Recap / Vampires SMP E2

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Data:

• Release date: September 21st, 2025
• Links to episodes:
  • Abolish: I'm Going Insane in this Minecraft SMP!
  • Apo: Discovering The Secret Imposter
  • Avid: I'm in danger…
  • Cleo: I SNAPPED!
  • Drift: The Darkness Approaches…
  • Legs: Bad Moon Rising…
  • M: THE HUNT!
  • Martyn: UNLOCKING MY POTENTIAL
  • Owen: How to hide as a Vampire among Humans
  • Pearl: Calm Before The Storm
  • Pyro: Can I Survive As A Vampire In Disguise?
  • Ren: THE DARKNESS RISING
  • Scott: Our next Victim…
  • Shelby: My Roommate Is A VAMPIRE!

Tropes found in this episode include:

• Agent Mulder: Invoked by Apo and Martyn^note joined by Pyro, who decide to pretend to believe in vampires for 48 hours to suss out whether they're actually as real as Avid claims them to be, whereupon Becoming the Mask would occur if they have concrete evidence of it. Once they do find evidence, Martyn's belief is cemented, but Apo continues to struggle with it until she's actually confronted by the vampires the next episode.
• Alone with the Psycho: Near the end of the episode, Shelby goes out fishing in the night with Owen, Pyro, and Scott, and all seems well for much of the night until the latter two begin feeding on her, whereupon Shelby finally realizes what's happening and tries to make a run for it. She doesn't make it.
• Badass Boast: When Ren decides to build a house outside of town in Episode 2, he assures Apo, M and Martyn that he'll be fine.
  Ren: I'm not scared of what lies out there in the night, I've defended myself against worse beasts than people are talking about! I don't believe in anything I don't see with me own eyes, me friends. […] Vampires and demons and all these things, until I see 'em… I ain't scared of no ghost, don't'cha know.
• Beat It by Compulsion: In Owen's episode, as he lists all the powers and weaknesses of vampirism, he encounters some wheat and finds himself harvesting and counting the crops.
• Broke the Rating Scale: At the start of the episode, Avid hosts a house judging contest, with the score rating how well the house can hold off vampires. Since vampires Must Be Invited into someone's place of residence, Martyn's house having a sign completely forbidding visitors impresses Avid enough to award him a 6/5.
• Company Cross-References: When Owen asks Martyn what exactly the "Word" of the Holy Word spell is, Martyn replies by saying that there are entire churches in far off lands dedicated to "the Word".
• Creepy Cathedral: Abolish's episode opens with cinematic shots of and inside an enormous, candle-lit cathedral-like structure^note apparently the church-run orphanage he stayed in before being taken in by Morcant while ethereal choir music starts playing… then it flashes between a shot of the altar and an ominous-looking wooden corridor overlaid with glitchy sound effects before he awakens.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Avid judges M and Owen's house to be 5/5 in "vampire safety". The latter is a vampire.
  • Apo first introduces Truffle being able to sniff out vampires. Cue Truffle's loud snort while staring directly at Owen and newly-turned Pyro, but Apo brushes it off as needing more training.
• Emergency Food Supply Animal: Defied. Pyro refuses to eat his and Apo's adopted pet pig, Truffle, even after being converted.
• Eye-Dentity Giveaway: After Scott becomes a Stage 2 vampire at the end of the last episode, he takes to wearing a skull on his head throughout Episode 2 to prevent anyone from seeing his now-reddish eyes and catching onto him.
• Fast-Forward Gag: Scott's episode skips over the house-judging contest and Avid's ramblings about vampires because it was boring him needlessly.
• Fleeing Suspects: Lampshaded. Near the end of the episode, Scott runs after Martyn, Apo, and M catch him desecrating the beacon at his castle. When M recounts this at the start of Episode 3, Pearl remarks that if he were consecrating a beacon normally, he'd have no reason to run.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Martyn uses the "Holy Word" spell^note which freezes a vampire's movements for 15 seconds in the middle of Avid's house-judging contest, whereupon Owen and Shelby are placed under suspicion for not moving. While the spell didn't actually work on Owen as he was still at a low enough tier to be relatively unaffected, Shelby is a false positive for this attempt at vampire detection… at least, until she's turned near the end of the episode.
  • Avid judges Abolish's house to rate a 5/5 for vampire safety for having all its windows barred and garlic planted in the farm, only deeming him a bit too welcoming towards others to win the contest. Despite Abolish's claims that he had only planted the garlic because he ran out of potatoes, there's good reason for him to know what vampire safety looks like.
• Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: After Avid gets lost trying to search for Ren, Apo pulls him aside to talk some sense into him, telling him to tone down on his vampire paranoia and to keep his head on his shoulders while out in the woods.
  Avid: I just– If anything happened to any of us, I would feel personally responsible.
  Apo: And if anything happened to you, I'd also feel personally responsible. Everybody here would feel personally responsible.
• Get Out!: During Avid's house judging contest, Cleo gets upset at the number of people entering their and Pearl's house without being invited and starts yelling for them to get out, even going so far as to brandish a sword and start attacking.
