#and even if you make it so his chopper never crashes he still fully canonically dies in the code talker rescue | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jimmygibbsjrrr · 3 years

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I have a lot of thoughts about the Slaters

namely, I've been wonderin why the Fairfield Survivors got thrown off the boat in Death Toll

in this panel of The Sacrifice comic, Francis confirms the fates of three of the rescue vehicles:

Image ID:

A panel from The Sacrifice: Part 1. Francis is sat in the rescue vehicle from Blood Harvest, speaking to Louis. His dialogue is as follows:

"Louis, I hate to be the one to break this to ya, but we been heading to the safe zone four times now. Helicopter: crashed. Plane: crashed. Boat: kicked us out and left us to die."

/end ID

the chopper from No Mercy was confirmed crashed in Crash Course, and as for the plane from Dead Air, it was pretty easy to guess (and would have been confirmed in the cut campaign Dam It).

but the part about the boat? that's the Slaters' boat from Death Toll. this is the first time we learn this information.

so...why? what happened?

(more under the cut, ended up writing wayyyy more than I expected over these past few days and don't wanna clog people's dashes lol)

so. let's take a quick dive into the last chapter of Death Toll, to see what we can discern about the Slaters from their dialogue.

the rescue vehicle in Death Toll is a civilian boat, Saint Lidia II, owned by John and Amanda Slater, a married couple. Amanda is never heard in-game, but John's reactions to her can be heard over the radio.

the Slaters are explicitly looking for "anyone out there with firearms". John later adds that "once you get on this boat? Your job is keeping our asses alive". it appears that their motivation for saving the Survivors is selfish from the get-go.

this is undoubtedly true in Amanda's case, however, some of John's lines betray a more selfless attitude. he will berate Amanda for not "think[ing] about the little guy". he will ask, "So what, then? We leave 'em to die? I can't do that, Amanda." whilst Amanda is thinking purely of their own survival, John still feels compassionate towards his fellow survivors. despite this, he says that "I don't want our first act of kindness to be our last", acknowledging the conflict between his compassion and his self-preservation.

so. these are the Survivor's saviours in Death Toll. a conflicted married couple looking for bodyguards, offering to take the Survivors upriver to a military safe zone in exchange for protection.

as for why they get thrown off the boat...well, the easiest explanation would be Amanda.

but, stay with me here, because I think it's a little more complicated than that.

this boat? fulla tension. there's the obvious tension between the Slaters, who we've established seem to fight and disagree regularly. then there's the inevitable tension between them and the Survivors. I reckon Louis, with his generally positive and friendly attitude, wouldn't have much of a problem with them, might even attempt some friendly conversation or something. however, he's about the only one.

the comic fully establishes Bill as caring about nobody except the Fairfield Survivors - the most obvious evidence of this being the words he lives and dies by, "we look after our own". he isn't particularly interested in other people, unless they can help the group out. and he'd likely recognise the unstable and conditional nature of their rescue. while I'm sure he'd try and keep the peace, in any reasonable disagreement or fight Bill's likely to take his friends' side, and if anyone's getting thrown off the boat Bill is going with them. this goes for the whole group, to be honest; I don't think they'd want to split up at this point.

Francis hates boats, hates water, and can't swim, so (and I'm getting a little speculate-y here) would probably be in an even sourer mood than usual on the journey. being as abrasive as he is, plus this additional stress, it's fully possible he could piss off the Slaters enough to get himself (or all of them) thrown off the boat.

as for Zoey? well, I don't imagine a married couple who constantly argues is gonna sit well with her, considering her backstory. similarly to Francis, the situation they're in would make her far more stressed, making it more likely for her to lash out.

Amanda didn't want to save the Survivors in the first place, so while I think that John wouldn't throw them off the boat without reason, I reckon she could persuade him to throw them off if they 'caused trouble' - and they would get into an argument with her far easier than they would with John.

in short: yeah, I can see them getting thrown off the boat by the Slaters after some huge fight or disagreement. I think that's a reasonable interpretation of canon, and definitely an interesting concept.

...however, I do wonder if this tension would really be enough to destabilise their mutual need, after everything they went through to come together.

which is why I'm going to bring up The Last Stand!

I gotta quickly address something before this segment: yeah, I'm totally aware this campaign isn't canon. this evidence works with the fact that it exists in an 'alternate timeline'. also, I am missing a few citations for this section - if anyone can provide them I'd really appreciate it, but just a disclaimer that I currently can't prove some of the things the wiki claims members of the Last Stand Community Update Team have said. here and here are the wiki pages where I got this information. in short - the above explanation is simpler and more canon compliant, the conclusion I draw at the end of this post is backed by shakier evidence but I believe is more interesting, and you can make of all that what you will.

allegedly, members of the Last Stand Community Update Team confirmed a strongly-suspected fan theory about The Last Stand: that it branches off from Death Toll in some way, in a non-canon alternative timeline. as well as this, they allegedly confirmed that in this alternative timeline, the Survivors still end up in Newburg for Dead Air. even without the confirmation, this remains a solid fan theory, due to the constant references to Riverside and re-use of many of Death Toll's assets.

who rescues the Survivors in The Last Stand? John Slater. no Amanda - just John. despite her lack of voice actress, if she was still present John would give some indication of this at some point. it can be speculated that whatever happened to her contributed to the lack of rescue at the boathouse that forced the Survivors to take an alternative route. either way, he ends up at the lighthouse when the Survivors call for rescue, alone, and picks them up.

and then later...throws them off the boat. into Newburg.

what reason would John have to do that? without Amanda, surely he wouldn't have that push, as he wanted to rescue the Survivors for multiple reasons in the first place. without his constant arguments with Amanda, Zoey wouldn't be nearly as stressed. and between the three of them I'm sure the other Fairfield Survivors would stop Francis from pissing John off enough to get them thrown off the boat. in short, less Amanda = less tension, and no reason for the Survivors getting chucked off the boat.

