#giaffa

[fashionablyfyrdraaca]

Aesthetic Gifsets of Miss Shania’s Favourite Tumblr OCS (28/?)

Hiram Howell Hastings Hargrave of Holmwood Hall - The Soulless Socialite by @giaffa

[leathr-blr]

ok now I have to ask, what are your favourite Dio songs or eras? (in general not just his band if you have more faves!) 👀👀

......my entire life has lead up to somebody asking me this.......

dio isn’t a special interest for me. but, he does kind of encapsulate a few of the reasons in which i enjoy metal music and it's culture, which is a special interest for me. so, yeah, fair warning, i’m one of those stereotypical neurodivergents who knows everything about the thing that they like, so it’s gonna be a LOT and i’m gonna give WAY more details than you asked for LMAO. and i would love to hear your favorite songs and eras, too. or just anything else you’d wanna mention regarding him that you like or find interesting. not a single person i know likes or cares about this freak. and... i promise i'm not like this everytime. i can listen. istg...

that being said, don’t feel like you have to respond to or read all of this shit to do so. you’re free to skim for your own mental health just gonna list off my favorite songs from each era to hopefully knock out both these questions at once... long explanations under the cut ( for the sake of the 100% of my followers that are here for phineas & ferb art waiting for me to get over this delusional phase through gritted teeth like my mother watching me transition )

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dio era and black sabbath era are my favorites, it would be hard for me to pick between them. if i was forced to, i’d probably say sabbath era. but my favorite song from him is dio era, so i’ll just start there. i can get all the waxing poetic about everything i love about him out the way right off the bat with this one:

Rainbow in the Dark - Holy Diver

this is my definitive number one. it’s one of my favorite songs of all time. it’s absolutely gay bar music, i’d love to sing this at a drag show one day or something. or SEE somebody do it. maybe this has been done and i just been missing out i'll have to check

so of course, dio’s a straight guy as far as we know, and this song isn’t… MEANT to be about queerness… even though that is super hard to believe for me, but like, i’m not gonna queer-vestigate a guy who would have come out on his own terms if he had wanted to. it’s not my place. but this song is about queerness to me, personally. the intersection between queer culture, queer performance art, and heavy metal music, it is very very important to me! i think those things go hand in hand.

even if we're talking about the more traditionally “masculine” “hardcore” shit, like death / black metal. it’s over the top, all these guys are exaggerating for performance or playing a character for... fun, obviously, but also for the sake of being intentionally transgressive to what’s considered “societally acceptable.” there’s an element of drag in that! am i crazy?? and dio is just so unabashedly like, "i’m gonna dress like a knight and a wizard and sing like a girl, have the time of my life." always sings about being yourself and being a dreamer, etc. which is COOL. this song is so fuckin camp, with that synth, his over the top singing, the lyrics, it encompasses just about everything i enjoy about him as an artist.

oh, and, can't help myself, i gotta yell about the holy diver album cover too. i'm an artist who takes lots of inspiration from metal music artwork for my own graphic design + general stylistic habits, and this is one of all time favorite paintings. i love this quote from him about illustrated album art, it’s soo bitchy:

"I've always preferred illustrations," he says. "After Elf, most of the albums I've done have used illustrations. That's because I think you should give people value for money, and I don't think value for money is a picture of guys with puffed-up hair on an album cover. But I guess it depends on your ego."

cool article by the way!

the illustrator is randy berrett. unfortunately, it is just super difficult to find anymore artwork from him, but from what i have seen, he is a MASTER of color and composition. he likes to use the same kind of palettes i do, totally stole from him via color picking in some stuff i’ve fucked around on recently. here’s another one from him that i like ‘cause fuck it you’re here:

^^ look close and you'll find his signature carved in the rock btw. if i had more resources from him i’d love to do a full on study. one of these days i’m gonna do a proper gallery hunt. lol anyway, tangent aside, that’s the most deranged rant you’ll get out of me, the rest of my opinions are a bit more simple.

just knocking out the rest of my favorites from the dio era:

Straight Through the Heart - Holy Diver The Last in Line - The Last in Line Wild One - Lock Up the Wolves Stand Up and Shout - Holy Diver

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and for the black sabbath stuff! got some strong opinions about that for sure.

i understand that ozzy is an iconic frontman, a great artist, etc etc, and being a good frontman isn’t all about how skilled you are as a singer. that being said, dio is a better frontman. there’s not a single ozzy-era black sabbath song that dio can’t perform better. he did a great job continuing black sabbath's legacy by improving all his songs and ripping off jinx dawson. i’ll die on that hill

here are some examples of songs i think he did better:

N.I.B [Live at Portland Memorial Coliseum, Portland, OR, 4/22/1982] - Mob Rules (Deluxe Edition)

the difference between the original and dio’s performance of N.I.B is night and day. i think this specific recording is the best version of it, if you haven’t listened i highly recommend you do. dio really performs this song with the energy it deserves, gets the lyrics across wayyy better. really makes it his.

