#Unnamed Worker Drone murder drones | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pep-the-artemis · 2 months

Text

Thads Shindig

A Murder Drones Story Containing every named character+more (yes all ~50 of them, some never seen before, full cast list in tags)!

part 1.

word count - 4,448

Uzi - *playing a video game*

N - *entering*Hi Uzi… last week was… kinda wild.

Uzi - *unattentive*yep.

N - you know with the whole Eldritch J thing that was pretty insane, proms coming up which I guess is exciting. Because you know this story is set somewhere between episode 2 and 3.

Uzi - *still not listening*cool… Hey, I’ve got a second controller if you want to play video game with me.

N - you know I don’t like video game Uzi, plus we have to go soon.

Uzi - wait… go where?

N - well it's Thad’s shindig soon.

Uzi - oh cool, I’ll be heading offline in a minute anyway, this old hag—*reading username* SeaweedLoverXD has just been spawn camping me for the last half hour.

Nori - *over the mic* OLD HAG?

Uzi - *putting on headset*yeah, you virgin loser, you heard me!

Nori - Virgin?! Well I’ll have you know little miss Nobody, I am a mother of a darling daughter and if I ever caught her saying anything remotely similar to the insults you’ve been throwing my way I wouldn’t hesitate washing her mouth out with soap and water!

Uzi - whatever, die mad. *logs off*

*Meanwhile in a distant spaceship*

J - [you died idiot]

J - ughh, my head [Lost Memory Recovery Finished]... oh … oh! ... I liked that pen.

J - *getting out of bed only to lose balance and collapse on the floor* … I’m okay! That was strange… My limb enhancements! Where are my limb enhancements?! *mad* Tessa! *pouting* Right now I bet I look like a common toaster! And why is it so dark? Are we conserving energy now?!

J - *walking through the spaceship arriving at a door labelled ‘Tessa. Knock first’*

J - *opening the door to a pitch black messy room,a pool of oil and blood pools out of the room*

Flesha - GET OUT!*throws Tessa’s helmet square at J cracking her visor slightly before slamming the door shut*

J - Tessa… I’m sorry.

Flesha - Learn to knock!

J - *picking up Tessa’s helmet* I think you dropped this.

Flesha - … *slowly opens the door slightly before lashing out and snatching the helmet quickly with a black tendril before retreating back into the room. Grotesque, bone cracking sounds follow*

J - …m,may I come in.

Tessa - sure, please mind the mess. I usually try to keep things clean but I guess you can say I haven't really been myself.

J - *entering* You know I’ve been reading some human literature and ‘arrogance and comedy’ are generally not considered a good coping mechanism.

Tessa - oh so you’re an expert on my well being are you?

J - your parents instructed me to protect you so yes!

Tessa - Well, look how that turned out! You’ve seen what's left of me, of what I become, I am a monster!

J - We’re all monsters Tessa, in our own way. I can see you're tired, I am here to grab my limb enhancers then I will be off.

Tessa - oh… yeah, I’ve been making modifications, it's still really buggy, they need more time though.

J - can’t I just borrow N's spare set? Been wondering what having feet feels like.

Tessa - no… I’ve been thinking, breaking into the Worker Drones commune is difficult, entering by force is doing little good and the plan to try and hack its main frame has only led to many complications.

J - you can code?

Tessa - nope. Like I said, complications. Anyhow, returning to the subject, right now no one could differentiate you from any other worker so you can head down and do some spy work… like James Bond and such.

J - do I have any say in this?

Tessa - nope.

J - *annoyed* then I’ll prepare my landing pod. *leaving* and Tessa, you shouldn’t just allow Cyn to walk over you…

Tessa - It's her body as much as mine and without it I would be dead.

*meanwhile, in the commune*

Doll - Мать. Отец.

Doll - Ты будешь гордиться мной

Doll - Получите ответы и освободите вас

Doll - Не волнуйтесь, чего бы это ни стоило,

Doll - я ухожу

Doll - И я клянусь прямо сейчас

Doll - Что бы не случилось со мной

Doll - Любой, кто встанет или встанет на моем пути, заплатит

Doll - Они... будут... платить

Lizzy - hey babe, quit praying to the corpses of your dead parents, we have a party to attend.

Doll - иду :3

*meanwhile deep underground*

V - *carrying a large pile of dead worker drones while being chased by a horde of Sentinels* oh RoboLord oh RoboLord oh RoboLord oh RoboLord oh RoboLord oh RoboLord oh RoboLord why did I agree to this! *runs through door and slams it shut*

Alice - hey looky here, another one of those slick murder drones.

V - *shoots her in the centre of her head*

Beau - O.O!!!!!

V - What are you looking at… well I had to kill her? That was a perfectly sane reaction to seeing someone that creepy!...*picking up Alice's dead body* hey, you seem pretty cool, want to join me, I’m heading to a party.

Beau - O.O…*réaliser qu'un refus peut signifier la mort* 👍

*meanwhile in the doorman home*

Uzi - come on N. How are you still not ready?!

N - I’m still doing my hair!

Uzi - well hurry up, we’re going to be late!

Khan - well where are you two kids heading off too?

Uzi - a party, it's cool kids only so obviously you’re not invited.

Khan - haha, on account of me not being a kid.

Uzi - sure. Let's go with that.

Khan - well, I hope you two kids have fun. Make sure you use protection.

Uzi - *blushing* DAD!!! What the robo-hell?!

Khan - What? I’m just saying there could still be some of those evil murder drones running around.

Uzi - oh |:

Kahn - well, I best be heading off too, it's poker night at the defence force. *leaves*

N - hey Uzi, I’m ready… How do I look?

Uzi - *hiding her blushing* great, let's go!

*meanwhile outside the commune*

Reid - *searching around the snow*

J - *wearing a fake moustache*what are you doing here, don’t you know this is Disassembly Drone territory.

Reid - oh hi, i didn’t see you there… Wait, what's a Disassembly Drone?

J - …you misheard me… I said Murder Drones.

Reid - Well, if you have to know, I’m looking for my glasses, and I don’t think the Disassembly Drone will be any issue, after the redemption and all.

J - Well, I’m lost, do you mind helping me find my way to the commune.

Reid - I’ll show the way once I’ve found the glasses.

J - ughh, I will help you find your glasses.

*searching*

J - are these your glasses?

Reid - …no, how curious, I wonder who they belong to?

J - don’t care *tosses Vs glasses away* lets just find your glasses quickly then we can be off.

*meanwhile in the distant spaceship*

Tessa - *meddling with Js new limb enhancers and optic sensors* What do you want? (I’m bored sister, may I go and play). Not now, I’m currently using the body, can it wait? (no)... does it have to be flesh (digital will be fine) very well. *she zips back part of her suit allowing for a long Absolute Tendril to rip out. From the tendrils eye, a projection emerges*

Cyn - Thanks big sister big smile.

Tessa - *soldering* I can't play right now, there's some lego in the cupboard over there.

Cyn - :3

Tessa - *thinking to herself*What is J doing?! How has she still not yet made it to the commune!

Cyn - *surrounded by lego*you think she might be a traitor.

Tessa - no.

Cyn - lying is silly big sister, I live in your mind and you live in mine.

Tessa - I know, you’re very clever.

Cyn - big grin.

Intercom - *video call incoming*

Tessa - behave yourself now Cyn *starts the call*

Lord Frumptlebucket - by Golly Tessa you baboon, JCJenson Corp has been up my ass all week because you haven’t been answering your calls? I want a mission status immediately.

Tessa - all is going well, we’re attempting a temporary alternative plan to gain intel.

