방황의 끝 정답은 없었네

of course, you can’t say this because in the diet culture infested world that we live in, no one thinks twice about complimenting someone on their visible weight loss. it isn’t meant as a insult, it’s a thoughtless comment. it is unfathomable that someone may have been happier or healthier when they weighed more. and you don’t want to have to recount your personal medical history in graphic detail to explain why losing weight was not good.

Yes. She always targets him when he's at his lowest. His most vulnerable. His weakest.

And the lyrics for When I Call Out Your Name —

A kiss to cut the lion's mane.

In the Bible, when Delilah cuts Samson's hair, that takes his strength and leads to his destruction.

The comparison here of Gabriella to Delilah while Lestat is Samson. He's saying she's the calculating predator, looking for his weakness, and she takes his strength with her kisses of destruction.

The metaphor cuts.

There's also seemingly a reference to Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in the song —

In the dark is where we begin. Et tu?

The line "et tu, Brute?" from Caesar when he realizes his most trusted ally is amongst his assassins is a very famous quote used to signify the ultimate betrayal.

Lestat is saying their relationship begins in the dark. The shamefulness of it. The fact they hide it. The fact Lestat is ashamed of it and traumatized by it. He sees Gabriella as a betrayer. She's betraying her role as his mother, his supposed-to-be ally, by abusing him like this. He's asking her if she's going to continue this betrayal. He's asking her what this all means. He's asking why she can't just love him like a mother is supposed to love her child.

Combine that with Gabriella making Lestat feel as if she was, truly, his only ally in the de Lioncourt household while she also took him to the witches' place, which traumatized him so severely that it caused his stutter, which we also see him bitterly invoking in this song as a callback to Episode 1 when he stutters on her name.

…is in all the hate blogs and their operative word of “shouldn’t”. Lestat shouldn’t! Armand shouldn’t! Louis shouldn’t! Daniel shouldn’t! But pretty much never “wouldn’t”. No one can say Lestat *wouldn’t* make fun of Armands sexual trauma. Daniel *wouldn’t* be hateful and conniving in his interviewing. Louis *wouldn’t* cross the line and play pretend with Regina. Armand *wouldn’t* flip on a dime after being rejected. Etc etc etc. Just that they *shouldn’t* and……shouldn’t is kind of vampires like, Whole Thing ™.

I have seen the absolute best takes written by hate blogs, who completely captured the essence of the story being told, but instead of having a good time, they hate it. And it’s just amazing honestly. Because it’s like. You did it. You got the show exactly. You understand the why.

You just don’t. like. it.

“I would never say that to claudia on the train I would never ever say that you cancerous jackhole(?)” this bit messed me up, him screaming that and hearing how upset it made him to the point of having to stop mid recording makes me so sad :(

then tc and the rest of the band coming in to save it. Everything about this song is so good, one of my top songs!

I … think Louis can consider himself lucky Lestat is talking to him at all.

Sam Reid's acting is so good in this scene, he is really trying to keep it together as he hears this batshitery. You can see him gulping, closing his eyes, trying to keep the pain down.

Again, Lestat is a non-entity in Louis' grief. I can't help think how this disproves the idea that they 'grieved Claudia together' during that reunion at the end of Season 2. Because for Louis' Lestat's grief is a non-issue. Just even the language he uses "come back to me?" not "come back to us" as if Lestat doesn't exist in the equation, as if he is not grieving too. Lestat is there, not to share their grief, but as an eye witness.

A lot of people interpreted this look from Lestat as concern for Louis, but I think that it's hurt. It's made clear by his following statement about getting shot and Louis not picking up the phone despite the one saying he made that lawyer meeting 'because he cares'. Louis tells him to go and make sure because he is the only other person alive sans himself and Sam that saw her alive. But of course, he doesn't care what kind of pain this will cause Lestat. He doesn't see that Lestat saw her die and that this is as painful to him. Louis made this mess with Regina and now Lestat has to get him out of it, his own feelings be dammed.

I think this scene is quite clearing about that particular aspect of the Mayonnaise Villain characterization of Lestat in Season 1: Season 1 Lestat seem to give a shit about Claudia because for Louis, Lestat is only Claudia's father when it's convenient to Louis' grief or when he wants to shift blame into something. Inside the tale, Louis characterized Lestat as seeing Claudia as a burden and barely tolerating her, but during the tower scene, where he wanted to blame Lestat for her death, he kept repeating "your daughter" to him. As if Lestat forgot she was enough to plan to kill her. And yes, that's informed by his belief Lestat had gone to Paris to kill them, but again, I have always thought Louis is a bloody moron for thinking that when Lestat literally said loud and clear he was willing to die with them for breaking the Second Law.

As far as I remember, in Season 1, there was one whipping the other's tears with a handkerchief, and that wasn't Louis.

There was one preparing dates to cheer the other up, and that wasn't Louis.

There was one that brought Claudia into the family because the other asked and that wasn't Louis.