#nandermo discourse

[drsantosgf]

i have complicated feelings about where the word queerbait leads us in current time. we're a long way from where we started with tumblr's big queerbaits. there are a lot more shows with real queer rep now, queer characters are becoming more and more normalized. which means now, when we have a show full of queer characters, they're going to be subjected to some of the same bad writing or baiting that any straight character could. i don't keep up with the press or the marketing, so i can't say for sure what exactly nandermo was being presented as, but as the fandom's Big Ship i'm sure it was being pushed quite a bit. i don't think it's fair to call it queerbaiting when, historically, that's been used to say they're promising queerness and not delivering. the queerness of the show was present the whole time. i understand why people are upset, even if i've never approached the show with a nandermo lens, but i think it's hard to have a conversation when everyone seems to be operating with completely different ideas of what queerbaiting is.

i absolutely get this perspective, queerbaiting has a very long and complicated history. i think where I lie with nandermo is that the show recognizes the potential of the ship and understands it gets traction and marketing potential from it, a really egregious example of this is promoting the season with guillermo and nandor edited into The Bodyguard poster. personally i don't think it's that big of a deal, i figured they were playing it up for promotion and weren't planning on following through with it because the show isn't a romantic comedy, it's just comedy that has a theme of things never really changing but even if you didn't expect it to happen i understand why it's frustrating that ship was never taken seriously but was used as promotional material. i think paul simms comments about it being problematic and not wanting to pervert the relationship also contributed to people being pissed off because obviously the entire show is problematic if you want to get into semantics, najda literally hypnotized laszlo into sleeping with her and they have literally fucked on screen as bats, so people took those comments as very homophobic because obviously you let the man and the women get freak nasty and be in love (and allow for gay sex scenes of minor characters for laughs (not judgement)) but when it comes to the relationship between two male main characters, suddenly a romance plotline is perverted and problematic because of power dynamics. it feels a little like he just didn't want to commit to a permanent on screen relationship between them.

i think when it comes to nandermo, we need to purge the word queerbait from the discourse because you're right, no one can seem to settle on one solid definition. i think the arguments of "they were acknowledged by canon" + "the show has queer characters" are equally as reasonable as "relationships between two men don't seem to be taken as seriously as the ones between a man and a woman" + "the one relationship between two men is hinted at and joked about but is never pushed further" and to be honest, i think all of these opinions need to coexist because this show DOES have good queer rep, its fun and silly and light hearted, i enjoy the fact that we get nasty gay sex scenes occasionally and it's treated as a normal or even encouraged act, it's very unapologetic and real HOWEVER that doesn't mean it's immune to treating the queerness of these characters and the relationships they have as less than or using them as surface level marketing. we should always be pushing for more and better, even if we have what we asked for.

[anxietycheesecake]

Block me now because I'll never take my queerbaiting allegations back. In fact, I'm doubling down. This was indeed queerbaiting. These bitches got a GLAAD, I can't-

[pigfartsviatardis]

Was discussing queerbaiting recently with a friend because we’re watching Once Upon A Time (trash, but shockingly well written trash in the first 3 seasons) and obs we both ship swan queen. I mean. Come on.

But we noticed that from the start of s3 onwards, there was noticeably less shippy stuff between these two. There’s still a bit here and there because a) lesbian mums and b) chemistryyyy… but it felt like the writers were intentionally backing off from that pairing and putting genuine effort into the male love interests for both characters.

You might think that becalming the swan queen ship would have annoyed or disappointed my friend and myself, the shippers. But tbh we both agreed that it was actually nice to see a writing team see a popular queer fandom ship, go ‘oh whoops that’s not endgame’, and actively NOT bait it.

Obviously everyone here is aware of the Golden Age Of Queerbaiting, the late 2000s/early 2010s; even if you’re too young to have actually battled through it, it’s deep tumblr lore. We all know the repeat and egregious offenders from that time - destiel, merthur, johnlock, whatever the main one was on teen wolf - and how gleefully these shows would dangle queer rep in front of our twitching little noses.

Recently, I’ve noticed a more insidious trend: the Male Friendship Scarcity Myth. The most glaring recent examples are nandermo (WWDITS) and jayvik (arcane), both of which were popular ships after the first season(s) of their shows aired and were subsequently given increased screen time and shippy scenes/storylines. In the case of nandermo, the romantic feelings (at least from Guillermo) were textual. Both pairings were given ambiguous endings where they were together, but not confirmed as, yknow, together.

