#all of them are possibly the next to be updated except the unpublished ones

[rockinlibrarian]

🤡😈🙋‍♀️

Whoo, my brother starts following me and I suddenly have someone who Asks me stuff! Yay! Go Dan!

🤡 What’s a line, scene, or exchange you’ve written that made you laugh?

Hmm, I think my funniest fic on the whole is "The Invitation: an Epilogue," just by nature of being Diana Wynne Jones-y. That's if you don't count the Pipeweed Mafia Epic, which is unpublished but pure crack.

The single line I think I've always been most inordinately pleased with is from "The Fall of (Spoilers Redacted)"-- "My prior hist’ry with this one’s (forgive me) discommodius," which is a terrible pun perfectly executed. See, it's a line in a ballad being freestyled by the god Apollo, who in Rick Riordan's characterization absolutely would not pass up such a pun and also would absolutely stick that "forgive me" in first, and it fits the dang meter AND manages to very nearly rhyme with the character name the NEXT line ends with. The thing that tickled me most about writing it, though, was I'd been working on a totally different stanza and needed to find another word for "awkward," and when I saw THAT WORD in the thesaurus I immediately jumped ahead to THIS stanza just so I could write this line. It is absolutely the best word possible for this point in the story. But it's probably only funny if you know what he's referring to.

EDITING TO ADD: There have been a lot of parts of my stories that made me laugh in progress, but I'm coming back because I just reread this and it's almost 3 years later and I still relish this bit of dialogue (or monologue) from "We Will (Not) Always Have Each Other": "Marvelous, you all survived! Except for that unfortunate fellow, but he already was doing poorly, as I recall. But good news: I remembered how to cook brunch! I even remembered the word ‘brunch’! Would anyone care to join me in the partaking of brunch?” just because I can hear the way Oliver relishes saying the word "brunch" every time he says it.

I'm also suddenly remembering a scene in the Wash/Zoe fic I have mentioned writing but not finishing, where the soon-to-be-couple are bickering while Mal is bleeding in the background and he keeps trying to get them to remember he's there and injured, and it amuses me just thinking about it, so SOMEDAY I'll figure out how to finish that dang thing and I'll share it just so you can enjoy that scene, too.

😈 Has there been a point in a story where you did something just to be playfully mean to your readers?

Honestly, I never trust that I'll HAVE readers enough to do anything FOR them, even mischievously. I really write everything for myself and HOPE someone appreciates it. I think the closest I've gotten is that there's a lot of painfully ironic foreshadowing in "Tesseract," at least for everyone who knows what happens in A Wrinkle In Time, but the meanest thing about that fic is actually that I haven't updated it in almost a year but keep teasing the fact that HONEST I SWEAR the next chapters ARE in progress! (There's even more foreshadowing in these subsequent chapters, which The Readers WILL get to read someday I swear). (BTW Dan, that seems like a fic you would especially appreciate. I promise more chapters eventually).

🙋‍♀️ Do any irl people know you write fanfic?

Yes, I would think almost everyone does (except, like, random library patrons), but very few actually read it. Maybe they think they don't know the source material enough? But that's why I made this handy guide to how much source material you actually need to read it?

This has been a response to this Emoji Ask List Thing! Feel free to emoji ask your own!

[scribeofred]

2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47!

2. Whatis your latest fandom?

My latestfandom is Batman in terms of fic. There’s a wealth of reading material in it,and it is almost perfectly suited to my preference for brothers-relatedmaterial. There are also some very very very good writers to be found, and I’menjoying being able to consume in a large scale again, at least when I’m notsick of reading due to work.

3. Whatis the best fandom you’ve ever been involved in?

In termsof “this is my ideal place and I am never leaning,” absolutely Thunderbirds. It’salso a… very small fandom, and for a choosy consumer such as myself, that’sbeen a serious problem over the last year or two, what with the departure of alot of my favorite writers. Nevertheless, the world and the characters have embeddeddeep in my heart, and I’ll always be around somewhere in the fandom in one iterationor another.

5. Whichfandoms have your written fanfiction for?

A few! Ihave published fics for TRON: Legacy, Assassin’s Creed, FFVII, Star Wars, Sherlock,Thunderbirds, FFXV, and VLD.

As far asentirely unpublished fandoms… I have an enormous Merlin AU completelyoutlined, but I only wrote snippets of it. Too bad, because it was going to beSO GOOD. Alas, I am no good with monster projects, so it languishes, probablyforever. Unless I post the outline here. Hmm. I could do that…

7. Listyour NoTPs from each fandom you’ve been in.

Oh man. Well.Let’s see. Automatically anything incest or slash, they’re just not my mug ofpomegranate juice. Other than that, I’m relatively fluid when it comes topairings and tend to go in for anything that’s well-written and has dynamicsthat are to my taste, so I rarely hit upon pairings that make me nope entirely out.I tend to just not care about anything that doesn’t strike my fancy.

11. Whois your current OTP?

As notedabove, I am not a hardcore shipper. Favorite pairings come and go depending onmood and whether they’ve become boring due to overuse/overexposure/passage oftime or not. If I had to pick, I’d say I still default to Scott/Penny, though,because I’m still writing ’em.

13. Goon, who are your BroTPs?

Mostrecent fandoms only, in no particular order: Shiro & Pidge, Shiro &Hunk, Keith & Pidge, Keith & Hunk (VLD); Scott & Virgil, Scott& John, insert-all-possible-bro-combinations-here (TB); Dick & Jason,Jason & Stephanie, Jason & Cass, Cass & everyone, Jason & Damian(Batman).

