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ckneal · 4 years ago

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There’s a midam AU idea that’s been living in the back of my mind for months now, but it’s been slow going. Mainly because I suspect that doing the idea justice is going to mean doing more research than I’m used to, and maybe even rewatching the series proper to help me fill in some of the weak spots, and I have so many other story ideas that are frankly just easier to work on, two of which are already slated to be multi-chapter works. . . But I’m in the mood to type up something longwinded, so here we go. Keep reading if you’d like to see a rough outline of the first few chapters of this story I really hope to write out properly sometime.

(Warning, this is a long one.)

So, this story is loosely based on the Hundred Years War that took place between England and France from 1337-1453. But it’s only very loosely inspired. Very, very loosely. As in, I was reading a book, I read about one thing that happened, it germinated in my head, and then suddenly I had a plot developing that featured my current favorite ship. Additional sources of inspiration include one of my favorite fantasy series, and a personally beloved trashy romance novel. Because it’s fanfiction, folks. There are no rules here.

Of course, in this AU, the entire world is going to be made up, with neither side of the war distinctly being assigned the role of England or France—or Flanders or Burgundy, for that matter. I barrowed an inciting incident, and few smaller details from history to help things along here and there, but with no regard for keeping all the French things assigned to one group and the English ones to another.

That said, the inciting incident took its inspiration from the Battle of Poiters, a conflict during which England not only won against the French, but also took their king hostage. King Jean II was later ransomed back to his people, but at a sum that was so high, France could not afford to pay it all at once. England still returned France’s king, but new hostages were provided to serve as collateral during the interim, including the King’s son.

So. . .crown Prince Michael Shurley completely decimates King John Winchester on the battlefield, and sends his demands to John’s queen, Mary Winchester. The two kingdoms have been locked in a territory dispute for several decades, and this is one of the more humiliating events to befall the smaller kingdom yet, especially since they are unable to meet all of Michael’s demands. When the Winchesters begrudgingly admit this to the Shurley representatives, they’re caught off guard when they’re offered a trade: John Winchester will be returned, so long Dean Winchester takes his place as collateral.

Things are less than stable in the Winchester kingdom however, with more than a few factions quietly scheming for power. John and Mary were an arranged marriage that was originally held up like a fairytale when the two seemingly fell madly in love during their mandated courtship, but the years afterward had changed them. Civil unrest sparked by the war had brought out a lot of disagreements between the Winchesters and the Campbells and their approaches to governing.

John’s supporters are the ones to step forward with a plan, and convince Mary that it’s vitally important the people are not alarmed by their king’s capture. Mary initially finds it distasteful, but it’s talked around and adjusted and reframed, as John’s people ferret out more and more information about the vital party involved, until she finally agrees.

Because John Winchester just happened to have a bastard son. The resemblance to Dean might not be particularly remarkable, but no one at the Shurley court has ever seen the Winchester heir before. Plus, Adam Milligan has spent the entirety of his teen years studying to become a physician, of all things. He’s perfect for their purposes.

Ten years prior, the Shurley court had had to deal with its own bout of civil unrest, when King Chuck Shurley’s second eldest son had attempted to overthrow him with the support of several nobles from one the kingdom’s richest providences. Lucifer had allegedly been driven into exile following his defeat, and Chuck had been said to have contracted some sort of mysterious illness. According to rumors, the king had shut himself up in his private chambers and refused to admit anyone apart from his remaining children. Even servants were barred from tending him directly.

They snatch Adam away from his studies and force him into compliance by dusting off an archaic law left over from before the start of the war, when the kingdom relied on a conscription military force rather than a standing army full of career military professionals—this law empowering the crown to call on any of its citizens for a minimum forty days of military service per year. They tell Adam that his mission seems more dangerous than it is—really, all he has to do is pretend to be Dean, and use his medical knowledge to figure out exactly what mysterious illness has bedridden the enemy monarch.