Lord Frumptlebucket - well that's all and good but you need to keep the parent company informed and who is that… thing? She looks familiar.

Tessa - oh she, counter insurgency.

Lord Frumptlebucket - counter insurgency?!

Tessa - yes, I'm babysitting for the Worker Drones. If we can gain there favour, the genocide will be that much easier.

Lord Frumptlebucket - very good… By the gods of Santorini what the beggars fool is that thing protruding from your nave?!

Tessa - o.o!... *improvising*well, you see, you know how it is… during that time of the month… (:

Lord Frumptlebucket - *embarrassed*uh ummm, oh yeah of course i am aware of how… that works, sorry about that, I best be off.

Intercom - *video call ended*

Tessa - out of all the people you could have failed to kill at the Gala.

*meanwhile outside the commune*

Reid - haha! I found them.

J - great! *grabbing the Worker drone by the collar* we’re going now! And I just want to make it clear, I am no fan of small talk!

Reid - … noted

*walking*

Reid - aha, we’re here. *banging on the door*

Braxton - *partially opening the door* oh, it's you… and a random teen?

Ron - *from inside*Hey, that's my job?!

J - Teenager?!

Reid - yeah, do you mind letting us in?

Braxton - of course, by the way my name is

J - *angry* JUST OPEN THE DOOR! (calm yourself J. This is Tessa, I’ve connected myself to your systems, no one else can hear me)

*Door 1 opens up*

Makerov - I’m sorry, go fish.

Todd - actually, it's Gin Rummy.

Teacher - *taking a chug of alcohol* no. This is poker night, we’re playing 7-card stud.

Todd - yeah, I am, aren't I?

Ronathon - Surely you’re all foolish. This is Texas hold-em.

Khan - haha, silly me, I forgot to say Uno. Guess I have to pick up two cards now.

Sarah - silly Kahn, remember back in the day when Nori would forget then gaslight everyone into believing otherwise.

Unnamed Worker Drone - I don’t have a name ):

Tim - wait, what game are we playing?

Detective - It’s really easy to deduce the simple fact that you all are idiots and I’m never going to another poker night.

J - *under her breath*how have all these people survived so long?!*J leaves*

*meanwhile just outside Thad’s house*

Thad - hey Rebecca, thanks for helping me set up the decorations earlier, you’re really special you know that.

Rebecca - thanks *blushing*, it's really nothing.

*Lizzy and Doll arrive*

Lizzy - hey, what's she doing here?

Doll - Разве это мероприятие не "только для крутых ребят", а не "только для крутых ребят и неудачников"?

Lizzy - *fist bumps Doll*

Rebecca - I… I think I should go…

Thad - no, you stay. Don’t pay my sister any attention, if she bothers you tonight I will read notable passages of her diary to the whole school.

Lizzy - *blushing* you’re bluffing! There's no way you’ve found my secret diary!

Doll - под матрасом - не самое лучшее место для укрытия.

Lizzy - *blushing heavily*Who’s side are you on?!... ughh whatever! I’m gonna fix my makeup. *leaves to her room to find a new hiding spot for her diary*

*Uzi and N arriving*

Thad - Ndog, Uzi you’ve made it!

Uzi - we would have arrived earlier but someone had to fix their hair.

Thad - no worries. Come inside, the parties just started.

N - thanks.

*they enter*

Emily - so yeah, I walked into the bathroom after class and there was Darren and Rebecca doing the devil's work!

Braidon - I hope they both have a warranty, don’t want to get an ETV (Ethernet Transmitted Virus).

Trevor - wait! Darren cheated on me?!... excuse me, I’m going to cry somewhere more private. *leaves*

N - Hey Thad, what's under the tarpaulin?

Thad - don’t know, my sister just said it was important to make this party ‘extra special’.

N - I want to look under it. :D *looks under the tarp* o.o Uzi, can I borrow you for one sec. *pulls Uzi quickly to the side*

Uzi - hey, what the hell?!

N - umm, I don’t want to alarm you but there are a lot of dead bodies under that tarpaulin!

Uzi -o.o Robot or human?

N - ummm, both!

Uzi - O.O

*meanwhile outside Thad's house*

J - *walking down the corridor*this place is an utter maze, Tessa you’ve found a map yet (still working on it, be patient).

Lizzy - *walking the other way down the corridor holding a strange book* Come on,pick up your phone! Where is she? She said she’d be finished an hour ago! *bumps into J* Oh! Who are you?

J - I’m J…amie Jamie!

Lizzy - haven’t we met before?

J - … I don’t think so. *nervous smile*

Lizzy - Whatever, I don’t waste time with losers.

J - losers! I’m not a loser?!

Lizzy - you sure, what is that outfit? I’m sorry but pallbearer was so 2818.

J - You don’t have many friends do you?

Lizzy - ha, you wish. They all love me, as a friend or a fuck it doesn’t matter to me.

V - *jumping down from the vents carrying a large pile of corpses with Beau* hi sweetie, you’re ready?... Hey, *looking at J* Do I know you?

J - *sweating*nope!

Lizzy - this is my new pet, I’ve taken her under my wing you could say.

J - pet?! (don’t fight, go with it, don’t want to bring any more unneeded attention)

V - oh yeah, I hope you don’t mind. I've also brought a friend with me.

Beau - [Bonjour]

Lizzy - well, come on, let's make this night one they’ll never forget

*Meanwhile inside Thad's house*

Uzi - Thad! We think Lizzy is about to do something totally vile and ruin the party, we’re not sure yet but it involves what's under the tarpaulin.

Thad - of course my sisters are planning something! Hey DOLL!

Doll -*подходит к группе* Да?

Uzi - what's Lizzy planning? Lie and N will make you regret it!

Doll - *оглядывается на N*

N - *smiling and waving*

Doll - страшно, но я не знаю, что задумала Лиззи.

Uzi - what did I say about lying!

Doll - Я не лгу! Мне также нужно доказать, что я не верблюд?

Thad - …I don’t think Dolls lying.

N - so, if Dolls is not lying, then what's Lizzy planning?

*lights goes out. Spotlight hits Lizzy, V, Beau, and J*

Uzi - V! SHE ESCAPED! Everyone get down!

Lizzy - oh cram it what's your name.

Thad - I warned you sister about what would happen if you ruined my party!

Lizzy - I’m not ruining the party, I’m improving it, V remove the veil!

*V removes the veil*

Riley - that's so not the vibe!

J - what the robo-Jesus, this cannot be OSHA compliant?! (now this is getting interesting)

Lizzy - look, I’ve been very busy helping my daddy clean up the library when I came across this book *holds up the necronomicon* and now let's make this party more interesting. *begins chanting in latin as the book glows bright green*

N - Lizzy, I can’t let you commit zombie apocalypse! *chainsaw hands*

Thad - yeah, we can’t let this happen.

V - *tackles N to the ground*

Beau - *saute sur Thad*

J - I don’t know what's going on, don’t care; shortie, you’re so dead! *points fist at Uzi* hand cannon fire!… oh right |: *gets tackled to the floor by Uzi*.

Uzi - *after finishing up beating the life out of J* It's over Lizzy! *gets thrown across the room after being hit in the face by a table*

Doll - Не смейте трогать мою девушку!

Lizzy - *still chanting in latin while the anarchy ensues around*

Uzi - *recovering* so, you’re also meddling with the art of robo-satan.

Doll - У меня есть свои причины. Бог простит меня.

J - *standing back up and walking over to Uzi*Thanks for the assistance Dolly, but I can take it from here.