17. Whatship have you written the most about?

I am stillinfluenced a ton by TOS, so as of the last five years, it’s Scott/Penny. They’rethe ultimate power couple, both heirs to enormous fortunes, and let’s face it:they look incredible on each other’s arm. The dynamics are lovely between them,very arch, very clever, and finding ways to make them relax around one anotheris just genuinely my favorite.

19. Anyships which you surprised yourself by liking?

Nyx/Araneafrom FFXV came out of the blue. I think I saw someone had written it once duringone of my only glances at the fandom’s AO3 section, and it lodged in my brain. Imean. I’ve read exactly one (1) fic for them and have written an equal numberof fics with them, and I don’t really think about them on my own time nowadays,but they did click with me, at least very briefly. I also super wasn’texpecting to like Shiro/Allura from VLD, but they touched hands in S2, and Idid that little flappy hand thing and made The Noise, and I knew I was InTrouble.

23. Whatfic do you desperately need to rewrite or edit?

See, I dothis thing. Where once I’ve posted a fic, I am disinclined to reread it withoutsome serious—usually external—prompting. Not because I hate it! But because I’vejust moved on to new ideas—that one has had all the hooks it had in my brainreleased by way of posting the story, and I don’t need to think about it anylonger. I’m not very interested in rewriting old material, although last week Idid reread Three Towels and a Tracy for the first time in a couple years, and Imade a few tiny tweaks to the AO3 version for improved readability. I edit soheavily while I initially write a story, though, that I really don’t leavemyself much room for editing/rewriting at a late date.

Arealistic answer would be “probably the first ten or so stories I posted becauseI know So Much More about writing, especially the technical elements, now thanI did then, and there are undoubtedly many missing/misplaced commas int them.”

29. Whatinspires you to write?

Sometimesit’s vivid mental images that I Must Put Into Words (an upcoming FFVII story);sometimes a piece of art or a song compels me to put words down. Imagery is abig thing in my writing, so it tends to be something visual that sparks aproject, although occasionally combinations of words just *sing* to be put downsomewhere. Truth told, I write for SS and no one else, so yeah, she’s myinspiration.

31. Doyou listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which bandor genre of music does it for you?

Music inand of itself rarely inspires me these days, with one notable exception, but I dousually listen to it while writing. Anything instrumental gets at least tried,but I lean toward film/game/TV scores (Hans Zimmer yaaaaaasssss), smooth jazz, epicproduction music, and some electronic music. If music is too much for onereason or another, I will pull up a soundscape generator—myNoise is amazing; I’vebeen all over the Black Hole soundscape recently—and let that run on animatefor an hour or two.

37. Doyou use established canon characters, or do you create OCs?

I alwaystry to write canon characters unless it’s necessary to create a person for aspecific scenario. OCs can be hard to connect with unless you’re very good at makingreaders care, so they’re a bit risky. I know I prefer to read about canoncharacters, though, so that drives my thinking when I create plots/scenarios.

41. Listand link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

@preludeinz is just… one of the best writers you’re ever going to find. The way she’sable to take literally any scenario or characters and make them interestingbaffles me even years into knowing her, and you will not find a better writer todescribe clothing. She’s as brilliant at handling character interactions as sheis at describing lasagna food. Also, her dialogue is A++

lurkinglurkerwholurksis another complete package. Everything about their writing is engaging andfeels so polished, and they have an enviable ability to capture characters’ voices.I’m constantly blown away by the quality of their work, and I’m waiting withbated breath for the next chapter of Nature and Nurture.

@headspacedad writes some of the best stream of consciousness I’ve encountered. The firstchapter of their story Falling took my breath away, and subsequent updatescontinue to knock the air out of me. Writing a character who’s lost a primarysense is no easy feat, but they make it incredibly easy, and indeed the storyis so rich with details that it’s 100% better that way.

If youwant a writer who’s going to challenge you with each chapter, each scene, eachparagraph, each sentence, pollywantsa is absolutely the writer for you. I’mperhaps a tiny bit traumatized by one particular work, but in general every storyis worth reading. There’s a sense of weight to each piece, a gravity that goesbeyond fandom trappings and sinks into your very bones, lives like mercury inthe bottoms of your lungs, dragging you down into the unshakable truths that areinescapably human. Real people make wrong decisions, destroy other people orthemselves; they are crude and profane and selfish and so very beautiful intheir imperfections, and polly will remind you of that with each tone-perfectword they’ve laid down.

Roundingout the list is @velkynkarma. Unusual stories and unique situations that I neverwould have considered reading are some of my favorite stories because of VK’sskill at finding the engaging threads to pull into the light. Space mouse vsCoran? Amazing. Keith + space mouse shenanigans? Incredible. Zarkon + eldritchhorror? Terrifying but so engaging. Slav and Sven AU? Worthy of popcorn. Heapsof Shiro angst? Sign me up. The high quality of both storytelling and technicalskill are not to be missed, and every new story and chapter updated is a TREAT.

(honorarymention: @deepwaterstars for being the sunbeam to my moonbeam <3)

43. Whatship do you feel needs more attention?

Uh… I’mnot sure tbh. I’m not a “shipper,” and I tend to read gen fic as a wholesalerule. I wouldn’t mind seeing a bit more Virgil/Penny, I guess?

47. Doyou leave reviews when you read fanfiction? Why/why not?

Mmmm.See. This is the thing I’m trying to get better about. Because I tend to go ALLIN when I comment and drop a solid 300–500 words, and that takes time, even ifthe words are flowing. I find it hard to write something more modest, because Iknow exactly how much I drool over the writers who leave me enormous comments,and I want to give them the same feelings. I tend to only comment whensomething has truly moved me, especially since I’ve tried to move on from the unasked-forcritique-style reviews. Maybe one day I’ll find a happy middle ground.

ask me about fanfic!