Sam and Dean—the proverbial heir and spare of the kingdom—are not at court to meet their younger brother, when he’s hastily fitted for a royal wardrobe and put through a crash course on court etiquette. Sam is very publicly put on display at a holiday festival in another part of the kingdom, while Dean is sent orders to quietly stay behind at a country estate while his valet, Kevin Tran, is sent on to court. Neither of the princes is told about the plan until after Adam has already been shipped out, with Kevin in toe to help Adam along with the impersonation.

No one involved is in anyway comfortable with the mission. But it was only supposed to be for forty days. Adam was assured that the necessary funds to pay off the ransom would either be raised by the end of the minimum mandated service, or they would make contact to extract him. The Campbells and the Winchesters both allegedly had spies in the Shurley court, and they would make themselves known when the time was right.

Adam is given the impression that the latter had been told to him with the intention of making him feel safer. It did not work.

He’s terrified when he arrives—almost would have preferred being promptly thrown into a dungeon upon arrival, instead of a room full of foreign nobility who one and all give off the impression that if cut they’d bleed straight silver, and look at “Dean,” the hostage prince and purported military genius from the tiny, vicious country across the channel, as a curiosity to be studied. He’s assigned two guards (who I decided will be Anael and Samandriel, based entirely on the tags I threw together at then end of this post, during which I decided that I love these three together), who follow him around relentlessly, but beyond that, he’s. . .pretty much treated like a guest. If a stiflingly monitored one. There are limitations on where he can go and what he can do, but for the most part he’s just sort of. . .there.

Most unnerving of all, however, is the small package that Adam finds in his room when he first settles in. Kevin swears he has no idea who left it. It has the Campbell’s insignia clearly worked into the pattern of the paper it’s wrapped in, and inside he finds a knife small enough to conceal on his person, and a number of different herbs and powders that he recognizes from his studies—though of course, he’s more familiar with remedies to counteract their effects.

In other words, he finds an assassin’s-first-kill-job kit, and instructions on how and when to use it, if opportunity arises. This had not been part of the deal when Adam reluctantly signed on.

Unbeknownst to Adam however—though suspected by some parties in the Winchester court—Adam cannot assassinate Chuck Shurley, because Chuck is not there. Shortly after Lucifer’s insurrection, Chuck had quietly disappeared. Michael had only been a teenager at the time. He invented the story about Chuck being ill on impulse, certain that Chuck would be back sooner than later, and Raphael had gone along with it because, being twelve years old, Raphael was not yet old enough to question Michael’s judgement. It is now an awkward point between them.

Adam soon becomes another.

Michael regularly checks in to see how Adam’s getting on, in a way that Kevin assures Adam is entirely appropriate, since Michael is under the impression that Adam is going to be a fellow monarch someday, and is likely trying to be courteous. Adam inherently feels somewhat flustered around Michael though, which is not helped by the fact that Michael is somehow always present whenever Adam puts his foot in his mouth socially. On more than one occasion, he’s thankful that almost no one has actually been to his homeland, allowing Adam to blame an astonishing number of fuck ups on cultural differences.

Michael and Adam’s early one on one interaction are intensely awkward. Adam will forget to wear gloves, and then Michael will comment that Adam’s hands are oddly devoid of callouses for someone who’d practically been raised with a sword in his hand, leaving Adam to scramble for some flimsy excuse about hand cream. Adam will inquisitively ask questions about what sort of illness would be severe enough to leave someone bedridden for a decade but not kill them in that time (Kevin frantically motioning over Michael’s shoulder to convey that that is NOT the right way to fish for details on such a sensitive subject), and Michael will struggle to find an excuse around the quietly bubbling panic, because he hasn’t had to try to explain anything about his father since that first year, and he is not a particularly gifted liar.

And then there’s Raphael.

Unlike Michael, Raphael is suspicious of “Dean” right from the start, pulling Michael aside to point out things that don’t seem quite right according to what their informants have told them about Dean Winchester.

