Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe
| Pairing | |
|---|---|
| Pairing: | Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe |
| Alternative name(s): | Shoni |
| Gender category: | F/F, femslash |
| Fandom: | The Wilds |
| Canonical?: | Yes |
| Prevalence: | Popular |
| Archives: | |
| Other: | |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
This article or section needs expansion. |
Shelby Goodkind/Toni Shalifoe is the most popular pairing in The Wilds fandom.
Canon
Shelby and Toni do not get off to a friendly start on the island. Shelby feels as though Toni isn't giving her a fair chance to get to know her, while Toni is suspicious of Shelby's overly friendly demeanor and how she is befriending Martha, Toni's best friend. Later in season one, this conflict becomes more antagonistic when Shelby voices some homophobic attitudes, which also leads to Shelby being partially ostracised, socially, from the group for a while.
During episode seven, while collecting firewood, the two of them have a discussion about their home lives, which culminates in Toni pointing out that Shelby is free from pressures and expectations on the island, so should be making the most of it. Shelby then kisses Toni — which Toni reciprocates — before fleeing.
Shortly after in the series, the two begin a relationship which continues until Martha goes into a catatonic state, which Toni admits she partially blames Shelby for. One evening, on watch, Shelby saw a passing boat and had a chance to signal using the fire for them to be rescued, but froze due to her fear of returning to her old life; if she hadn't froze, Martha would not have ended up killing a rabbit and its kits, which led to her catatonic state after triggering some deeply buried trauma from her childhood.
This means that when the show was cancelled on a cliffhanger, Shelby and Toni had not reconciled.
Fandom
Shelby/Toni is the most popular pairing in The Wilds fandom. On Archive of Our Own, out of the 2,284 works in The Wilds fandom, 1,525 are tagged with Shelby/Toni and 703 of those works have them as the only pairing. They are also popular on Tumblr, especially in Gifsets, and on multiple social media platforms for meta and discussion posts.
Fan Commentary
Common Tropes in Fanworks
- Canon Continuation (Season 3) - With the cliffhanger ending the cancellation left the series on, works exploring how The Wilds would have continued and how Shelby and Toni could have reconciled are quite common.
- High School/No Island AUs - Exploring the potential development of Shelby and Toni's relationship outside of the island and the experiment is a fairly common theme in fanworks.
- Internalised homophobia - Given the canonical internalised homophobia Shelby grapples with in the show, there are many works, AU or canon-compliant which deal with these issues as well.
Example Fanworks
| Examples Wanted: Editors are encouraged to add more examples or a wider variety of examples. |
Fanfic
- say it out loud (i see right past you) [1] by tnr92 - A High School AU where all the cast of The Wilds live in Texas, heavy on the angst.
- Cowboy Like Me [2] by badmeanburner - A Ted Lasso-with-a-twist-inspired AU where Shelby is a retired US Soccer player hired to coach the basketball team Toni is the owner of.
Fanart
Fanvids
- Afraid [3] by sdxps
- If our love is wrong [4] by sea.
- In This Shirt [5] by Kaitem. An angsty and melancholic ship vid, which uses scenes from the show where Shelby and Toni wore each other's clothes on the island.
Other Fanworks
Archives and Communities
Other Fannish Resources
(Rec Lists, Big Bangs, Thing-a-thons, Holiday Exchanges, wiki links, etc.)