[joshuabeck1001]

Go, Go- A Power Rangers Review

WI grew up on Power Rangers. It was definitely a campy, over-the-top, poorly acted/written show, but I loved it. So did many. For me, it was essential Saturday morning viewing, right up there with the Batman Animated Series. I watched it from the original all the way through Lost Galaxy. I have no delusions about it; it was bad. But I still love it. 

So, naturally, as I became a writer, I started working in my spare time on my own Power Rangers reboot. I thought that it could be done, and be done right, in a way that wasn’t so campy, but was totally cool. I envisioned something related to the Transformers movies in visual style (I mean, Zords are totally the same as Transformers from a visual standpoint). I even had a casting list in mind, and everything.

Of course, I didn’t have the rights to the series, and I’m still unpublished, and my own books have always been my priority, so my Power Rangers adaptation became a passion project that I’d only dust off and work on when writers block struck. And, of course, as we reach the fifth Transformers film, and the Marvel cinematic universe is in full swing, other studios no doubt began looking for similar properties that weren’t tied down under contracts. And Lionsgate announced a Power Rangers reboot.

This hit me with mixed feelings. I’ve wanted to see a big screen reboot for years, but I also felt I had a good story that I personally wanted to do. I was excited to see what they did, but ultimately, I was disappointed that I wasn’t going to be the one to do it.

But enough about me. What about the movie? I saw it yesterday, and I have some things to say about it. But for a short review, if someone asked me if it is worth it, what would I say? “Go, go!”

It is not the greatest movie ever made. It is not even the greatest movie I’ve seen this year, or probably even this week. Power Rangers falls somewhere above shitty adaptations like Super Mario Bros. and Dragonball and under Iron Man. It is good, not great. But I loved it.

Overall, it was very well made. And it is a fine start to a larger series. The actors are great, and the chemistry between the “rangers”, arguably the most important aspect of the movie, is spot on. Each of the Rangers are fun to watch, and get their moment to shine. Equally impressive is Elizabeth Banks as Rita, who surprisingly is terrifying. I was not expecting that performance out of her. Brian Cranston is a good Zordon (as good as anyone could be, for a character that is a floating head), and Bill Hader is a much better Alpha-5 than the trailers let on. 

The movie starts (SPOILERS) by showing Zordon’s ship crashing on Earth. As he crawls from the wreckage, past the bodies of his dying rangers (oddly very similar to how I intended to open my version), he hides the power coins in the ground, only to be revealed when those who are worthy are near. He is then confronted by Rita the Green Ranger, who has turned against him (again, oddly similar to what I had planned, except in my version it was Zedd who was the rebellious White Ranger).

Skip ahead to the present, and we meet the five kids. The story is a little contrived as to how they all end up in the same place at the same time to find the coins, but honestly, it is probably way more realistic than it was in the original show. And the rest is pretty straightforward; they get the coins, they meet Zordon and Alpha, they train to fight Rita, etc and so forth.

The movie is funny, and at times campy, but it is actually at it’s best when it is so. It struggles more when it tries to take itself too seriously. Overall it is very well paced, spending most of the time with the “teens with attitude” training and becoming a team, and friends. This is probably the best part of the movie, and I really enjoyed the dynamic between the kids. I almost didn’t want Rita to come in and ruin it all.

Where the movie suffers most, to me, is the third act. While very full of Ranger-y action, it felt a little too fast. The rangers spent most of the movie trying to earn the ability to morph, but when they finally got their armor, they spent only about two minutes fighting in said armor before moving on to the Zords. If this had been my story, I would honestly not have even introduced the Zords in the first movie, except maybe as a tease for things to come (For comparison, in my version, Zords weren’t going to be introduced until the third story, based on Turbo, as they would have been built from the remnants of the Machine Empire featured in the second story, which was based on Zeo). I know, I know, the Zords are an essential part of Power Rangers lore, but for a movie that spent so long on the leads earning the suits themselves, I would have spent longer on them earning these giant machines that can cause as much destruction as the monsters they fight it with. The fight against Goldar should have been as epic as the fights in Pacific Rim, but it just felt too rushed. It almost felt like the third act was fan service more than it was the conclusion of the story, where the bulk of the movie spent time reinventing the Power Rangers, the third act was heavy on classic lines and shots that mimicked the show. It almost felt like they didn’t know how to end this story.

The movie also has a major villain problem. Elizabeth Banks was fandamntastic as Rita. I cannot say enough of how much I really enjoyed her version of the villain. That said, while she was the main antagonist, as per Power Rangers usual, the Rangers weren’t fighting her head on, but instead facing off against her army of rock monsters (Putties) and Goldar. I loved how the Putties were formed from the ground and whatever materials were available. Same went for Goldar, as he was made out of pure gold. However, the never explain why Rita must use Goldar specifically to pull the Zeo Crystal out of the ground (nor do they explain why she wants the Zeo Crystal so bad, beyond wanting “more power”). Is it heavy? Can it only be touched by gold? What happens if she just made a really big rock Putty to pick it up? I know that Goldar served as Rita’s “monster of the week” that the Rangers had to face off against, but given the history that they spent time building for Rita, her backstory and connection to Zordon, I would have much preferred this story to be more of a personal fight between her and the Rangers, and, like the Zords, have her resort to sending more powerful monsters after the Rangers in subsequent movies. Again, not bad, and this isn’t the first movie to have a lackluster villain, but I wish there was more. 