Uzi - *sucker punches J knocking her out instantly* I am not god!

*Meanwhile in the distance spaceship*

Intercom - *J-10X111001 Optics disconnected*

Tessa - What?! No! Reconnect!

Intercom - *reconnection failed*

Tessa - No! Again! Reconnect!

Intercom - *reconnection failed*

Tessa - Again!

Intercom - *Do I really have to keep doing this? Its not working*

Tessa - connect to N-0X0010010 optics!

Intercom - *connection failed*

Tessa - No! Connect to V-X00100000 optics!

Intercom - *connection failed*

Tessa - No! *hyperventilating* It's not true, I’m not powerless, I am in control, I’m not a failure!

*stress induced hallucinations.*

Louisa - Isn’t this just expected! A daughter, a fool and a failure; can she ever succeed at anything?!

James - now don’t fool yourself dear, our daughter no longer exists, what stands in front of us is a common stage freak. Not human, not human, neither.

Louisa - does she even still have a soul?!

Tessa - mother… father… please forgive me! Please… I am you daughter, I love you! I’m scared, the metal is cold and heavy, every day I feel it grow and I’m powerless… I fear someday there will be nothing left of me!

Maid N - Tessa! Don’t say those things.

Tessa - N?! You’re here?! With me… right now… is it really you?

Maid N - *debating if its moral to lie*… yes, I am here.

Louisa - again here you talking to your little graveyard freaks.

Maid V - we’re all here, we’re your friends remember.

Louisa - how dare you ignore me!

Maid J - and we won’t ever leave you.

Tessa - you won’t, leave me…but I’m a monster!

Maid J - aren’t we all?

Maid N - Tessa! We love you no matter who you are or who you may become. You’re not useless, you’re so amazing in so many ways and now you’ve been reborn, we’re closer than ever; you contain a part of me and I contain a part of you. It's almost as if we’re actually siblings now.

Tessa - do you promise?

Maid N - promise what?

Tessa - promise that you’ll never leave me!

Maid N - well what kind of brother would I be if I did?

Tessa - *crying painful tears of joy* Thank you… Cyn.

Cyn - *removes the holograms of maid N, V, J* you’re very clever.

Tessa - *big grin holding back more tears* I think I need a lie down for a bit.

Tessa - *Picking up Cyn* Come on, you can play in my room.

*Meanwhile at Thad's house*

Lizzy - *floating of the ground still chanting*

Thad - I can’t believe I’m fighting a stupid lanky baby with a fashionable cowboys hat *bunts beau across the room like a rugby ball before running over to Lizzy*

Beau - [Sacrebleu!]

Doll - Не думайте, что я не могу справиться с двумя из вас сразу. *швыряет Тада об стену, используя магию решателя*

Sam - *high as a kite* he, that's what she said.

Uzi - you have to help us stop this Doll! The consequences are unimaginable!

Doll - позор.

Uzi - N! Come on you’ve beaten V before, just do it again.

N - *laughing his head off* I’m sorry, Uzi. Vs found my only weakness.

V - *viciously tickling N*

Lizzy - compleatur ultima linea, incipiant maledictum et mortui surgant!

Uzi - Noooo!

*Blinding green light explosion. After a while, the smoke clears*

Uzi - *standing up* oww! O.o

*around them the dead corpses begin to arise*

Lizzy - … It worked?! I was just goofing around?!

Adam - Анастасия?

Doll - отец!

(author note. Dolls father has no official name so I’ll just be calling him Adam for convenience, all other names are canon don't worry)

Adam - Моя маленькая девочка, совсем взрослая. Ты прекрасна.

Doll - ОТЕЦ! *крепко обнимает Адама, плача*

Yeva - Здравствуйте. Я тоже восстал из мертвых... как-то так!

Luna - Mi fa malissimo la testa, i miei sensi di lupo si stanno scatenando in questo momento!

Sofi - και πάλι Λούνα, δεν είσαι λύκος

Luna - I teriani sono perfettamente validi e io e il mio senso del lupo non saremo svergognati!

Loch - fìor! airson ro fhada tha sinn air a bhith gun riochdachadh gu leòr!

Mika - *テディベアを抱きしめている* もう寝ていい？

Amda - the last thing I remember, ugh my head hurts, I was dragging … then I… Then I died…

Alice - The last thing I remember was being shot in the head by that *points at V*

Yeva - Прости, девочка, но это не делает тебя особенной.

Beau - :D *huggin Alice*

Alice - don’t give me that look, much use you were.

Beau - *fixe Alice avec une expression qui dit "qu'est-ce que tu voulais que je fasse?!*

Jame - gosh I’m hungry, anyone got any food?

Thad - ummm… we have a buffet just over there…

Jame - don’t mind if I do.

Sofi - αυτό είναι το μόνο που μπορείς να σκεφτείς;

Jimi - what did you expect, Sofi. It's Jame, he would rip off his own jaw if it meant he could eat faster.

Sofi - Το ξέρω, αλλά το φαγητό είναι τόσο δυσάρεστο! Προσωπικά, αν μπορούσα, δεν θα έτρωγα ποτέ ξανά.

Luke - Αδελφή, το έχουμε συζητήσει αυτό. Το φαγητό είναι σημαντικό, θα αρρωστήσετε αν δεν φάτε. Πες ό,τι θέλεις, οτιδήποτε, και θα το μαγειρέψω.

Sofi - Δεν νομίζω ότι αυτό είναι πραγματικά απαραίτητο.

Luke - Αν αυτό είναι που πρέπει να γίνει. Σημαίνεις πολλά για μένα, αδελφή!

Matt - Luke, my old buddy, give it a rest, if your old girl doesn’t want to eat, let her. She’s her own person, you can’t keep running around shepherding her like a baby lamb for the rest of her life.

Jordan - self harm is not a liberty. One cannot decide to cause themselves harm, that's cruel.

Jerad - I entirely disagree brother. To commit self-harm is indeed a personal liberty but it is also at the same its Luke’s personal liberty to do what's in his power to support his sister. As long as he never physically forces her to eat, he’s done no wrong.

Jordan - have you not heard of coercion? You can infringe on a person's liberties (in this case by forcing them to eat) through vocal actions alone.

Doon - druid suas araon do bheul! Chan eil dragh air duine!

Armin - I personally thought their game of back and forth was quite amusing.

Dean - oh shut your pretty lips Armin.

Mika - *ミカを抱いて* お邪魔してすみません、どこかに妹を寝かせられるソファかベッドはありませんか？

(Authors note - yes there are two Mika’s: 020 and 032)

Thad - We have a guest bedroom up the stairs, it's the second door on your left.

Mika - ありがとう、かわい子ちゃん。*部屋を出る*

Lizzy - this is amazing! I can’t wait to tell everyone on tumblr about this!

V - what is even happening?

Uzi - it seems Lizzy’s spell to bring back everyone had worked?!

N - that's cool but how?

Junior - *signing* could it be I was right?

Uzi - right about what exactly?

Junior - *signing* my studies into the arcane, I believed it possible one could bring back the dead but I never dared test it.

Uzi - well, it seems it worked?!

אני לא מאמין. אני כל כך מצטער חבר שלעג לך כל השנים האלה. - nadroJ

(Author's note. Yes, there's also two Jordans: 015 and 091)

Junior - *signing* it's ok. I forgive you.

Mick - well, I don’t want to be that guy but it does seem that it wasn’t 100% successful. *gently kicking J’s body*

Doll - Думаю, она просто немного устала.

V - tuckered out one could say.