And then both showrunners, after the shows ended, decided to step up to the mic and give a heartfelt little speech along the lines of ‘men are allowed to be friends without it being sexual, and it’s actually really important that we show this, because we need more representation of close platonic brotherly male friendship in media’.

Anyone who was around during the aforementioned Golden Age Of Queerbaiting, or in fact anyone who consumes popular media at all, knows that this is horseshit.

It’s only ever close platonic brotherly male friendship. Or at least, 95% of the time. Everywhere you look, from major fandom shows to mcu movies, platonic male relationships are often front and centre. That’s nearly always the canon. How often does a major mlm ship actually go canon??? Hardly ever. Even destiel didn’t; cas’s feelings were confirmed last minute, but the official canon dynamic between him and dean is still brotherly bffs.

Are these friendships often the subject of intense fandom shipping? Yes, as literally any close relationship between any two characters of any gender always will be. People like shipping! But the official canon, and the gospel truth held up by poorly disguised homophobes in fandom, is nearly always strictly platonic bros.

Anyway. All this to say, I’ve been disillusioned recently seeing this myth pop up in every comments section on any jayvik-related content, that we have a lack of male friendship in media (we don’t, we have a lack of male friendship that isn’t queer coded to super turbo gay hell and back in media). I was even more disillusioned seeing the exact same rhetoric being spewed by those involved with WWDITS, which is ironically a show jam packed full of close male friendships THAT INVOLVE CASUAL SEX. The call was truly coming from inside the coffin on that one.

So, unexpectedly and somewhat depressingly, swan queen and OUAT have been a balm for the soul in the midst of all this. No queerbaiting (at least not where I’m up to), just good old fashioned straightwashing. At least it’s honest 🤷‍♀️

[vigilantempathy]

The thing about Nandor being Guillermo's boss in S1-S5 and that being problematic is that by the start of S6 Guillermo's accepted his humanity and is off to go try to live a Normal Human Life which means... Nandor isn't his boss anymore.

Some Panera Bread manager is.

Which opens the gates for the possibility of Nandermo without a workplace hierarchy interfering.

But also creates the possibility of Guillermo working at the Panera and Nandor coming up to order at the counter with a bouquet of roses and starting with, "Now that I am not your boss..."

[your-mums-nuts]

The nandermo toxic discourse is insane and stupid.

If some people believe nandermo is going to happen and that it is already basically canon, why the fuck would you want to ruin their vibe? Let them have a good time. That’s what fandoms are for.

And on the same note, if some people are feeling let down and disappointed, why the fuck would you want to attack people for feeling upset? They’re sad enough as it is!

We all want the same end goal here, and everyone is entitled to their feelings about how it is delivered.

If you see a post where someone is sharing how they feel about the current state of nandermo, and you disagree with it- then guess what you can do? Fucking leave it. It’s as easy as shifting your finger slightly upwards and doing what is famously known as scrolling.

[petrapng]

there are still people in the tag saying that wwdits (the show in which EVERY main character is queer) is queerbaiting, so i'll just say this

you're allowed to dislike the direction a tv show is taking without it actually being 'problematic'. you can be disappointed if nandermo doesn't go canon without attacking the creators of the show.

shipbaiting is a normal (if frustrating) experience that is just as common with heterosexual tv romances. it can really really suck for fans (i'll be disappointed too if they aren't canon!), but it's not morally wrong.

"it's queerbaiting because they are queer, not despite it!" (<- actual tag i saw on someone's post) please use your noggin. here is the definition of queerbaiting from the oxford dictionary:

The practice of incorporating apparently or potentially LGBTQ characters or relationships into a film, television show, etc., as a means of attracting or appealing to LGBTQ audiences, while remaining deliberately coy or ambiguous about the characters' sexuality.

i think we can all agree that guillermo and nandor's sexual orientations are anything but ambiguous. they are very openly queer, and that is shown repeatedly throughout the seasons.

but if you must keep calling wwdits queerbaiting, please just don't do in the tags. it's getting old.

[oneshotsfunshots]

I saw a post calling the surprise coffin elevator ending of WWDITS tonally inconsistent with the rest of the show, and like, this is a great example of why fandoms are never satisfied. Fandom brain talks about a thing so much that eventually they invent a version of the show that doesn’t exist, and then get upset when they return to the source material.

