Neon Clear

KalSo (not remotely similar to the real name) is a 31 year old Jewish queer womanish person who writes too much and likes to think other people are interested. In between doing the things that "bring home the bacon" they can be found studying Torah, reading either YA or old lesbian fiction, writing about things best left unsaid, or binge-watching TV shows that have already been cancelled. Their favorite color is green, and they're a sucker for spicy food. 🌧🌈 var sc_project=11169973; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_security="ad01dcb4";

[sirfrogsworth]

I think Zelda got more of her father’s comedy genes than she realizes. 

[allstrangenature]

I can barely contain myself right now

holy shit

HOLY SHIT

[missmollyetc]

Everybody who wears The One Ring in LOTR starts to refer to it as ‘My Precious,’ and Tolkien’s right that is super creepy, but what I really love is that everybody does it, which says to me that this super powerful scary evil sentient ring has a favorite pet name and just, like, will not respond to anything else.

[swilmarillion]

Hey uhh @piyo-13 you cant hide brilliance like these in the tags

[piyo-13]

look i’m just saying, even as educated as frodo is, would he really KNOW the true name of sauron? like shit, of any of the elves left in middle earth by the time the events of LotR actually happen, only círdan and galadriel are old enough to remember that sauron existed in valinor (not counting old sindarin/avari elves because iirc sauron was never called mairon on the shores of ara [except possibly by melkor wink wonk]), let alone what his name was. so to everyone in ME, he’s always been sauron, and there’s no connection to “precious” in any linguistic sense… but mairon remembers.

[swilmarillion]

no you’re a hundred percent right!! no one would know, and it wouldn’t make sense to anyone except maybe Gandalf, but that shredded little piece of sauron’s souls remembers

[marithlizard]

Oh, wow.   

[scarletjedi]

this is why i love lotr fandom. this right here

[shaelit]

so what you’re saying is there’s a tiny piece of sauron’s soul tucked smug into the Ring just going around introducing itself as “i’m babey”

[tuulikki]

This post has justified every second of every minute, hour, and collective day I have ever spent on Tumblr. It was all worth it for this.

[sirfrogsworth]

These are the kind of quotes that need to be seen more. This is what actual patriotism looks like. 

[nudityandnerdery]

[pastelparrotlet]

Reblog this if you’re pro-receiving a brown paper package containing one (1) handwritten love letter, a small jar of strawberry jam from the farmers market, and a smattering of pressed flowers.

[femaleintimacy-deactivated20210]

Iowa women in love for 72 years wed

Vivian was a farm girl near Creston. Nonie a farm girl near Yale. Vivian was an indoor girl, spending hours “teaching my dolls,” practice for her dream of becoming a teacher. Nonie was an outside girl, helping on the farm and playing basketball, such a rough-and-tumble guard that she once broke a rib during a game.

Neither considered romance much back then. Vivian caught the interest of a boy once who became a friend but she cut that short by telling a schoolmate: “I wouldn’t go with him to a dogfight.”

Then Nonie saw Vivian from afar one day, and it changed everything. Both were attending Iowa State Teachers College (now known as the University of Northern Iowa) in 1942.

“I could tell you exactly what she had on,” Nonie said. “A gray dress with black velvet trim and big pearl buttons.”

That was it. They never spoke.

But after Nonie dropped out of school and returned to Yale to work, she heard the school in town needed a new teacher. “I prayed that night that she would come to Yale,” Nonie said.

By chance, Vivian saw the job there and got it. She soon met Nonie, who asked her to a movie. Nonie had to work that night but told Vivian to go to the show, and she would join her later.

“She was already bossing me around,” teased Vivian, the soft-spoken one in the relationship. “But I had a new friend.”

They hit it off.

“What then?” they were asked.

Silence.

“This is difficult for us to talk about,” Vivian said.

“No one knew what was happening,” Nonie said. “We didn’t even know it was anything special. I was just drawn to her. That’s all.”

“The hand of God was there,” Vivian added. “Suddenly, we were in love.”

[fageleh]

“I began to hear them addressing each other as ‘sweetie’ or ‘dear’ which they had never done before in public,” he said. “They had learned to live with their heads down so long. And now they don’t have to live with their heads down.”

[blackqueerblog]

what the fuck

[dunebug132]

For those is the back who dont understand.