“Doesn’t he look a bit young?”

“Some people look younger than they are, Raphael.”

“I was told Dean Winchester had dark hair.”

“Dark blond is dark.”

“Aren’t his eyes supposed to be green?”

“They’re obviously blue.”

“That’s exactly my point.”

The forty days come and go with Adam and Kevin nervously waiting for some sort of sign from home. Roughly two weeks later, a messenger arrives with unexpected news for Michael’s court: the Campbells have officially broken ties with the Winchesters in a violent bid for power that has left the kingdom at war with itself.

According to Kevin, the civil war has probably slowed things down a bit, if it’s as bad as the rumors say. . .

Adam and Kevin are stranded.

“Don’t worry though—I know Dean, and he knows our necks are on the line. He’ll keep out of sight until they manage to get us out of here.”

Adam finds it difficult to put faith in the virtues of a brother he’s never met, but doesn’t have it in him to question Kevin’s faith. He worries about his mother, who might have been safe in the countryside, but also might have made the trek to the capitol when it came out that Adam had been abducted for the sake of persevering the royal family's throne. He can’t be sure.

And to top it off, Michael takes to stopping by Adam’s room every couple of days to privately talk about the movements of the various factions—who has been sighted where and in what condition, where they’re rumored to be headed. Adam interprets it as an attempt to shake out inside information. One day, Adam finally tries to set him straight by saying it doesn’t matter how many ugly details Michael throws at him, Adam can’t help him because he doesn’t know anything—and is promptly put to shame when Michael looks at him in surprise and says, “You misunderstand. I assumed that you would want to know these things, because they are your family.”

Michael leaves, and Adam’s guards exchange a look. When asked, Samandriel awkwardly tells Adam that the royal family used to have a fourth child. Gabriel. He was lost during Lucifer’s insurrection. Pirates overtook his ship. They’d never received a ransom. Michael had purportedly offered a standing reward for any news of Gabriel, and put an unwise amount of resources into searching for him until it threatened the war effort.

Adam and Michael start talking more frequently from there, starting with an apology on Adam’s part. It’s tricky at first, because Michael starts out asking questions about Dean Winchester's military exploits—it is the most likely common ground between them, after all—and Adam has to hastily change the subject every time. By the two month mark, they’re talking affably, and rumors start to circulate through the courts as Michael's routine check ins on Adam start getting less formal and more frequent.

On the four month mark, rumors get even worse. Raphael finally sits Michael down and really gets into all of the things about “Dean” that don’t add up, item by item. If he’s trying to pretend he doesn’t know anything about his country’s military exploits, he’s far too convincing given his reported record, and Raphael has it on good authority that more than half of those “cultural differences” in etiquette that keep cropping up are completely unfounded—and look here, three different informants have sent lists of Dean Winchester’s physical characteristics, and the foreign prince DOES NOT MATCH.

“Michael, something is not right here.”

“Fine, I’ll talk to him about it now.”

And Michael storms off to address “Dean,” while Raphael calls after him that he should wait until morning. Because it is the middle of the night.

Adam just happens to be up reading. Michael’s familiar with the book. Michael gets distracted, and they talk all night. The sun’s coming up when Michael finally leaves, and a servant happens to see him slipping out of Adam’s room. Suggestive conjectures promptly follow, and Raphael exasperatedly admits they only have themself to blame.

And this only gets worse, because now Adam and Michael have transitioned into being friends. No more guarded conversations where one is convinced the other is about to catch them in some sort of lie. When Raphael mentions that some of the lesser nobles are starting to think Michael and Adam are courting, Michael’s fidgeting is not at all lost on them, as Michael assures them that of course that isn't the case. He and Dean are merely establishing friendly relations that will serve them well down the road politically—

“After the war is over?”

“Of course, after the war is over.”