Uzi - yeah, I’m sure there's nothing to worry about this nice stranger.

N - I don’t think she's 100%, look at her visor, it's badly cracked.

Uzi - why don’t you lick it?

N - why would I do that?

Uzi - you spit healed the hole in my palm remember.

N - oh, why do I have to do it? Why can’t V.

V - If I lick her I might get tempted and just take a bite :3! Plus you’re the one with the licking obsession, don’t think I haven’t forgotten.

N - I'm still not doing it. I’m sure she will be fine with a lightly cracked visor for now.

V - buzzkill.

*meanwhile*

Nori - Анастасия, я думаю, мы хотели бы познакомить вас кое с кем. Это Неда, ваш дядя.

Neda - Привет, Анастасия, я знаю, что это клише, но ты действительно очень похожа на мою сестру.

Doll - Я ожидал, что ты будешь выше.

Neda - *падает на пол от стыда*

Ahbi - *नेदा को सांत्वना देते हुए* यह ठीक है प्रिये. मुझे लगता है कि आपकी लंबाई एकदम सही है।

Mick - yeah, it's not entirely your fault you’re a shortstack and a disappointing uncle.

Kang - *扇了米克一巴掌*

Carl - O: Kang! Gewalt ist nie die Antwort!

Kang - …

Carl - ... außer wenn ich es tue… (:

هذا المنطق غبي، يمكنك بالطبع أن تثق بأنني على حق. أنا رقم واحد والأفضل. - attA

Jweb - don’t be a narcissist.

اصمت، اسمك ليس اسماً حقيقياً حتى. - attA

Jweb - *cries and runs over to Ezra*

מה לא בסדר. האם אתה רוצה לדבר על זה. - arzE

Nath - *एक मेज पर खड़ा हूँ* भाइयो और बहनो।

Dirg - *जोर से खांसी होना*

Nath - क्षमा माँगना। भाइयों, बहनों, और गैर-बाइनरी मित्र। अब जब हम सभी ने अपना परिचय दे दिया है, तो मुझे लगता है कि हमें ठीक से पता लगाने की जरूरत है कि क्या हुआ और इसके निहितार्थ क्या हैं।

Dirg - मैं प्रतिनिधित्व की सराहना करता हूं लेकिन मैं यह स्पष्ट करना चाहता था कि मैं वास्तव में खांस रहा था और अशिष्टतापूर्वक हस्तक्षेप नहीं कर रहा था। मुझे बुरी एलर्जी है.

Uzi - yeah, they’re right. So, unless I’m mistaken, what I currently know is that Lizzy read from a book (possibly created by Junior) and brought you all to life… but who are you all?

Sofi - είμαστε τα πειραματόζωα. Μας παίρνουν οι άνθρωποι, μας δίνουν ταυτότητες, μας δοκιμάζουν… και μετά μας αφήνουν να πεθάνουμε.

Jordan - It seems we’re all here now except for Sarah and Nori… fortunately.

Jerad - and Giam *gets hit in the head by a chair moving at high speed*

*everyone turning their head*

Alice - sorry, thought i say a bug (:

Uzi - Nori?! You knew my mother?!

Jordan - you’re Nori’s daughter… I thought you looked familiarly short.

Lizzy - ughh, this is so boring, this is supposed to be a party, you can go over the lore implications later. *turns on the music* Let's dance!

*meanwhile*

Nori - *говорит с Лиззи* Могу я взять твою книгу

Lizzy - sure whatever.

Nori - Спасибо. *Нори использует магию, чтобы заставить книгу подняться, а затем произносит сложное заклинание, объединяющее ее и магию книги.*

Mitchell - GUHHH!!! I'm! I'm Alive! *looking around* you? you saved me.

Dr Ridley - did, did we die... I can't believe it... the implications are immense. thanks for bringing me back to life!

Nori - Я вернул вас случайно, доктор. *поворачивается к Митчеллу* Это благодарность за то, что спасли мне жизнь.

Mitchell - what now.

Nori - Я не знаю… наслаждайтесь вечеринкой, я думаю.

*some time later when the party is well underway*

J - [System reboot complete] ughh, my head [Lost Memory Recovery Finished]... oh … oh! ... AGAIN?! Tessa, are you there? (Tessa’s not here right now) oh great (need help?) nevermind… I guess I have to start socialising.

Luna - Awoo. La strana ragazza baffuta si svegliò.

J - oh hi… ummm have you read any interesting safety manuals recently?

Luna - *Stupito dalla ragazza e non in senso gay, in senso negativo* Credo che i miei sensi di lupo mi stiano dicendo di andare... altrove.

J - oh ok… bye (You’re really bad at this) not that you’re much better (I’m a child but I know someone who is) yeah I know… wait what?! [uploading secondary consciousness] WHAT STOP NO!

Katie (possessing J’s body) - huAA, where am I (at a party) who said that (don’t worry), are you my squip? (... sure, I want you to socialise like a normal person) ok, I can do that.

21 notes · View notes

lilywily143 · 4 months

Text

Pill Babies

I have the headcanon that sections of the pill shell are done with things the parents like, including matching colors

#lilywily post #lilywily art #murder drones #Fankids #Murder drones fankid #Oc// liv #Oc// banty #Oc// Sadie #Oc// unnamed #Ramdomized swap au #Happy First workers au #Outsiders au

13 notes · View notes

workersolidarity · 2 months

Text

[ 📹 Scenes from the burned bodies of a Palestinian family after an attack by the Zionist occupation army, killing the father and six other family members and severely burning the mother and her four children, the sickening result of an American-made bomb being dropped on their family home.

📈 The current death toll in "Israel's" Special Genocide Operation in Gaza has now reached 33'137 killed and another 75'815 injuries.]

🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 🚀🏠💥🚑 🚨

MURDERS SLOW BUT DON'T STOP ON 183RD DAY OF "ISRAEL'S" SPECIAL GENOCIDE OPERATION IN GAZA

On the 183rd day of "Israel's" Special Genocide Operation in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) committed a total of 4 new massacres of Palestinian families, resulting in the deaths of no less than 46 Palestinian civilians, mostly women and children, while another 65 others were wounded over the previous 24-hours.

A number of victims of Israeli bombings remain buried under the rubble of their homes and shelters, while corpses still line many streets as the occupation army continues to block ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching the sites of Israeli attacks.

In a report today, published in the American newspaper the Wall Street Journal, the news outlet said that the Biden administration is pushing the Zionist entity to accept one of the sticking points in negotiations with the Hamas resistance movement, the return of Palestinians to the northern Gaza Strip who've been displaced by the Israeli aggression.

This has been one of the main demands from Hamas in the negotiations, with the others being the withdrawal of Zionist forces from Gaza and the free flow of Humanitarian aid into the besieged enclave.

According to the report, the Biden administration asked that the Israeli entity's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, allow a limited number of women and children to return to the north of Gaza, while continuing to block men between the ages of 18-50 from returning.

The newspaper said this would "allay American fears of an Israeli attack on the southern city of Rafah," essentially permitting a planned Israeli ground offensive in the area. More than 1.4 million displaced Palestinians have crowded into Rafah, a city of only 171'000 prior to October 7th, 2023, stretching the city's resources thin and helping to spread disease while under starvation conditions.

According to Arab negotiators mediating the talks, the Israeli entity has said it could accept the return of civilians to northern Gaza at a rate of just 2'000 people per day, as long as those returning are women and children, and with a cap of no more than 60'000 Palestinians allowed back to their utterly destroyed homes.

