#wwdits meta

[cordeliavenable]

i knew they changed guillermo’s title card a bunch of times in s4 so i was curious what titles he has had - this is all of them! (this is only for s1-s4 because they haven’t shown titles in s5 - just names)

season one

season two

season three

season four

#wwdits #what we do in the shadows #guillermo de la cruz #wwdits meta

[cottoncandysprite]

Ok I lied I'm still delusional. Can we talk about how this:

was while Nandor was saying Guillermo can now think about what he Really Wants and how that sets up his arc from here because it's actually fascinating the more i think about it.

It's very much implying that, without the veil of wanting to be a vampire, Guillermo will now start to really reevaluate WHY he's still with the vamps, and more importantly, with Nandor. He sees them as his family, sure, but how will he maintain that? Will he just stay with them until he dies of old age? What does he want out of it? And of course, that all leads to the biggest conclusion: He wants Nandor. It was never the vampirism-- It was always about respect, belonging, and love. He just wants to be there, with Nandor and the others, for all eternity. Just, y'know, without the killing (for now, at least).

Obviously vampirism may be the eventual solution to the whole mortality thing in their relationship, but that will be when both of them are ready. Nandor needs to realize his feelings, and Guillermo needs to sort his whole mental shit out and accept himself without vampirism. Like we've said from the start, they need to wrap up BOTH of their arcs for a satisfying turning. And it needs to be Nandor doing it. Likely in the series finale unfortunately but thats just how writing works 🤷

So yeah its a frustrating place to be in but the road ahead actually looks pretty bright! Especially now that they seem to be communicating their feelings a little better!!!

#just let me have my delusions ok #wwdits #what we do in the shadows #wwdits spoilers #nandermo #wwdits meta #guillermo de la cruz #nandor the relentless

[fanfic-fugue]

Listen: Laszlo found the cure for vampirism. He found the cure, and doesn’t know what to do about it. It caused him to shut down for 3 weeks because now that he’s found it? It’s caused a malfunction.

Why would he shut down? Why wouldn’t he just give it to Guillermo and move onto his next hobby?

Well….

Laszlo, who says time and time again how much he loves being a vampire, mister “I became a vampire to suck blood and fuck forever”, is actually the one in the house with the most connections to humanity. His knowledge of human culture, his human friends, his life as Jackie Daytona… for fuck’s sake, his favorite hobby is GARDENING.

A foray into the sun for one day made him radiant, the smile on that face was priceless, but that was just a one time thing. He could, in his mind, still be a vampire and enjoy one day in the sun. But once he found the cure, that could be every day.

His entire identity (to himself) is being a vampire, and he is madly in love with a woman who, i do not believe for once second, would even entertain the idea of taking a cure for herself. Nadja LOVES being a vampire through and through, but does Laszlo, really?

His hypnosis skills aren’t the best, he can’t do telekinesis or pyrokinisis. He can’t fly as high as the others. He doesn’t claw up walls. He doesn’t have any special powers that we know of. I don’t think it’s because he’s deficient at all, I think it just simply doesn’t interest him. Beyond yelling “BAT!”, and making the most of that infinite libido, does he truly revel in vampirism?

So yeah… I think he’s found the cure and doesn’t know where to go next. I think he feels tempted to take it, and it’s fracturing his identity.

We will see if I’m wrong next week.

#wwdits #laszlo cravensworth #wwdits s5 #wwdits meta #meta #finale predictions

[cookinguptales]

So… I’ve been turning all this over in my head since last night, and I wanted to make a post about vampiric transformation as sex, and how it’s being used in wwdits as a metaphor for sexual repression, sexual freedom, virginity, and cuckolding.

Before I even get into the obvious metaphors about virginity and cuckolding, I think we need to talk about the elephant in the room. Guillermo’s sexual repression and how that’s come to find an outlet in his vampiric longing.

Guillermo is highly repressed, sexually speaking, but I don’t think he’s asexual. He’s shown interest in sex several times, but in an uncomfortable “this can’t be for me yet” kind of way. He was clearly raised Catholic and has internalized a lot of that shame re: sex, especially gay sex. He wants intimacy, but he’s also internalized the idea that wanting these things is dangerous and shameful.

But… the vampiric world seems to symbolize all the things that Guillermo wants but cannot have. He wants to be strong, powerful, attractive, and sexually liberated. As much as their openness about sex embarrasses him, there’s a certain longing there, too. He didn’t just want to be handsome as a vampire — he explicitly used the word “sexy.”