The story of the teens definitely borrows from movies like The Breakfast Club, but it suffers when it drops this for the more sci-fi elements; for instance, they make a big deal about the fact that Jason has a ankle monitor on, but once Billy is able to deactivate it, it doesn't play into the plot anymore, which is odd, since his dad has been very hard on him about it. Just because it has been deactivated doesn’t mean that he isn’t supposed to be home at a certain time. It would have paid off more if this had been a struggle between Jason and his father throughout the story, and made it more of an impact when Jason rescues him at the end of the movie. But the movie gets right more than it misses. Billy, my favorite character, is somewhat autistic, which I think speaks volumes that you don't have to be the star quarterback to be the superhero, and that even those with disabilities can be heroes (in fact, Billy is the first one to earn his armor). Trini is also possibly a closet lesbian. I've read other reviews that were upset by this, as why not just make her out and proud, but really I think showing her as confused about who she is speaks more to teens in high school, many of whom are struggling with discovering who they are, and many, like Trini, who are dealing with families that refuse to acknowledge or disapprove of their children in these situations. Showing that a superhero faces those same struggles is monumental. We can spend the sequels watch her accept who she is, personally as well as with the Rangers.

As I said, the movie suffered most when it took itself too seriously. I wish they had embraced the source material a little more (which is the opposite of what I had intended to do with my story... maybe it’s a good thing I’ll never get to finish it). It should have been just a little more fun, and a little less grim. And that’s a problem that a lot of movies are facing right now. DC cannot, for the life of them, get the balance between humor and darkness. Everyone is trying to copy the Marvel formula, and no one is succeeding. With Power Rangers, I can’t help but wish they had gone closer to the source material and had more fun with it. Embrace the campiness of the story. Go full on Guardians of the Galaxy with it, and just embrace what makes it silly and unique. When the movie does this, it is at it’s best. 

Also... I want the full rock theme next time, instead of whatever this was. But kudos for using a new version of the song from the original movie. That said, the music for this movie was sort of bland. I mean, by now we’ve heard people say that Marvel has a music problem, and Power Rangers went and hired one of the men primarily responsible for that problem. While Brian Tyler (who did scores for Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Avengers: Age of Ultron) is definitely not a bad composer, his score for Power Rangers is a little too generic. If you played a track from it without telling me, my first thought is that it from Transformers or any number of similar movies. Parts of it, to me, sounded like Kick-Ass or Interstellar or Man of Steel or Iron Man, but nothing ever felt original an unique. It never had a moment that felt unequivocally Power Rangers, save for the use of the original theme, which even that felt like it was thrown together in five minutes, and felt sort of out-of-place in the movie when we got it. Don’t get me wrong, I was thrilled to hear any version of the original theme, but since the rest of the movie never even hinted at the theme, it didn’t feel like it was supposed to be there.

In fact, that comes to another criticism that I’ve read in many reviews: this is a reboot that doesn’t want to be connected to the source material. And, to an extent, this is true. To me, the movie is at it’s best when it is reminiscent of the show. Sure, it didn’t need to go full camp with bad dialogue and overly exaggerated reactions, but for the most part the movie tries to reinvent the Rangers into a modern-day, post-Marvel hero story. It borrows a lot of visual ques from movies like Man of Steel. Which means when we get scenes like the Zords charging towards Angel Grove (to the original theme, no less), or lines from Rita like “make my monster grow!” (or really most of anything in the third act) they, again, feel a little out of place. And, again, don’t get me wrong; I loved seeing those moments. I felt like cheering when I saw the Zords charging. But the movie didn’t feel like it had been leading up to a moment like that, and thus it was a little disjointed.

Hopefully, the next installments will do a better job balancing the story. Like I said, I really enjoyed this one, I think it is a great start, but I definitely think they could do better. With the (SPOILERS) tease of Tommy Oliver coming in the sequel, I have high hopes. I also hope the story takes them beyond Angel Grove; I know the television series primarily stuck to the streets of Angel Grove, but given that the movie teased Zordon and Rita’s origins as Rangers, it would be awesome to get to see more of where Zordon and Rita came from. Learn how many ranger teams there are out in the galaxy, if there are any others left, and if not, what happened to them. Learn why Alpha is number 5. Learn what the rangers were responsible for, besides fighting Rita. I think there so much potential for some interesting stories and fleshing out backstories that haven’t been done on the television show. This first movie was a great introduction to what we already know, but updated. Next I want to see something new, and epic. 

So, overall, I really enjoyed this movie. Hell, I’d say I loved it. But I still had some minor irks with it. And honestly, I probably picked this apart more than I would have if I hadn’t been working on my own version of this story for the last few years. I will always feel that this movie could have done more, and could have done some things differently. But I definitely enjoyed the hell out of it, and I cannot wait to see what comes next (in the six planned sequels). 

Extra Tidbit: Since I probably won’t continue working on it, over the next few days I may post some of the designs I came up with for my Rangers series, including costume design and whatnot. If anyone’s interested in seeing such things. 

[vsplusonline]

Coronavirus pandemic: Spain sees 5,000 new Covid-19 cases in a day

New Post has been published on https://apzweb.com/coronavirus-pandemic-spain-sees-5000-new-covid-19-cases-in-a-day/

Coronavirus pandemic: Spain sees 5,000 new Covid-19 cases in a day

Spain has recorded almost 5,000 new coronavirus infections in 24 hours as it climbed into third place in the global ranking of infections behind China and Italy.

Health authorities said Saturday that virus infections have reached 24,926, up from 19,980 the day before. Total deaths were 1,326, up from 1,002 on Friday. Over 1,600 patients are in intensive care units that authorities admit are at their limits. Madrid is the hardest hit region with almost 9,000 infections.

