#SPECIALEST BOY IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD

[charcoalowl]

Istanbul was Constantinople Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople Been a long time gone, Constantinople Now it's Turkish delight on a moonlit night Every gal in Constantinople Lives in Istanbul, not Constantinople So if you've a date in Constantinople She'll be waiting in Istanbul Even old New York was once New Amsterdam Why they changed it I can't say People just liked it better that way So, take me back to Constantinople No, you can't go back to Constantinople Been a long time gone, Constantinople Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks Istanbul, Istanbul Istanbul, Istanbul Even old New York was once New Amsterdam Why they changed it I can't say People just liked it better that way Istanbul was Constantinople Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople Been a long time gone, oh Constantinople Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks So, take me back to Constantinople No, you can't go back to Constantinople Been a long time gone, Constantinople Why did Constantinople get the works? That's nobody's business but the Turks Istanbul

[iveremade]

Too many people focus on Aziraphale and Crowley when they should be focusing on the REAL meat of this book

[lanshappycorner]

wirth my son he has every disease

[iphisesque]

"we have bjorn andresen at home"

bjorn andresen at home:

[slutdge]

I HATE CANADIAN SHIPPING PRICES I HATE IT I HATE IT I HATE IT 😭

[lenin-it-to-win-it]

my birthday is on the 25th and none of my friends or siblings are going to be around-- shoes shoes shoes standing at all the doors and in your ears the roar of loneliness or whatever

[the-diabolic-acid]

they’re here for such a short time but they change our lives so drastically

[acanthemp3]

i may not play genshin anymore but the patriotism i feel abt being a citizen of razor main nation will never die

[eliotlime]

what about a third secret option

people who wrap bandages around their hands to protect them and people who wear fingerless gloves are like two divergent evolutions of the same species

[teaboot]

Oooooh get ready for the specialest little boy in the whole wide world

[yallwildinrn]

Please like or reblog if you save. Thank you!

I think Johnny Lawrence is the specialest boy in the whole wide world and I love him <3

[sseunbean]

redraw of an oldie! Sung, my specialest boy in the whole wide world

[jeyneofpoole]

What's critrole disneyland

the evil critical role monolith of 40 year olds that still say ‘smol boi’ and ‘hecking’ and adhere to the idea that anything negative said about any critical role product is a personal attack levied against every person who’s ever worked on a critical role project ever. they also think that if they defend bad story or other miscellaneous choices righteously enough matthew mercer will tuck them in at night and kiss them on their sweet little head and say that they’re the bestest specialest girl in the whole wide world because they defended his honor so good and so hard. you can’t even tell a guy to kill himself over there!

[ww2yaoi]

reading these memoirs and biographies you really get the sense that no matter what service you're in you're gonna think you're the most specialest boys in the whole wide world. like the paratroops think they're the most special. the marines think they're the most special. the bomber boys think they're the most special. you can't all be that special no offense lads

[sailorstickybunz]

I've been thinking about Armand and Lestat being somewhat foils to each other, somewhat two sides of the same coin or something for weeks now and I had to get it out. I'm a little off on my timelines in terms of centuries, and I'm thinking of both characters as amalgamations of both show and books. TW for discussions of grooming and child prostitution typical of Armand's story. I also haven't looked over this and or edited it because my fingers hurt from typing

both of them were: ripped from their homes, turned against their wills, abandoned by their makers. They both have "a capacity for enduring". They do have several key differences, though. Lestat had found within himself an independence and ability to survive alone even if he didn't want to (killing the wolves) whereas Armand was sold into slavery at a young age and eventually wound up in Marius' care -- he was taught to be dependent on a household and it's/his owner. Lestat also ran away from home with another outcast from his hometown and pursued art in Paris. Lestat abandoned religion and was wrestling with not having a definitive system by which to understand the universe when he was turned, and from what little I've seen online Armand is a devout christian in the books. Lestat turns his mother like 6 months after being turned because he can't stand to lose her, and turns Nikki shortly after that to avoid losing him, with disastrous effects. Armand is turned while in slavery to Marius, where he's literally being groomed to be Marius' companion/favorite pet. He doesn't turn anyone for 500-some years after being turned himself. Armand's master/maker/lover (I don't like using that word but I just mean in the sense he was being taught to love and adore Marius) was killed (to Armand's knowledge) and he was given the choice to die or join the coven that killed Marius. He chose to join and was sent to Paris, and then 300 some years later Lestat shows up to blow his whole shit up. Lestat sends Nikki away and is then left by his mother; he carves messages to Marius across the world until Marius finds him and sends him away. Then Lestat finds Louis and Claudia. Lestat immerses himself in human society and the arts, in TVL I got a clear sense that Lestat truly loved humanity. Armand is sequestered away from humanity during his time with the coven, only engages with humanity as a food source at the theater.

