#WWDITS negativity

[anxietycheesecake]

Harvey as a gay man had to film this and sit on the knowledge that they pulled this shit for a year while getting asked about it in every fucking interview. Like, really think about that.

[nadjasnandor]

what I don't understand is like .... they wrote the guillermo and nandor dynamic the way they did AND made both of them queer. like. nobody asked them to do ANY of that. so turning around and mocking everyone who very reasonably looked at what the writers of this show wrote and said "they are written like a couple" is just a baffling thing to do. imho

Exactly. And if you don't mind, I'm going to use your ask as an excuse to write out why I'm upset about certain things, because what you said is the root of my problem.

My disappoint doesn't come from Nandor/Guillermo not going canon in the traditional sense (at least not fully), but from the very 2010s-esque way everyone seems to be talking about fans post-finale. Basically saying they never intended Nandor & Guillermo to be anything but platonic and blaming the weird fans for wanting their pornographic whishes (🙄) to actually happen in the show, like they were not in any way responsible for creating those wishes, is insulting but, more importantly, not true. And they can't convince me otherwise because I was there, watching the whole thing unfold in real time.

I already mentioned being remotely normal about Nandor/Guillermo pre season 3 and there is a reason for that. During the first season the fandom was small. And by that I mean both Nandor/Guillermo shippers and also the people watching wwdits in general. During season 1, sometimes all you saw when going into the tags was about 5 of my gifsets in a row, for instance. Even if people watched the show, they didn't really interact with it in a fandom-y way. During the middle of s1, I complained about there not being Nandor/Guillermo fics at all and even between s1 and s2 I posted about there not being a lot. It was also this era when the first mentions of possible canon romantic feelings were brought up and it was by Harvey himself, who said he thinks Guillermo has feelings for his boss. This was, of course, only Harvey explaining how he views his character but I feel it's important because, as it's been mentioned before, Harvey came up with a lot of Guillermo's character, starting with his surname. He basically created current Guillermo. In the original pilot script, Guillermo is a 40-something, very bitter man. Quite different from our Guillermo and it's all thanks to Harvey.

But during this period, that is during s1 and s2, anything romantic between Nandor and Guillermo was purely accidental and mostly due to Kayvan and Harvey's chemistry. We all knew this, even if by s2 we did get the first articles about Nandor & Guillermo's relationship being maybe not fully platonic. By the end of season 2, the fandom has grown for sure but it was still nowhere near its current size. We also had Nandor say he treated Guillermo like a son, which was quite annoying but we at least knew where we stood with the show. Didn't stop us from shipping those two, of course, because fandoms have survived on less (Looking back, it is funny how much I hated that line when now it's just *vaguely gestures around*). It's important to note that after season 2, Jemaine left and Paul took over. And then came season 3.

There is a reason why I was so insane about the Cloak of Duplication and then Gail. The former canonized Guillermo's feelings for Nandor on screen for the first time and the latter showed that it was not just a single episode, throw away scene. Instead they continued with Guillermo being jealous of Nandor and his sexual partner. That was huge. But the fandom still hasn't blown up fully, that happened later during season 3. And I think it's important to say that because they wrote and filmed season 3 before the show blew up. They cannot say they wrote those scenes to please (or bait) fans. They weren't 'pressured' to do anything with Nandor and Guillermo. Season 3 was also when the very heavy Nandor/Guillermo promoting started. (Like the parody of The Bodyguard poster with 'Never fall in lo-', for example). Now, I don't remember if the first articles calling them the will-they-won't-they couple of the show came out during this season or later, but it was definitely past season 3. So by the end of season 3 the fandom has grown large and people were obviously very into the ship.

Now we can say shippers are pushy or annoying but fans can be annoying in general. People can be annoying lol. When your show grows big enough, annoying people you don't like are going to watch it too. (I'm sure if those annoying people are cishet men then this burden is easier to bear but I digress. I am a little bitter, after all). But at this point, fans had no reason to be pushy, we thought every sign was pointing to canon romantic Nandor/Guillermo.