A vampiric Guillermo is a version of Guillermo that gets to have sex. Loudly, proudly, and without shame. It’s a version of him that is wanted, that wants, and who gets to have the precise kind of intimacy he's always craved.

Now, how much Guillermo has actually done sexually is still up for a lot of debate in fandom, but I think that’s kind of immaterial. For most of the show, Guillermo clearly wasn’t having the kind of intimacy that he wanted to be having, and he only started to even begin to allow himself to seriously consider all that in s4, when he got a boyfriend and came out to his family.

As being gay and wanting to be a vampire. 

Guillermo is finally starting to own both his homosexuality and his vampiric life, and that means he’s finally starting to explore sex.

Now… At the end of s4, I talked about how Guillermo going to Derek in the finale had the air of a person who’d been fantasizing about losing their virginity in a certain way all their life — but then they finally give up on those dreams and hire a sex worker instead. There’s a resignation there in Guillermo that he couldn’t get it “the old-fashioned way,” he’s disappointed and jaded when it comes to intimate relationships, and now he’s tired of waiting for love and just wants a business transaction.

I wasn’t quite expecting for them to push that metaphor even more in s5! The money aspect was almost forgotten (Did… Derek even take the money? Why is he still cleaning toilets?) but the scene with Derek biting Guillermo was clearly a metaphorical virginity scene.

Guillermo’s nervous eagerness, his growing realization that this wasn’t actually the way he wanted it to happen. Asking Derek if he’d ever done this before and figuring out if he was “ready.” Taking off his clothes (that his grandmother got for him, even, that’s a whole meta post right THERE) and trying to make the vibe “right.” His insistence that though Nandor had never done this for him, they still had a caring and intimate relationship.

But… it was also a metaphor for bad sex. Many people lose their virginity in a way they don’t find satisfying, and Guillermo definitely seems to fall in this category. It was awkward, it was bloody, it hurt, his partner didn’t listen to him, they weren’t on the same wavelength, they didn’t connect, there was no emotional bond, and most importantly, he didn’t feel changed.

Like a lot of people do, Guillermo thought losing his virginity would change him. He’d be cooler, sexier, more powerful. His station in life would change. He’d become an adult his ideal form. But he’s still just Guillermo.

As he told Laszlo, as soon as he did it, he regretted it. He immediately knew that he’d been right, that this wasn’t the way he wanted to do it. He wanted to do it with someone experienced who loved and cared about him, who listened to him, and he wanted that person to be Nandor. But he wasn’t patient, he paid an inexperienced acquaintance for a one-night-stand instead, and he was left feeling deeply unfulfilled.

Most upsettingly, he immediately discovered that, like virginity, you can’t lose it twice. He can’t just have a do-over with Nandor now. He’s given something up that he can’t give to anyone else, and he’s going to have to live with the consequences.

Because like sex for humans, transformation has social implications in the vampire world. It can only be done in very specific situations. Guillermo seems to have grown up in a human world where sex should only be happening within a heterosexual marriage, and now he’s finding that in the vampire world, transformation is only supposed to happen between a master and familiar currently in a contractual bond.

So… him going to Derek and finding “outlet” in another relationship, so to speak, is effectively vampirically cuckolding Nandor. He’s given that honor to another vampire, which Nandor seems to find both vampirically humiliating and personally hurtful. It would in fact hurt him so badly that he would probably not survive it, in Laszlo’s words.

(There’s also definitely an element of an abusive “if I can’t have you, no one can” vibe in Nandor’s threat to kill Guillermo and then himself if Guillermo got what he needed from another vampire, but since when have we ever liked them well-adjusted?)

Guillermo is realizing that, as much as he’s been thinking of this in sexual terms, so have the vampires. He thought he was the only one who thought it was a big deal. He thought he was the only one placing intimacy and partnership and loyalty into this event. But now he’s realizing that as much as it meant to him, it might have even been a bigger thing for Nandor.

For Guillermo, vampirism-as-sex represents the idealized transformational aspects of losing your virginity. He’d built up this big event in his mind that represented his intimate bond with Nandor, he’d built up this idea that the event would change him, would make him better, would make him free. But he’s finding, like many first-timers do, that sometimes it’s not transformational. It’s just awkward and disappointing and the only thing that’s changed is that you ache in the morning.

He still doesn’t have the intimacy he wanted. He still doesn’t have the ability to be loudly himself. He still hasn’t been able to fully own his sexuality and ask for what he wants. He wasn’t ready. He didn’t enjoy it. He regrets it.