I think the show ended wonderfully. There was always going to be the question of how to end a show like this. The nature of vampires is that they don’t change. I’m glad the show hung a light on it, while also clearly demonstrating that, actually, the vampires have. Guillermo and Nandor are equals now. They will continue to live and go on adventures but we won’t stick around to see them. I think the final episode gave us a couple different ending options, and I’m glad they ended on the most inconclusive, but also the funniest.

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

started rewatching ofmd from the beginning, as i had promised myself i would do once my schedule cleared up (living the dream, baby!), and i love how this show takes scenarios in fiction that have been queer-coded for centuries, like jim seeming at first to fulfill the woman-crossdressing-to-go-undercover-as-a-man trope but actually being trans, and ed and stede's homoerotically coded opposites-attract friendship actually blossoming into a real romance. i don't really have anything substantial to say about this besides: yay! what a good show. 🏴‍☠️🦄

[manesalex]

Apparently, people are complaining that nothing changed in the What We Do in the Shadows season 5 finale, And I'm just-- SO MUCH CHANGED.

Yes, Guillermo is human again. But now he knows that he wants to be human. That he doesn't want to be a vampire. He loves this group of vampires and he still wants to be a part of their family, but as a human. His purpose since season 1 has been becoming a vampire. And now that's gone. Now he's only staying there because he loves these vampires (Nandor most of all).

And Nandor. We've spent five seasons thinking that he hasn't changed Guillermo because he's being selfish. Because Guillermo makes a wonderful familiar. Because vampires never change their familiars, as that means finding a new one. Because he doesn't want to lose Guillermo. And now we know that he hasn't changed Guillermo because he knew Guillermo wouldn't want to be a vampire. He wouldn't change Guillermo because he wouldn't do that to him. He wouldn't trap Guillermo in a life he wouldn't want, even if that meant Nandor got to spend the eternity with him.

This changes everything. At least where those two are concerned.

[badpoetryboi]

i’m personally betting on another divorce kiss, let’s get three for three

oh my god is wwdits going to have nandor be about to confess his feelings to guillermo and then find out he's been turned by derek are we legitimately about to have another good omens 2 finale. oh holy shit.

[anxietycheesecake]

I'm sorry that you're being attacked and blocked for having valid criticisms. It's really weird to be new to this fandom and watch it go from a fairly positive space to fans being as nasty to each other as Star Wars fans in such a short period of time, especially when the crumbs people are cobbling together and calling a canonized ship is what we scrape for in other fandoms with ships we know will never be canon and we KNOW we're stretching the material we're given. I love my queerplatonic ships, found families, and platonic soulmates. I can absolutely enjoy Nandermo through that lens, but the gaslighting and mental gymnastics here is raising such a fucking eyebrow and you don't deserve to feel like you've done something wrong for recognizing it.

Being allosexual or alloromantic is as valid as being asexual or aromatic and it's actually so fucking unchill to conflate being gay or pan with being ace or aro just because they are all under the queer umbrella.

Ace =/= celibate, but half this fandom thinks Guillermo is a virgin and I can't help but think that's being bundled into the hot takes that are coming out right now when it's canon that he's uncomfortable due to being in the closet and his Catholic upbringing. Yes, he could be ace, but that means at best were batting 1/4 for aroace Nandermo.

Nandor has sex with Gail onscreen and is very clearly not ace. The vampires would have MINIMALLY mentioned Guillermo being a virgin and wouldn't have eagerly asked about his sex life in Atlantic City if they thought he was one and they practically have radar for it. He was panicking over Jeremy being a virgin and having brought him into the house and the only thing that saved the guy was losing his virginity. Nandor and Guillermo are both romantic in romantic relationships, and both are expressive about it and tell others they love them.

When you speedrun the entire series and the notable interviews with fresh eyes and not over a stretch of years the leap between 'My Nan- Master' vs. best friends, cuddling a Nandor puppet at night, the I'll make you a vampire speech vs. the vibe in the warrior speech is SO visible and it fits perfectly with Simms' public discomfort with fans shipping Nandor and Guillermo. He is openly uncomfortable with them being in a romantic relationship or having sex with each other and uses every homophobic gaslighting tactic in the playback when speaking about it.

“No, I do think there’s a small subset of very vocal people on Twitter who are like ‘We want to see Nandor and Guillermo hook up,’ and we’re always like, I think their love is bigger and more profound than that,” Simms said. “And also do you really want to see that? Do you?”

This is literally how straight people talk when they're uncomfortable with queer shit. What haven't we seen in this show other than that? Is Nadja and Laszlo's love lesser for it?