At this point, the show saw how large the fandom has grown and how invested people were in Nandor/Guillermo. If that's not what they wanted, if they felt people were seeing things differently than how they intented, they could have pulled back. They had enough time between season 3 and season 4 to do that. But they didn't. Instead, they doubled down and continued to do the same for 2 more season. Even if by season 5 the latest we already had Paul saying weird things about the dynamic.

Instead it seems they decided to pull back in season 6 but by then it was too late. People were expecting them to come through on the thing they have been teasing for 3 seasons. And then they blamed the fans for not liking what they offered up instead. For wanting 'pornographic scenes'. Because it's 'not that kind of a show'. They say this about a show with an episode called The Orgy.

And even while saying all that, they didn't stop them from teasing the fans until the very last moment. Nandor's 'you know what would be cooler than being friends' is just cruel lmao. And that's why it felt more like mocking to me. Not only because of what happened in the show, but because when I watch those scenes, I can't seperate them from how the cast and crew talk about the ship and the fans in interviews. They apparently now think it's stupid and weird but will gladly tease it in the show for whatever reason? It's funny because fans are weird and kinky, I guess. Things unheard of in relation to this show.

I also don't understand Kayvan and Harvey's complete 180 turn. During the early seasons, Kayvan was not really into the idea of the ship, saying it's a bit toxic due to the power imbalance in their dynamic but he seemed to go full throttle later, even overtaking Harvey in hyping the ship up. And then in the first post-finale interview, he says that 'Nandor is never going to have sex with Guillermo', even if the show left that door open with the last scene. And then there's Harvey, who was the first to say Guillermo has feelings for his boss, who is now championing the repserentation of platonic gay male friendships on tv. In his case, I can give him the benefit of doubt, because he must have his own experiences with that and it's not my place to dismiss or doubt them. I do find the change strange and have complained about it but it's more understandable than Kayvan's. (EDIT: I didn't read this interview after the finale but it just makes things even more confusing, if I'm honest.)

I tried to be as coherent as possible and write out all my thoughts about this topic but I most likely still missed some things. I don't really like to talk about my feelings and thoughts this elaborately because I find it difficult to fully express myself but I tried my best because I felt like I was going insane.

[incorrectquoteswwdits]

I also don’t know how to tell you that equating the want to have a same sex pairing to wanting porn on screen is legit like actual homophobia

[yes-i-can-hear-you-clemfandango]

I would love to see Marwa come back and kick Nandor’s ass forcefully justice for Marwa

[diamondcitydarlin]

I do want to also add to my sudden numerous WWDITS/Nandermo posts that while I have enjoyed this season (somewhat) and the 'Nandermo' they've given us for what it is, I can confidently say at this point that there should have been more. I absolutely agree with everyone saying there should have, could have been more, and even if the last episode confirms somehow without a doubt that Nandor and Guillermo are a couple or in love etc, as great as that would be in the moment, I will always lament that it could have (arguably should have) happened a season ago. Two seasons ago, even, maybe more! I agree that what we've gotten so far and whatever we're in store to get in this last episode will not be able to live up to the tension they've constructed between these two characters over the past six seasons. It may still be sweet and cute, but there's really no way they can do all of that slowburning justice in the very last series finale ep (I'm open to being proven wrong, but I just don't see how that would be possible atp). As others have mentioned, it makes me think about all the repetitive plots that kept being used again and again across the seasons (Laslzo wants to protect Nadja and that offends her bc she can fend for herself, Guillermo leaves the house for the 50th time, Nandor 'falls in love' with some random person, etc) and how any of those repetitive plots could've been swapped out for focusing on new concepts and conflicts, such as new layers to the Nandermo dynamic. I would have liked, say, a season of Nandor having to confront feelings for Guillermo he can't run from anymore (it would have been more interesting imo to see him 'stop running' earlier on instead of trying to entrap hapless women over and over again), a whole subplot about that maybe, and his failings and triumphs at dealing with that and what it means to court someone he actually has feelings for, etc, I think that could have had a lot of comedic and character growth potential. There's literally a mile-long laundry list in my head of things that COULD have been done (with and without Nandermo) that maybe one of these days I'll get around to writing out and posting if anyone wants to use them for fanfic or fanart inspo or just to compare notes lol.