In the books, Lestat was a headstrong young man, an experienced woodsman, and a relentless dreamer when he was turned. He'd given up organized religion and existentially spirals through the book, holding onto the idea of beauty. He had to figure out being a vampire on his own, and his experiences while alive gave him the mettle to do so. He loses Nikki, his mother (somewhat) and his theater, only to literally be awoken by the legendary figure he's been carving letters to for the past century, and whisked away to dude's house. He's Marius and Akasha's specialest little boy, and he is sent away but I think being the favorite of literally the progenitor of your species and a world wide legendary vamp gives him the gumption to go to America, where he finds a family in Louis and Claudia. (Importantly, the love Lestat receives from people isn't conditional on his behavior.) And in the show, they really do spend some time as a loving family. He falls in love and turns his lover in a church. Lestat has only ever not been chosen once, by his mom. And even she didn't want to leave him, she just didn't want to live around people -- she literally offered for him to come with her and explore the uninhabited wilds of the world, but they both knew he'd be unhappy. He held true to himself. In the show Louis is even hallucinating him all the way through Paris and once in Dubai. Lestat does suffer the loss of pretty much everyone he's very loved, but never because of who he is. He's loved because of who he is, not what he does. (Claudia tries to leave because he's too monstrous, he's abusive, and though he loves her it's ambiguous if he could have saved her.) I don't remember specifically why, but I remember finishing TVL and having a distinct feeling that Lestat was willing to change his belief system to accommodate whatever his circumstances were.

Armand was sold into prostitution and "rescued" by someone who still owned him and was still grooming him both emotionally and sexually. From day one he was being literally raised to (1) love this man (2) obey this man (3) see the world and value it as Marius did. Then as another astute poster on here pointed out (NOTE TO SELF CREDIT HERE), someone literally attempts to kill Armand because he rejects them and Marius turns him to save him. He's brought into immortality sick, dying, scared, with Marius as his only salvation. Then, his god/father/lover/master is attacked by a roving band of goulish vamps and as far as Armand knows, killed. He's given the choice to die or join the people who just blew up his entire life and support system, and he decides to live. He spends however many years with the coven and then he sent paris, to head a coven full of vampires he's literally never met. He spends the next 200 odd years with that coven dismantling his entire world view and rebuilding it in the coven’s image. Then some French blond bitch shows up and Armand tries to do to Lestat what was done to him, but Lestat is like “no dumbasses you've got it all wrong, it's not about god and the devil or whatever, vampirism is about having fuck and fucking forever!” Having the belief system that's sustained them for centuries causes most of the coven members to go insane and kill themselves. Every time in his life that Armand has been ripped away from his life he was survived by devoting himself to whoever took it all away. So when Lestat destroys his coven he tries to get Lestat to come be with him and be his companion, because Armand has literally never been afforded independence or self sufficiency in the past at this point 400ish years. But Lestat has. It's more ambiguous in the show, but in the books Lestat is like oops Armand too crazy without Belief System and Coven uhhh here head the theater I own! Yeah it's got the three (3) members of ur coven I didn't drive to suicide and my dear Nikki who has unfortunately developed Depression 2: The Reckoning. I'm outtie. Lestat leaves Paris and Armand stays, because what the fuck else is he supposed to do? It's the only option he's been given in almost 500 years: do as you're told, assimilate, find a way to be happy here, or we will kill you. Or you will go insane and kill yourself.”