White woman got a free mask,

Jewish man got a ticket,

And black man got beaten.

This is Amerikkka

[kate-barton93-deactivated202005]

He’s Jewish? I thought he was Amish. Amish men are allowed cell phones because they’re necessary for work.

[tikkunolamorgtfo]

Why TF would an Amish person live in Brooklyn? He’s a Jewish man living in a neighbourhood with a large Hasidic population. 

[willowdove]

Not to derail this but um… that’s not 3 cities. Two of those stories are from NYC. The other one is Williamsburg. Like, I know here on tumblr we can’t count, but come on…

[jewish-privilege]

Maybe make sure you know what you’re talking about before issuing passive aggressive fact checks.

All three happened in New York City. Williamsburg is a neighborhood in Brooklyn. Domino Park (where the woman is being handed a mask) is also in Williamsburg. Only one took place in Manhattan, which I’m assuming you are defining as NYC (which is not really correct), so even taking your definition of what is and isn’t NYC, you’re wrong. But regardless, both Brooklyn and Manhattan are two of the five boroughs making up New York City.

All of these events took place in NYC. That was Elad’s point in the original tweet. It’s the same city, but because of white supremacy, systemic anti-blackness and racism, and disparate treatment the same city is experienced three different ways by three different types (for lack of a better word) of people. That’s a tale of three cities.

[cowpokeprose]

Hey, gay working class and gay rural interests, aesthetics, and culture belong within the wider LGBT+ community. Country music belongs in gay spaces. Camo and trucker caps and work boots belong in gay spaces. Trucks and doorless jeeps and shitty old beaters belong in gay spaces. GEDs and high school educations and blue collar jobs belong in gay spaces. Being broke and looking like shit belongs in gay spaces. The community isn’t owned by the wealthiest San Fransisco and New York gay-geoisie. Their interests, appearances, and beliefs do not define queerness. 

[cowpokeprose]

Me: It’s important to remember to be inclusive of gay people from rural backgrounds.

Parts of Tumblr.com: I have literally never heard of classism and thus have no frame of reference for the idea that I should be nice to people with stereotypically low class interests and so I will make fun of those interests now. 

Me: Ah so I see I have overshot where y’all are at

[fluffy-flock]

Everyone in the notes: Yas! I love farms! Love them chickens, farm core is my life!

Bitch we all know you like farm asthetique. What we want is support for the Actual rural southern queer community. The trailer park/pre-used prefab queers. The ones who are never going to get more than a 10th grade education and work dirty blue collar jobs with hard labor. And remember that this whole ass time we often have to lie about who we are so we can keep the shitty hard labor jobs that fuck up our bodies. And remember that these communities are also black and Hispanic communities?? I see y'all in the notes “this is so white, this is so white” like the entire South isn’t full of poc and queer poc who struggle even harder because of all this??

Broke: everyone in the rural south is white homophobic racists

Woke: the rural south has large populations of queer poc who get no support and no acknowledgement within broader queer culture past the “gay cowboy” asthetic

[flamingkorybante]

From Something That May Shock And Discredit You, Daniel Lavery

[squidviscous]

“Julian” is Julian K. Jarboe, this line is found and expanded upon in one of the stories/essays found in their book Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel

Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel

Lethe Press is an independent publishing house specializing in speculative fiction, books of gay interest, poetry, spirituality, as well as

[babyanimalgifs]

We just love baby animals

[queentianas]

[upontheshelfreviews]

There’s a hidden level of brilliance in this moment:

Chef Boyardee is known today for his cheap out-of-the-can pasta, but in his native Italy he was a renowned expert chef. He was reduced to the face of microwaveable eateries after his death.

Sound like anyone else from this movie?

[ketchuprocket]

Chef Ettore Boiardi, known today as Chef Hector Boyardee, was a key player in keeping poverty struck families fed for a low price, before he ever came out with the canned pasta line. He would jar his sauce in milk bottles and provide bags of dry noodles for families in Cleveland, Ohio’s Little Italy sector. It was during the Depression, and pasta could be made in large portions at a low cost. This was the start of his venture. 

After years of success, he eventually opened his canning facility, opened his restaurant “Il Giardino d’Italia” in New York, and helped feed the Allies during the war. Everyone always glazes over this part of his life, especially the Cleveland part. He lived here. He DIED here. He’s BURIED HERE. My mother took care of him at the nursing home she worked for in her early 20′s when he was ailing and spoke of nothing but the kindness he and his family radiated when they were there. Chef Boiardi was an immigrant with a dream and was always there to help those in need, because he knew what it was like to be in that position. Never let that go.   