Spain is approaching one week of tight restrictions on free moment and the closure of most shops as hospitals and nursing homes buckle under the burden of the virus outbreak. But authorities admit that they expect infections to continue to rise before the measures can hopefully reverse the trend.

The coronavirus pandemic has infected more than 275,000 people and killed more than 11,400 globally. The Covid-19 illness causes mild or moderate symptoms in most people, but severe symptoms are more likely in the elderly or those with existing health problems. More than 88,200 people have recovered so far, mostly in China.

RUSSIA

In Moscow, a deputy mayor of the Russian capital said workers are laboring around-the-clock to build a center that can treat hundreds of coronavirus victims, and that completion is expected within a month.

Follow LIVE updates on cornavirus pandemic

Placards in the style of Soviet propaganda posters have been placed at the site, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) outside Moscow’s center, exhorting builders to work at maximum speed; one shows Mayor Sergei Sobyanin pointing at the viewer and the slogan “Builders – Minutes count!”

Deputy Mayor Andrei Bochkarev said Saturday that the new facility will be able to accommodate up to 500 patients. Russia so far has recorded 253 cases of coronavirus infection.

GERMANY

In Germany’s southwestern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg is opening its hospitals to patients from the neighboring region of eastern France that’s struggling with a surge of infections with the new coronavirus.

A spokesman for the state’s health ministry confirmed a report Saturday by the daily Schwaebische Zeitung that governor Winfried Kretschmann has offered assistance to France amid a growing shortage of ICU beds there.

Markus Jox said authorities have asked all hospital in Baden-Wuerttemberg with free capacity to take in French patients requiring ventilators.

Jox said that while the state’s own capacity is limited and there are already some bottlenecks, “we will naturally try to help our French neighbors.”

UNITED KINGDOM

Meanwhile, Britain lags behind Italy, Spain and France in the spread of the new coronavirus, but already the country’s overstretched health system is creaking.

The UK’s state-funded National Health Service has about 4,000 critical-care beds and some 5,000 ventilators, and officials say that’s far fewer than will be needed as the number of cases spikes in the coming weeks.

On Thursday, a London hospital temporarily declared a “critical incident,” meaning it could take no more critically ill patients.

Unpublished NHS figures seen by The Guardian say the number of confirmed of suspected Covid-19 patients in intensive care in south London rose from seven on March 6 to 93 on March 17.

Engineering firms and automakers are stepping in to manufacture ventilators, and the government says it is shipping large supplies of protective equipment to hospitals. But some medics say they do not have confidence that they will receive the equipment they need to treat patients and keep themselves safe.

BANGKOK

The governor of Bangkok has ordered the city’s popular shopping malls to shut down except for their supermarkets and pharmacies to combat the spread of the coronavirus.

The malls’ restaurant outlets are also allowed to operate, but only for takeout and delivery orders. Convenience stores, as well as food stalls and traditional standalone markets selling fresh food, can keep operating.

Other venues in the Thai capital now ordered closed from Sunday until April 22 include swimming pools, golf courses, tattoo parlors and cockfighting rings. Public and private schools and colleges, movie theaters, gyms and bars were already ordered closed.

The latest restrictions come as Thailand announced 89 new confirmed coronavirus cases, bringing its total to 411.

THE NETHERLANDS

The Dutch military is stepping in to help transfer coronavirus patients from the hardest-hit region in the Netherlands to hospitals elsewhere in the country.

Defense Minister Ank Bijleveld tweeted that military logistics specialists will be deployed Saturday to help with transfers between hospital intensive care units.

The decision to deploy the military came after hospitals in the hard-hit Brabant region of the southern Netherlands said they are struggling to cope with all the cases.

The head of infection prevention at the Amphia Hospital in the city of Breda Jan Kluytmans told national broadcaster NOS that “hospitals in Brabant can’t handle on their own the stream of patients we expect in the short term.”

The Netherlands has confirmed around 3,000 coronavirus cases, including 106 deaths.

GREECE

China has sent 18 tons of medical supplies to Greece, including hundreds of thousands of surgical and protection masks.

An Air China flight landed in Athens on Saturday morning bringing in the supplies. They include 8 tons of equipment donated by the Chinese government, among them the 550,000 masks, and 10 tons donated by Chinese businesses and organizations.

China’s ambassador to Greece, Zhang Qiyue, said her country will do anything it can “to help our friends in Greece.” She also commended Greece for the “timely and strong” measures it has taken to limit the spread of the new virus.

Greece has confirmed at least 495 coronavirus cases, including 10 deaths.

PRAGUE

South Korean automaker Hyundai’s car plant in the Czech Republic and Kia’s factory in neighboring Slovakia have closed their production lines, bringing a key part of both countries’ economies to a standstill.

Hyundai Motor Manufacturing Czech in Nosovice won’t reopen until at least April 6 as a preventive measure against the coronavirus outbreak.

Kia is joining its affiliate Hyundai in closing the plant near the Slovak city of Zilina.

In the Czech Republic, Skoda Auto, which belongs to Germany’s Volkswagen Group, and Toyota Peugeot Citroën Automobile, a joint project of Japan’s Toyota and France’s PSA, already suspended production earlier in the week. The remaining three big car factories in Slovakia have been doing the same, including plants belong to Volkswagen, PSA and Jaguar Land Rover.

JOHANNESBURG

The number of coronavirus cases in Africa has topped 1,000, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Angola reported its first cases, and Burkina Faso’s foreign minister announced he is infected. At least 40 of Africa’s 54 countries now have confirmed cases.

