word count 20K–50K) Novel (word count over 50K) Podfic Traditional Art Digital Art Poetry Zines For each category the voters will determine a Gold (first place) and a Silver (second place) winner.

Rules Nominating and Voting:

Nominations are open from 20 June to 15 August, 2026. Each fan can nominate up to 3 works per category, but you cannot nominate the same work twice.

For a work to make it onto the voting ballot, it needs at least 3 nominations. Before we add it to the ballot, we will get in touch with the creator to ask whether they are fine with this! 

Voting is open from 1 September to 31 October, 2026.

The winners will be announced during a special online event in early November that we will announce soon. Each winner will receive a certificate and a small prize.

It bears repeating: One person —> one submission of the nominations form. Same for voting: one person —> one submission of the voting ballot. Please do not attempt to game the system by using multiple accounts; we see this and it makes us question the future of the Philon Awards.

Nominating and voting both take place via Google Forms, and you need to be logged in and enter either your AO3 or your Discord name on the form in order to submit the nominations; this ensures that people do not nominate or vote multiple times for the same work. If we suspect sockpuppet activity, we will get in touch for clarification. We keep the nomination and voting process completely confidential! Only the KiScon concom will see the submitted forms.

While *we* won't talk about who nominated what, *you* can still discuss your faves and promote them, if you feel comfortable doing so. Making fellow fans aware of great works and sharing why you love and want to nominate them, is encouraged.

You can submit the nominations form only once, but you can edit your response if you need to add or change something (just follow the link in the email you receive after submitting the form). Please make sure to include every fanwork you want to see on the shortlist. You cannot edit your responses after nominations have closed (15 August 2026, end of day, timezone: Anywhere on Earth, i.e. UTC -12).

To answer a question we receive frequently: yes, you *can* nominate (and vote for) your own work(s). We won't judge you. ;-) 

Fanworks:

The work must focus on the pairing Kirk/Spock or Kirk & Spock. Slash (romantic and/or sexual relationship) and gen (friendship) are equally eligible. If a fic includes Kirk and/or Spock in relationships with other characters, be they canonical or original, this does not disqualify the work for the Philon Awards, as long as the focus is clearly on Kirk and Spock's relationship. 

Art must feature Kirk or Spock or both of them; additional characters in the artwork are allowed, but no depiction of Kirk/Other or Spock/Other.

All universes are welcome: TOS (series and movies), TAS, and reboot, Discovery and Strange New Worlds. AUs and mirror universe are equally allowed. Crossovers between different Trek franchises or between Trek and other media are permitted, as long as Kirk and Spock are the work’s main characters.

RPF works (e.g. Shatnoy) are not eligible.

All ratings and genres are allowed. If a work among your nominations includes strong elements that would merit a warning on the AO3 (e.g. rape, major character death etc.), we'd appreciate a heads-up on the nominations form, so that we can make sure to include the warning on the shortlist. 

The work must be complete. It can be part of a series, but the work itself must not be a WIP (missing chapters or a draft/unfinished sketch).

Eligibility: The work must have been created and published (print or online) after last year's nomination period. So, everything from 1 August 2025 onwards until the end of the current nomination phase (31 July 2026) is eligible. Reprints or uploads of earlier works (e.g. a fic you wrote and published a few years ago and uploaded to the AO3 only recently) cannot take part in this contest. If a multi-chapter fic was started earlier, but the date of completion falls within the eligible range, then it can also be nominated.

For podfic the creation/publication date of the actual podfic counts, not of the written fic that inspired it.

AI-generated works are NOT allowed.

Traditional art means that it was hand-drawn or hand-painted; scanning or photographing the finished work in order to publish it online is allowed, of course.

With digital art, we mean art that was created by a fan artist directly on a tablet or computer, or art that started out as hand-drawn and underwent significant digital alterations in the next steps. We do NOT allow AI-generated art! Manips based on still images or photos of the actors are not eligible in this contest.

Zines: Both e-zines and print zines published between 1 August 2025 and 31 July 2026 are eligible.

It harms your lungs and it’s especially bad for children (and pets!) or anyone with health problems. There are all kinds of chemicals in that smoke. It’s not only trees that are burning. The heat already makes it harder to breath. This makes it worse.

If any of you are experiencing it, feel free to tell about it in the comments. 💚