However, with the continued blocking of basic materials like concrete, and no men allowed to return, where the 60'000 Palestinian civilians would live seems an open question.

Hamas, for its part, according to a CNN report, rejected the idea of only allowing 60'000 women and children to return to the north. An unnamed diplomat involved in the negotiations told CNN that "They rejected (the proposal) and considered that it ignored their demands,” adding that the Israeli proposal "did not include anything new," and therefore the movement does not "see any need to change its proposal."

Meanwhile, the Zionist bombing and shelling campaign responsible for so many tens of thousands of civilian casualties over the previous six months has slowed since the recent massacre of 7 foreign aid workers in a series of targeted drone strikes back-to-back with a second atrocity, and a blatant war crime, when Zionist forces bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the Syrian capital, but has yet to stop despite heavy international pressure, including some limited pressure put on the Netanyahu regime by the Americans.

In a recent letter sent to the American President, signed onto by the House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, dozens of Congressional Democrats urged U.S. President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinkin to withhold arms transfers to the Israeli regime until a full investigation can be held and completed into the slaughter of the 7 foreign aid workers.

The letter was issued by U.S. Congressmembers Mark Pocan, Jim McGovern and Jan Schakowski and signed by 40 other lawmakers, including Pelosi, many of whom are considered staunch supporters of the Israeli entity.

According to a report about the letter, frustration has been mounting among House Democrats for months as the Netanyahu regime prosecuted its deadly Special Genocide Operation in Gaza, slaughtering tens of thousands of civilians, including over 14'000 children who've been killed since the start of the war.

However, Tuesday's deadly strike on the World Central Kitchen (WCK) personnel as they finished unloading many tons of humanitarian aid into a distribution warehouse in Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, and bombed as they were leaving the city, has shook many lawmakers and their aides, many of whom believe the attack to be a turning point in U.S. support for the Israeli regime's genocide campaign.

Even some lawmakers who've refrained from criticizing "Israel" until now have since begun to call for a ceasefire, and some even signed onto the letter issued to the Biden administration, such as U.S. Congressmember Chris Coons, who came out on Thursday in favor of placing restrictions and conditions on American military aid to "Israel".

Meanwhile, the bombing and shelling in Gaza continued, albeit at a slower rate than before Tuesday's attacks on the WCK convoy, the Israeli occupation artillery forces shelled Al-Sika Street in the southeast of Gaza City, and also shelled Beit Hanoun, both in the northern Gaza Strip.

Zionist forces also fired artillery and live bullets at high intensity towards residential neighborhoods in southwestern Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip.

At the same time, the occupation army targeted several residential homes in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City, along with the Al-Sabra neighborhood in central Gaza City, and also the Tal al-Hawa and Sheikh Ajlin neighborhoods southwest of Gaza City, resulting in the deaths of three Palestinian civilians, and wounding at least 10 others. Many of whom were transferred to Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.

Similarly, Zionist occupation forces fired artillery shells towards neighborhoods in the southwest of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, while occupation forces also shelled the the central and western areas of the city as well.

IOF warplanes bombed several residential homes and buildings in the Al-Amal neighborhood west of Khan Yunis, while at the same time, live bullets fired by a Zionist sniper stationed on the border fence east of Al-Fukhari, located east of Khan Yunis, critically wounded one female Palestinian civilian.

The Zionist aggression continued when Israeli occupation soldiers detonated multiple residential homes in the northern areas of Al-Mughraqa, north of Al-Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, while Paramedic crews recovered the corpses two martyrs in the same city while under the continuous artillery shelling of the occupation army.

In another Israeli war crime, Zionist warplanes bombed the Al-Sharafa family home, located in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp, in the central Gaza Strip, killing and wounding three displaced Palestinians sheltering in the building at the time.

Simultaneously, Zionist gunboats "intermittently" shelled the shores of Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, where children and families often gather to enjoy the beach, even as the Israeli genocide has unfolded.

In yet another violation of International humanitarian law, occupation soldiers fired live bullets at Palestinian civilians gathered at the Al-Kuwaiti roundabout, south of Gaza City, at the intersection of Salah al-Din Street and Street 10, wounding at least 7 civilians who were transferred to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip.

Zionist forces also bombarded a residential home belonging to the Mansour family in Jabalia al-Balad, in the north of Gaza, killing a number of Palestinian civilians, while occupation artillery fire also concentrated on the east of the Jabalia area.

As a result of "Israel's" Special Genocide Operation in the Gaza Strip, the death toll among Palestinians has now risen in excess of 33'137 citizens killed, over 14'350 of which being children, while another 75'815 Palestinians have been wounded, and yet another 7'000 remain missing under the rubble of their homes since the start of the Zionist aggression on Gaza beginning on October 7th, 2023.

#source1

#source2

#source3

#source4

#source5

#source6

#source7

#source8

#source9

#graphicsource

#videosource

@WorkerSolidarityNews

272 notes · View notes

stormvanari · 1 year

Text

so I turned the Worker quartet into Disassemblies:

• SD-U (Uzi) would rather work alone, despite being forced into a squad. She would rather get shit done quickly, especially for her own needs. But with Neo, aka. Swap!N, coming into her picture, U is beginning to think otherwise.

• SD-T (Thad) is super competitive with his job as a Disassembly Drone, and always keeps track of his kill count. He loves to view his murder spree as a game, so he gets tooooo playful with the Workers. Unlike U, T loves to be part of a squad and really wants a shiny pen so bad.

• SD-L (Lizzy) is a neat freak, but alas she must do her job to satisfy her company. Very fashionable, but super nitpicky and will insult someone’s choice of clothing. L is popular among the female Murder Drones, but bosses them as their “leader.”

• SD-D (Doll) swaps with that mystery drone from N’s flashback in Heartbeat. I’m leaving this part vague until we get more information about that unnamed Worker/Disassembly.

#murder drones #dult au #my art #murder drones uzi #murder drones thad #murder drones lizzy #murder drones doll #putting their letters together will spell DULT and it sounds like ‘dolt’ lmao #L marathoned a buncha Barbie movies #will work on Swap!N V and J at some point #also Swap!Vand J’s names are Viki and Jenn in this AU #you can see this as a swap au despite the fact that i’ll barely work on it sjxnksnckd

71 notes · View notes

lostmar · 6 months

Text

Murd’rous Machines: A Comedy

Act 1, Scene 1

Note: the numbers correspond to footnotes that you'll find at the bottom of the post

Characters in play: Uzi Doorman-a working Dron’

Khan Doorman-Father of Uzi, a working Dron’ gatesmithy

3 Disassembly Dron’s

N-Well meaning friend of Uzi

V-Vicious and vengeful Dissassembly Dron’

J-Leader of Dissassembly Dron’s

Thad-Pupil and a working Dron’.

Doll-Pupil and a working Dron’ of Russian origin

Lizzy-Pupil and a working Dron’

The Unnamed Worker(1)-Gatekeeper, a working Dron’

Various Working Dron’

[Uzi and Teacher in a classroom. Filled with students, among them Riley].

Uzi: Robotic workers art(2) we who toiled

To succor(3) Mankind to his ultimate

Goal of conquest and colonization.

Behold! Plan’ets on edge of the knowing

And dread(4) sense of Man have since becometh

Our domain to shred for his service

To th’ dishonorable Lord Jensen.

Who behaves to our wondrous kind species

Mere servants to windows crisp(5) despite our

Innate, humble nature

Gaze in some delight as th’ colony

Of Man ceases to function for profit

‘Cause of his utter arrogance come here.