[jabberwockypie]

I had thought he was a fictionalized mascot, like Aunt Jemima or Betty Crocker, but this is really interesting.

“Proud of his Italian heritage, Boiardi sold his products under the brand name Chef Boy-Ar-Dee so that his American customers could pronounce his name properly.“

And if you have a name that isn’t “standard” in America, that is a Mood.

[maniacalmachinist]

Stories like this need to be heard, and circulated … and if you watch Ratatoullie, you’ll see it’s the same message.  Anyone can cook, and thus everyone deserves to eat … to live … to survive another day in the hopes that something will improve, be it for yourself or loved ones.  Food served as art is a luxury … but being able to survive is a right.  Boiardi and Gusteau both probably knew this, but their public position was likely ridiculed in the elite sector of their profession.

[they-call-me-hippie]

Via

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

listen I ended up regretting saying anything about this on my old blog because people will interpret literally any and every statement maliciously on this hellsite but I want to start like. a helpline for people who are like “hey I pretty much only read YA but I’m like 22 now and don’t relate to teenagers as much, it’s such a shame that there are no fun books written for adults :(” because boy HOWDY are there some fun books for adults 

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

maybe I’ll start a big google doc or something one day but for now *deep breath*

The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - absolutely BUCKWILD romance with a dash of telekinesis; nonstop high society drama and misunderstanding from start to finish, happy ending guaranteed. STRONGLY recommend if you, like me, are a basic bitch who enjoys a bit of Pride and Prejudice. 

Binti (Nnedi Okorafor) - a math prodigy runs away from Earth to become the first of her people to attend a prestigious university in space, but shit gets real when a crew of hostile jellyfish aliens attack her ship. 

Chilling Effect (Valerie Valdes) - a spaceship captain and her crew take on a series of convoluted missions in order to rescue the captain’s sister, who’s been frozen and held for ransom. 

The City of Brass (S.A. Chakraborty) - an 18th century conwoman and a mysterious djinn team up to go looking for a legendary hidden city.

The City We Became (N.K. Jemisin) - a scrappy bunch of Chosen Ones have to band together to defend New York City (which is very much alive) from a huge ass monster. 

The Empress of Forever (Max Gladstone) - a lady supervillain gets blasted into space and meets an even bigger, planet-destroying evil space empress. literally WHAT is not to like?

The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - high fantasy royal drama about a woman making her way to power in the wake of a political marriage that left without friends or allies. 

Escaping Exodus (Nicky Drayden) - a space-faring clan are creating their latest spaceship from the insides of a giant monster when absolutely everything goes to shit (as things are wont to do in science fiction stories). 

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (Kai Cheng Thom) - a trans girl runs away to the big city, where she uses her martial arts skills to team up with other trans woman and form a vigilante gang to defend their own when police look the other way. a fascinating blend of poetry and prose and magical realism. 

Finna (Nino Cipri) - two exes working at an IKEA have to team up to save a customer who disappeared through one of those interdimensional portals that all IKEAs have laying around. you know how it is.

Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) - come on, you’ve heard about this one. it’s the one with the lesbian space necromancers? yeah, that’s the one. you got it.

In the Vanishers’ Palace (Aliette de Bodard) - a Beauty and the Beast retelling based in science fiction and Vietnamese fantasy, featuring a young woman falling in love with a “beast” who’s actually a motherly dragon after becoming a tutor to the dragon’s two powerful children. 

Jade City (Fonda Lee) - urban fantasy gang wars, pitting one magically enhanced family against rivals and a new drug that lets anyone mimic their abilities. 

The Library of the Unwritten (A.J. Hackwith) - hell’s librarian gets sent on a quest to find a runaway soul. 

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Becky Chambers) - aka one of my favorite books ever, essentially slice of life science fiction following an interspecies crew of deep space truckers making the longest and most complicated delivery of their lives. very warm and fuzzy. 

Mort (Terry Pratchett) - one of many MANY Discworld books, but a very good one to start with, following the adventures of a boy named Mort after he’s taken on as Death’s apprentice. you know, like the Grim Reaper? that Death. 