In the show it's no fucking wonder he chooses the coven over Louis, and it's clear as chickenshit on a white tablecloth why he dedicates himself to Louis, why their relationship has a dom/sub element to it at times: it's how he was raised to behave and trained to survive. Lestat, however, was periodically given unconditional love and then forced into independence.

I think Lestat changes himself in that he changes what he finds value in to survive his circumstances: he can't bring himself to kill humans after being turned so he makes do with animals. When that doesn't suffice he decides it's okay if he only kills evil doers. When there's not enough definitive evil, he embraces being a blood drinker and that's who he is when he finds Louis. When he cannot stomach something anymore or he gets new knowledge he finds a new way to look at it. (There's also an interesting book to show cross interpretation of lestat's History where as a younger vampire he is desperate for knowledge and connection with other vampires, and after Marius sends into America, where he is in the show, he doesn't want to talk about other vampires and has sworn to Marius he won't reveal their history. Maybe he discourages Claudia from doing so because to him, if he can't do it then it isn't worthwhile.) Armand does this too, adopting the new beliefs/customs first of Marius, then the children of darkness, then the theater troupe. They're so different in how they act, how they look for love, how they lash out. Lestat is content with one eternal companion, maybe two, and Armand survives within collectives until in the show when he settles down with Louis. Lestat always finds someone; Armand waits for someone to find and destroy him. Lestat can somewhat admit to his faults (I broke him, and he was a broken thing,” “she looked at me like a daughter to her father”) but Armand fights any narrative other than his to the bitter end (S2 finale still trying to thrall Louis with “you have forgiven me for the role I played in her death!) Lestat is all physical lashing out and Armand is mostly mental reconnaissance and retconning. Armand twists and turns every facet of himself to fit into whatever mold his new Death desires; Lestat reinvents himself and stays true to those new self desires. In the show Lestat loves Louis because he's cruel, passionate, unafraid to retaliate, in love with humanity and its arts, just like book Lestat does.

In the show and the book Armand seems to stay with Louis because it's what he's always done, but in the show he also does to Louis what was done to him: he scoops out the parts that make it impossible for them to be together (“Pieces of my life, gone. I knew who I was without those pieces”). In the show we watch Lestat remain essentially the same over time, whereas Assad Zaman’s performance shows Armand as very different era to era -- he's expressive in his face and voice and has full faced malicious smiles when he meets Lestat; just as emotionally expressive but more sad, pensive, brooding in mid-century paris; in San Fran we see flashes of emotion on his face and we see him start to shove them down, and in Dubai we get the perfect portrayal of the way in Anne Rice describes him in the books as having emotions that he almost lets bubble to the surface but swallows down.)

I don't really have a point that I'm trying to make with all this, I've just been thinking about it and turning these ideas over in my head for the past few weeks. My hands are cramping from a couple hours of typing so I'm gonna end it here, please feel free to share our own ideas!

[marcmorrigan]

finally delivering on the princess tutu headshots i promised... love these dysfunctional teens 🩰💖💕

LOTS of notes about headcanons/design choices under the cut! like. a lot. dont say i didnt warn you

starting with my specialest guy fakir:

i had a suuuper clear vision for fakir, and i couldnt be happier with how he turned out, he looks exactly how i imagine him! trying to translate his Bird-Shaped Hair into my style gave me SERIOUS homestuck flashbacks. my affinity for knights with Problems knows no bounds...

adding the hyperpigmentation around his eyes and his acne scars is what really solidified this for me-- i put those in and was like oh!!! there you are!!! my boy!!! and you can tell because i gave him acne scars + thick eyebrows that he IS my boy... there are very clear trends among my headcanons for my faves lol. big noses, thick eyebrows, skin imperfections, heavy eyebags, long dark hair... and fakir truly has it all 😤 he is so Ideal Character Design to me

i think fakir is actually pretty self-conscious about his appearance tho! we see characters like pike and lilie say hes handsome to ahiru, but i dont know how often he actually hears that? and im sure its hard not to compare himself to mytho, who is straight out of a fairy tale; being a regular teenager dealing with regular teen body stuff is hard enough without your roommate being a magically beautiful eternally youthful storybook hero. i think he probably internalises more that people see him as scary and angry, and that the girls who do have crushes on him always frame it in contrast to mytho, who is Good and Kind and Handsome, implying (or sometimes outright stating!) that fakir is Bad and Mean and... Well...