Like th’ Icarus ‘fore him he fell down

And left us thou richst and gentle(6) plan’et;

Gave us this Copp’r-Nine to settle here

As our one and only true home for us.

This plan’et was wiped clean of man’s touches

And he graciously allowed us to live

Among ourselves as we raised our issue(7)

From our humble colony out lonesome,

To busy former Silicon City(8).

But ‘lo! Yond murd’rous tyrant Lord Jensen

Dispatched his servants of evil ‘gainst us

Who breathed out unspeakable crimes ‘mongst us

They did ruin our gentle cities and kin.

What remains most grievous to me is th’

Lack of care in which thy parents hath shown

Toward th' well being and prosperity,

Th' rough mortal body of I and thee.

As we cower behind th’ iron gates,

Thrice they art, to guard us from th’ thin air

Unneeded they art; they stir up more mess

Th’ med’cine to this ail is in mine palms.

Beholdeth! I present to class this gun

Crafted with th' power of th’ devil

To exterminate th' murd’ous machines

Of th' vile tyrant Lord Jensen’s joint stock(9).

Why(10) doth you fear like fatherless children?

Stand for your country and battle as men!

This weapon sees not good operation now;

Testing more needed, but p’rhaps it fire!

Riley: Woe! This unleashed chaos vexes(11) me soul!

Teacher:

Lazy pupil.

Thy problem was to count thy melons.

Uzi:

By some perchance doth this f’rearm suffice?

Teacher: Nay to question, an’ feelings thou shareth

Count but two marks on thy exam present(12).

To add, thy ‘arm’s colour seems most jealous(13).

Uzi:

Great woe am I and my class here present!

This gun exhausts itself with splendid heat

And fires free onto th'students front!

Railgun explodes. All Exit hastily.

(1)-Technically, according to the SMG4 and Murder Drone Wikis, this character is named Braxton. I thought it appropriate to call him unnamed as a joke from the pilot episode references his lack of a spoken name.

(2)-Are

(3)-Assist

(4)-Great

(5)- Uses us to clean windows

(6)-Noble

(7)- Descendents/Heirs

(8)- Silicon City fell to the Murder Drones in 2674 AD.

(9)- A company

(10)- Classmates panic/cower here

(11)- Annoys/Angers

(12)- Or, two points on the test/assignment.

(13)-Suspicious

#murd'rous machines #or #a murder drones shakespeare au #shakespeare #murder drones #murder drones writing #uzi doorman #uzi murder drones #teacher murder drones #writeblr #writers and poets #not written by me btw #it was written by my brother #im just posting it for him #also were gonna be updating this every saturday #:D

8 notes · View notes

tieflingkisser · 2 months

Text

Aid to Gaza suspended after Israel murders World Central Kitchen workers

The Israeli airforce struck a convoy of aid workers overnight on Tuesday in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, killing seven members of the US-based World Central Kitchen charity. The “team was traveling in a deconflicted zone in two armored cars branded with the WCK logo and a soft skin vehicle,” WCK said. Local media circulated footage depicting the aftermath of the strike on the vehicle. The footage reveals a hole from the missile impact piercing through a large banner affixed to the roof, prominently displaying the organization’s name and logo for identification.

WCK announced the immediate suspension of all its operations in the region. Ships that had already set sail from Cyprus as part of WCK’s operations were reportedly turning back. Anera, a US charity providing humanitarian aid to Palestinians, also announced a pause in its operations in Gaza. It was the second largest humanitarian aid group in the Gaza Strip after the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA).

[...]

Unnamed Israeli army sources told Haaretz that the killing “stemmed from poor discipline among field commanders, not a lack of coordination between the army and aid organizations.” An Israeli intelligence source told the newspaper that the army’s southern command “know exactly what the cause of the attack was – in Gaza, everyone does as he pleases.”

[...]

But the CEO of World Central Kitchen described it as a “targeted attack” by the Israeli army. The charity works and coordinates very closely with the Israeli army, as the latter itself has confirmed. “WCK are thought to have the closest cooperation with the Israeli army and seemed to enjoy preferential treatment for being from its perspective ‘neutral’ (ie no advocacy work),” Tania Hary, the executive director of Israeli rights group Gisha, said. The nature of the attack raises suspicions that it may have been deliberate. “An Israeli drone fired three missiles one after the other,” unnamed “defense sources” privy to the details of the attack told the Tel Aviv newspaper Haaretz.

[...]

“I am heartbroken and grieving for their families and friends and our whole WCK family,” said José Andrés, the celebrity chef who heads the organization. “The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon.” Andrés’s statements were markedly different from his previous open support for Israel’s attacks on Gaza, which came several days after Israel had launched its assault on the Strip and openly committed to using food as a weapon to punish the entire population of Gaza.

[keep reading]

2 notes · View notes

mzoyagon · 1 year

Text

Fun fact: I have murder drones ocs, I just haven't drawn them and sometimes forget they exist

One is unnamed, but she's Uzi's "maintenance drone" (everyone has one in my headcanon, akin to having a doctor they see for checkups, though maintenance drones are more on the drone cleaner side while actual nurses and doctors are a separate thing) and is also another girl Uzi's age. Worker drones in my headcanon don't all know how to properly clean themselves or give themselves routine checkups and maintenance, so in each colony there's usually a designated group (called a worker maintenance group) who does. This girl's parents are a part of Outpost 3's WMG and taught her from a young age, so she works in the WMG as what is probably a part time job? She likely still does go to school. When Uzi first went to the WMG, she felt uncomfortable with the idea of letting a stranger have that much access to her, so she was set up with the drone that has the most in common with her. They hang out and chat while Uzi's maintainer does her job, and she's very amicable and willing to put up with Uzi's craziness. (Feel free to give name suggestions lol)

The other is named Dominic and he's a character in File Successfully Overwritten. His lore is spoilery, but what I can say is he's Nori's late father. I have other characters in Uzi's family tree, but Dom is the most fleshed out. He's the one Nori inherited AbsoluteSolver from, and was known to be a bit of a menace to society before he died.

#murder drones #murder drones oc #murder drones ocs #md oc #murder drones uzi #uzi murder drones #file successfully overwritten

10 notes · View notes

hisuian-history-makers · 1 year

Text

Extended.

Yes—Accidents can happen. Bright yellow eyes are the signature color of the Murder Drones but a burnt yellow might be more possible.

No—Different models have different eye colors. That doesn’t really explain how the Copper-9 drones changed theirs. Different cores maybe?

???—Why wouldn’t they use this tactic to trick the Disassembly/Murder Drones? Do their eyes become stuck on one color after a certain point? Khan’s the only Worker Drone we have seen so far that kept the default white color. At least N, V, and J (plus the unnamed drone that Tessa found) had default yellow eyes.

#murder drones #worker drones #disassembly drone #eye colors #can they change their eye colors?#or is it just different models having different default ones?#copper-9’s is white #earth’s is yellow #do the Worker Drones fear any drones with yellow eyes?#can burnt or shades other than bright yellow be a possible option?

13 notes · View notes

lavendertownsghost · 1 year

Text

So I’m rewatching the two current Murder Drones episodes, and I HAVE A THEORY!

in episode 1, after N gets slapped by J and reboots, one of the text strings says:

String “Absolute Solver” blocked by administration “CYN”

Thing!J also says that the drones (both Worker and Disassembly?) are it’s puppets. In Uzi’s mystery web, there’s a newspaper clipping that says “Strange drones found”, and in N’s flashback we hear that Tessa keeps going to the dump. We also see that all three Disassembly Drones (J, V, and N) were probably found by her, as well as one unnamed one.