He also regrets it because now he knows it will hurt Nandor and the relationship they’ve built. Because for Nandor, vampirism-as-sex represents the societal aspects of sex. The rules people follow. The societal humiliation you feel if you’re cuckolded. The personal agony you feel when you’re cheated on. The sense that your home is broken if your partner goes to find satisfaction with someone else.

Guillermo, who has had to deal with societal disapproval of his desired type of sex in the human world his whole life, was viewing vampiric transformation as a way to be free of all that. The shame and the repression and the societal penalties for being himself.

But he’s just found himself in a mess of new rules, hasn’t he? Different culture, same struggle. And while the vampiric world has always symbolized a sexual liberation that both repulses and attracts Guillermo, he clearly doesn’t have as much freedom here as he thought.

So… to sum up, Guillermo always kind of thought of transformation as losing his virginity. He associated vampirism with sex, and he thought this would be his entrance into the sexual world. He wanted to have an intimate experience with Nandor, but eventually gave up on that and decided to pay for it — and then immediately regretted it, both because he found it personally dissatisfying and because it came as a betrayal to the man he loves.

The problem is that he thought he was the only person thinking of it as sex — he didn’t realize that Nandor does, too, just in a very different way.

Nandor was also thinking of vampiric transformation as this special act, and one that belongs only to him as Guillermo’s master/partner. He was thinking of it in intimate terms, but also in societal partnership terms. He’s thinking of his household, while Guillermo was thinking of things on more individualistic terms.

If only they’d both talked about all this shit even once. :’)

But that’s not how we do things here in Staten Island!!! We just long for things ineffectively, keep secrets, and fuck everything up!

(There’s also a whole thing here about how Nandor wasn’t keeping his side of the relationship bargain and that’s why Guillermo looked elsewhere in a moment of weakness, but I guess that’s probably a separate post. This is long enough already.)

#I could talk about this so much more but this post is so long lmao #well guillermo you can never give nandor your first time but that doesn't mean you can't still build a relationship with him #more important for a guy to have your future than your past right? #lmao we'll see #nandermo #wwdits #wwdits meta #long post #wwdits spoilers

[thegeekyartist]

The CONTRAST of Guillermo in s1 during the Orgy episode, calmly saying he needs to leave the room before he says something he'll regret, to which both Laszlo and Nadja protest to Nandor, "Are you going to let him get away with that??"

To THIS EPISODE where Guillermo literally DESTROYS A ROOM while screaming, and Nadja's first response is "Are you okay?", and then proceeds to help him???

Every episode they all get closer and closer to an actual family and I am LIVING for it. The character development is unmatched.

#s1 Guillermo would NEVER #but neither would any of the vamps! #they love each other #theyve all grown so much! #wwdits #wwdits spoilers #guillermo de la cruz #nadja of antipaxos #what we do in the shadows #wwdits meta

[memosminifridge]

everybody talking about "ooh this is a great betrayal, guillermo should have been patient, he gave himself away when he could have been turned by the greatest vampire" etc etc making guillermo cry

THIS IS NANDOR'S DAMN FAULT!! he should've put a fucking ring on it when he had the chance for 13 years! The way he acted it's no wonder guillermo thought he was gonna be a benji, old af and never turned. nandor was definitely gonna string him along forever if he didn't do something. and now nandor wants to be all hurt. it is YOUR!👏 FAULT!👏

bitch ass nandor

anyways im loving it >:D

#wwdits #nandermo #wwdits meta #my post #wwdits s5 spoilers #nandor the relentless #guillermo de la cruz

[veryintricaterituals]

So let's talk about Marwa.

I'm so so disappointed with Marwa's ending you have no idea. I've been thinking about it since Saturday, trying to come to terms with it and I just can't. It's cruel, misogynistic and not funny at all.

I'm angry and even hurt with the way the writers have treated her character and storyline. Specially in a show with so few women, where, let's be real, Nadja is the only woman in the main cast. And they've been trying with the Guide since last season, but she's barely more than a side character and they could do so much more with her.

But this is about Marwa (the first woman of color with any sort of storyline in the show btw). And I'm going to say that the way this season handled her rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt, but they have really dropped the ball with this.

Dear WWDITS writers: having one of the few woman on your show lose herself, her autonomy and all her choices because of a man and a marriage is not a hot take or funny, it's just cruel and not something I wanted to see on my silly vampire show, it's frankly misogynistic and brings nothing new to the table.