But yeah idk, I'm enjoying this season for what it is and as much as I can, and the last ep had some very juicy Nandermo moments, but I guess the thing is I think they should have happened much earlier and I think it's indisputable that this show will end as one with tons of mysteriously untapped potential- and while I can't wait to see the fix-it fan works that address all of that, it's still disappointing.

[rusty-lustful-fireflies]

Also, I don't think I need to convince anyone that the bed scene was a joke, but a situation in which Nandor and Guillermo aren't friends with Nadja Collin and Laszlo, don't even know who they are (some couple, some guy) was no one's most perfect ending. That was obviously a ,,haha shippers only care about their pairings and don't give a fuck about anything else, even when it makes this show this show"

[umi-minoris-art]

I'd like to say that thank god wwdits didn't make through another season to fool us all with their queerbait, better to end it for once

[ibuprofentummyache]

That scene where they all hound on Guillermo for what guy he might be fucking on the film crew was so egregious especially on top of the queerbaiting those weren't even the characters just the writers homophobia

[dangerousartisanwerewolf]

*Fandom rant*

When people are praising that 🧛 show and its finale episode for being a super queer-inclusive show but that show has not actually had a single canon lgbtq couple in it’s entire run time, chose to not go canon with their one gay ship/pairing that they had been baiting the audience with for like 2 years, and the only canon gay character is the butt of constant gay jokes.

Like guys, that’s not inclusive, it’s a good show sure but let’s not pretend like it was super inclusive. And it’s not that we can’t make gay jokes, but after a while of “All talk and no action” in regards to that makes the shows platform of inclusivity seem hollow.

And there’s so many people that really liked the ending (Honestly only about 50%) so I won’t rain on their parade but guys it’s 2024, we don’t have to accept queer baiting/writing like that anymore. Like the writers basically said “Yeah those two are canon… only in your dreams” like oh sorry I didn’t realize I was watching Sherlock (iykyk).

It’s still a good show, the last szn/episode was just not it for me.

[anxietycheesecake]

I'm gonna hold your hand as I say this one more time: people weren't expecting wwdits to become a IWTV style drama or a dramedy. Just because some of us wrote fanfics like that, it doesn't mean that was our expectation for the actual show. All we were asking for was an extension of the vibe from season 3.

Season 3 found the perfect balance between comedy, plot and emotional bits. The cliff hanger, the whole fight scene, Colin Robinson farting himself to death while everyone was genuinely upset, Nandor's depression played straight and the humor of the episode built around it, not laughing at it. We didn't make that up, it all literally happened. I don't think it was an insane expectaction to hope the show would follow the line it established after such a massive tonal shift, especially given how the season ended.

And though I personally didn't read into details and come up with predictions like other people did after Paul Simms looked me in the eye and told me they just threw spaghetti at the wall and this is the shit and fart show ma'am, I can't call them delusional either, because reading too much into things WAS REWARDED NEAR THE ENDING OF SEASON 3. People were right, Laszlo was acting weird around Colin Robinson, he knew something we didn't and that information tinted all his actions through the season. If you thought something was off, you were absolutely correct.

Why would people expect the show that consistently gave us banger after banger and went from generic sitcom to an actual plot and interesting characters while successfully keeping the sitcom vibe to become dumber? Why is it delusional to hope a show that has always been well-written to... continue to be well-written???

[nadjasnandor]

sorry for looking forward to weird, kinky people having sex on your 'weird, kinky people having sex: the show' show. won't happen again.

[incorrectquoteswwdits]

ALSO ANOTHER MAJOR FUCKING COMPLAINT

Who the fuck thought it was a good and funny (?) idea for the Guide to be MAGA(FV) when one of your main characters is a Latino gay man?

like is it just me or is that really just not funny? I haven’t watched yet, and I won’t watch until tonight most likely, but that seems wildly in poor taste to me. Not to mention further desecration of the Guide :/

[yes-i-can-hear-you-clemfandango]

Not to be That Bitch but… the Guide’s comment to Nandor about him only being interested in the chase was perfectly fine. She didn’t need to “point him in the right direction” or “spell out the truth to him” because… she already did. Regardless of who he pursues or attempts to have a relationship with he’s going to get bored and fuck it up because that’s a major character flaw that’s not going to be magically fixed by “the right person” (in fact the only “right person” to fix it is Nandor himself).

