Shelby Is Not Naive, Or: Everyone Cares Too Much About Scott Goldsmith
Shelby fully expects the people of Oakhurst to kill her at the first opportunity. Shelby is so invested in the coven and so willing to excuse the flaws of other vampires because she has bought into the idea that the humans can and will hurt her at the first opportunity. There are many reasons for this, but Scott Goldsmith is not one of them.
Scott is her bestie because he stands still and says nice things while everyone else is running around introducing her to new and exciting forms of torment nexus. It is a “luigi wins by doing nothing” ass situation.
Once Shelby is turned, it becomes nearly impossible for her to talk to a human without being threatened. Many social interactions from the very instant she walks back into town after the fishing trip are shadowed by someone openly planning to hurt or kill vampires.
Avid tries to test if she’s repelled by silver and then starts building a jail cell in front of her. Apo isn’t directly threatening, but basically comes to Shelby with the hypothetical “what if there was an evil vampire”. And then they emphasize the importance of keeping a stake at hand.
Shelby asks Ren if they’ll really have to fight each other, and Ren says that it’s just the way of the world. Sausage emphasizes the point by yelling “stab them all until they’re dead!”, which isn’t really a great thing to hear when you are one of the “them” in question.
Eventually, Apo gets turned, and most of the vampires convene at the beacon, where Martyn burns her alive.
Let me repeat that: she burns alive.
The video editing emphasizes this as a big deal. Shelby’s narration in the aftermath concludes that “if i asked for a chance to talk, they would have just killed me without a second thought.” From Shelby’s perspective, they did just kill her without a second thought. It is the climax of their episode 3, and one of the first things Shelby mentions in episode 4. It is a major turning point for the character, with good reason.
As far as Shelby is concerned, the vampire vs human conflict began with her experiencing a horrific death for the grand crime of crouching next to a beacon.
From this point forward, non threatening interactions with humans vanish almost entirely.
The only conversation Shelby has with a human is episode 4 is her face to face with Avid, which has high points and low points. The low points include Avid telling her about staking his partner because she attacked him.
Shelby, does, however, visit the town later, where she finds Avid burning her house down.
And then Legundo reads the cure book in front of the house’s ashes.
Legundo also scolds Avid for burning down the house, but Shelby misses that part. In fact, Shelby missed all of the pro Shelby comments made in the town around that time.
According to the post series creator’s commentary, (which i can’t link because twitch deletes old vods so it probably no longer exists aajfas;llllldg) this isn’t even a matter of clever editing- Shubble was legitimately out of range for all of the parts of the story where people agreed that they wanted to help Shelby.
In episode 5, she is approached by a group of Drift, Cleo, and Pearl. Shelby is surrounded, and asks them to put their swords away. Pearl takes a minute to do so, and when she does she switches to a bottle of holy water. Shelby backs away and Pearl moves forward.
The start of this conversation very much has shades of an interrogation: “why do you look so different? Did you eat truffle?”
Shelby tells them about being burnt alive, and the response she gets from Cleo is “but you got better”. Which sucks, and serves as an ironic mirror for the way that Scott and Owen are dismissive about the trauma involved with turning people. Both factions are expecting Shelby to just walk off the wrongs done to them, but the Oakhurst faction is openly threatening future harm to Shelby.
Of the three of them, Drift is the most supportive. The conversation improves from there, and some nice things are said, but Shelby was still threatened. It was still the preamble to the nice and productive part of the talks.
Then she has the meeting with Avid where he asks to be turned, which goes fairly well but ends with Avid being decidedly non human. Also Owen replaced one of Avid’s messages to Shelby with a death threat, so Shelby was still threatened over it.
Episode 6 has the Oakhurst invasion where all of the vampires visit Oakhurst and Pearl gets chased around. Shelby doesn’t really talk to anyone here, but she sure does get to hear Pearl make a generalized threat. Because Shelby can never catch a break.
We also see another instance of Shelby assuming that the townies are after her: her narration says “i thought Pearl was chasing me”
Then there’s a conversation with Sausage. Sausage pulls out a stake because of course he does.
Then Drift pulls Shelby aside, and they have a lovely chat where there are no threats of bodily harm. However, Drift is a vampire, so it doesn’t count. Rip.
When Avid starts talking about the cure, Shelby’s immediate assumption is that if Avid asks to be cured, the humans will stake her without a second thought. She also is the one to suggest sabotaging the cure for the sake of protecting herself and the other vampires.
Episode 7 sees Shelby dealing with humans twice, and both of them are decidedly hostile interactions
The first bit of human contact comes when the vampires burn down the walls of Oakhurst. This is, naturally, open combat. Shelby makes a point of targeting Martyn.