...right?

I'd like to remind you that a symptom of the Infection is paranoia.

what if, in both The Last Stand and Death Toll, John and Amanda are infected by the Survivors on the way to the military safe zone? after all, the virus is confirmed to occasionally be airborne, and I doubt two civilians have completely effective, sustained protection against that. likely the only reason they hadn't already been Infected is because they got out on the water early on in the pandemic, and hadn't come into contact with anyone else since. it's unlikely that one of them is immune, and even more unlikely that they're both immune (especially considering those with XX chromosomes may be genetically less likely to be carriers). wouldn't Francis have mentioned it if their rescuers turned or were obviously Infected? yes, but it's possible that the airborne strain works slower as well, meaning that the Survivors are thrown off of the boat after the symptoms kick in but before the Slaters fully turn. even Church Guy had at least an hour from being Infected to turning, and he was bitten. Newburg isn't too far from where the Survivors are rescued in Death Toll anyway (the burning city in the background of the finale is Newburg), so the Survivors clearly didn't last long on the boat anyway. as a result, the Survivors wouldn't realise it was the Infection intensifying the Slaters' paranoia - they'd just think the Slaters were being dicks. Francis also explicitly mentions that they were "left to die", implying negativity or even hostility from the Slaters as the Survivors were being thrown off.

so yeah. that's why I think they got thrown off of the boat in Death Toll - a combination of the intense tension between the two parties, and the Slaters falling victim to Infection-induced paranoia. but an explanation minus the Infection is equally as plausible. it all depends on what you find most interesting, I suppose, and both feel like they fit pretty well into the world.

lord this is a long chunk o text. I know most fandoms prefer art and fanfic over this sorta thing, so please let me know in replies or something if you're interested in more stuff like this. also if any of this makes sense because I like to ramble.

oh and if you'd like to use any of my interpretations in fanworks like art or fic, I'd love to see it :)

#l4d #l4d2 #left 4 dead #left 4 dead 2 #jrrrambles #not gonna tag any characters #because I mention a ton #and I don't think the Slaters have tags #i spent way too much time on this </3

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kacchvn · 4 years

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just felt like writing something & getting it out there~ I might expand on it later but anyways here’s a slice of some canon namivivi pining & introspection.

It made sense that Nami wrote a lot of letters. She was the navigator, of course, so she had a reason to be in her study. Ink stained her fingertips and parchment flattened under her elbows, spilling over her lap onto the floor. They were scattered across the lacquered floorboards like the millions of islands spread over the Grand Line.

Only this was the one time that Nami had no hope of connecting the spaces together; she could not find a true path through the unreadable map of her emotions. Her destination was as distant and as unknowable as Raftel. Sure, there were rumours, whispers, and the image of Whitebeard shouting out it was real across a battlefield that would be his grave. But one could prove it even existed still.

So, how could Nami make her own feelings known? How could she turn the aching, congested of words and memories in her chest into something tangible? Something real, intimate, and profound?

How could she tell Vivi how she really felt?

To my dear

My friend

Princess Nefertari Vivi of Alabasta

All the introductions were wrong. Vivi wasn’t just Nami’s mere friend. The time they spent together on the Going Merry with their crewmates had made them into something more than simple companions. Yet understanding what that loomed ahead of them, like a frighteningly large wave that threatened to crash over their heads, ruining what they had between them. It would decimate them.

Or maybe it was just something that Nami had made herself believe stupidly. Love didn’t always meet terrible, violent ends. There was so much more before that; happiness that was beautiful and lasting.

She thought of how the Strawhats crew had loved one another; how Ace, Sabo, and Luffy had loved each other as brothers; how Bell-mère had loved her and Nojiko. And then in the way they loved, not just through the existence of it. How Zoro cared for everyone in quiet, attentive consistency; and then how Sanji did the opposite with a loud, stupid fervency that infuriated Zoro; how Franky loved with the full force of his heart and Brook loved with an untapped reserve of energy and Chopper loved childishly and Robin loved gently and Jimbei loved honourably. Finally, how Luffy loved without thought nor conscience—he just had faith in the trust he put in people, and they returned it back to him fully.

Nami knew she was capable of that, too. She was just scared to try. But, Vivi, with the long blue silk of her hair and her undying courage, made Nami brave. If Nami could believe in so much else—Raftel, Luffy being the Pirate King, that she will map the ocean in its entirety—then why not the feeling beneath her ribcage? Why not the tenuous beat of her fragile heart in her chest?

Why not believe in the sight of Vivi’s shining smile as she looked at Nami?

The thought made the paralysing numbness in Nami’s fingers jolt, restart, forcing her into motion. If she wanted Vivi, she shouldn’t do her the disservice of ignoring her—and Vivi’s—feelings to protect a cowardly, meaningless fear.

This was a journey of adventure and discovery, after all.

Nami finally knew what to say, and she just had to hope it was the right thing. It wasn’t merely a letter. It was a beginning. A connection that would stretch across the seas and bind something together, never to be broken.

It was a letter that was a long time coming.

Vivi,

I want to see you.

#something short and sweet lmao #namivivi #fanfiction #one piece #writing

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