Please enjoy this semi-cursed "Valentine" from one-episode wonder Anton Lebrun from Law and Order: Criminal Intent "Lost Children of the Blood," because the idea latched onto my brain and refused to leave:

(Canon line was "I could make you my next meal," BTW. His first line in the episode and to the character he was speaking to, which bafflingly worked for him.)

Anton & Virgil | Lost Children of the Blood

when anton spends a while with one of his ex-clients once virgil's dead out of the picture - we'll call her amanda, because she needs a name, and they don't stay together forever but their relationship progresses and ends much less painfully than his last one - she gets him in contact with some people who are very interested in someone with his swagger and charm, and curious enough to let him keep the teeth.

and anyway, that's how he ends up starring in Ferrero Rocher ads.

@wolves-in-the-world commented that my previous sparkling Anton could be Anton advertising a perfume, leading to... this. (Was originally just going to be the one on the right, but he has so many ridiculous lines to draw from!)

So, for those of you who were disappointed by the lack of closure for poor Anton, don't worry--he's living his best life modeling and advertising vampire-inspired fragrances. 😉

@wolves-in-the-world and @darkfinch, may I offer you a sparkling Anton and confused Jeff Goldblum in these trying times?

For those as confused as JG, the stills come from the Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode "Lost Children of the Blood," which features Clayne Crawford as Anton, who is posing as a vampire.

The character is incredibly strange and has some absolutely absurd dialogue, but Crawford made him charming by absolutely acting his little heart out. 😉

ANTON | Lost Children of the Blood

𝑫𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒌, 𝑴𝒚 𝑷𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒄𝒆𝒔𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑵𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 we have got to stop letting anton say words at people. we MUST

learning 2 make gifs purely for anton my friend anton

Don't forget ur Daily Vampire Affirmations™️!

1. I am ✨Powerful✨ (more powerful than others)

2. I am 💕Stronger💕

3. I have a 💘Greater Reserve of Health💘

4. 🫀 I W I L L N O T D I E 🫀

5. 🌀I have power over others🌀

brought to u by anton "kittyfangs" lebrun

u know who is really promising blorbo material. potential blorbo. deserving of blorbofication.....anton "kittyfangs" lebrun (a.k.a jeremy parks) from law & order: criminal intent season 9 episode 11: lost children of the blood

me, a normal balanced person, studiously trying to line up different sparkle effects with mr anton kittyfangs' teeth so they look ludicrous and over the top but not too ludicrous and over the top,

the fact that clayne crawford's anton "kittyfangs" lebrun introduced himself as "A Dark Encounter" mere moments after using the opener of "you could be my next meal" out loud with his human mouth is going to haunt me for quite possibly the rest of my life

...I haven't had any weird anon hate for posting so much about quinn. it's honestly a little disappointing.

(though if I did get any I'd probably just reply with a whole bunch of screenshots from my anton kittyfangs folder like... would you rather I obsessed about this instead? because I can and I will.)

@wolves-in-the-world and @darkfinch, delighted we are all on the same page about how dirty they did our boy Anton. Law & Order: Criminal Intent writers (derogatory), you decided to write this plot and you created this ridiculous character to give to Clayne Crawford who ACTED HIS LITTLE HEART OUT with what little he was given to work with and made Anton the most interesting and 3-dimensional character* in the episode. Please make minimal effort to maintain internal consistency and not undermine him single-handedly salvaging your episode.

(Episode spoilers discussed below cut.)

Giving the actor the makeup/costume prep to allows him to portray the character consistently would be nice. (I would probably have barely noticed the lisp itself if it didn't just appear out of the blue--it jumped out at me on first viewing.)

It is really, really not a good sign when you have your protagonists told that one character claimed to be another's "protege," immediately cut to a scene that shows the dynamics are opposite to that, and the interpretation that the show writers don't know what the word "protege" means appears more plausible than it being an intentional plot twist. (It clearly was an intentional plot twist--other lines earlier and later in the episode highlight that there was an intentional mismatch between claimed and actual dynamics, but they never did anything with it or presented it in a way that made it seem relevant to the case.)