Her second human interaction in episode 7 is running into Abolish, who promptly introduces her to the Veylocke murder box. In other words, Shelby is stunned, rendered immobile and helpless, and executed in cold blood. It is not an easy death.
Abolish even acknowledges that she didn’t do anything, and then kills her anyway.
episode 8 is the finale, where she fights some humans, hides from humans, eventually has a truce with humans for the first time ever, and then wanders off into the sunset with Drift and Scott.
That’s basically all of Shelby’s major human interactions post episode 3. There is never an instance where speaking to a human is not linked with being threatened by a human after that point.
For the most part, this is entirely the result of the people of Oakhurst’s own priorities and character choices, but there is one vampire that tries to make sure that Shelby can’t talk to the humans. Someone that tries to isolate her, someone that uses threats, someone that is willing to lie to keep Shelby in the castle and away from town.
That person is Owen.
Owen interferes with Shelby speaking to townsfolk three times, to mixed results: he joins the conversation with Apo and successfully diverts them from trying to convince Shelby she’s wanted in town; he replaces Avid’s letter with a threatening message, but Avid manages to set up a meeting with Shelby and clear the air with her anyway; and he appears in the Pearl-Drift-Cleo meeting with Shelby in episode 5, which arguably improves the situation because he took the conversation in a useful direction and Shelby had already felt threatened anyway.
…actually, all three of these things happen in episode 5. Owen has a very brief window of being invested in the coven in this particular way. He does some pretty nasty lying in that window, though.
While this could be an interesting plot thread, Owen’s contributions are something of a cigarette in a burning warehouse. Shelby got killed twice as collateral damage, and both deaths were exceptionally traumatic. No amount of intercession on Owen’s part is going to speak louder than the wrongs done to Shelby by the humans themselves. No amount of lying on Oakhurst’s behalf is more damning then Oakhurst’s own failure to address the damage they’ve done in any way. He’s burying a relationship so far underground it is already in hell.
Even seemingly minor things like Pearl’s tendency to casually arm herself do more to damage Oakhurst’s reputation then Owen is really capable of- there is a direct line of cause and effect between Pearl saying she has a stake and Shelby assuming that Pearl is chasing her down. Shelby is rightfully skeptical of the claims Owen makes about other people, but when someone else is making those kinds of statements, she tends to believe them.
And then there’s Shelby’s backstory.
Shelby’s backstory, where she is isolated from her entire community growing up. Where people she considered friends and neighbors didn’t care about her in turn. Where nobody had even done something as basic as telling her that she’s fun to be around.
Of course Shelby thinks that Oakhurst is willing to write her off at the drop of a hat. That’s what her hometown did.
In conclusion
1: the town is not blameless in the Oakhurst vs Castle conflict. They have done real harm to the Coven, and most of it has fallen on their friendliest and least aggressive member.
2: Shelby is indeed afraid and isolated, but the bulk of that fear and isolation is generated and maintained by the people of Oakhurst themselves. The one time Scott had an opportunity to sabotage one of Shelby’s outside relationships, he chooses not to.
3: Scott is Shelby’s first friend, ever, and the feeling is mutual. This is a key component of why Shelby is Like That.
4: The answer to most gripes regarding vsmp’s story arc and ending is Shelby. Why did Scott live and Pyro die? Shelby. Why did Scott suddenly pivot to pacifism? Shelby. Why can’t the humans just wipe out the coven and call it a day? Shelby. Why was the coven a legitimate social structure in the first place? That’s also Shelby. It’s Shelby all the way down.
In Shelby’s story, Scott is the prize she wins for her kindness and Pyro becomes the avatar of all of the senseless violence she has suffered.
Shelby’s character arc is one of being the collateral damage of other people’s agendas so frequently that she becomes convinced that she must use violence herself. This culminates in her killing the most direct and personal threat to her physical safety, which is Pyro. Shelby’s other character arc is about seeking peace and companionship despite the bloodshed around her. This culminates in her turning her closest companion from the path of violence, and that companion happens to be Scott. Scott and Pyro’s conclusions are mirrored halves of Shelby’s finale, and reflect Shelby’s greatest triumph and lowest low.
The outcomes they get make sense if you position Shelby as the central character, and her choices were the ones that decided their fates.
You listen to music regularly? Why? Have you even tried quitting? Could you quit? You get music stuck in your head? Wow. You're so ruined and music brained. I bet you make your partners listen to music with you when you have sex. Music addiction has really ruined a whole generation. You know it's not realistic to expect reverb in real life, right? You're probably so desensitized that you don't even feel anything anymore when you hear a bird singing that it wants some fuck.
i don't think i'll ever forget when the boys' PE teacher so casually prompted me to join the other lads. there were no bells and whistles or some big grand gesture making a massive deal. he tret me like he would any other young lad. school was rough for me (like with most queer kids), so moments like these really shine. cheers, sir 🫡
i did find it btw but having a COMPUTER address me like it’s a person sent me into such an incandescent rage i nearly pitched my phone clear across the room
i did find it btw but having a COMPUTER address me like it’s a person sent me into such an incandescent rage i nearly pitched my phone clear across the room
I’ve always found the chestnut of “Avatar 2009 had no cultural impact! It only has 6,000 fics on AO3!” a little unfair.