Marwa whole storyline is such a horrifying and unneeded part of the season. She was brought back from the dead with all her sister (and I guess brother) wives and had to watch them all get killed, one by one until she was the only one left. Still she had so much hope and wonder.

Then we slowly saw her disappear, episode by episode, losing more and more of herself, all her autonomy, all her choices taken away from her. Until that final wish that made her personality completely dissolve.

And the show's idea of a satisfying ending is turning her yet into another person (a man this time) and just sending her off into the world without any agency? What? And nobody brought it up? She's just another Freddie now, she's just gone, poof that's all we get I guess.

She deserved so much better. She deserved to get out of there in her own terms. She deserved to scream at Nandor, to humiliate him, bring him down a notch. I hope she gets to come back and kill him at some point during the next two seasons. Because this was not it.

#wwdits #marwa wwdits #marwa what we do in the shadows #wwdits s4 spoilers #what we do in the shadows #nandor the relentless #wwdits spoilers

[bottombaron]

'vampire must not kill vampire' and Nandor killing Derek and all that but have we talked abt Guillermo letting Nandor kill Derek?? and i don't even mean as Guillermo's desire to protect a friend, but in the context of Nadja's scolding Guillermo's treatment of Derek earlier in the episode and her 'this is a sacred relationship. you have to protect him like we protect the baron and the sire.' talk.

this is a sacred relationship. you have to protect him.

and its not like Nandor doesn't know that, he's the oldest of all of them. he probably gives the most respect and differs more to the Baron than the three (Nadja and Laszlo are mostly just horny for him lol) but he still kills Derek for Guillermo.

idk it just adds more weight to the whole thing for me y'know? like Nandor is literally severing this sacred relationship. he's performing an even greater blasphemy: its a vampire killing another for the express goal of defiling a covenant. so he can have Guillermo. and Guillermo is letting him. wants him to. because he wants Nandor too.

idk what all that means but it sounds kinky to me ok

#nandermo #wwdits #what we do in the shadows #nandor the relentless #guillermo de la cruz #they are so fucked up #my meta #wwdits meta

[eliza1911o1]

WTF THIS IS LITERALLY THE CUTEST THING I’VE EVER SEEN

So disregarding plot and character stuff I just really want Nandor and Guillermo to get together so I can see Harvey Guillén and Kayvan Novak show off their awesome chemistry and be cute together

#wwdits #wwdits spoilers #wwdits s5 #wwdits speculation #guillermo #guillermo de la cruz #Nandor #nandor the relentless #nandermo #wwdits meta #harvey guillen #kayvan novak

[wolfnight2012]

Yes, Nandor fell to his knees when the Baron dumped "Guillermo's" body in the foyer. (In Front Of his entire family [sans Colin Robinson] and the Baron!) As if he could no longer bring himself to care about who saw him break down/how weak he might be perceived

Yes, cradled (what he thought was) Guillermo's dead body

Yes, his little half-sobbed "Oh, no" was very telling & heartbreaking

But let's talk about his positively distraught cries when he thought Laszlo was gonna desecrate Guillermo's corpse???

Because that's Guillermo to him. As in, that's still Guillermo to Nandor, even as a corpse.

And that's not something we see often with vampires in the wwdits world

Vampires here seem to simply accept death & move on. Once someone/something is considered dead, it is time to move on

Our main characters do it with the Baron. He gets fried to a crisp, they bury him, say a few half-hearted words, and move on (he's Nadja's sire! He had a trist with both her and Laszlo. He's like, their unofficial superior/boss, in that he can order them to take over North America & just like, move into their home?)

They do it with Colin Robinson, twice! Both when he fakes his death in 2x05 (simply bury him & say a few words) and to a lesser(ish) extent when he "dies" on his 100th birthday (few words, few sentimental touches & thats it, we move on)

Nadja does it with her reincarnated lover, able to drop him/forget about him the moment he dies

iirc, the only instances that don't follow this pattern is when the dead person isn't considered truly dead (yet)

Nandor wastes no real time grieving Gail, because she's not dead dead (yet) he can fix her! She's temporarily not alive at worst.

Topher, similarly, can be revived (or so they think) so he's not dead dead either, because he can be fixed. Once its clear he can't be truly fixed, they can easily discard & forget about him.

Young Colin Robinson isn't dead dead either. His adult self is alive & well (and back) Laszlo is simply grieving the fatherhood/son that only exists in his memories.