Children of the Grave (Live) - Live Evil War Pigs (Live) - Live Evil

...and then there’s the original songs from his time with black sabbath, some of my favorite things he’s ever done!

Heaven and Hell - Heaven and Hell

the best song and album he made with them, not gonna try to be contrarian here. this is my favorite song off the album and the song that got me into him.

Die Young - Heaven and Hell Neon Knights - Heaven and Hell

and a few off of mob rules, these ones are underrated!

The Sign of the Southern Cross - Mob Rules Falling Off the Edge of the World - Mob Rules

these two songs are super similar. i lean towards falling off the edge of the world though. good bass playing from geezer butler (redundant) that is also impossibly fast. breaks my fingers. the sign of the southern cross, it gives me second hand anxiety when he does it live and gets to those first few “fade aways,” i always worry he’ll screw it up lol. i think it was todd in the shadows who said something like, “if a falsetto is less than 98% good, it’s bad”

The Sign of the Southern Cross / Heaven and Hell (Continued) [Live in San Antonio, May 13, 1982] - Live Evil (40th Anniversary Super Deluxe)

this is my favorite live version tho. love the little interlude, highly recommend. ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ now for his pre-sabbath, pre-dio stuff, i only really like a few so i’m just gonna put them all together.

Stargazer - Rising (Rainbow)

all time favorite from him! right next to rainbow in the dark. a must-hear for anybody who likes him.

Catch the Rainbow - Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow (Rainbow)

my elementary school music teacher loved this song but wouldn’t tell us what it was from ‘cause we were elementary schoolers. i just recently realized it was this song. that is to say, dio’s been my guardian angel this whole time

Never More - ELF (Elf)

only elf song i like and i LOVE it. might be a most listened for me on spotify this year.

Sitting in a Dream - The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshoppers Feast (Roger Glover)

and a bonus, not crazy about this song but it’s a rarity, catchy and his voice is just beautiful here. ⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘ i don’t really like any of his stuff from heaven and hell era, as he gets older his vocals aren’t too appealing to me any more (i’m really particular about how people sing, if it wasn't obvious i have OCD lmfao) and i also just haven’t explored them very throughly. if you know any you like, let me know!

if you read through all of this by the way, thank you!!! i know i absolutely went off the rails. i kid you not, i spent ~5 hours writing all this down, organizing it all, making it look nice, compiling links and making sure all the live versions were actually my favorite live versions, just insane behavior. and what your seeing is maybe half of everything i wrote. this is the SHORT version… i have a whole lot of tangentially related rjd opinions and knowledge stored away in place of basic math and executive function.

[capn-twitchery]

I messed around a bit with the trumpet falling down a staircase song because the bouncy rhythm was really soothing to me, and at 1.50/1.75x speed it becomes ska.

I don't know what to do with this information but I thought you should know it 🎺

oh my god wait you're so right

this changes the game. we're DIYing ska

[bizarrebazaar13]

🎸 and 🌿 for the ask game!

🎸 ~ what's your favorite band?

right now I’d say it’s the maine! a friend introduced me to them several years ago and I am eagerly awaiting the new album in june.

🌿 ~ what's your favorite plant?

hm. I feel like I have different favorites depending on what types of plants we’re talking about. but I’ll go with tomato plants, since I have a lot of summertime nostalgia associated with them, and I also really like tomatoes as a food.