Like - putting aside the question of whether the amount of fanfiction a piece of media receives is an accurate reflection its cultural impact (I abide by the fanfiction moss analogy, sometimes good media just does not beget transformative work), looking at AO3 for numbers just feels disingenuous. AO3 was operating in 2009 but in my memory it wasn’t really in vogue during the time that Avatar 2009 was in theatres. If you’re looking for fanfic based on media from the 2000s, I find that Fanfiction-dot-net is the better website to look at; Castle 2009 only has 4,808 fics on AO3 at the time of writing, but it has over 23,600 fics on Fanfiction-dot-net. It’s not that Castle 2009 had no cultural impact, it’s just that AO3 wasn’t the website being used when that show was in the zeitgeist to capture that cultural impact.
That all being said: Avatar 2009 only has 1,500 fics on Fanfiction-dot-net
Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream but with 60 clones of the same guy
I've been loving the hell out of Living the Dream and I've always had one Mii who I absolutely adore. If you've ever seen my account, you know who I'm talking about considering I draw him all the time; Quit!!!!
^ here he is on my main island.
So I decided I wanted to run an experiment: I would make an alt save with 60 of the same Mii. Every single Mii will be a clone of our beloved Quit (seen above) with the exact same personality, voice, face, dating preferences (all Quits can date all 3 gender options), everything. The only difference is that 20 of them are male, 20 are female, and 20 are nonbinary (because I'm curious on if Mii gender impacts how a Mii forms friends).
It was a lengthy process making 60 of the exact same Mii, but finally...
Welcome to Quitland.
My general rule for this save file is that I must interfere as little as possible with the Quits lives. I'll only give them food, new clothing, treasures, or new housing if they directly ask me for it. I can't force any relationships either (barring the tutorial which forces you to do so). I want to see how these 60 clones all grow and adapt, and how they will eventually differentiate themselves.
I had put all 60 Quits in at midnight so right after doing so I decided to head to bed. I then proceeded to spend the chunk of my morning doing quite possibly the stupidest thing ever:
Creating a giant pixelated Quit to put on the ground.
From there I learned about something kind of interesting. Turns out when you create 60 Miis all at once, with all of them having no little quirks, friends, or really anything to define their AI past their basic personality, they become...
...kind of stupid.
Here are some examples of small groups of Quit randomly choosing to follow one "leader" Quit for no reason. They REALLY enjoy doing this. Its not uncommon for small packs of Quit (usually containing 2-6 members) to just stalk another Quit for extended periods of time. I believe they are developing pack-hunting strategies. This scares me.
They also enjoyed talking. A lot. My entire island is just constantly full of random Quit chatter 24/7.
I'll admit though it is very rewarding just seeing all of them standing about, doing weird Quit things. I feel like a proud father of 60 single-celled organisms.
Also I got quite possibly the funniest Tomodachi Life clip I've ever seen:
There ain't a single brain cell between any of them. Honestly it was really fun just watching them frolic about, like an ant farm made entirely up of brainless homunculus.
In terms of actual development between the Quits, some of them became acquaintances and a few even became friends, but the REAL development was between Quit 1 (known as Original Quit) and Quit 3:
Quit 3 started crushing on Original, and just a few minutes after that Quit 3 surprised me by deciding to just up and confess to Original. This was pretty shocking...so far, every other Quit has been fairly reserved in making relationships. While plenty of them became "like-minded" (not surprising considering they all have the same mind), few were brave enough to become friends, let alone lovers. Perhaps Quit 3 is some kind of deviant Quit???
Well lucky for Quit 3, their boldness ended up paying off...and Quitland got its first couple!
I wonder how long it'll last...
Besides that, only one other romantic event happened. Which was Quit 48 developing a crush on Quit 28. (I know it's hard to tell that this Quit is different from the Quit above...but trust me, its a different guy.)
...could this be considered an example of egomania...? I mean they look identical...
And that was about everything interesting that happened on day 1 of my little experiment. I might post more if anyone has any interest in the Quit ant farm. This is a little different from what I usually post so hopefully the people who follow me just for the art don't mind a bit of a change lol. To end off, here's some group pictures after I finally unlocked the photo mode:
Personally I'm a really big fan of chicken Quit right now.
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
andulkaphoto
