Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

Anonymous asked: What's going on with a filibuster?

fluent-in-lesbianism:

Oh, man. It’s so wild, anon:

• Officially hit 13 hours (it’s after midnight in D.C. right now)
• Started with just 7 Senators head by Sen. Chris Murphy from Connecticut, now it’s grown to 40 from varying states
• They’ve hit topics all over the place: the need for the Equality bill to pass (which would protect the LGBTQIA community from being fired at work and other equality laws to protect us), the call for religious tolerance involving the Muslim community, how the incident with Matthew Shepard affected the LGBTQIA community, etc.
• But the main topic has been how unbelievable it is that people on the no fly list can’t get on a plane, but they can still legally buy guns at a gun show or on online venues, such as Facebook and Instagram
• Some standout speeches (that I’ve personally seen) include those by Sens. Tammy Baldwin, Cory Booker, Mazie Hirono, Brian Schatz, Sherrod Brown, Bob Menendez, and Angus King
• Each speaking Senator has explicitly called out Republicans for accepting money from the NRA and doing “absolutely nothing” to help their constituents
• Sen. Brown basically called them cowards for deferring to them when confronted with decisions on gun control (it was fucking awesome)
• Sen. Murphy asked why Republican Senators even signed up to be Senators if they’re just going to ignore the slaughter of people they’re supposed to protect (again, fucking awesome)
• Every mass shooting we’ve had has been talked about in depth, including Orlando and its impact on the LGBTQIA and the Latino communities alike
• There’s so much more that I know I’ve missed, but I’ve been watching for like 7 hours now and it’s all running together

Notes Concerning Certain Performances of Hamilton

scioscribe:

Author’s Note: I submitted a prompt about this idea, and then I submitted a clarification, and by the time I wanted to submit a second clarification, I thought, I should just write the thing.

Summary: They’re in the play!  (Little bits of Hamilton/Laurens, Hamilton/Eliza, Peggy/Maria, and lots of friendshipping.)

1

They go through the requisite amount of hey, this doesn’t look like heaven, this looks like a theater!, which takes… more time than you might think, especially since they aren’t all speaking to each other.  Hamilton is refusing to acknowledge anything Jefferson says, Jefferson wants to be addressed as Mr. President, and Eliza keeps deliberately stepping on Burr’s foot. Madison is just glad to not be coughing. He breathes in and out.  Nudges Jefferson.  Smiles.

It’s Angelica who finds the books.

Some time after that, John Laurens finds the first playbill.

And, well, there’s nothing else to do.

Pity them: they can’t even make the obligatory Waiting for Godot reference.

2

The first time around, they have to do it all script-in-hand.  Eliza plays her husband.  Being him, singing and rapping his lines, is like learning a new grammar.  By the end of Act One, she’s flushed pink.  Everyone has been chanting her name—the longer they say “Alexander,” the more it sounds like “Eliza,” as if all of this is for her—and she’s been moving so quickly, her skin burns, as if she will tear through it, step out, take flight.

In Act Two, she moves on Maria Reynolds—played by Burr—with a kind of ruthlessness.  She says he’s left her helpless.

He sings, “I didn’t know any better.”

She says she’s ruined.

Here’s the kicker: he agrees.  “Yes, yes,” they both sing in tandem.

3

Lafayette plays Jefferson; Jefferson plays Lafayette.  No one can tell the difference.  They finally compromise, so that Jefferson plays Lafayette with his hair undone and Lafayette binds his back to play Jefferson. Also Jefferson will stop trying to do Lafayette’s accent, because it makes everyone uncomfortable.  They spend hours in the wings practicing “Guns and Ships” and “Washington On Your Side” together.

They all like their doubles because they have all, at one point, been lonely.

(Washington, without wife or family, still is.)

Keep reading

vrabia:

Have I ever told you guys the true story of the Revolution Christmas Tree?

This one absolutely 100% happened (unlike the drunk zombie geese story which likely only 35% happened, but maybe I’ll tell you about it one day). It happened to my family when I was 4 y/o. 

So imagine Evil Commie Land in the late ‘80s: severe food shortages, no heating (seriously, people slept with their stoves on for heat and sometimes the gas was cut off and came back randomly during the night and carbon monoxide poisoning was a thing). Also large, beautiful, historical chunks of our capital city were being bulldozed into oblivion because our megalomaniac shithead supreme leader wanted to build the biggest fucking thing there was. Anyway, it sucked. 

On top of that we were also technically not supposed to celebrate Christmas, because religion is the opiate of the masses etc. etc. But we did anyway, every year and with great enthusiasm, running as we did on the sweet fuel of go ahead and tell a motherfucker they’re not allowed to do something.

So. Christmas. The way we did Christmas back in the day was to make it as secular and proletarian as possible: officially no church services, no religious carols, no Jesus thingy, no calling Santa Claus Santa Claus (we called him Old Man Frost idk)

The only thing we did exactly the same as regular Christmas, in the privacy of our homes, was the Christmas tree. This is how you got a Christmas tree:

• you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were
• these were not like, official, state-sanctioned commercial workers, but people with the capacity to somehow provide you with 1 pc. coniferous for Proletarian Christmas celebrating purposes
• I have no fucking idea who they were or how they got them
• anyway, you went to the marketplace where Christmas tree sellers were and you talked to one of them and you told them what kind of Christmas tree you wanted (options were: fir/spruce, medium-ish/small)
• you paid them in advance and agreed on a date where you’d come by and pick your Proletarian Christmas tree
• you picked up your Proletarian Christmas tree, brought it home to the family and decorated it with stuff you inherited from your great-grandmother or your mom made out of candy wrappers like 15 years before
• you celebrated Christmas. Proletarianly. 

