Me: Would you ever wanna go to an opera someday?

Gf: Yeah

Me: Me too

Gf: I don't think I'd wanna go to Phantom though.

Me: Oh, well, Phantom isn't actually an opera anyway

Gf: Uh, yeah it is? It goes on Broadway and everything?

Me: Yeah, it's a musical but not an opera

Gf: But they sing opera in it so that makes it an opera.

Me: *Hesitant to say anything else but shakes head*

Gf: I'm going to Google it and you're going to feel so dumb.

Gf: *into voice search* Is Phantom of the OPERA an OPERA? *Scoffs and shakes her at me*

Gf: ...... Oh, you're right, it's not an opera

Me: Yeah, I know

Gf: *Death glare*

*sigh* as an opera singer, I have had this conversation multiple times.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat technically an opera?

Good question! If your definition of opera is “a completely sung-through piece of theatre”, then it fits that definition. However, the lines of what is an isn’t an opera are getting blurred. There are some operas that have spoken dialogue between scenes. I would say because of the pastiche nature of Joseph it counts as a musical and not an opera (but that’s just my opinion). The pastiche nature of the show includes numbers that parody American country western and Calypso and don’t require the same techniques which are required to project over an orchestra in an opera. (Although healthy operatically sung high C’s would definitely make that one descant in One More Angel a little easier for that certain singer.)

I’ve done some operas that blur the lines between opera and musical theatre a little more, like HMS Pinafore and The Mikado but there are plenty of operas that aren’t even comic operas (like the aforementioned ones) likes ones by living American opera and art song composer Jake Heggie that have spoken lines and dialogue, buuuut he admits that he was very influenced by musical theatre in his compositional style and it show.

So short answer, in my opinion, no, Joseph isn’t an opera, but it definitely requires vocal stamina to sing through a whole show without dialogue breaks!

Would you say Porgy and Bess is an opera?

This was a matter of some debate in my musicals class. It's called a "folk opera" and it's early enough that it predates a lot of the conventions of the American Musical. I believe it has no spoken dialog - certainly less than say comic opera would. IIRC it also has exactly one (1) Book Song, though I don't think that's genre defining one direction or another.

What Tom* eventually ruled was that "if it's in English and you still have to put on the subtitles, it's probably an Opera," but that was at least in part to wind up Mme Ellis, just like his similar claim that "it's poetry if it doesn't go to the end of the line.

My opera vs musical Hot Take is that Cats is not a musical. It's a Review.

* Lehrer. Yes. The pigeon poisoner.

As a Cats fan, I'm interested in what you mean by Review because I haven't seen anyone describe it that way before

So Review is a genre of musical theater that is basically a showcase for a specific artist. It's a collection of songs strung together with a bit of excuse plot. They were much more common in the early days of American Musicals, before the Oaklahoma Watershed Event, but they still do exist when you want to showcase the pre-existing music of a particular artist.

So I've seen a Sondheim Review called Putting It Together which was all songs from other musicals, loosely strung together with a microcast of 4. Tom Foolery is a Tom Lehrer Review. I think it technically has a plot but that's not why you're there. Mama Mia! is technically an ABBA review, but I believe it has more than the typical amount of plot for the genre, so it can also be read as a Musical proper.

So Cats becomes more enjoyable to me personally if I think of it as a T.S. Eliot Review - a showcase of a mess of cool poem/songs about cats, strung together by the barest excuse for a plot. The plot is not the point. The point is: And Here's Another Interesting Cat. And going in with that expection is going to prevent you from sitting there for hours waiting for something to happen.

"as so many of them seem to think" yeah what a silly mistake for these people to have made, can you imagine having such awful reading comprehension, couldn't be me

increasingly coming around to the idea that more leftists need to get marketing degrees

I think the person who wrote this is simply lying.

No no we have to me maximally charitable to people who are actively hostile to the concept of charity.

Yeah, a lot of people are confused by this terminology, and I'm afraid you guys have it completely wrong here. White veganism is when you have a whitelist of acceptable foods, and those are the only ones you can eat. It contrasts with black veganism where you have a blacklist of unacceptable foods and you can eat anything not on the list.

