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Be proud of me, because even though I have been incredibly stressed out the past day I have not gone and picked any fights with people being very stupid about a video game for stress relief, even though they're being very stupid and I really, really want to.

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August 1st was National Yaoi Day. Consider spreading Greek Jewish Yaoi

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light of Aurora, Anastasia Trusova, acrylic, 2021

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Credit u/peterporky on Reddit

Grabs his ****

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✨Finally, after long days and nights!✨ Its been such a wonderful experience to sink into the details of this piece and get lost in them for hours and hours!

Hopefully he can go to his new forever-home soon!

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well this fucking sucks

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sleep

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I've been working hard!! So much new stuff and restocks. Notably, my foiled Golem drawing that people have asked for is back in both silver and gold 💖 My shop is here. Thank you and stay safe!

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by  Stefan Koidl

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It's AUGUST, which happens to be my birthday month. Why not celebrate with a birthday sale?

My 7 books for 7 bucks bundle is back on itchio (bc my bday is the 7th maybe this year will be kind), but also! My books are 37% off individually at retailers bc that's my revolutions around the sun! Perfect time to pick up a new book!

We've got...

A lost punk with angel wings, space runaways and their vampire, an urban legend that’s real, a fallen star’s journey for revenge, a magician’s and a bard’s adventures, a necromancer’s tragic desire for more, & a young man’s memories eaten away by divinity…

Find the 7 for 7 bundle here!

Find the individual books & their buy links here!

🎈🎈🎈

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testing new brushes, using eli and maia's halloween getups as muses @bleaksqueak

practising silhouette shape language as well

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Neve Gallus in the style of Alphonse Mucha's "Salon Des Cent" print, now available on my redbubble

https://www.redbubble.com/i/art-board-print/Neve-Gallus-in-the-style-of-Alphonse-Mucha-s-Salon-Des-Cent-print-by-melikomakes/171982725.NVL2T

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why you should read Kill Six Billion Demons

Here's 9 real things that happen in KSBD and one I made up for the lols. Try to figure out which one it is.

1. A guy gets cockblocked by the Wild Hunt and learns how to do kickflips on a sword

2. A 20 feet tall baby breaks into the most secure vault in the universe

3. Gods commit mass suicide and their corpses become real estate

4. A fat drunk auntie is the reverse kung fu panda: all she wants is to sell noodles but to her misfortune, she's the best swordsman in the universe

5. A worm shoots itself and then negotiates being eaten

6. A girl transitions herself by punching a god in the face

7. Angels do kung fu and ride skeleton motorbikes

8. There's a door that screams at you until you feed it a catgirl

9. Learning the common speech of the universe makes you horny

10. God killed themself, then fought themself, then fucked themself, then stuck around to lie to their children for the lulz

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Post on my dash about medical debt reminded me of the time tumblr saved me two grand. I don't think I told y'all about it because I am out of the habit of posting everything I do on tumblr lol

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.

Don't forget to ask for an itemized bill, folks.

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Getting emotional about headcanons and AUs like

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Back in 1942, when making a bad cup of tea may have been grounds for a divorce…