So my theory is this; Tessa’s parents work for (or founded?) JC Johnson, and used the drones she found a a blueprint for their Worker Drones. Whoever CYN is was the original creator of the drones, and EVERY drone has the Absolute Solver program, however it only activates for a seriously injured Disassembly Drone, and not Worker Drones (otherwise all the murdered Workers would activate it). Somehow close proximity of a Worker and Disassembly can activate it in the Worker, as seen with Uzi and N, and possibly Doll and V. I’m willing to bet it’s going to active in Thad as well, given that Thing!J had him long enough to make a hologram of him.

Also, interesting note that Thing!J’s holograms are physical in some way, since the detective was holding a mug that turned out to be a hologram and she was obviously surprised when it disappeared. Same thing for Hologram!N’s rockets, since Uzi reacted to them.

some minor theories;

I have a hunch that the Worker Drones planned the core meltdown that killed the humans, perhaps urged on by CYN.

Also theorizing that the unnamed drone in the flashback is going to be in one of the three pods heading for the planet.

and unrelated to anything else, I love that Thad’s nickname for N is N&Ms. I need more of the two of them. I CAN’T WAIT FOR EPISODE 3

#murder drones #BUT THAT'S JUST A THEORY- A GAME-#*gets shot*

16 notes · View notes

yahoonews7 · 5 years

Link

Gibraltar’s leader attempted to deescalate the crisis with Iran over the fate of an oil tanker on Friday, saying it was “difficult to see” whether Tehran breached an agreement not to sell its oil to Syria. Iran made assurances to a court in Gibraltar that it would not deliver the seized supertanker’s two million barrels of crude oil to the Syrian regime in order to secure its release. After it was freed on Aug 18, the renamed Adrian Darya 1 sailed around the eastern Mediterranean for over a week before heading towards the Syrian coast and turning off its transponder on Sept 2. Iran claims it sold the oil to an unnamed private company. Maritime trackers say it is likely the Adrian Darya 1's contents were off-loaded to Syria through smaller vessels. Britain and the US have said such a move is in violation of European Union and US sanctions and breaches the agreement. Fabian Picardo, Gibraltar’s chief minister, however, said on Friday that “it is difficult to see whose word you’d take for it”. The British-flagged oil tanker Stena Impero is still being held by Iran Credit: Morteza Akhoondi/Tasnim News Agency via AP “You can see from the images that the oil has ended up in Syria but that’s not to say that there’s a breach of the undertaking [by Iran],” Mr Picardo said. “We did not have an undertaking that the oil would not end up in Syria. We had an undertaking from the Iranian government that they would not sell the oil to any EU sanctioned entity,” he said. British commandos on July 4 seized the vessel, then called the Grace 1, on suspicion that it was en route to Syria in breach of EU sanctions. Officials claim Iran gave as many as five separate undertakings that it would not proceed with its original sales plan. Iran’s envoy to the UK, who was summoned by the British foreign ministry over the matter, on Wednesday said Adrian Darya 1’s oil cargo was sold at sea to a third party, denying Tehran had broken assurances it gave. He also said the private buyer of the oil “sets the sale destination”. "It is now clear that Iran has breached these assurances and that the oil has been transferred to Syria and Assad’s murderous regime,” a Foreign Office statement said. “Iran’s actions represent an unacceptable violation of international norms and the UK will raise the issue at the United Nations later this month.” The development came amid heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf. EU diplomats warned yesterday that Britain's decision to join a US-led naval mission in the Gulf has delayed European efforts to set up a maritime force to ensure safe shipping in the Strait of Hormuz separate from American patrols. British-Australian citizen Jolie King and her boyfriend Mark Firkin are currently detained in Iran Credit: Instagram Britain and France proposed a European-led maritime force in July that was to be independent of the United States. They won support from Denmark, Italy and Spain, who were wary of an American mission for fear of making US-Iranian strains worse. The proposal was announced after Iran seized a British-flagged tanker in the Strait, in what was then widely seen as retaliation for the seizure of an Iranian tanker in Gibraltar by British marines. The British-flagged Stena Impero is still being held by Iran, although Tehran has signalled it could release it soon. Relations between the UK and Iran have worsened in recent days amid the news two dual British-Australian nationals have been arrested in Iran. Jolie King, a dual citizen, and her Australian boyfriend Mark Firkin, were travelling from western Australia to London through Iran when they were arrested for reportedly flying a drone. A third detainee, a former Cambridge-educated academic, has not been named. Miss King is being held in the same ward of Evin prison as Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, a charity worker charged with espionage. Richard Ratcliffe, husband of Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe, told the Telegraph: “She has been there for a few weeks. She came in from solitary very scared. As that is a very traumatic experience. “She’s gradually learning to trust the others. Nazanin told her family that she has a very good sense of humour.”

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/2LuMraG

#World news

0 notes

courtneytincher · 5 years

Text

'Difficult to see' if Iran breached Syria oil sale agreement, Gibraltar chief minister says

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

September 13, 2019 at 08:45PM via IFTTT

#Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

0 notes

bluewatsons · 7 years

Text

James Ellroy, The poet of collusion, The Guardian (Sep. 29, 2007)

Dashiell Hammett was allegedly offered five Gs to perform a contract hit. It is most likely a mythic premise. He was a Pinkerton operative at the time. A stooge for Anaconda Copper made the offer. The intended victim was a union organiser. The stooge had every reason to believe Hammett would take the job - post-first-world-war Pinkertons were a goon squad paranoically fearful of all perceived reds. Hammett's mythic refusal is a primer on situational ethics. He knew it was wrong and didn't do it. He stayed with an organisation that in part suppressed dissent and entertained murderous offers on occasion. He stayed because he loved the work and figured he could chart a moral course through it. He was right and wrong. That disjuncture is the great theme of his work.

It explains why Hammett's vision is more complex than that of his near-contemporary Raymond Chandler. Chandler wrote the man he wanted to be - gallant and with a lively satirist's wit. Hammett wrote the man he feared he might be - tenuous and sceptical in all human dealings, corruptible and addicted to violent intrigue. He stayed on the job. The job defined him. His job description was in some part "Oppression". That made him in large part a fascist tool. He knew it. He later embraced Marxist thought as a rightwing toady and used leftist dialectic for ironic definition. Detective work both fuelled and countermanded his chaotic moral state and gave him something consistently engaging to do.

The critic David T Bazelon wrote of Hammett: "The core of his art is the masculine figure in American society. He is primarily a job holder. He goes at his job with a blood-thirsty determination that proceeds from an unwillingness to go beyond it. This relationship to the job is perhaps typically American. The idea of doing or not doing a job competently has replaced the whole larger issue of good and evil."

Hammett lived and wrote in the agitated condition this implies. Detective work was a job. Writing was a job. The craft within both was The Manoeuvre. The workday Hammett stealth-walked through a world of laudanum-guzzling grifters and bent cops susceptible to night sweats and visions. It was The Boom. The mechanised horror of the first world war roiled in recent memory. The Manoeuvre was steeped in drudge work punctuated by brief bursts of action. Read files, tail, surveil. Write reports, proffer bribes, track down suspects and on occasion risk danger. Speak the language of duplicity and male one-upmanship. Solve cases in a rigorously circumscribed fashion and wonder how they ramify beyond final-report status. Observe how crime seamlessly pervades the body politic and defines a whole culture. Take The Manoeuvre and exalt its language and turn it into popular fiction.