White veganism overlaps a lot with fruitarianism and is indeed considered pretty extreme and militant in vegan circles. (I met a guy once who claimed he only ate garbanzo beans, and he was, uh, kinda out there.) Hope this helps, and please, try not to make everything about race.

Making it all about which species you'll eat is not any better! Kingdoms are the only acceptable taxon to filter on!

Right, so in addition to white, black, gray, and green veganism, there's also phyloveganism, where you only from a particular taxon, but you'll eat everything in that taxon. And it turns out that it's really difficult to find a taxon that includes something palatable but doesn't include e.g. hemlock, so this is not very popular, but then there are some people who will try to make it work.

I just encountered þe only person I've ever seen actually trying to bring back þe "þ" by using it casually.

I scrolled þeir blog for like 2 minutes before finding, like, antisemitic shit and oþer far-right-wing fuckery.

however, I really like "þ" as a letter, so in light of þis discovery and in an attempt to make þe list of people using "þ" be a list þat isn't 100% composed of alt-right fuckers, effective immediately I'm gonna start using "þ". if you pay close attention you might have already noticed þis.

let's all do þis. let's make it a queer þing. let's make it so þat if you see "þ" online you know þat person is gay as fuck.

maybe we can make it even funkier by using "ð" for ðe voiced version. ðat way we can use boþ. I þink ðat's neat

@imperialinquisition ðat's a great question!

so in all of ðat post except for ðe last paragraph, I used ðe þorn ("þ") for boþ ðe voiced and voiceless dental fricative sound, just for simplicity.

However, in ðe last paragraph, I also added ðe eð ("ð") for ðe voiced dental fricative. I understand ðe confusion, since I only used eð in ðe last paragraph and used þorn for boþ sounds in ðe rest of ðe post.

it's super easy to tell ðem apart once you know which one is which! here are ðe wikipedia files for ðe two sounds:

voiced:

voiceless:

here's how you tell ðe difference:

put your fingers lightly on your þroat (on eiðer side of your adam's apple if you've got one). now say ðe sound at ðe beginning of ðe English word "thinking". (apologies for spelling, but I want ðis to be clear). Now do ðe same for ðe sound at ðe beginning of "this". notice how your vocal chords vibrate when you do ðe second one but not when you do ðe first one? ðat's ðe difference between voicing and not voicing a sound!

here's a more in-depþ explanation:

in ðe last paragraph of ðe original post, and in ðis whole reblog part, I used eð ("ð") for ðe voiced version and þorn ("þ") for the voiceless version, because while ðat distinction didn't exist in ðe era when ðese letters were in common use, ðe voiced dental fricative is ðe sound ðat ðe "ð" symbol represents in the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet).

(Now, we kud go ful-bulxit-languaj-speling-reform and þro out about a milion oðer þings about Inglix speling ðat som pepl þink we xud, but to be kumpletly onist, I dont realy want to. Its mor fun to just ad in eð and þorn.)

now go and be gay!

and for Windows users, you can use ðe following alt codes:

Someone may have already mentioned ðis, but anoðer easy way to tell if it should be ð or þ is ðat if you find yourself tempted to pronounce it as a "d," or if you'd go for a "d" sound if your nose was stuffed up, go with ð.

Dis cat, dat boi, deez nuts -- all of ðose take ð. Ðis is easy to remember because Ðð looks a lot like Dd.

If, however, you'd replace it with an F, then you want the þorn.

Fanks, fings, sore froat -- that's þanks, þings, sore þroat.

If, on the third hand, you want the smut, that's porn, not þorn.

"super easy to tell them apart” -- I once, over several weeks of arguing it, managed to somehow get a group of Americans on Discord to tell me that they pronounce “ether” with a short-e (like “bed”) while trying to get them to notice the difference between voiced and voiceless dental fricatives.

(I was trying to use “either/ether” as a demonstrative minimal pair and that’s when one of them said “oh yeah the difference is one of them has a short-e” AND THE REST OF THEM AGREED.)

(if you've never said this word outloud, here's a handful of british and USA examples here. Literally all of them use an english long-e vowel)

What on earth is going on with every "which president was most likely to have done X?" having Grover Cleveland as a surprise strong contender?

Anyways, Washington, Jackson, Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, and Eisenhower all had military careers with battles and such, so like, I think all of them are solid contenders.

