Gale and Sera (formerly Visera) sneaking away from their own wedding celebration to take a moment and enjoy each other’s company. I imagine her guest list would be small(not including the origin characters), but would definitely include every surviving tiefling, Barcus, Omeluum, and of course my favorite moon lesbians.
I’m always hesitant to post my messier, sketchier illustrations. It’s like showing a stranger a page in my current sketchbook, which is akin to standing in the middle of a busy street stark naked for me.
In light of Brian Thompson being shot dead on my birthday (🎉🥳🎂) I’d like to share a personal story about UnitedHealthcare.
During the peak of COVID, my family all got sick. I couldn’t be on my parents’ insurance because they were both older and on Medicare. So, I had insurance through my University: UnitedHealthcare.
For some reason, rather than roll-over each year, I got a new plan each year that ended after May and didn’t start until August, so I was uninsured for the summer months, but it was a weird situation that the university denied, and told us we were supposed to be insured year-round, it was messy.
Both of my parents went to the hospital, and I got sick too. I had to take care of my pets, and myself, and try to stay alive and keep my pets alive when I was so weak I could hardly move. When my parents came home, my condition got dramatically worse (I think my body knew it couldn’t give out, because there was nobody to take care of me, so once my parents were okay, it completely crashed and failed.)
I started experiencing emergency symptoms. It was a bit hard to breathe, my chest hurt, and I was extremely delirious. I wanted to call my insurance to see if I was covered (this was during the summer) and I was connected to some nice person, probably making minimum wage, who told me with caution in her voice that my plan was expired. I had no active insurance, but she urged me to go to an emergency room. I remember saying something to the effect of “You just told me I don’t have insurance, I can’t go to the hospital, I can’t afford it.”
She sounded so genuinely worried and scared. I remember she said “You really don’t sound good, you sound really sick, please call 9-1-1” and I think I just said “I can’t afford it without insurance, don’t worry, I think I’ll be okay.”
And she paused and said “I don’t want to hang up the phone with you like this.” And it sounded like she was holding back tears. And I don’t remember what I said, I think that I would be okay, and I hung up.
I still think about her. I wonder if that phone call haunted her, or if she had dozens of calls like that a day. I wonder if she thinks about it at all, if she wonders if I died after she told me I didn’t have insurance and therefore couldn’t go to the hospital without incurring a tremendous financial burden. I wonder if she feels guilt or blame– of course she shouldn’t, it wouldn’t have been her fault if anything had happened to me. Maybe it’s self-centered to wonder if she thinks about it. I’m not the main character and it was just her job. But, still.
I think about how evil it was that we were put in that situation. Because offering year-long continuous coverage through the university plan would maybe cut into profits, maybe not benefit shareholders enough, maybe cut into Thompson’s $10 million salary. While his minimum wage administrators have to feel afraid to hang up the phone, because on the other line someone might be dying, and they wouldn’t know. While his patients hang up and decide to take their chances rather than put their family through that trauma.
This is UnitedHealthcare. This is Brian Thompson’s legacy. This is why, understandably, an entire nation is jubilant that he was gunned down like the vermin he was. I don’t care about his widow. I feel pity for his children, despite the fact that they will inherit millions, but I feel more pity for the children of his victims patients who are gone because they didn’t want THEIR children to inherit crippling debt. Brian Thompson got what he fucking deserved. I pray that he not be the only one. I pray for continued safety, peace , and anonymity for his killer.
American healthcare is a disease.
Please go to the ER if you need to, even if you don’t have insurance.
They have to treat you, regardless if you can pay. And a lot of hospitals have payment programs, or might waive your expenses partially or completely if you’re below a certain income (speaking from experience here).
Medical debt is a real and serious problem, but it has a fair number of solutions. Being dead is an eminently less solvable problem.
you guys made luigi mangione trend for days and I need to see the same energy for brianna boston. she is a 43 year old mother of three who ended a phone call with blue cross blue shield (after being denied a claim) “delay deny depose, you people are next” and is now being held under a 100,000$ bond and could face FIFTEEN years of prison if charged. she has no weapons, her record is clean, and yet she is being held behind bars. they are afraid of the public and are trying to subdue. do not let them!!!! be outraged that our freedom of speech is being threatened!!!!! deny defend depose! free brianna boston!