Guillermo is dead dead. Either because vampirism only takes immediately after death or because the Baron would simply kill him again, turning him into a vampire isn't an option. (And I like to think they learned their lesson with the necromancer/zombie!Topher)

Guillermo is dead dead & everyone reacts accordingly: the Baron chills out immediately, even feeling a little bad (not for Guillermo's death, he was only a familiar after all) for causing a fellow vampire/one of the vampires he's arguably closer to pain

Nadja (who was fighting & scheming & panicked to save him) declares he should be buried before he starts to stink. She might care about Guillermo & consider him family (even if she'd never say those actual words) but the body on the floor isn't Guillermo anymore, it's just a corpse that needs disposing.

Meanwhile, Nandor has accepted Guillermo's death; he's not planning on how to revive him/bring him back.

Guillermo is dead dead.

But Nandor is still protective of what he should only consider to be a corpse now. That's still Guillermo to him.

He cradles him up off the floor. He gently brushes his hair back. He's distraught at the thought of Laszlo cutting him up, even in death.

Anyways, there's zero chance of Nandor trying to kill Guillermo in earnest. That man could not handle the emotional toll

#never you mind #wwdits #wwdits spoilers #wwdits meta #nandor the relentless #nandermo #wolf's posts

[cottoncandysprite]

The way Nandor and Guillermo’s arcs and conflicting views on immortality intertwine perfectly and can't wrap up satisfyingly without them admitting how much they want to stay together will always drive me insane actually. Like. Nandor can't stand being immortal but wants to guide Guillermo in becoming immortal anyway because he cares about him. Guillermo wants to be immortal because he wants to be with Nandor and the others forever but hasn't realized thats the reason even if he knows he loves them. Nandor believes immortality will only be worthwile if he has someone to spend it with and Guillermo wants to be exactly that but NEITHER OF THEM HAVE PUT THAT TOGETHER YET. GOD I WANNA SHAKE THEM LIKE BUGS IN A JAR.

#i got 3 pages into writing a fic out of that best case scenario i posted earlier and went a lil crazy sorry #They're so. they. i just. you don't get it. #wwdits #what we do in the shadows #nandermo #wwdits meta #nandor the relentless #guillermo de la cruz

[barren-heart]

Did Harvey just reveal Guillermo’s season 6 ending?

Critics Choice Awards, Deadline. 2024.

S6 speculation below:

…I think the best thing I can take from playing Guillermo De la Cruz is it's never too late to find yourself. It's never too late to be reborn and to reinvent yourself. And there’s no ticking time bomb expiration date to anyone of us to what our dreams and hopes can come true…Well,we start where we left off, and sometimes dreams and aspirations don't turn out the way we want them to...but I think that that's the whole point of rebirth,right? It's like a renaissance. It's happening again. And you take a new direction, new ideas, a new approach. So I'm really excited for the audience to see a new layer to Guillermo.

These are the key words from Harvey’s interview:

1. it's never too late to find yourself

2. Reborn

3. Reinvent

4. Ticking time bomb

5. Expiration date

6. Rebirth

7. Renaissance

8. Happening again

9. New layer

There’s a lot of references to reinvention and rebirth as well as time and hopes and dreams.

We know that Guillermo’s dream of being a vampire ended in season 5 when he learned that he couldn’t go through with killing humans.

There’s a stress of new ideas and directions, which sounds like Guillermo’s ending will not be any of the things he has been already: familiar, bodyguard, slayer, vampire.There’s going to be a new direction for Guillermo that he possibly hasn’t considered.

There’s a huge focus on time and rebirth, Harvey points out this message several times in the interview. He repeats and emphasizes reinvention and renaissance. Almost like being born again.

And the show has accomplished something like what Harvey has mentioned. Something that is technically not a new idea at all. And that’s energy vampires.

Energy Vampires life expectancies are a ticking time bomb. They have an expiration date. They live only for 100 years. And on that 100th birthday, they expire.

Except, they don’t expire. They give birth to a baby version of themselves and are basically born again or undergo a rebirth.

A storyline that was hinted at by not yet fully explored is the creation of the energy vampire. We know how they die and how their life cycles begin again, but we don’t know how they are made.

And I believe this is the season we find out. And Colin will help Guillermo by helping him turn.

I revisited some parts of season 5 when I considered this. Namely:

1. Guillermo’s inability to kill

2. That he didn’t want to say goodbye to his mom

3. That he said he still wanted to be a vampire

Becoming an energy vampire solves all three.