So along comes 1989. Shit boils over and by December 21st, we have a violent revolution right on the streets of our capital city. 

Now, I was 4 and my brother was 6 months old and our parents decided that we absolutely cannot go without a regular Christmas in our house, especially now that the world is about to go to shit. We didn’t have anything, presents or nice food or. Anything? Basically. The one thing we had was dad had arranged to get our Christmas tree on the day. So he tells my mom that he’s going to pick it up, and instead of knocking him cold and chaining him to the radiator, like the sensible woman she usually is, my mom goes ok just put on an extra sweater you don’t want to catch a cold haha right?

Let me break this down for you in case there’s any misunderstanding as to what we’re talking about. Outside:

• violent riots
• army
• snipers
• tanks
• plainclothes secret police randomly shooting people dead in the street
• I seriously cannot stress the snipers enough

So off goes my dad to pick up our Christmas tree. And he’s gone for five hours, on a trip that normally takes like 30 minutes at a casual stroll. And the more time passes, the deeper my mother sinks into an all-out nervous breakdown. She’s barely keeping it together, my grandmother is trying to comfort her, while my brother is sleeping quietly, which is a good thing, because at some point there’s a weird rumbling outside our building. 

‘What’s that?’ say I, 4 years old and desperate for some straight, no-bullshit answers

‘Nothing,’ says my mom. ‘Nothing’ is the second stupidest thing to say to an observant, intelligent kid who’s been locked up for a week and kept in the dark about shit that’s very obviously happening just outside.

‘No, really, what is that?’ say I, seriously determined to get a straight, no-bullshit answer. 

Years later, after piecing bits of memories together, I realized there are only so many ways to skirt around ‘It’s a tank, dear’, which is the single stupidest thing to say to a child who’s been locked up for a week if you expect them not to run outside because they want to see, damn it. 

So when my dad finally comes home five hours later, with the goddamn tree, she’s either too exhausted to say much, or doesn’t want to have that conversation in front of her kid, who is seriously right on the brink of smashing something out of frustration. 

It wasn’t until I was in highschool that he told me he’d actually been shot at several times, because sneaking around street corners carrying a large tree is not at all suspicious when everyone is so strung up. Any sniper who might have been around absolutely did not think he was probably a revolutionary agent smuggling weapons or w/e instead of a dad trying to make a nice Christmas for his family BECAUSE WHAT THE ACTUAL EVERLOVING FUCK

So this is the story of the Revolution Christmas Tree, aka the story of how my dad almost got shot lugging around an overpriced bit of spruce in the middle of violent street fighting so his kids could have Christmas. 

There are some levels of parenting you just can’t beat. 

(via bonehandledknife)

lupinatic:

stimmymage:

olofahere:

lyinginbedmon:

randomstabbing:

isohels:

Do you know what I hate??

When I was growing up any time my brother upset/hurt/was rude to or downright nasty to me I was told “he’s just doing it to get a rise out of you” “he’s just doing it to annoy you”

Like??? I know?? I know he’s being mean to upset me. I know he’s saying horrible stuff to annoy me. And guess what?? I’m annoyed!!!!

I was literally told not to be upset, because his intentions were to upset me????

How is that not upsetting? Especially to a young girl??

THE GASLIGHTING STARTS EARLY.

As I was relentlessly bullied, I was often told not to react because the reaction was what they wanted, and that they would stop bullying me if I did not respond.

In reality, no, they just tried harder. All the advice ever taught me was to bottle up all the pent up frustration and misery, so ultimately what changed was that no-one knew how badly I was suffering.

Nothing is changed by inaction.

“Ignore them and they’ll go away,” is the most horrible damaging fucking lie I was ever told. If you don’t react, then they know they can bully you without consequences.

And why, if they were in the wrong, was it my fucking job to deal with it?

I still get told this when my teenage brother is being mean (I’m almost 20). It still makes me furious, and I still don’t have a good comeback.

I got told this when it was literally an adult man picking at me, a disabled little girl, until I would cry. Because his wife was my mother’s friend and said wife would get defensive and even angry if I (or anyone) dared get angry at her husband for being an arse to everyone because “that’s just what he does”. Somehow a disabled child was supposed to summon up levels of maturity and acceptance that a grown man was just apparently unable to manage.

People like this don’t want to take responsibility for policing their own behaviour, but if you get sick of their BS and start doing the policing for them, look out. Because they or their enablers will consider you the actual bad guy.

…holy shit.  Holy.  Jesus Christ, give me a minute to process this.

I…have never considered that the whole point of someone harassing you was to get a rise out of you.  I have lived my whole life thinking that “they’re just doing it to upset you” was a completely legitimate criticism of MY behavior.

I am eighteen years old and I have considered myself a freak for my entire life because I was always upset.

Holy fuck, this would mean I was within my rights to be angry all those years because…people were trying to make me angry?  That…that logic might take a few days–months–years to settle in.