what is wrong when lestans say lestat will be regretful over his abuse in season 3? isn’t that what’s going to happen? only asking because isn’t him taking accountability and being regretful a good thing? of course you don’t have to care about lestat’s guilt but i feel like it’s cruel to be mock anyone who wants him to do better i think it’s more than him being sad on camera so it just came off as very flippant to me but i don’t want to come to attack you at all and you don’t have to give me the time of day just that it made me a bit sad as a fan of you to see that and a fan of both louis and lestat sorry if this is coming off as rude i tried to police my tone and be as respectful as i could i don’t want to argue with you ofc

thanks for the tone mention at the end it rly means a lot. i don't think it's wrong to say he'll be regretful, i don't think the story works w/out his remorse and guilt, i just dislike how often this is used to claim that being regretful/guilty gives him a clean slate or places him and louis on equal ground now or like they're starting over but most importantly that Lestat is starting over. most Lestat fans that i see talk about his remorse and next season frame it as if being sad about his actions is the apology, is the growth, is the action taken towards righting things w louis. but it's rly rly not and even if it was in tvl (which its not despite how creatively book fans lie jfebhvfkdesn) it's not in the show. his remorse doesn't mean that they're starting over, it just means that they can continue, it's the bare minimum requirement of rehabilitation and of becoming something other than the villain of s1 and more than Abuser--which isnt to say that he wasnt villain and abuser while also being louis' partner and claudia's father, but that both those things and every other aspect of their relationship was tainted by his evil and ruined bc of it and it's the abuse that makes it that louis can imagine that lestat killed claudia and wouldve killed him ~if not for armand~ like he's remorseful on stage when we get the first real apology from him in 207 but then he still chooses to wallow in self pity instead of telling louis the truth so it becomes a question of who does the remorse serve? who is the guilt for?

what i often see is ppl who don't necessarily want Lestat to be better, which i do and which ik you do too, but who want him to be like... avenged? and protected from the reality of his actions. while i understand the show to be more interested on what's on the other side of the remorse, to borrow rolin's term, most Lestat fans conflate him being regretful and guilty with him being and doing better even tho the remorse is just the bare minimum of being a person, and the entry we need to this coming arc of lestat being more than the vampire and remembering that he is a person too and that louclaudia also had something to teach him humanity and matching remorse and grief with action and effort. like louis is literally being gaslit and abused by the most powerful vampire we've met so far yet he still does everything in his power to do right by claudia's memory and his love for her and his love for lestat even though it comes at great personal cost--he's the one who finds lestat and makes that first step, on top of every other time he’s taken his desperate attempts at transforming his guilt and regret into becoming and doing better. and yeah louis is self sacrificing to immense fault so he's not rly a model of healthy remorse LOL but i think it's also meant to make us think about the extreme opposite that Lestat presents. if louis' journey is learning that he is allowed a self, that it is not wrong for him to choose his heart and do what he wants and to want and that his wanting shouldn't have to come at all personal cost, then it's like--when is lestat going to put in any cost at all?

claudia asks in 207 "can i cry and say i'm sorry too??" and laughs how ironic it is that Lestat says sorry ONCE for what he did and cries and suddenly all's forgiven for him, even by ppl who don't know or care about the truth and who aren't entitled to forgiving him, while she and louis are being burned for shit they didn't do, and no one cares about their sorrys and remorse bc that level of grace and immediate forgiveness is reserved for ppl like Lestat, for white men who the world is always always looking for any small excuse to forgive and redeem regardless of whether they've put the effort into redemption. the same ppl who say Lestat being sad about his actions after the fact and act like his tears are reparations or place his suffering in the same universe as claudia and louis, who cry "youll feel stupid when you watch s2!!!!" while dogpiling any black person watching s1 who dislikes Lestat bc of his violence against his black family as if crying for himself for 80 years minimizes the abuse or is alone enough to redeem him, those are the same ppl who say that louis' sadness and tears were only to emotionally abuse lestat and that claudia's sadness was an overreaction or lie to make lestat look bad. so then it's quite clear that its not actually about a sweeping and permissive view on the importance of remorse in rehabilitation, but that his remorse is being weaponized by Lestat fans the same way it was weaponized in the trial, to downplay his abuse and villainize louclaudia.

lestat's remorse is Very important, because it is the reason why the reunion works at all--we've seen louis act tenderly w Lestat despite Lestat not deserving it dozens of times by now, we know louis has atrocious self worth and blames himself for his suffering, so the viewer can understand why louis hugs and kisses him regardless once he knows lestat didn't kill claudia, that's not what makes the scene novel or hopeful--what distinguishes this as Potentially more than just "back to the undeserving Lestat once again" and transitions us into s3 is that for once Lestat shows remorse, his guilt isn't just a performance to DARVO louis, so the viewer can be like okay, this is about louis allowing himself to want with less shame, not about him falling back into the exact same cycle of abuse. lestat's remorse is necessary for louis' growth, but it is not enough for lestat's growth. it opens the window to growth in s3. it differentiates lestat from armand not only in action (ie learning he didn't lynch his black family which, again, bare minimum) but in character potential. but lestat's self absorbed guilt at past violence being Better than armand's ongoing and unrepentant present abuse doesn't mean that it is Good. it just actually gives us something to work with.

the show has already been very clear that it's not interested in the same lazy outs and retcons for Lestat that AR was, so i really think that this will be a story of growth for him too, so my frustration is entirely about the way this gets distorted rather than about how the show frames it or where the show wants us follow with it. this problematic fandom rhetoric is why most of the post s2 stuff on ao3 feels like a scene from the help where a black domestic servant (louis) is coddling and wiping tears from a 40 year old white woman (lestat) that's crying bc she feels guilty about forgetting to give her poor mammy that's raised her from birth a christmas present, and that is simply not the type of guilt i'm interested in or that i think the show is interested in. less self serving white guilt and more remorse-driven rehabilitation and growth.............!!! this is longer than i wanted jhgfyctufvhjb but i just want to answer fully..... <3 thank you again for being so nice about my issues w tone and specifying good faith it really made me feel heard 🥰