Guillermo can still see his mom without the threat of her killing him. He also doesn’t have to feed on humans in the traditional way, namely he doesn’t need to kill. And this way he will live forever, even though he will die every 100 years.

I get how this may not be what we want or expect. I, probably like you, want to see Nandor sink his teeth into Guillermo more than anything. But I don’t think they want to give us that…at least not easily.

I do have a full theory on how we get to have Nandor turn Guillermo. But I will make that into its own separate post.

#what we do in the shadows #WWDITS #WWDITS s6 #WWDITS theory #wwdits meta #harvey guillen #guillermo de la cruz #colin robinson

[cookinguptales]

The power is still out so I guess I’ll get started on that meta now.

One thing that I think is really fascinating about this season as a whole is that it’s really, really emphasizing the power Nandor and Guillermo have to accidentally hurt each other. It’s kind of fascinating, tbh, because this whole show it’s been Nandor purposefully but also accidentally hurting Guillermo — but this season, it’s been very much the other way around.

Let me start with Nandor’s history of this. It happens in almost every episode, being honest with you, but two of the clearest instances were in 1.01 and 4.09.

In the very first episode, we’re introduced to the relationship that Nandor and Guillermo have by how they behave on their 10th anniversary as a master-familiar partnership. Guillermo is practically giddy at the idea that his beloved master is finally going to make him a vampire, and he’s hurt deeply when he not only does not do so, he appears to have forgotten altogether how long Guillermo has been there.

We feel bad for Guillermo here, but… well, let’s look at it from Nandor’s perspective. Yes, he forgot how long Guillermo’s been there, but… being real with you, the vampires seem to have a very shaky grasp on time at the best of times. They don’t understand human lifespans at all, they have very fuzzy memories for when things happen, and almost every time they make time estimates they’re off by a hilarious amount. I don’t know that we can fully blame Nandor for not realizing that an entire decade has gone by — he, like the other vampires, tends to live simultaneously in the Long Time Ago and the Right Now and any time in between those periods is ?????

So to him, he’s remembered when their anniversary is (already a success) and has put hours into making a handmade art project for his very endearing familiar. He is sure that Guillermo is gonna love this. He thinks he is absolutely acing this being-a-vampiric-master thing.

But we know that his gift depicting the two of them as vampires together is really just rubbing salt in the wound, because we’re approaching this thing as humans — like Guillermo.

Then again in 4.09, Nandor straight-up steals Guillermo’s boyfriend and inadvertently puts the events in motion that will lead to Guillermo’s boyfriend leaving him for his own clone. Terrible behavior! This hurts Guillermo deeply! His very first boyfriend cheating on him (sort of) with the man he’s been in love with for over a decade and then leaving him altogether for another man he is cheating with (definitely) who also happens to be his own clone.

That’s traumatizing!

But… again, let’s look at it from Nandor’s (very stupid) POV. He knows that Guillermo losing his boyfriend will hurt him, but he also wants to have said boyfriend. So he comes up with a solution that, to his mind, will make everyone happy: let Guillermo keep his boyfriend but also make a clone of him so he can have him, too.

I think it’s very important to note here that, catty as it was to say, Nandor was right. He definitely could have stolen Guillermo’s Freddie without too much work. The guy’s a philanderer. But instead of doing that, he used up one of his last three wishes to make his own Freddie specifically to avoid hurting Guillermo. And then he seemed genuinely confused when Guillermo was hurt anyway. He then tried to do whatever he could to make Guillermo stop hurting, including offering him his own Freddie, until he ultimately gave up a toy that he truly loved so Guillermo would hurt less.

Again, from Nandor's POV he has made a significant sacrifice for Guillermo’s well-being. He has given up a man that he really, really liked so Guillermo would stop being so heartbroken. Moreover, this is a man that, to his mind, he got the hard way instead of the easy way that would have hurt Guillermo more.

So he still thinks he’s doing great at this relationship, even if we know he is ultimately breaking Guillermo’s heart.

(And as an aside here, I think it’s fascinating that Guillermo really did seem to understand exactly what was going on, too. He knew that Nandor’s decision to clone Freddie wasn’t about Nandor wanting Freddie, it was about Nandor wanting all of Guillermo’s attention on him at all times, and that’s why he was angry.)

Anyway… that’s all a really long way to get to my point, which is this. We’ve seen Nandor play this out a hundred times, doing something he thought was fine only for it to devastate Guillermo. We understand human lifetimes, relationships, and emotions, so we understand why Guillermo is upset. But, and this is key, Nandor doesn’t.