Whatever I don’t even know

[diamondcitydarlin]

'but but but male friendship and platonic intimacy are important toooo!!!'

Okay I'm sorry I've been hearing this over and over and over again through the years, it seems to be go-to response of creators/writers/actors/apologists every fucking time a possible queer M/M pairing is shafted to the side and I'm getting so tired of it.

First of all, like I've also been saying SO MANY TIMES through the years, the depiction of platonic male friendship and intimacy in media really isn't some kind of uncharted waters situation like all these people want us to believe. I would GUESS that platonic male friendship and comradery makes up at least 75% (if not more) of media created since films first started being made and that really says nothing of all the literature that preceded. Hell, 'buddy cop comedy' is a genre all unto itself and usually depicts two straight men in the main roles (not always, but when it's anything other than two straight guys it's generally seen as a subversion of the genre). I'm not saying that platonic male friendship doesn't have it's place in media and needs to be done away with wholesale and all fictional male friends now need to fuck and date each other, I'm not saying that it isn't important to show platonic queer male friend characters (more on this in a moment), I'm just saying I'm tired of people acting like 'platonic male friendship' is some kind of underrepresented, underappreciated thing in media every time someone doesn't want to write a queer M/M dynamic when you could literally select any film made between 1920 and now at random and there would be at least a 7/10 chance it depicted two or more men as platonic hetero friends as the emotional crux of the plot. Like please stop gaslighting us and just say you didn't want to write the thing, this is so stupid.

Second of all, (and this is what really gets me) most of these pieces of media that have ended up pulling the 'BUT PLATONIC QUEER FRIENDSHIP' card already fucking have male and even queer male characters as friends in the cast, outside of the relationship in question or, at the very least, have the potential to depict that with many other characters in the cast. Since I'm primarily reacting to Shadows here, I'll use that as a perfect example; both Guillermo and Nandor are friends with several other male characters in the cast, both peripheral and main. If platonic male friendship and intimacy is so important, then what about these dynamics? What about Guillermo and Laszlo's weird blossoming friendship in season 4? What about whatever it is Colin and Laszlo have going on? What about Nandor and Laszlo (though ig they fuck so maybe they don't count bc remember, sex between men is either gross or funny and meaningless)? SEAN AND LAZSLO?? What about Guillermo and Derek? (REMEMBER HIM??) Hell, what about Guillermo's friend from the orgy who ends up topping the vampire, both of whom we literally never hear of again?? Why are Nandor and Guillermo suddenly the load-bearing 'platonic male friendship' of the show when there were many, many, many, many other opportunities to depict that both with and without them? Suddenly at the eleventh hour when it was time to commit or quit to the Nandermo slowburn, 'platonic male friendship' is just so important you guys??? The math ain't mathing. ANOTHER example of this actually done well WHILE FEATURING A CANONICALLY QUEER COUPLE was Our Flag Means Death. Stede and Ed had their romance, but there were also complex queer platonic friendships and dynamics between them and the rest of the cast and the cast among themselves. So, OBVIOUSLY, we can have our cake and eat it too here, can't we? CAN'T WE??

Thirdly, it is undeniable to me that there is an element of homophobia to this argument, as whenever the 'what about platonic male friendship' comes up it's usually accompanied by the implication that IF these two male characters were to be romantic and/or sexual with each other that would somehow diminish their bond. There's always an implication that them being platonic and sexless is somehow 'purer' and we should be grateful for it, and anyone who might have seen potential for and/or wanted to see something sexual and/or romantic between them is a weirdo gross pervert, which rounds us back to the very conservative concept that sex/romantic intimacy in general is just ew icky gross, inherently impure, especially (for some reason) when it could happen between queer characters. (Which, as others have pointed out, is a weird stance to try to take for the show that had NO PROBLEM showing Laszlo, Nadja-ghost and his friend he just finished raising like a son having sex with each other as a joke- that's totally fine and hilarious, but heaven forbid Guillermo and Nandor should share a chaste kiss or something)

Anyway, the point of this ramble-rant being, I REALLY wish people on these shows would just say 'We didn't want to do that' when it comes to a potential M/M queer pairing rather than trying to take some kind of moral soap-box stance about the inherent purity of sexless, platonic male friendships (especially when the show in question had opportunity after opportunity to explore that with several different characters). It's not only gaslighting an audience of people who are WELL AWARE of what media has consisted of over the past 100 years, it also comes with the implication that romantic/sexual intimacy between men is always way ickier than the alternative AND that anyone who felt it could have happened or wanted to see it happen is gross and weird. It's rude, it's demeaning and wholly unnecessary. Just say you didn't want to write it and go, thanks!