The Ivory Coast said it would close its borders starting Sunday, while Ethiopia’s electoral authorities were discussing the possible impact on a national election later this year.

East Timor

The tiny Southeast Asian country of East Timor has reported its first confirmed case of the new coronavirus.

The interim health minister said Saturday that a foreign national who had returned from abroad tested positive and has been put in quarantine.

East Timor, which gained independence from Indonesia in 2002, has a population of 1.3 million.

ISTANBUL

Turkey’s president has released an audio message urging all citizens, especially the elderly and the chronically ill, to not leave their homes, take care of personal hygiene and maximize social distance to combat the coronavirus.

A senior Turkish official says President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s public announcement was forwarded to all phone companies and will reach citizens through automated calls. It is part of an effort to raise awareness among the elderly who may not have access to online information. The message was also shared on social media.

At least 670 people have tested positive for the coronavirus in Turkey and nine people have died.

South Korea

South Korea’s prime minister has “strongly recommended” that the country’s religious facilities, gyms and clubs close for the next 15 days to help stem the spread of the coronavirus.

Chung Se-kyun said in a nationally televised speech Saturday that the government plans to use administrative orders to shut down the facilities that remain open but fail to enforce proper distance between people.

He said the government could also file damage claims against churches and businesses that become linked to infections after failing to employ preventive measures.

South Korea’s epidemic has slowed, but there are growing concerns about a steady rise in infections in the Seoul metropolitan area, home to about half of South Korea’s 51 million people.

IndiaToday.in has plenty of useful resources that can help you better understand the coronavirus pandemic and protect yourself. Read our comprehensive guide (with information on how the virus spreads, precautions and symptoms), watch an expert debunk myths, learn about the first human trial of a vaccine, get live updates and access our dedicated coronavirus outbreak page. Stay safe. Take care.

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Original Post from Rapid7 Author: Teresa Copple

This blog post is a follow-up to my previous blog on using the InsightIDR API to create and maintain threat feeds into InsightIDR.

What is InsightIDR?

InsightIDR is Rapid7’s SIEM solution that helps you centralize and unify your security data, detect behavior behind breaches, and respond to attacks targeting your modern network.

Leveraging third-party threat feeds in InsightIDR

In the previous blog, I explained how to scrape the website https://abuse.ch for possible bad actors that are part of the Feodo Tracker project. In this post, we’ll expand our options and scrape a few more sites to demonstrate how this process works for more complex indicators.

As I mentioned previously, you don’t need any programming experience to use the API. This blog explains in some detail how to write your own scripts to use the Rapid7 REST API, but you can also skip this part and scroll down to the working scripts.

For demonstration purposes, I am using Microsoft’s PowerShell, but please use the scripting language of your choice.

Getting started with the InsightIDR Threat API

You will need your platform API key for this exercise. You will also need to create some private threats and have their associated threat keys handy. If you need to get the steps on how to gather these keys, please see our previous blog.

Let’s start by looking at the next abuse.ch project, Ransomware Tracker. It contains a blocklist of ransomware C&C domains, URLs, and IPs, which you can learn more about here. I want to create a threat for it, too. These blocklists look exactly like the list of bad IPs that we pulled down for Feodo Tracker, except that this time, there are three lists that we need to pull in. This site has a separate list for domains, URLs, and IPs. InsightIDR does not require a separate feed for each data type, so let’s just scrape all three pages into one list of indicators and feed that in.

In my PowerShell script, I want to pull from three sites. I could be fancy with it, but let’s do this the easy way and just add in two more $IOCURL values and read from them:

#Change the value below to the threat list that you wish to import. $IOCURL1 = "https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/RW_DOMBL.txt" $IOCURL2 = "https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/RW_URLBL.txt" $IOCURL3 = "https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/RW_IPBL.txt"

We also need to append the results from the second and third websites to the file:

#Download the indicators from the specified URL. Write-Host "Downloading indicators from website" $IOCblocklist = New-Object Net.WebClient $IOCblocklist.DownloadString($IOCURL1) > tempindicators.txt $IOCblocklist.DownloadString($IOCURL2) | Out-File tempindicators.txt -Append $IOCblocklist.DownloadString($IOCURL3) | Out-File tempindicators.txt -Append

That’s really all there is to it. This will scrape all three sites and put the results into one file. The final script then uploads into the indicated threat feed in InsightIDR. You can get the final version of this script below.

We are on a roll here, so let’s move on to a more complex type of IOC list: URL Haus. You can read about the formation and success of this project in this article, and the list of indicators for it can be downloaded from this site. As you can see, there are more fields in the list. The header for the download explains which fields are included:

# id,dateadded,url,url_status,threat,tags,urlhaus_link

The only field we actually want in our upload is the field called “url”, which is the third field in the list. Let’s go back to our script and change a few things in it to pull down the URL Haus indicators.

First, we need to change $IOCURL1 to point to the URL Haus blocklist:

#Change the value below to the threat list that you wish to import. $IOCURL1 = "https://urlhaus.abuse.ch/downloads/csv/"

Let’s delete the lines that download from the extra URLs, so we end up with this block of script reading just one website:

#Download the indicators from the specified URLs. $IOCblocklist = New-Object Net.WebClient Write-Host "Downloading indicators from website: " $IOCURL1 $IOCblocklist.DownloadString($IOCURL1) > tempindicators.txt

Next, let’s find the line that reformats the downloaded indicator, and change it so that it selects the “url” field, which is the third field in the header (i.e. Select Field3):

Write-Host "Reformat the downloaded list of indicators into a comma-delimited text file" $IOCblocklist = Import-CSV tempindicators.txt -Header "Field1", "Field2", "Field3", "Field4", "Field5", "Field6" ` | Select Field3 ` | ConvertTo-CSV -NoTypeInformation ` | % {$_ -replace ` 'G(?^|,)(("(?