“Times that we’ve talked about it and explored it, the power dynamics seem so problematic,” Simms continued. “I mean, that’s his boss.”

In a show where the main couple started with nonconsensual sex (it's still noncon if it turns out that they could have had sex without hypnosis) and Laszlo fucks Colin Robinson after raising him for a gag. Sure, keep telling yourselves that the power dynamic is what makes Simms uncomfortable.

"I mean, it's a nice thought, for some...I don't know about these guys" Kayvan says as he nods toward Simms.

I've seen the Harvey interviews and talking heads from earlier seasons on the subject of Nandermo. The 2024 panel couldn't have been more different, and Harvey seemed completely subdued when the others were discussing Nandermo fanart and them being a ship.

This isn't a person who deserves applause for queer representation and it seems toxic af that Harvey has been stuck in a workplace where he has to hear this drivel when he's openly gay. Yes, I am side eyeing the fuck out of this and it's not because I'm crying over wanting my blorbos to smooch.

You can actually have a romantic pair not kiss or fuck or say I love you without pulling a very clear 'no homo.' That would have been totally fine, but they didn't do that. Copy and paste that scene into anything starring Andy Samberg, or literally anything bro centric and tell me it's a romantic love confession. Or rather, try taking it off tumblr and see if anybody thinks it isn't deep platonic male friendship.

It's okay for people to be upset when they've been hoodwinked. It's okay to separate fanon from canon and still enjoy your ships. But ffs stop gaslighting each other and saying non-romance is romance or that non-romance has more worth than romance and that people are shallow for not valuing it when that's not the problem people have with this, and when that isn't the bill of good audiences we're sold in earlier seasons.

The call is coming from inside the house it shouldn't be.

(Also SO sorry for how long this was).

Never apologize for articulating this better than I ever could. I'm too lazy to look for all the recipes I know are out there, so most of the shit I say is like "source: trust me bro"; I'm glad someone else did it.

The aspec thing makes me so mad because, as a writer, I'm always going out of my way to properly and respectfully represent aspec folks. Like, I've got two novels starring an ace woman and an aromantic man. Do I deserve a medal for that? Of course not! It should be normal. But it's kind of infuriating that people are willing to give aspec rep credit to a show just because it made two male characters stay platonic after teasing their relationship for years and call me aphobic for pointing out that's not the case.

[bucksboobs]

2 queerbait debates happening at once.... maybe it's not worth being on tumblr today.

Let’s start beef with the WWDITS fandom over whose queerbait discourse is stupider: my propaganda is that BuckTommy was literally canon and also Hen Wilson, Karen Wilson, and Michael Grant all exist and so do Josh Russo and Dr David Hale but the show is still catching queerbait accusations over Buddie because Ryan Guzman is insistent that Eddie is straight. Beat that Nandermo stans!!!

[darcyolsson]

bestie hi what is wwdits (ik its the show about vampires but not much more than that) and what does it have to do with buddie canon? I've seen you mention it multiple times now, consider my interest piqued

hi bestie, this got long. strap in

you're right, what we do in the shadows is a show about vampires! a comedy to be specific, it aired on fx between 2019-2024 and basically, wwdits was a Very Queer Show. literally the entire main cast was queer in some way. though for most of the series the only couple in the cast was a marriage between a man and a woman, they were both explicitly polyamorous and bi/pan, as were the other two vampires. one of the vampires' human familiar, guillermo, was explicitly confirmed to be gay in later seasons after this was very heavily implied in pretty much every way possible (i was a little bit surprised they still felt the need to explicitly state it, tbh!)

so there was this cast filled with queer characters, and in season 3 it seemed really obvious that they were writing in a romance between guillermo and his vampire master, nandor. from the start of the show there were Obvious Undertones to their relationship but s3 really seemed to be intentionally and obviously be setting up for them to become canon. the official promotional material leaned into it too, and cast members expressed their support of it. i cannot reiterate enough how much it wasn't just wishful shipping, it was literally just the most obvious interpretation of the show if you were watching it with any kind of reading comprehension skills. no one really had any doubts that this was where their relationship was headed in s4. after all, the show has always been completely unapologetic about its queer characters (is any of this starting to sound familiar yet), so why would they have any objections to going through with this gay romance?

well

we never figured that one out i fear but regardless of why it happened, the writers post-s3 started backpedaling. HARD. some viewers will try and convince you nandor/guillermo could have still become canon at any point post-s3 but that simply isn't the truth, it's really obvious that they completely changed their minds and wrote it out of the show as much as they could in the next seasons.