So season five finally shows this happening in reverse. I’m not going to say that Guillermo hasn’t hurt Nandor before, purposefully or otherwise, because he has. But boy did he really fuck things up this time.

Like Nandor, Guillermo didn’t do any of it on purpose. He was never trying to hurt Nandor or upset social norms when he paid Derek to bite him. But vampiric priorities are as foreign to Guillermo as human priorities are to Nandor. He did something he thought was totally fine and value-free only to find that he didn’t just transgress a social norm, he transgressed the big one. He didn’t just do something that would hurt Nandor, he did something that will destroy him.

He didn’t mean to. His misunderstanding was understandable to us, fellow humans. But that doesn’t make it okay. Just like it wasn’t okay when Nandor stole his fucking boyfriend.

It's almost like this was tailor-made to force the audience to think about how the vampires have been interacting with Guillermo for years. This time Guillermo didn't know something about their culture, and obviously we didn't either. So we felt that same dawning horror when we understood how big the accidental fuck-up was — and we had to come to terms with the fact that this is how Nandor feels about Guillermo all the time.

Anyway... Guillermo’s big angst trigger seems to be being undervalued by the people he loves. It’s when someone who he loves with everything he has does not love him back. We see that devastation hit him both of the times that Nandor accidentally hurt him in this post, along with a thousand other times. I think, in fact, it is his main drive as a character: doing everything he can to be valued. It’s why he wants to be a vampire. It’s why he serves the vampires. It’s why he lies to his family. It’s depressing and it’s codependent and it’s unhealthy, but that’s Guillermo.

Nandor’s big angst trigger, on the other hand, seems to be abandonment. He is so fucking terrified of the people that he loves leaving him, and that seems to be rooted pretty firmly in his experiences when he was still alive. (Jehan, his wives running away, etc.) He’s so scared of Gail leaving him that he just tries harder to win her back when he discovers she’s cheating on him. He’s so scared of Laszlo leaving him that he gets angry when Laszlo makes new friends. He’s so scared of Guillermo leaving him in 2.08 that he’s willing to humiliate himself to bring him home. His primary drive really seems to be hoarding the people he loves close — too close for comfort sometimes. He tries so hard to force a connection that he ironically tends to sever it. Just look at his poor descendent Madeleine. :’)

And just as Nandor constantly sets off Guillermo’s devaluation trigger, Guillermo constantly sets off Nandor’s abandonment trigger. Every time he leaves or even just threatens to do so, Nandor goes ballistic. But it seems like the only thing that sets him off more than Guillermo leaving is Guillermo staying where he is but being emotionally absent. He doesn’t know how to handle a Guillermo who has replaced him while they’re still living in the same home. Right now he thinks that Guillermo has replaced him with Laszlo as a hang-out buddy, and that’s bad enough — how will he respond when he finds out that Guillermo has replaced him with Derek in a much more intimate way?

Guillermo’s doing everything he can to spare Nandor’s feelings in this season, but it seems like every decision he makes just upsets Nandor more. Nandor feels replaced, abandoned, and neglected, and he’s going to feel that way a hell of a lot more when he sees the truth.

Guillermo has always been shown to be capable of hurting Nandor in intimate ways that no one else can. From the very first episode, we’re made abundantly aware that Guillermo chooses to take Nandor’s shit. He twitches that curtain to the side and we realize that no matter how strong Nandor is, Guillermo has the ultimate power in this relationship. Guillermo can hurt Nandor like no one else can because Nandor trusts him to protect him while he’s asleep.

Then Guillermo becomes this legendary slayer and he can actually physically hurt Nandor like no one else can just because he’s stronger than even the most powerful and respected vampires in the Tri-State Area.

But we’re seeing now that Guillermo can also hurt Nandor emotionally like no one else can. Nandor gave him that power, too, didn’t he? This whole series, Nandor has been the one hurting Guillermo over and over, but this season is making it so fucking clear that Guillermo has the power to do it right back. Even if he doesn’t mean to.

Especially if he doesn’t mean to, maybe.

The two of them are so terrible at communicating with one another. Just. So fucking terrible. And that’s a lot of how Nandor accidentally hurt Guillermo over and over throughout the years. And it’s how Guillermo has just straight-up gutted him now.