[^,"]*?)"(?=,|$))|(?

".*?(?<!")("")*?"(?=,|$)))' ` ,'${start}${output}'} ` | %{$_ -replace '$',','}` | Out-File $IOCFilePath -fo -en ascii ;

gain, the final version of the script is below. There are quite a few indicators, so this script does take a few minutes to complete.

As you can see, you can use this same method to scrape many other sites that contains IOC and upload them into InsightIDR using the Community Threat feature.

Do you have some comments or interesting use cases for the Threat API? Have some websites you find useful and want to share? Please feel free to comment below to add to the discussion!

Final script for ransomware tracker

############################################################################ # Copyright (c) Rapid7, LLC 2016 All Right Reserved, http://www.rapid7.com/ # All rights reserved. This material contains unpublished, copyrighted # work including confidential and proprietary information of Rapid7. ############################################################################ # # abusech_ransomwaretrackers_indicators.ps1 # # Script version: 2.1.0 # PowerShell Version: 4.0.1.1 # Source: consultant-public # # THIS CODE AND INFORMATION ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY # KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE # IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A # PARTICULAR PURPOSE. # # Tags: INSIGHTIDR # # Description: # This script will download indicators from the location specified, place # them into a CSV file, and then upload them to the private threat feed # specified. This script is intended to be used with the InsightIDR # Threat Community threats and uses the InsightiDR REST API v1. # #***** VARIABLES TO BE UPDATED ***** #Change the value below to the threat list that you wish to import. $IOCURL1 = "https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/RW_DOMBL.txt" $IOCURL2 = "https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/RW_URLBL.txt" $IOCURL3 = "https://ransomwaretracker.abuse.ch/downloads/RW_IPBL.txt" #Change this value to the Threat Key for the threat that is being modified. #Get the threat key by opening your community threat and selecting Threat Key. $ThreatKey = "" $headers = @{} #Enter in your platform API key. This can be generated from the Rapid7 Platform home. #Log into https://insight.rapid7.com and use the API Management section to generate a key. $headers["X-Api-Key"] = "" #***** END OF VARIABLES TO BE UPDATED ***** #These files are used when downloading the indicators and converting them to CSV format. #They are left insitu on purpose so that you can verify that the script works. If this bothers you, #use the sections below to delete these temp files after the indicators are uploaded. #The first file contains a list of indicators scraped from the $IOCURL website. It is not cleaned up. $IOCOutputFileName = "indicators.txt" #The CSV file is clean and ready to be uploaded. $CSVOutputFileName = "indicators.csv" # Get the location of the script for the output files. Output files # will be located where script is being run. $path = Get-Location $IOCFilePath = "$path" + "$IOCOutputFileName" $CSVFilePath = "$path" + "$CSVOutputFileName" #This location is where the threats will be uploaded. $Url = "https://us.api.insight.rapid7.com/idr/v1/customthreats/key/" + $ThreatKey + "/indicators/replace?format=csv" #Configure the download to use TLS 1.2 [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = {$true} [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = 'Tls12' #delete text download file if it exists already if (Test-Path tempindicators.txt) { Write-Host "Deleting existing indicator file: tempindicators.txt" Remove-Item tempindicators.txt } #delete text download file if it exists already if (Test-Path $IOCFilePath) { Write-Host "Deleting existing indicator file: $IOCFilePath" Remove-Item $IOCFilePath } #delete csv file of downloaded indicators if it exists already if (Test-Path $CSVFilePath) { Write-Host "Deleting existing CSV file: $CSVFilePath" Remove-Item $CSVFilePath } #Download the indicators from the specified URLs. $IOCblocklist = New-Object Net.WebClient Write-Host "Downloading indicators from website: " $IOCURL1 $IOCblocklist.DownloadString($IOCURL1) > tempindicators.txt Write-Host "Downloading indicators from website: " $IOCURL2 $IOCblocklist.DownloadString($IOCURL2) | Out-File tempindicators.txt -Append Write-Host "Downloading indicators from website: " $IOCURL3 $IOCblocklist.DownloadString($IOCURL3) | Out-File tempindicators.txt -Append #Clean up the temp file of downloaded indicators. #This script pulls out an indicator from the first field in the list of output. You may need to select a different field. #Change the Select Field1 line to match whatever field has the indicators in it. #The rest of this block cleans up the download and adds commas to end of each line (so it will be a CSV file). Write-Host "Reformat the downloaded list of indicators into a comma-delimited text file" $IOCblocklist = Import-CSV tempindicators.txt -Header "Field1", "Field2", "Field3", "Field4", "Field5", "Field6" ` | Select Field1 ` | ConvertTo-CSV -NoTypeInformation ` | % {$_ -replace ` 'G(?^|,)(("(?

[^,"]*?)"(?=,|$))|(?

".*?(?<!")("")*?"(?=,|$)))' ` ,'${start}${output}'} ` | %{$_ -replace '$',','}` | Out-File $IOCFilePath -fo -en ascii ; #You can uncomment the following line to delete blank lines from the output, if there are any. #(Get-Content $IOCFilePath) | ? {$_.trim() -ne "" } | set-content $CSVFilePath Write-Host "Clean up the file by removing the header" #Skip reading the first line of the file, which is a header. #Delete all of the lines that start with a #, which are also part of the header. Get-Content $IOCFilePath | Select-Object -Skip 1 | Where { $_ -notmatch '^#' } | Set-Content $CSVFilePath #checks for indicator csv file. If it does not exist, end script. if (-not (Test-Path $CSVFilePath)) { Write-Host "Empty Indicators List, Ending Script without uploading any content" Break } #Command to emulate curl with powershell. Write-Host "Starting command to connect to API" $ContentType = 'text/csv' $Response = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $url -Headers $headers -InFile $CSVFilePath -Method Post -ContentType $ContentType -UseBasicParsing Write-Host "Script has finished running. Check your results."

