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This moment brought to you by ice feast

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And now, a little ASMR with Erika Ishii.

If you haven't already, go check out our interview with the cast about the WWW Book I finale and what's next, over on our YouTube channel!

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mannn they’re using the same musical cues from the Sam and Evan scenes in Cloudward Ho and I’m getting emotional about them all over again

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The medical mainstream which refuses to address covid's common and highly varied lingering effects:

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If I may ask a moderately insane question in good faith:

What makes an opera an opera and not say, a stage musical? Like what's the defining features of the genre or is it a no-firm-borders "CATS is an opera in the same way a hotdog is a sandwich" situation?

absolutely not a moderately insane question because it is a genuine question! and i would honestly say that yeah, CATS is an opera in the same way a hotdog is a sandwich, because they're all related ideas and exist in context with each other.

the short answer is: it depends!

the slightly longer answer is: everything is made up and the points dont matter!

the real answer is this: it's kind of entirely arbitrary and comes down to a lot of ideas about high and low art, as well as historical precedence.

one of the first metrics people usually cite for "is it an opera or a musical" is whether or not there's spoken dialogue (separate from recitative, which is melodic dialogue accompanied by light music) but that falls apart in the face of operetta (gilbert&sullivan) and singspiel (zauberflöte, or famously die entführung aus dem serail, which has completely straight spoken dialogue without any melody at all and literally does not make sense without it. saw a production once where they cut the pasha's dialogue and that aint die entführung, baystaats) and then, the inverse with musicals with little spoken dialogue (les mis).

some people categorize it based on amplification (so, opera is done without mics/musicals are done with mics) but i've seen opera done with mics (again, baystaats, what the fuck was up with that die entführung?) and musicals done without (jesus christ superstar at the lyric was WILD)

i think the best differentiation to make is based on 1) the musical balance and 2) creator intention.

i'm not a person who understands music very well, but for me as a viewer/listener, i think of operatic music as being more about the relationship between orchestra and singers, and the support of the orchestra to give the fuller context to the emotions and thoughts by the singers. in musicals more often the vocals are supporting the orchestra, although this is still also not always true.

one thing that is usually true is that operatic voice is a very different beast from musical voice. some performers can cross over and do so very successfully, but many cannot, because the operatic voice is really designed for a very particular kind of singing, and many musical singers can't do what operatic singers do, even on mics. it's a different set of muscles and skills.

the other aspect is creator intention. there are some musicals that are verging on opera (phantom and hadestown are big ones) and some operas that are verging on musicals (again, gilbert and sullivan), but the intention behind the music. you could, very easily, put on zauberflöte like a musical—and people have done productions like this for kids all the time!—but at the end of a day, the intended nature of the art was as an opera, and it maintains operatic traditions that don't match musical traditions. you could, vice versa, easily do JCS as an opera, but it would still maintain musical traditions and not operatic ones.

there are a lot more detailed posts about this on the internet by people who understand music better than i do but at the end of the day i kind of still default to "i know an opera if i hear it" and a huge part of that does kind of boil down to how the voice is used. it's part of what makes phantom of the opera so cool to me—it's got fully operatic voice pieces (christine) next to fully musical ones (basically every ensemble number).

but at the end of the day: it's arbitrary. it depends. it's kind of up to the individual. sometimes people use "opera" to mean "high art" and "musical" to mean "low art" and sometimes they use "opera" to mean "a particular genre of vocal and orchestral music that developed in the 17th century and has continued to be refined and is an essential part of modern musical theatre tradition" but like. yeah essentially i'll know it if i hear it.

that said.

oh my god i want to see someone do don giovanni in a musical theatre style. just the whole damn opera but staged like a musical. im begging someone. i mean this is basically what the lyric 2015 production is they do have don giovanni on a table and elvira with a motorcycle but GO FURTHER.

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Yoshitomo Nara: Aomori-ken (Aomori Dog), 2005

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boom boom boom boom i want you in my loom knit you into a sweater then sew it up forever

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Another rainy day by モモ

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i know this isn't the reguar theme of this blog but i need to share it somewhere because today someone called my local fire department because they found

a horse

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Tag yourself as this list of “bad art” features, according to a twitter fascist

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shaking myself (very gently) . being in pain takes a lot of energy!!!!!! being in pain is exhausting!!!!!!! you are not lazy or weak because you need to spend so much time resting, this is your body coping with how much pain you’re in literally 24/7!!!!!!!!!

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The 2025 Gender Census is now open!

[ Link to survey ]

The 12th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 30th August 2025.

It’s short and easy, for most participants it takes 5 minutes or less.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful!

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

If you can't wait for survey numbers, you can click here for a public spreadsheet of non-secret info with graphs as it comes in, updated manually a few times per day.

Thank you so much!

[ Link to survey ]

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so Bobby has a shirt of the girls but consider the girls having a Bobby shirt ✨

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“Am I invited to live in a moment of great history? Am I invited to live in a moment of upheaval and turmoil where my club might be called upon? Are there battles for the fate of the world at hand? Do not live in fear. Smell the sweet honey of purpose you are called to. Yes, I get to live in a time that matters. Let us tell, as we did in ages long ago, a great story written by our actions.”

—Brennan Lee Mulligan, Fireside Chat 54

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i forgot to post this in November, but here's november's patreon postcard!!! Scorpio Races themed 🐎

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One must imagine Sisyphus happy