basically the reason why i mention it regarding buddie is bc it was sooooo obvious they were going to go through with this ship and then they still found a way to not do it, even though it undermined the writing of the entire show, even though everyone seemed fully on board with it for YEARS (something that can't even be said about buddie, at least not to this degree).

there was a lot of queerbaiting/ship baiting discourse about it, ofc. witnessing it all did get me thinking about the subject, and my main takeaway from it all has been that the often-heard take of "there's queer characters anyway, so there can't be any objections to adding a main gay romance" is... Blatantly Wrong! of course it's not queerbaiting in the traditional sense, but whatever you want to call it, i do sincerely believe that nandermo being a gay romance is probably the main reason they did not go through with it in the end. even though guillermo is gay, even though he got storylines centered around his sexuality, even though he did briefly get a (non main cast member) boyfriend in later seasons.

the reason being that a front-and-center gay romance would have changed the way wwdits communicated its queerness to its viewers. wwdits, being a comedy, mostly used its characters sexualities for jokes (makes sense, i never had any issues with it, though some people are upset about it in hindsight). guillermo's sexuality was always treated with a a unique sincerity though, and there were several episodes which did focus on it, but it wasn't a massive driving force to the plot the way a canon romance would have been.

i don't think 911 is the same, obviously! it's always, always had a really prominent lesbian marriage at its center, and i don't think a buddie relationship would fundamentally change the way queerness is portrayed in the show the way nandermo would've for wwdits. but i don't think that's the question to be asked here, i think the question is "if the two masculine young men on 911 ended up in a gay relationship together, would this change the way the show is perceived by the bulk of its viewers?" (followed by, "is this change something a network might be hesitant about?")

when buck came out on 911, oliver expressed his surprise that there was backlash against it despite there always having been really prominent queer characters and romances on this show. and i'm with him on that, it is really weird and irrational to be fine with 6 seasons of queer storylines and then get upset when they do it again in a slightly different way, but i also can comprehend how for a certain type of viewer there IS a difference. you've definitely already heard it all before, arguments like "there's already enough gay characters on the show", "buck and eddie are too masculine to be gay", "let men have vulnerable close friendships", etc. etc.

all of this being said i do really Want to believe in buddie canon and i do think it's the most logical interpretation of where the story is headed but like. I've Played These Games Before. on top of that, 911 has a wayyyyy bigger general audience than wwdits ever did, and i would not be entirely surprised if even abc (who have shown themselves to be more accepting than fox, at least) would prefer it if they steered away from what is still a risky decision that will affect the way the show is perceived (while still giving the audience who is rooting for it enough hope to cling to the possibility). i want to believe tim minear returning to the show after (supposedly) leaving it at least partially for buddie-related reasons is a good sign, but unless theyre making out sloppy style on my screen..... i am forced to remain skeptical. and it's all because of the fuckass bisexual vampires.

[pyr0cue]

Ok going into the wwdits tag was a huge mistake the discourse is wild. Hello??

[koheletgirl]

meaningless fandom discourse!!! im never going to accuse wwdits of queerbaiting bc that's simply untrue. however if nandermo dont fuck before the show is over im going to fight them with my fists

[queenslimon]

okay, I'll say it. I'm not actually much of a Nandermo shipper but the "that's his boss" discourse has me going back to my big disappointment with the end of s5:

with the first few seasons, I honestly didn't think the showrunners would ever turn Guillermo for one simple reason: it's a sitcom, and sitcoms have yeah, okay, some character growth across the seasons but traditionally, consistenly return to the status quo.

so when it was actually looking like Guillermo really would just be a vampire now? I was STOKED. because this would completely rework the entire household dynamic. Guillermo wouldn't BE a familiar anymore - how would the vampires adjust??? how would they manage when forced to confront that their supposed inferior was now on (a growing, anyway) equal footing with them? (oh they would probably impulsively reject that sentiment - he's still a baby vamp - but I'd expect the gradual, if grudging acceptance of it to form a key arc of s6)

but the showrunners chickened out on truly shaking things up.

so yeah, I fully support Guillermo fucking his boss but it's also so frustrating to me that the whole argument is based on the unequal power dynamics when you LITERALLY had this setup that would completely change that. but you chickened out. you went back to the sitcom formula. don't tell me there was no conceivable way for you to see the plot develop towards them kissing, even within your own nonsense ethical framework (which others have made many good posts about so I won't argue here). you're just cowards