Final script for URL Haus

############################################################################ # Copyright (c) Rapid7, LLC 2016 All Right Reserved, http://www.rapid7.com/ # All rights reserved. This material contains unpublished, copyrighted # work including confidential and proprietary information of Rapid7. ############################################################################ # # abusech_urlhaus_indicators.ps1 # # Script version: 2.1.0 # PowerShell Version: 4.0.1.1 # Source: consultant-public # # THIS CODE AND INFORMATION ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY # KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE # IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND/OR FITNESS FOR A # PARTICULAR PURPOSE. # # Tags: INSIGHTIDR # # Description: # This script will download indicators from the location specified, place # them into a CSV file, and then upload them to the private threat feed # specified. This script is intended to be used with the InsightIDR # Threat Community threats and uses the InsightiDR REST API v1. # #***** VARIABLES TO BE UPDATED ***** #Change the value below to the threat list that you wish to import. $IOCURL1 = "https://urlhaus.abuse.ch/downloads/csv/" #Change this value to the Threat Key for the threat that is being modified. #Get the threat key by opening your community threat and selecting Threat Key. $ThreatKey = "" $headers = @{} #Enter in your platform API key. This can be generated from the Rapid7 Platform home. #Log into https://insight.rapid7.com and use the API Management section to generate a key. $headers["X-Api-Key"] = "" #***** END OF VARIABLES TO BE UPDATED ***** #These files are used when downloading the indicators and converting them to CSV format. #They are left insitu on purpose so that you can verify that the script works. If this bothers you, #use the sections below to delete these temp files after the indicators are uploaded. #The first file contains a list of indicators scraped from the $IOCURL website. It is not cleaned up. $IOCOutputFileName = "indicators.txt" #The CSV file is clean and ready to be uploaded. $CSVOutputFileName = "indicators.csv" # Get the location of the script for the output files. Output files # will be located where script is being run. $path = Get-Location $IOCFilePath = "$path" + "$IOCOutputFileName" $CSVFilePath = "$path" + "$CSVOutputFileName" #This location is where the threats will be uploaded. $Url = "https://us.api.insight.rapid7.com/idr/v1/customthreats/key/" + $ThreatKey + "/indicators/replace?format=csv" #Configure the download to use TLS 1.2 [System.Net.ServicePointManager]::ServerCertificateValidationCallback = {$true} [Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = 'Tls12' #delete text download file if it exists already if (Test-Path tempindicators.txt) { Write-Host "Deleting existing indicator file: tempindicators.txt" Remove-Item tempindicators.txt } #delete text download file if it exists already if (Test-Path $IOCFilePath) { Write-Host "Deleting existing indicator file: $IOCFilePath" Remove-Item $IOCFilePath } #delete csv file of downloaded indicators if it exists already if (Test-Path $CSVFilePath) { Write-Host "Deleting existing CSV file: $CSVFilePath" Remove-Item $CSVFilePath } #Download the indicators from the specified URLs. $IOCblocklist = New-Object Net.WebClient Write-Host "Downloading indicators from website: " $IOCURL1 $IOCblocklist.DownloadString($IOCURL1) > tempindicators.txt #Clean up the temp file of downloaded indicators. #This script pulls out an indicator from the first field in the list of output. You may need to select a different field. #Change the Select Field1 line to match whatever field has the indicators in it. #The rest of this block cleans up the download and adds commas to end of each line (so it will be a CSV file). Write-Host "Reformat the downloaded list of indicators into a comma-delimited text file" $IOCblocklist = Import-CSV tempindicators.txt -Header "Field1", "Field2", "Field3", "Field4", "Field5", "Field6" ` | Select Field3 ` | ConvertTo-CSV -NoTypeInformation ` | % {$_ -replace ` 'G(?^|,)(("(?

[^,"]*?)"(?=,|$))|(?

".*?(?<!")("")*?"(?=,|$)))' ` ,'${start}${output}'} ` | %{$_ -replace '$',','}` | Out-File $IOCFilePath -fo -en ascii ; #You can uncomment the following line to delete blank lines from the output, if there are any. #(Get-Content $IOCFilePath) | ? {$_.trim() -ne "" } | set-content $CSVFilePath Write-Host "Clean up the file by removing the header" #Skip reading the first two lines of the file, which are headers describing the fields in the file. #Delete all of the lines that start with a #, which are also part of the header. Get-Content $IOCFilePath | Select-Object -Skip 2 | Where { $_ -notmatch '^#' } | Set-Content $CSVFilePath #checks for indicator csv file. If it does not exist, end script. if (-not (Test-Path $CSVFilePath)) { Write-Host "Empty Indicators List, Ending Script without uploading any content" Break } #Command to emulate curl with powershell. Write-Host "Starting command to connect to API" $ContentType = 'text/csv' $Response = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $url -Headers $headers -InFile $CSVFilePath -Method Post -ContentType $ContentType -UseBasicParsing Write-Host "Script has finished running. Check your results."

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Go to Source Author: Teresa Copple Unlocking the Power of the InsightIDR Threat API, Part 2 Original Post from Rapid7 Author: Teresa Copple This blog post is a follow-up to my previous blog on…