Adam’s been stranded in the Shurley court for almost a year by the time that he finally slips into his room and sees a sealed message set out on his bed. Adam doesn’t recognize the insignia as belonging to either the Winchesters or the Campbells, but it’s signed with the initials “SW” at the bottom. It mostly contains a lot of vague phrases that make Adam wonder if he was supposed to be versed in some sort of code. As far as he’s concerned, the only important information comes at the end: Kate Milligan has been safely relocated for the duration of the civil war.

Relieved, Adam goes down to dinner, where some sort of seasonal holiday is being celebrated, and has a bit more wine than he normally would. The Shurley court is one of those stuffy courts where seating is stiffly dictated by tradition. As a foreign prince, Adam’s assigned seat is at the same table as Michael, although, according to Kevin, his placement's much further down due to his being a hostage. After a few drinks, and after most of the nobles have cleared off from the table to talk and celebrate elsewhere in the hall, Adam sees no reason not to get up and relocate down the line of chairs to sit closer to Michael. It was against the rules, but Adam was aware enough not to sit in Raphael’s empty seat, and he’d been seen with Michael so often that Anael and Samandriel barely even blinked, because Adam obviously wasn’t about to attack their prince or anything.

However, it is worth noting that while talking to Adam, Michael consumes a decent amount more wine than he would normally have as well.

Later that night, Michael’s walking Adam back to his room, and he starts to comment that Adam seems happier than usual. But even when sober, Michael would struggle to say something like that—if he’d even attempt it while sober—and Adam winds up biting his lip as he watches Michael’s mounting embarrassment, as a simple compliment inexplicably morphs—words seemingly forcing their way out as Michael tries and utterly fails to stop them—into a compliment about how Adam is beautiful—that is, he’s always beautiful—that is, Michael can’t help noticing Adam most days—that is. . .

. . .Michael is adorable. And in a moment of pure, thoughtless impulse, Adam leans in and kisses Michael right there in the corridor.

Michael is profoundly shocked, and his reaction delayed. Adam had only gone in intending to briefly press his lips against Michael’s, but as he’s pulling away Michael abruptly leans in and reseals the kiss, and Adam in turn takes that as an invitation to pull Michael closer. And a few minutes later, Raphael happens to walk down the hallway and find the two of them enthusiastically kissing against the wall.

And Raphael promptly turns around and goes back the way they came, only stopping at one point to flag down a servant and order them not to let anyone else walk down that particular corridor for at least an hour, hoping that Michael and Adam’s “friendly relations” wouldn’t result in anything too inappropriate.

As it happens, nothing particularly inappropriate happens. Nonetheless, Michael still wakes up the next morning, fully clothed in his own bed, in panic because the first thought to distinctly make its way through the ungodly pain in his head is that he’d taken liberties with a guest the night before. The heir to a foreign power at that, a peer, a hostage! Michael never thought he was capable of something so dishonorable--he’d had Dean pressed up against the wall as if they were a couple of ill-bred urchins, and how does one even go about apologizing for something like that?

(Of course, if Michael were thinking clearly, he might have remembered that Adam had actually been the one to back himself up against the wall, with Michael obligingly following along, quite malleable to whatever positioning Adam wanted so long as Adam kept kissing him.)

Michael’s behavior was beyond unacceptable. If his father hadn’t already abandoned them, he’d likely disown Michael out of pure shame. There was no telling what kind of damage he’d done to the relationship between their kingdoms. At best, Michael’s uncouth actions would be a dirty secret between them in the years to come, after Dean married, and Michael was left barely able to look Dean’s spouse in the eye. If Michael were a lesser noble, his parents might demand he married Dean outright.

And suddenly Michael sat up in bed, realizing he could marry Dean. His mind begins racing, because of course he could marry Dean! It made perfect sense. They enjoyed each other’s company, and with both of them being heir to their respective kingdoms, their union would effectively end the war. It might be complicated—especially given some of the odd customs Dean had introduced to Michael’s court—but marriages had been used to cemented alliances often enough, and the thought of marrying Dean elicited a curiously hot feeling in Michael’s stomach, remembering the way Adam had pulled him close the night before.