Also, when the one-episode character is 1) shown to be innocent of the crimes being investigated, 2) explicitly shown to be a manipulated victim of the actual murderer, and 3) helps the protagonists get the actual murderer (plus, 4) is the only actual emotionally engaging character in the whole episode since everyone else is either wooden, awful, and/or killed off after minimal screentime), I feel like we deserve some closure, even if it's as minimal as "went back to a normal life waiting tables (now with additional fangs)" or "decided to continue his kinky vampire LARP, now without murder and psychological abuse."

*BTW, I am absolutely including the regular protagonists here. After a full episode, I have no idea what any of the protagonists' names are or anything about their characters other than 1) Jeff Goldblum's character (who I will call "JG" for short) is deeply weird and seems to have less respect for boundaries than the actual-human-blood-drinking "vampire" murder suspect, 2) JG's partner has some female child (daughter, probably? niece? godchild?) named Kiara in her life, and 3) all the cops make "deductions" that are shown or implied to be correct despite having little-to-no logical basis in the info they have. (I also just realized that the victim's sister and dad basically just vanish into the ether after barging in to confront Anton. 🤔)

I was finally lured into watching the wild Law & Order: Criminal Intent episode featuring Clayne Crawford with dainty little kitty fangs. While watching, I noticed something odd (aside from the already bonkers episode plot).

If anyone wants to help me figure out whether I'm imagining this or not, here are audio clips taken from Anton's lines in two different scenes.

Do you hear a notable difference in his speech between the two scenes?

If so, do you have a guess for what the cause might be? (I have a hypothesis, but I don't want to lead with that and taint people's reactions.)

@wolves-in-the-world and @darkfinch, y'all presumably know the context of this dialog (and Finch already knows my hypothesis), but I am interested to know if you hear a difference!

My hypothesis in reblog here.

@wolves-in-the-world, I have had an epiphany about the hypothetical fix-it remake for "Lost Children of the Blood"!!!

So, the key criteria as I understand them are 1) allow Anton to fulfill his potential as a character in a way that is worthy of the sheer heart Clayne Crawford poured into that performance, 2) have Clayne Crawford wear his fangs for all of his scenes (and enough prep to comfortably speak in them) for consistency in speech, and 3) include Jeff Goldblum so that Anton may flirt outrageously with him.

So, let's completely scrap the police procedural angle, which eliminates many, many uncomfortable aspects of that episode right off the bat (i.e., no having to watch the protagonists violate or threaten to violate citizens' rights because they've decided it's necessary to solve the murder) and also means that Jeff Goldblum's character will not be a police detective, which handily provides further separation to claim we don't need to license that character.

Who, then, will Jeff Goldblum play instead? Well, if he's not going to drag Anton down to a police interrogation room, then we need a way to put his character in Anton's world. Somebody with reason to check out the vampire club scene without already being part of it. Could be a journalist researching a story. Or an actor researching a role. It could even be...Jeff Goldblum, actor, researching a role.

Which brings us to the flirting.

I propose: Substitute Jeff Goldblum for Sarah in Anton's intro scene. (Kyle can stay, but I'd make him Jeff Goldblum's fellow actor also here to research a role but way less comfortable/more awkward about it.)

We'd also need some kind of plot at some point. Could stick with the murder plot, but instead of the cops it's Jeff Goldblum, actor, amateur sleuthing it up when no one else seems to care. He initially has evidence pointing to Anton's involvement, resulting in some drama, but once it's cleared up he convinces Anton to help him and it's an odd-couple amateur sleuth team-up. Extremely flirty buddy comedy with a side of murder investigation. They have to visit one or more of Anton's "clients" (Jeff has to pretend to be another "vampire" to fly under the radar); they have to talk to Jeff's contacts, so they visit a filming location (It's a period drama. Anton is asked for his autograph and probably ends up in at least the background of the movie.), etc.