River of Teeth (Sarah Gailey) - historical AU in which the United States imported and domesticated hippos in the Mississippi River; follows a crew of hippo-riding crooks and hooligans as they plan one heck of a caper. 

Space Opera (Catherynne Valente) - a washed up rock star and his old bandmate get roped into performing in an intergalactic singing competition that will determine the fate of the entire planet Earth. full of aliens, attempted assassination, art, and emotional turmoil. 

This Is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone) - time-travelling assassins from rival factions fall in love in a poetic and breathless story that spans centuries and reality. 

Under the Pendulum Sun (Jeannette Ng) - fairyland is real, and Victorian England is sending missionaries. a woman and her brother attempt to bring the good word to the fair folk, but start to suspect the queen might just be screwing with their heads. PEAK gothic horror with a creepy fairy twist. 

Witchmark (C.L. Polk) - a doctor and former soldier with magical powers of healing is trying to live a quiet life and avoid his controlling, aristocratic family’s plans for him, only to get tangled up in a massive political conspiracy when one of his patients mysterious dies. accompanying him in his investigation is a mysterious and gorgeous faerie man. romance ensues. 

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

for those of y’all who like goodreads I’ve started a shelf of adult books for ya fans, which is currently 40+ books strong and will continue to grow

[sua-sponte-deactivated20200331]

I’m watching that documentary “Before Stonewall” about gay history pre-1969, and uncovered something which I think is interesting.

The documentary includes a brief clip of a 1954 televised newscast about the rise of homosexuality. The host of the program interviewed psychologists, a police officer, and one “known homosexual”. The “known homosexual” is 22 years old. He identifies himself as Curtis White, which is a pseudonym; his name is actually Dale Olson.

So I tracked down the newscast. According to what I can find, Dale Olson may have been the first gay man to appear openly on television and defend his sexual orientation. He explains that there’s nothing wrong with him mentally and he’s never been arrested. When asked whether he’d take a cure if it existed, he says no. When asked whether his family knows he’s gay, he says that they didn’t up until tonight, but he guesses they’re going to find out, and he’ll probably be fired from his job as well. So of course the host is like …why are you doing this interview then? and Dale Olson, cool as cucumber pie, says “I think that this way I can be a little useful to someone besides myself.”

1954. 22 years old. Balls of pure titanium.

Despite the pseudonym, Dale’s boss did indeed recognize him from the TV program, and he was promptly fired the next day. He wrote into ONE magazine six months later to reassure readers that he had gotten a new job at a higher salary.

Curious about what became of him, I looked into his life a little further. It turns out that he ultimately became a very successful publicity agent. He promoted the Rocky movies and Superman. Not only that, but get this: Dale represented Rock Hudson, and he was the person who convinced him to disclose that he had AIDS! He wrote the statement Rock read. And as we know, Rock Hudson’s disclosure had a very significant effect on the national conversation about AIDS in the U.S.

It appears that no one has made the connection between Dale Olson the publicity agent instrumental in the AIDS debate and Dale Olson the 22-year-old first openly gay man on TV. So I thought I’d make it. For Pride month, an unsung gay hero.

[clothing-references]

This isn’t related to my blog aesthetic but I’m tired of seeing posts where people are making others paranoid that they’re in a coma or something. You’re not. I know lots of us know it’s just a bad “joke,” but some people don’t have the luxury of being able to believe that after seeing others tell them otherwise.

You’re awake. Everything is okay.

[clothing-references]

Hey so I’ve been dealing with some horrible cases of dissociation recently. It makes me think things that don’t make sense. I wanted to bring this post back and add onto it.

Your life is real.

You are awake.

You aren’t lying on the ground or anything. No one is desperately trying to wake you.

I am one person living in Houston who made this post. I am a living, conscious breathing person and if I made this post and it reaches you, that means you are, too. You didn’t imagine this post up. I made it two years ago.

You aren’t dead. You aren’t seeing things. That light headed feeling is just a symptom. This isn’t a dream and you are going to be okay. I believe in you and I hope you get through this.

[marshmallowmlm]

having a non-binary relationship to gayness can be hard and confusing and complex sometimes, but is absolutely beautiful and wonderful. a hearty yeehaw for non-binary gays 💓💖💘💗💓💖💘💗💓💖🤠

[accelerationist-king-piccolo]

[requiemforicarus-deactivated202]