#we had electrical problems this morning and I'm operating off of very little sleep but oh well #wwdits #wwdits spoilers #wwdits meta #long post #nandermo

[torturedpoetemotions]

I'm rewatching the 3x10 fight scene and I can't tell if my third eye is WIDE open or of I'm just loopy from pain and lack of sleep but.

Nandor is SO calculating in this scene. Like I know it's somewhat left open to interpretation whether the invitation was a spur of the moment thing or not, but I actually think I'm now firmly on the side of it WAS a real test and it WAS premeditated.

Because like. Nandor is thoughtless, yeah. But the stuff he says to Memo when he walks in isn't just thoughtless. It is TARGETED. Every single thing he says from the moment he walks into that room AND the way he says it is tailored to press on Guillermo's sore spots and piss him right the fuck off. And there has to be a purpose to that, because Nandor is thoughtless but he's not cruel, not that kind of cruel anyway.

And then there's his face when he's facing away from Guillermo, when Guillermo is giving him the "I let you live" speech. When Nandor is looking at Guillermo before and after that, his face is lightly amused. Condescending, a little indulgent maybe. Pitying, at the end. But when he's facing away from Guillermo? That entire performance falls away and THIS is what we see:

Nandor isn't amused. He isn't humoring Guillermo or ignoring him, either, though that's clearly what the turned back is meant to convey to Guillermo.

No. That face is CALCULATING. He's listening. He's waiting. He's seeing how far he has to push Guillermo to get what he wants out of him.

I wish I could get good shots that weren't just goofy-looking of all the shifts in his expression here--I simply do not have HQ enough video for that. But the shift in his expression just before he turns back to Guillermo and puts the condescending mask back on is SO telling. It's an aha moment.

And when Guillermo has him on his knees in that headlock? I know we've all looked at that moment a thousand times but

Nandor is delighted with this turn of events (and yes I used the moment when Guillermo is saying the W in "weak" because it looks like he's giving Nandor's cheek a lil smooch lmao).

Ahem. The point is, I no longer believe Nandor was just saving his own ass or coming up with spur of the moment plans--though I DO think he was (pleasantly) surprised by how evenly matched he and Guillermo actually were (even if he'd never, ever admit it). He went into that room with the strategic wheels turning and got everything he wanted out of that interaction.

Fucking guy.

#wwdits #wwdits 3x10 #nandor the relentless #wwdits meta #nandermo #my meta

[thegeekyartist]

Laszlo is ABSOLUTELY still in dad mode. He could've just ratted Guillermo out to Nandor but instead his first response was "I'll convince Nandor to turn you and everything will be fine." He doesn't want to see his friend humiliated/dead and his other friend murdered.

He wants Nandor to be okay. He wants Guillermo to be okay.

He loves them your honor.

#this is also after spending an entire ep trying not to let his friends get arrested #wwdits #wwdits s5 #wwdits s5 spoilers #wwdits meta

[quantumshade]

one of my fav things about wwdits is how genre aware it is. not just using vampire lore for laughs, which they do do flawlessly, but also the characters, especially guillermo, seem to know. part of that is the mockumentary structure, of course, which allows for the talking heads that show the audience more of the characters’ thoughts and motivations, but i think it’s more than that.

guillermo being so frustrated with how things never really change, how the cliffhanger of s3 never really seemed to change ANYTHING in the long term, shows an awareness of being in a formulaic sitcom. guillermo himself is an incredibly driven and ambitious character, so of course he’s gonna be unhappy stuck in that loop. it’s almost like if lisa simpson realized she’s been in second grade for thirty years. it’s fascinating.

i’ve seen some fans complaining that nothing seemed to matter, and while i understand that frustration as a viewer, I think it’s intentional. it’s an interrogation of both the sitcom structure, where nothing ever develops long term, and of what it means to be a vampire—immortal, undying, unchanging. the vampires, ESPECIALLY nandor, are stuck in these awful habits of how they treat themselves and others. of course nandor isn’t that upset about his marriage failing. now he’s just back to doing what he was for the last 800 years—where he’s comfortable and unchallenged. it’s easy for him to not care, to sit and read and ignore the world for decades at a time.

i think—or at least i hope—that next season will really come to challenge that. nothing is going to change, unless guillermo himself takes drastic action and changes it. i think he’s gonna force the vampires to confront their apathy, in one way or another.

#wwdits #what we do in the shadows #wwdits meta #i guess?? #uhhh i just think about memo. i think about him so much #guillermo de la cruz #nandor the relentless #nadja of antipaxos #lazslo cravensworth #colin robinson #op #delia.txt