(Fun fact, England and France actually did try to do this with the Treaty of Troyes in 1420; it did not go as planned.)

Michael goes through the rest of his day in an uncharacteristically upbeat mindset, because now it all seems to just be a matter of organizing things, and he is good at organizing. He would have to write to either John or Mary Winchester as soon as the situation in their kingdom settled, and formally ask for Dean’s hand, and he and Dean should have a chaperone present at all times moving forward to avoid scandal--though there would be no way to sidestep scandal altogether, of course. Adam was still technically Michael’s prisoner.

More than likely, the Winchesters or Campbells would demand Michael relinquish his claim to at least half of the territories that they’d spent the last few decades fighting over, but that would be fine. It’s traditional in Michael’s country to give gifts to one’s in-laws, and Dean is a future monarch. Anything too little would be insulting, and all would be consolidated eventually when Dean and Michael assumed their respective thrones. . .

Michael is still walking around delightfully living in his own head when Raphael pulls him into an empty room to discuss what they witnessed the night before. While not the most shocking scenario they could have imagined, they were not expecting to hear their brother announce that he and Dean Winchester would be getting married.

“And how are we to explain away our father’s absence during the proceedings, Michael?”

Michael’s good mood promptly withers. Because of course Chuck would be expected to play some part in arranging his son’s wedding. Ill or not, at the very least, he would be expected to make an appearance at the wedding. To have no part in it at all would be suspicious, not to mention rude.

While Raphael intended to snap Michael back to his senses, they had not meant to shake Michael into an immediate depression. They try for a gentler tone.

“You know, Michael. Our father has been gone for over a decade. He left no formal plans, he's sent no word. By any standard, he's abdicated. Perhaps this isn’t the right time to introduce a political marriage. Perhaps we should consider your assuming the kingship, and then come back around to formalizing your relationship with Dean—”

Michael, of course, is against this. Because their father is alive, and he will come back, and it will not be to find that another one of his sons had greedily tried to usurp the throne.

Seeing Michael about to fall back onto a familiar tangent, Raphael chooses the lesser of two evils and takes the conversation back to “Dean.” They ask which out of the two of them proposed to the other.

Michael abruptly realizes that he's forgotten something.

Meanwhile, Adam starts his morning on a much happier note. His headache is less punishing than Michael’s, and while feeling the normal amount of embarrassment that comes with drinking a little too much, the feeling does not extend to kissing Michael. His mother’s safe, he’s nailing his Dean impression, and Michael apparently likes him. Things could not be better. Until Adam remembers how the latter two items on that list are linked.

Michael is not like a classmate back home, who he could chat up, get a drink with, and maybe start seeing regularly if all things went well. Michael is, in fact, the acting ruler of one of the most powerful countries in the world, which just so happens to be at war with Adam’s, and under the explicit impression that Adam is similarly situated in the world.

Adam promptly begins freaking out.

And then Michael finds him.

Adam’s in the library at the time. Michael walks in and quietly dismisses Adam’s guards, and Kevin, leaving the two of them completely alone. Adam doesn’t realize what Michael’s doing right away, though he’s spent enough time with Michael to recognize how nervous he is as he starts talking about a proposal to end the war—selling the idea, as if Michael wouldn’t be enough on his own—and then sheepishly tapering into the idea that both he and Adam seem to have feelings for one another. And if Adam were able to go back in time and strangle his tipsy past self, he would, because then he wouldn’t have to see the look on Michael’s face when he says no.

And no, Michael does not understand.

Adam can hear years of living in the public eye at work in Michael voice, as he just manages to keep his voice level in asking, “Even if it would mean peace?”

"I'm sorry, I just—I can't."

". . .I see."

Michael excuses himself, and Adam collapses onto a couch, assuring himself that no was the only right answer, and he shouldn’t feel terrible—which, of course, since Adam’s spent the last couple of months flirting with Michael while posing as someone else, is not an easy idea to buy into.