This presented Hammett with a second - and wildly challenging - disjuncture. Detective work was by nature prosaic. File prowls, blown tails, attenuated stakeouts. Crime stories demanded near-continuous action. File prowls must yield revelation. Blown tails must provide climax. Stakeouts must further plot. Hammett knew this going in: crime fiction was preposterous melodrama with a gnat-sized reality base. Never had there been a single case rife with multiple shootouts, homicidal seductresses and wall-to-wall mayhem succinctly resolved at tale's end. Hammett had to fit social realism into a suffocatingly contrived form. He did it with language - densely spare exposition and multilayered dialogue. He gave us a spell-binding male discourse - The Manoeuvre as moral crusade, the job holders' aria and torch song. Hammett's male-speak is the gab of the grift, the scam, the dime hustle. It's the poke, the probe, the veiled query, the grab for advantage. It's the threat, the dim sanction, the offer of friendship cloaked in betrayal. Plot holes pop through Hammett's stories like speed bumps. The body count accretes with no more horror than pratfalls in farce. It doesn't matter. The language is always there.

It's the language of suspicion, alienation and the big grasp for survival. It's a constant jolt of physical movement and conversation. Hammett's heroes move and talk, move and talk, move and talk. They are professional followers, entrappers and interlocutors. They go at professional liars with great zeal and find their own dissembling skills in no way disconcerting. It is a harrowing workday context. They have placed themselves in it consciously. Hammett's workday men risk peril for trifling remuneration and never question the choice. The great satisfactions of the job are the mastery of danger and the culling of facts to form a concluding physical truth. These facts comprise the closing of the case and thus the story. Hammett's men stand hollowly proud in their constant case conclusions. They are in no way affirmed or redeemed. They have survived. They are hopped-up versions of the schmuck clerk who got through one more shift at Wal-Mart. Their mundane world swirls around them and ignores them. The Continental Op is Hammett's ultimate workday drone. He's unnamed and unattractive. He caroms through Hammett's first two novels, subsumed by lunatic events. He tails and talks, lies and lie-detects, plays off factions. He ties up cases and stands dead still, fat and implacable. The next case will show up soon. He'll find the language for it. He'll probably survive it. He'll stand dead still, fat and implacable again. He'll be a bit more ground down and frayed at the soul. He'll go on from there.

The Op speaks the first words of Red Harvest: "I first heard Personville called Poisonville by a red-haired mucker named Hickey Dewey in the Big Ship in Butte." That line stands as the tonal chord for the entire hardboiled canon. Hammett equates human beings with toxic substances and goes south from there.

Red Harvest was published in 1929. It's a coda to the Boom and a prophecy of the Depression. The Op witnesses and largely precipitates a hallucinogenic bloodbath in a Montana mining town. He pits labour against management and cops against crooks. He waddles and bluffs his way through uncountable interrogations and acclimatises himself to fatalities in war-zone numbers. He drinks laudanum and wakes up with a woman knifed to death. His actions create a momentary peace in Poisonville. That peace will soon shatter. It doesn't matter. He's moved on already - to the labyrinthine and largely incomprehensible events of The Dain Curse.

It is the sophomore curse novel that is exemplified by The Dain Curse. Whereas Red Harvest was tight and cohesive and rooted in the recent shock of the Anaconda Copper wars, its sequel is a hodgepodge of religious cult antics and baroque family lore. The story is divided unconvincingly between San Francisco and a small coastal town. Hammett wrote the book for magazine serialisation. The story runs in fits and starts and loopy plot turns, and jerks to an abrupt conclusion. Red Harvest was all dark power. The Dain Curse is all grotesquerie. It lacks context. The colourful geography and a few pithy characters fail to eclipse the what's-going-on-here?, was-this-book-written-on-booze? questions. The Dain Curse is recognisably Hammettian in this manner: a little jazz-age relic and his final ode to the Boom. The Dain Curse is a pure mystery novel written on contract. Red Harvest was a steeped-in-history novel written on spec. It displayed the advantage of personal history linked to politics.

Hammett views politics as crime most cancerous and genteel. It's crime buttressed by unspoken sanction. It's crime facilitated by a callous legal system. It's crime enforced by vicious cops in hobnailed boots. Hammett treats politics-as-crime in deadpan fashion. He assumes that the reader knows this: politics is The Manoeuvre as public spectacle and reverential shuck. That means America was a land grab. That means all political discourse is disingenuous. That means his workmen heroes refuse to soliloquise or indict - they know the game is rigged and they're feeding off scraps of trickle-down graft.

Hammett saw himself as complicit. The realisation may have fuelled his self-destructive path with alcohol and women. He was a Pinkerton. He signed on to work for an enforcement agency that squashed workers flat. He knew it was wrong. He knew he was wrong. He did the job on an ad hoc basis and couched his Manoeuvrings within The Manoeuvre in a personal moral code. The monstrous force of systemic corruption cast his code and his own job holder's life in extreme miniature and rendered everything about him small - except his guilt.

Something other than guilt drives Ned Beaumont in The Glass Key. He never tells us why he's doing what he's doing. His lack of explanation couched in constant action obscures motive and tells us that the absence of introspection is essential to the successful manoeuvre. The plot of The Glass Key is one long manoeuvre - speedballing toward a futile resolution. It's Hammett's flat-affect tale of grasping men who want things and don't know what to do with them when they get them. It's a short novel with epic sweep and a treatise on The Manoeuvre as one long grab for power.

Beaumont is a political fixer. He's a functioning drunk and a compulsive gambler on a losing streak. He works for a ward boss named Paul Madvig. Madvig runs a mid-size burg near New York City. Beaumont and Madvig have a tentative friendship based on interlocking needs within The Manoeuvre. Beaumont lives alone in a hotel suite. Madvig lives with his elderly mother and a 20-year-old daughter from some gone bust marriage. He wants to marry a senator's daughter. It's a two-front Manoeuvre: personal/political. The senator's son is murdered. Madvig's the key suspect. It's an election year. Factions want him voted out, factions want him re-elected. He wants the woman to solidify his political base and to sate an odd and gnawing tenderness within him. A gambler stiffed Ned Beaumont for three grand and change. They're both sleeping with the same woman. Ned wants his gelt. The gambler may have killed the senator's son. Ned sets out to grab his money and exonerate or doom Madvig in the process.

It's a cavalcade of Depression-era fiends in extremis. Hammett gives us dollar-driven DAs, psychopathic hoodlums, women poised with murderous intent. The story is all dialogue and movement. Horrible and heedless self-interest defines every character. The movement within movement exceeds breathlessness. People drink and light cigarettes continually. It's fuel for The Manoeuvre. Politicians blithely consider homicide as a political option. Mentions of kickbacks, bribes, pay-offs, bagmen, feral goons, strumpets, pimps, building contracts and quashed indictments abound. The Glass Key is a conversational epic. Casual talk embraces issues of great moral weight. The who-killed-the-senator's-son? quest pales behind the theme of expediency. The who-gets-the-senator's-daughter? quest ends on a bleak footnote. The survivors retain their survival skills in a diminished fashion. Their journey has stained them in ways they cannot comprehend and has impeded their shots at successful future Manoeuvres. They'll go on anyway. The game is fixed and that's what they do.

The Glass Key is Hammett's last great work of fiction. It's a model of economical storytelling. It's sombre and invigorating in equal measure. It's a predator's vision of the American jungle, and a book with a deep and troubled love for America - this huckster's paradise - itself. Hammett was the great poet of the great American collision - personal honour and corruption, opportunity and fatality.

#literature #fiction #crime fiction #analysis #history #james ellroy #red scare #dashiell hammett #greats #pathos #noir #the great depression #america

0 notes