Good news, she is out with all charges dropped
This is apparently false (a lie, given the Polk Co Sheriff’s reporting), she has not been released without charges, she has been placed under house arrest pending trial
Do not take your eyes off her case. The announcement that she had been “released without charges” is almost certainly an effort to disrupt the immediate groundswell of public sympathy this exhausted and persecuted single mother is receiving.
“You can’t choose your wishes,” explains the genie, and snaps his fingers trice. “I have just given you what you desire, need, and deserve most. Enjoy!”
I went to a school district where it switched over to free lunch for everyone when I was in high school and before that I saw people go into lunch debt and have to take the cold lunch set aside for kids that couldn’t pay and it was always embarrassing for them. And technically those people’s families didn’t qualify for free lunch. But still their families couldn’t or wouldn’t pay for their lunch.
Once everyone got free lunch though there was no more embarrassment for anyone. And I started eating breakfast at school too because the breakfast my family gave me wasn’t always enough and I didn’t wanna be a bother by asking for more or asking for money to get breakfast at school. A lot more people started eating breakfast actually. Everyone got hot lunch. Everyone benefited. Poor families that couldn’t afford it, lower middle class families like mine who could put the spare money to use elsewhere, and anyone who just wanted extra breakfast and a hot lunch. It was an incredibly positive change for everyone.
Free school lunch makes life better for all students and also removes a layer of logistics that everyone needs to keep track of. The lunch line started going way faster because instead of waiting for people to add money to their lunch accounts we could just scan our lunch cards and move on.
We have such a long way to go to unlearn capitalism, if there can be literally any debate in whether we should feed children. Literally what is the point of a society that can’t even get that right? Why the fuck do we do anything?!
It’s crazy that we need proof that doing basic good things is a good thing
I want a story about a king whose son is prophesied to kill him so the king is like “whatever what am I supposed to do, kill my own kid wtf is wrong with you” so he just raises him as normal, doesn’t even tell him about the prophecy, and instead of some convoluted twist of events that leads to the king’s murder the son grows up and when the king is very old and dying and in excruciating pain the kid is just like alright I'mma put him out of his misery.
The king’s son becomes the new king, and is prophesied to defeat evil and bring an age of prosperity. His generals and knights all crack their knuckles but he pretty much ignores them and focuses on strengthening the infrastructure of his kingdom. Forty years later he is old and sick but still hearing his subjects’ grievances, and a general’s like “how will you defeat the prophesied evil now? You’re old and weak.” Another visitor, a teenager fresh out of the kingdom’s public education system, looks at the general like he is an ignoramus. The king eradicated poverty, housed the homeless, taught the ignorant, ended class exploitation by abolishing the nobility and imprisoning the corrupt, and established a highly respected guild of doctors that recently figured out how to cure the plague. There are no brigands because there is enough wealth for everyone to live comfortably; hiding in the woods and taking trinkets from people simply doesn’t make any sense for anyone but the desperate, and the people are not desperate. Evil is a weed, explains the teenager. It grows in cracked roads and crumbling houses and forgotten corners, rooted in indifference and watered by suffering. But the king demands that broken things be mended and suffering people be made well.
No evil lives in this kingdom, says the teenager. It starved to death before I was born.
Every once in a while, when I’m feeling down, I go and look at the notes on this post and they make me feel a lot better. This is the energy I want to carry into 2018.
For those who need to carry it into 2019.
And on to 2022
And into 2025
cant wait for 2025 if this energy is being tossed at it
Your grandparent passes and your parents inherit the palatial estate as well as the care for its cat. After going through several family records you realize the cat has been inherited throughout the generations. You try telling others but they forget. Now it keeps trying to be alone with you.
Just what I am. Ravenclaw - Jupiter adept - Proud owner of a Gardevoir and Gallade. Wanna know more? Take a look at Exactly What is on Here? at the top of the page.