For folks unfamiliar with American history, George Washington basically started the Seven Years War, Grant was The Big General of the American Civil War, Teddy Roosevelt fought in the Spanish American War, and Eisenhower was The Big General of WW2. Jackson was notable in the War of 1812, which was a Napoleonic wars sideshow/American Revolutionary War 2.0 from the British being short on sailors to fight Napoleon and being like, "American sailors are basically British sailors, so it's cool for us to impress them into the Royal Navy, right?" and the Americans objecting to their citizens being kidnapped by the Royal Navy.

Yeah I'm confused about this "most likely" framing of the poll because a bunch of these guys have well-documented kills that you can just look up. Jackson also fought a ton of duels, which might involve more face-to-face murder (here's the most famous one, idk if there are more), if OP cares about that (I'm cueing on that "personally").

If we're talking about being the authority in charge of leading people to their deaths or executing them (as in the Cleveland example) then either Grant or Eisenhower oversaw the largest number of deaths -- WWII had the most deaths overall obviously, but the American Civil War might have resulted in more American deaths, specifically, depending on what you count.

EDIT: oh woops meant to post this early instead of saving to drafts. pretend I posted this just before the soviet leader poll

Poll 1: fruit

bell pepper is currently winning but it's way too close. where my fellow bell pepper enjoyers at

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

TIL the medicine seller has a name

current note count: 295

1) nice 17776 crossover

2) if you want to have this experience while reading fanfiction I highly recommend this ao3 site skin (it’s nicer than it sounds!)

oh, I see!! we're doing "what is your vague assumptions about world leaders without doing any actual research" b/c most people don't know very much about american presidents (I'm saying that with no judgement, btw -- i certainly know very little about some of these soviet leaders)

I still think "most likely" is a weird framing b/c I think it's 100% chance for all of these guys (and all the US presidents too although I already forgot who was on the poll. I can't think of a US president off the top of my head who definitely didn't kill people)

Certainly you don’t believe I can be omnipotent, omniscient…..

….but not omnipresent?

how did homura time travel *to 2008*

I had a dream the other week about these people fighting back against an assault from another world. Most of them weren’t experienced fighters, but average people who banded together (although Gimli was there because dreams).

This particular woman’s job was to throw a javelin through a dimensional portal, tethering the two worlds together and allowing the defenders to control where the fight happened. They later built a statue of her. In her day-to-day life, I think she owned a fabric shop.

Prints available through Inprnt and Redbubble!

[Image Description: A digital illustration of a woman preparing to throw a javelin through a portal. She is a fat, dark-skinned South Asian woman with long dark hair in a braid. She wears a navy blue crop top and dark reddish dhoti. We see her from behind, her left arm extended towards the portal while her right arm is reared back, holding a glowing white javelin which trails a tether on the ground behind her. The sky is mostly overcast with dark blue-grey clouds, but an intense sunset orange breaks through closer to the horizon. Through the glowing portal, the blue curve of another planet is visible. /end ID]

Escapist books aimed at women have more sex than escapist books aimed at men which I think is interesting. Like the typical male fantasy lit is like Punchy McSquarejaw who Fights or Shoots and maybe he has a girlfriend but she’s generally a bit superfluous. And then you have girl wish fulfillment books about falling in love with a vampire or dark fairy. And maybe she is also like an assassin or wizard or has a sword or something, but the war and fighting is secondary to the fantasy of being dicked down by a broody sadboy. And sex is part of this fantasy, often explicitly. But guy books spend more time describing spaceships or shootouts or fistfights than sex scenes, even tho the stereotype is that men’s fantasies are mostly sexual

I bet @autisticandroids will have thoughts on this.

This is a very valid and interesting point. Gonna reblog it to see if anyone following or visiting has some insight and in case I think of something.

wait what?! There’s so much classic pulpy scifi that had a terrible sex scene shoehorned in every 40 pages (not usually literally, but my dad remembers one book where it was that literal and periodic)

I don't respect christianity but they kinda popped off with cathedrals but ONLY for the purpose of having a cool backdrop for fighting horrible nightmare beasts

What if they have snails crawling down the outside?

Holy shit, this can’t stay in the tags!

Tumblr user perfectlyspreadbutthole is the funniest person alive

happy freak it friday,

I made a thing