• A Glass of Chianti: As classic of an old, noble vampire, Scott has a secret stash of wine in his castle and is appalled to find that someone had found and drank it all while he was dormant at the start of the episode.
• Horror Hunger: While this applies to vampiric hunger in general, Pyro's 2nd episode highlights it best, as he has to contest with feeding on the blood and meat of livestock, or even other townsfolk in Oakhurst who are unaware of his conversion, or become extremely tired and lethargic from hunger; he ends up not even lasting the full episode before giving in to his more basal instincts.
  Pyro: But how long could I resist the temptation to sink my fangs into my friends? Or how long would it take them to uncover my deepest, darkest secret?
• Hyperfixation-Induced Error: At the end of the episode, Scott and Shelby begin debating over whether or not they can truly be called housemates when Scott used to live in the now-ruined castle… while all the beacons have been consecrated and the vampires only have three hearts of health. Scott jumps into action once Owen reminds him of this.
• If Jesus, Then Aliens: Since Shelby believes All Myths Are True, her reaction to becoming a vampire in part involves happiness at the existence of the supernatural being proven to her.
  Shelby: Oh, please. If vampires are real, it's all real. This is all I needed.
• Kill Steal: Near the end of the episode, Scott tries to convert Shelby, only for Pyro to beat him to the final bite. Scott is not very happy about it.
  Scott: If you ever steal from me again, it will be the last thing you take.
• "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: While searching for beacons to consecrate, Martyn claims that "Consecration" is his middle name.
  Martyn: We'll shorten it to 'Connie'. Martyn Connie Woodhurst.
  Dr Legs: Are you sure you didn't extend it?
  Martyn: No, nonono. I wouldn't just make up a name on the spot. What do you take me for, a scam artist? […] The silence is deafening.
• Mythology Gag: Cleo is quite enthusiastic to claim the "Turn Undead" Spell Book, a nod to their username and default character as a zombie.
• Power Incontinence: Briefly during the house-judging contest in Oakhurst, Scott accidentally activates his animorphism ability and turns into a bat, summoning an entire swarm of bats to the town. He recovers quickly enough to accuse Avid and Drift of having a bat infestation in their house.
• Rage Breaking Point: Downplayed. Having been annoyed by Avid's insistence that vampires are among the group, Cleo finally snaps at him when he admits to her that he's never actually encountered a vampire, saying that everything he's been talking about is "garbage" and even implicitly accusing him of being a vampire.
• Romantic Vampire Boy: Conversed. Avid criticizes M's use of the "vampire love interest" trope in his books, claiming that vampires can't love, whereas M argues in favour of how vampires typically going for the neck while converting someone else is erotic.
• Shout-Out:
  • Shelby's POV video is called "My Roommate Is A Vampire".
  • At the start of the episode, M compares the pattern on the blank player head Shelby has displayed above her front door to a stick figure doing a Naruto run.
  • Avid tells M that he should have fact-checked what he's written about vampires, and shouldn't have made up factoids like them being able to sparkle in the sun or be love interests.
  • Apo, Martyn, and Pyro list out various supernatural entities that they'd have to "pretend" exist in order to gain intel from Avid. Pyro finally suggests the Queen of England, which Apo concludes is a bit too far-fetched to be true, even by Agent Mulder standards.
  • Ren tells Apo, M and Martyn that "I ain't scared of no ghost", leading Martyn to ask if he's ever "busted" a ghost before.
  • After returning from a mining trip, Pearl exclaims, "I have been digging… for thirty minutes!"
• Spotting the Thread: Drift confides in Shelby that she's suspicious of Owen because he claimed to have left Oakhurst for around 40 years and inexplicably returned, yet looks younger than 40. She's correct in that Owen is not the age he claims to be… much older, in fact.
• Tinfoil Hat: Invoked by Dr Legs near the end of the episode, who — being the Agent Scully that he is — crafts the infamously vampire-paranoid Avid a silver helmet and hands it to him, telling him that it's his tinfoil hat. It being made of silver, Avid gladly puts it on.
• Troll: In addition to hiding his now-reddish eyes, Scott takes to wearing Derek's skull on his head throughout Episode 2 under the partially-true pretense of scaring the life out of Avid, fully aware of Avid's suspicions of his true nature.
• Turning Back Human: Discussed, with Pyro considering speaking to Dr Legs about finding or developing a cure for vampirism.
• Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere: After getting converted, Pyro talks about feeling a thirst for blood whenever they look at the other townsfolk. According to Owen, such a reaction and inability to control oneself is normal for newly turned vampires.
  Pyro: Is this thirst just gonna be like, following me around, then? Like, just forever? I'm gonna be constantly– constantly craving more meat and just like, looking at everyone, like, y'know? The way I'm looking at them? No, I can't– I can't, I have to be strong. I can't do that.
• You and What Army?: At the start of the episode, when Apo protests to Cleo saying she should be kicked out of Oakhurst for trying to drown Martyn in a mausoleum's bubble column, he responds with this, only to realise that Apo, being from the military, would have an actual army on her side.