fakir is very sensitive but quiet about it, so i think its a very private point of self-consciousness. i think he puts a lot of semi-secret effort into his appearance; canonically he has a lot of very funny and clearly customised clothing, and he chooses to keep his hair long and in a very particular style (i have a whole breakdown in my mind of how he achieves that style and it involves a surprising amount of pins and an unsurprising fuckton of teasing. i think his hair is a little fried from heat damage!), and i think that probably extends to other things, too, like manicuring his eyebrows and doing a lot of very Teenage Skincare that doesnt actually help his acne much lol. i think he probably has a lot of self-injurious habits and BFRBs like skin picking and chewing, mostly at his acne and around his nails (both of which he hates, because he knows he shouldnt but does it anyway). i think if he does it enough that theres noticeable evidence it feels, like, world-ending for him, ESPECIALLY if anyone asks what happened lol. do not perceive him except in the very specific ways and contexts he approves of THANKS

on to the narratives favorite princess, mytho:

again, i had a pretty clear idea of the vibe i wanted mytho to have going into this-- i want him to have, like, extreme prince charming vibes, very Classically Handsome without necessarily being 'conventional.' i thought a lot about 'the happy prince' story while i was working on this, and really wanted him to look like a cross between how the prince statue looks in my head and a porcelain doll. and also a cross between jonny brown and brigitte bardot? lots of very direct influences for him lol. so! lots of gold tones, gemmy eye color, cute little tooth gap, quivering wide-eyed thousand-yard-stare doe eyes and big ol dolly anime lashes, which were the very last thing i added because i was NERVOUS about pulling those off lol. they turned out cute tho! ive only done a handful of pieces for this series and i can already tell princess tutu is gonna make me up my lash drawing game considerably, these kids all look like they blink and cause a hurricane from the gale force wind of their falsies

also wait i lied the very last thing i did was add his freckles/beauty marks because he needed that little extra oomph and those were It. i think he probably has some on his hands/wrists too 💕

i was a little unsure if my idea for his hair would translate with this flat-color approach but im pretty happy with it! its supposed to be afrotextured hair (somewhere between 3b and 4c i think? wide range of potential i knowww but im still kind of hammering out my headcanons okay, this is exploratory lol) thats been rolled and finger-styled into his little feather shapes. i think loose, chunky twists would be another fun way to interpret his hair and twists are one of my fave styles to draw do i might draw him like that at some point too...

i guess fakir is the one who styles his hair for him before mytho gets his heart back? i imagine fakir is pretty meticulous about maintaining mythos health and appearance, even at the worst stages of their relationship. i think itd be hard for fakir to frame the way he treats mytho as For Mythos Sake if he wasnt doing some level of actually beneficial care for him, so being really fastidious about things like mythos diet and sleep hygiene and hair care and such gives fakir an outlet for his 'you just have to do what i tell you' thing that helps him convince himself it really is helping, no really, hes doing this for mythos benefit and he just has to be strict with him because mytho doesnt UNDERSTAND he needs PROTECTING and fakir is the ONLY ONE who can do it so mytho HAS to let him because if he doesnt then why does fakir even EXIST, if he cant manage this then what is he good for, and--

yknow. the usual complexes. and their relationship is so complex!!! but also so simple, but like. in a good way. fakirs behavior is complicated but his motivation regarding mytho is SO straightforward which makes that downward spiral into harm really easy to map out... i wont go much into that in this post since this is about visual/appearance-related headcanons but just. augh. i love this show and i love these characters!!! and i hope its apparent in my work that i do love them so <3

im hoping to do a set of these for the girls next!!! i have some other stuff to finish first but hopefully... Soon... Some Birds...