[incorrectquoteswwdits]

Thanks for saving receipts! I had forgotten about that ‘never fall in love’ until now and now I’m fucking pissed again. Egregious and cruel. they hated Nandermo and thought their shippers were gross, but they had no problem cashing in off us for six seasons 🤷🏼‍♀️

It was queerbait, actually (A repository)

(It's almost three am but I am fuming, I've been collecting these for a while, my evidence, I WILL write a detailed post about this in a few days but I wanted to leave this here in case anyone else wanted to see how fucking deep this goes)

HYPOTESIS: Nandermo is textbook queerbaiting, not in spite the characters being queer but BECAUSE of it. The ship was used deliberately by the writers, the actors and the marketing in order to bring lgbt viewership to the show with NO intention on ever delivering on their promise.

Also the show presented itself as queer, marketed itself as queer and went to win GLAAD awards two years in a row then proceded to have no m/m or f/f couples for SIX seasons. Their queer rep were just jokes.

WHAT'S QUEERBAITING:

(I hate that I have to use wikipedia and dictionary.com but the actual articles about it are behind paywalls and I am poor)

Okay on to WWDITS

Let's talk marketing:

These are from season 3, 4, 5 and 6

Season five:

The show is over, it had six seasons, where were my m/m or f/f couples? Because I sure as hell didn't see one apart from the one episode with Freddie, that's it, that's all we got. Apart from that it was just jokes.

---

But that's not about nandermo, you say, it's just about queerness, then what about this: FUCKING HEAVY HANDED NANDERMO MARKETING FOR YEARS:

OR THIS:

How about what the show's socials were posting, this is from season 3 or 4

Now let's see what the writers were saying (this is before season 5):

The infamous that's his boss moment came from this:

But before that we had:

This is Harvey in 2022:

Here's Harvey today:

And here's Kayvan in 2022

Here's Kayvan last year:

And today:

[beansprean]

doodles from s6!!! its been an honor goofin with yall

Support me on Patreon!

(ID in alt and under cut)

ID: 1. Waist up of Nandor from season 6 episode 9 on a mottled green background. He has his hands on his hips and is ginning nervously, shouting, "Your rejection can't hurt me because I wasn't paying attention!"

2. Busts of Guillermo and Nadja from season 6 episode 9 both spattered with blood. Guillermo is on a dark background and staring into the middle distance with crazy eyes, a barely there smile on his face. Nadja is on a pink background and smiling adorably, looking sated and content. Text points to them both and says "killing and maiming is enrichment".

3. Shot from inside Guillermo's shed, Guillermo in profile in the foreground tying at his laptop. He looks up as, in the background, Nandor opens the door and peeks his head in, eyes large and shiny and weeping. He says, in the form of a tweet from sadderlizards, "bro can you come over i miss the way you smell."

4. Jerry sitting at a table, the Guide standing at his side and leaning her hands on the table heavily, head dipped toward him. With wide eyes and a slightly crazed grin, she flirts, in the form of a tumblr post from @muzzlekiss, "if you put your hand on my throat you can watch my brain kick down several gears like a prey animal that knows it's done running."

5a. Waist up of Guillermo on a greenish background, holding a walkie talkie in one hand and pinching the bridge of his nose with the other. Looking sick, he says, in the form of a tweet from alolaneggs, "Guy who doesn't respect the walkie talkie rules: Ugh I'm so hungover." 5b. Chest up of Laszlo sitting at a table with a bluish background, one hand holding up a walkie talkie and the other tapping at the table surface. He grins salaciously at the walkie talkie and replies with the rest of the tweet, "Guy who does: Really? [eyes emoji] Over." /end ID