I am fearless, and therefore powerful

Come on [tumblr] where’s my Mars Bear fanart?

And this was meant to be a BAD thing. A problem. But if you actually believed that a massive population of low-literacy adults were buying books, becoming obsessed with them, and discussing them at length… wouldn’t that be a great thing? That’s how one moves from low literacy to high literacy: by practicing reading

(Yoinked this from LinkedIn, genuinely interested in seeing how responses align with demographics) (so far it’s those of us over 35 being indignant but I wanna see how those fully plays out) (it’s cultural and technological history/memory, bruh)

here’s my intrulogical tiktok that thomas sanders reposted and commented on LOL

Being supportive of binary people is relatively simple, they have decided to sort themselves into one of the boxes that we have lots of experience interacting with. Being supportive of nonbinary people can be comparatively tricky, because you have to resist the urge to create box C and drop them all there. That's how we end up with various prejudices like "woman lite". Humans really, really like to categorize things. It helps us think. Unfortunately, sometimes it helps us think wrong.

ive worked in hospitals for a long time, and years ago i saw a patient very frequently. he came in once every month or so, inpatient. one day he told me what he kept coming in for. he had a knee replacement, but it kept rejecting. so the hospital would take it out, keep him, and then put it back in. he told me that he was fighting to just have it amputated. he said he was in his 70s and he just didnt have enough time anymore to spend it all in the hospital. he said that he felt he could live a better and more fulfilling life for the years he had left if they just took the leg off. he could get a prosthetic and just not have to go to the hospital all the time. he said that the doctors were fighting him on it but that was what he wanted. i said that i understood, and that i hoped he could get that amputation

anyway, some time passed, and i saw him again. i asked whats up, he was beaming and said, "i got it done! they took the leg off!" i was like, "hell yeah man, how are you feeling?" and he said "well it hurts right now but im not gonna have to come here all the time anymore." he left the hospital some time later, and i never saw him again, which is all you can hope for when you work in a hospital

he also had an elective surgery, a "voluntary" surgery. he chose to have an amputation because he was suffering with the limb intact. and thats really what we're doing too. yes, transition surgeries are elective, but that doesnt mean that theyre not necessary to improve the quality of our lives

for example, we have a microscope that is perfectly functional, good microscope, but its software is abandonware because the company refused to maintain it. the company is still in business, still makes essentially the exact same software, but they made all of the old tech incompatible with new software to force people to buy the new microscope tech. it would cost a quarter million dollars to replace this microscope. this perfectly good microscope.

I made this transparent PNG the night he died in preparation for one of the many ways I was going to memorialize him--a surface rug in his likeness that I planned on laying directly in the line of his favourite sunbeam. And I uploaded that PNG here, because this is the website where people post their cats.

I was not expecting the reception I got. Many people have pointed out that this post has more reblogs than likes, and how insane that is in 2025 when reblog culture is at an all time low. I didn't even talk about the fact that Burger passed away in the original post, it wasn't a tearjerker reblog bait or anything like that. People just loved Burger that much, in the same way I fell in love with him at first sight. He was such an ugly kitten.

Anyways, it's really special to me that so many people have reblogged my best friend. I made this PNG to memorialize him in a completely different way, and you all wound up doing just that in ways I never even imagined.

Thank you. Wherever he is, I know the sun is shining.

check the alt text if you can’t read it!! (iykyk)