[gregor-samsung]

" Il luogo dell’incidente e i musei e gli archivi dove è conservata la documentazione si trovano, in base alla divisione del paese da parte dell’esercito, al di fuori della zona C in una zona piuttosto remota, vicino al confine con l’Egitto, mentre il tragitto più lungo che posso compiere con la mia carta d’identità verde, che attesta la mia appartenenza alla zona A, è da casa mia al mio nuovo lavoro. Dal punto di vista legale, però, ogni abitante della zona A può recarsi nella zona B a meno che non ci siano circostanze politiche o militari eccezionali a impedirlo. In realtà, oggi queste circostanze eccezionali sono talmente tante che sono diventate la norma, per cui molti abitanti della zona A neppure ci pensano ad andare nella zona B. Personalmente, negli ultimi anni, non sono neppure andata fino al checkpoint di Qalandiya, che separa la zona A dalla zona B, quindi come posso pensare di andare in un posto così lontano che si trova quasi nella zona D? Neppure chi vive nella zona B può arrivarci e, probabilmente, neppure quelli della zona C, compresi gli abitanti di Gerusalemme, la cui stessa esistenza diventa una minaccia per la sicurezza se solo pronunciano una parola in arabo al di fuori delle aree in cui risiedono. Naturalmente, una volta ottenuto il permesso, i residenti della zona B possono recarsi nella zona A, cosa che fanno continuamente, e talvolta vi si trasferiscono addirittura, anche se ormai è come essere in prigione. "

Adania Shibli, Un dettaglio minore, traduzione di Monica Ruocco, La nave di Teseo (collana Oceani, n° 118), 2021¹, pp. 76-77.

[Edizione originale: تفصيل ثانوي (Dettaglio secondario), Dār al-Ādāb editore, Beirut, 2017]

[the-dye-stained-socialite]

13 and 20 for your characters 👀

13: Do you have a voice claim for the character? What do you imagine the character sounds like? i don't do voice-claims!! but elias is a contra, a very hard to find voicepart, and has a good voice!! they love to sing, and trained at mahoghany hall for a little while! they're not quite, but they have a soft quality to their voice! they don't need to be loud because they're good at projecting. They were also a tutor for kids for a little bit, so they have the Stern Teacher Voice if they're talking down to someone at a social gathering a nd politely ripping them to shreds. Marigold: Marigold is a tenor, and speaks in their head-voice often! they have a breathier sounding voice, but again, they're not quiet! they also don't speak too often anymore, it's very tiring on them! Thursday: thursday is a deep, resonant alto! they trained themself to speak like that so they can hear themself a bit better, they used to be more of a soprano! 20: Bonus question: share any additional thoughts, art, favourite scenes, anything you've been waiting for a chance to ramble about marigold has only existed for less than a year?!?!??!?!?!?!?! and they were never meant to be a big main oc!!!! they were meant to be a little one-off character!!!!! unfortunatly most of my favorite scenes with them are going to be in a fic that hasn't been written yet so i cannot share but!!!!!!! believe me that i am vibrating out of my seat elias has come such a long way in terms of their development, and i've got a lot of things planned that i wanna put them through, and! writing is really intimidating for me but i think i can manage it, and i think i'll get through it for them!!! and i'm having such a fantastic time with them <3 thursday thursday :} i want to write so much for them and i want to have the try to fight other characters and i want to see them lose and i want to write that moment whenever it's finally revealed it was their mother and they choose to kill her and i *really* want to mask thursday against my friends' ocs and see what happens. two parts tragedy one part comedy, they need therapy <3

ask game here

[violant-apologia]

primordial for the apologist!

primordial: what event in their backstory was the most formative to them today? huh. REALLY good question.

backstory specifically is difficult. the apologist had so much history in FL when i started actually thinking about his character that most of what i consider his "backstory" are really just parts of his gameplay that i've filed into "past" rather than "present" or "future"

if we were to include everything i would consider his backstory, probably watchful gains. it was seeing the stars in that context which started his swing towards white on the chessboard, where he sits (and where he gets a lot of his values from) in the present.

if we're going BACKSTORY backstory, like pre-any-FL-gameplay backstory, it was probably (though this is all provisional) when his brother (yet to be named, yet to be fully characterised) stayed behind on the surface to let briar and his siblings escape into the neath. they way briar was sacrificed for, plus a lot of other things falling into place, created a very heavy feeling of indebtedness which never really left him.

ask game here!

[neathyingenue]

28 and 32 for silvia!

28. Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth? 

Answered here!

32.  Do they have a go-to story in conversation? Or a joke? 

Not sure if this counts... but every time Silvia wants to know something outside the bounds of propriety, she just asks anyway but falls back on her being new to the Neath as an excuse. "Forgive me if it's terribly rude--but I am still new to the city, and unaccustomed to the ways here..."

It's getting harder and harder to do this, as they're coming up on a year living there, but that doesn't stop them from trying.