Michael and Adam avoid eye contact at dinner, even as Raphael—who has zero doubts as to who initiated what the night before—practically burns holes into Adam’s skin with the looks they shoot down the table.

And then a messenger comes in. One of the wealthiest duchies in the kingdom (the same one that had once supported Lucifer, and of course would be populated with demon characters in the narrative) has declared its independence, having formed an alliance with the Campbells, and has launched an attack not far from the castle. Several villages have already been attacked along the way. Michael accompanies the armed forces he sends out to quash the uprising.

Raphael is left behind to fortify the castle and take in the refugees, who the messenger assured them are not far behind. Unlike Michael, Raphael rarely saw combat. Officially, it was because Raphael had adamantly insisted on training as a healer rather than a warrior, which was true enough. Unofficially though, Michael and Raphael are both fully aware that if anything happened to Michael, Raphael is the only one left to inherent the crown.

Samandirel and Anael escort Adam back to his room. Samandriel assures Adam that no one thinks he had anything to do with the duchy double crossing them, but it would probably just be safer for Adam to stay out of sight until things calm down. Anael is more closed-lipped about the situation.

From his window, Adam watches the first of the villagers come trickling in, and even from his vantage point he can make out burn wounds, makeshift bandages and hastily thrown together tourniquets, and he’s in hell, because it seems the only two options in front of him are to worry about Michael, or feel absolutely sick with guilt because he’s a trained physician and he should be down there helping.

Finally he pokes his head out into the corridor and asks if someone can find Kevin for him. Anael raises an eyebrow that “Dean,” who’s usually inordinately self-suffice for a prince, is suddenly insisting that he needs to see his manservant, but Samandriel is already helpfully heading down the hall. A few minutes later, Kevin is in Adam’s room, confused, as Adam asks him to take off his clothes.

“You can have mine, just switch with me, okay?”

“Uuh. . . Don’t you think mine will be a little tight on you—”

“Less talk! Strip!”

Michael had probably errored in assigning the same two guards to watch over Adam. After a year, the three of them had gotten to be on fairly familiar terms. Adam waited until Samandriel started to get chatty, and slipped quietly out of his room when Anael was distracted—neither of them having had any reason to think Adam would try to escape, because he had been nothing but compliant since the day he arrived.

From there, he goes straight to the infirmary.

Raphael had set up tents in the courtyard to accommodate the high number of people in need of care. Adam was a year out of practice, but the atmosphere was still familiar to him, and he slipped into the chaos unnoticed. Raphael doesn’t notice him until they are well into the thick of things, and Adam’s as covered in grime and gore as anyone else present. Adam had just gone for more bandages and the two of them nearly ran into each other, and for a split second Adam thinks Raphael just might not recognize him until hand closes around his arm like a vice.

“What exactly are YOU doing here?”

Then Raphael notices the stitches Adam had just finished putting in for his latest patient—and Adam’s stitchwork is immaculate, not the clumsy, half-hazard work of a solider who picked up the mechanics of it over the course of their career.

"YOU did that?"

Adam starts to fumble out an answer, but they are interrupted because then Michael is being brought in. The fighting is over. Raphael and Adam promptly drop everything.

Michael has a concussion. He’s also been lightly stabbed. You know, just lightly. Needs stitches though. Raphael is adamant that Adam leave immediately, but Michael, who is delirious, sees Adam and absolutely refuses to let Raphael send him away. Raphael winds up patching Michael together while Adam—annoyingly, to Raphael—is sat next to him, holding Michael’s hand. Adam winds up sitting next to Michael all night, because it’s the only way to keep Michael from getting up and tearing his stitches like a feverish moron.

Initially, Raphael refuses to leave too, not trusting their brother’s suspiciously competent love interest, whose family was purportedly allied with the traitors who’d just attacked their people. There are still more wounded to tend to, however, and Raphael begrudgingly has to step away—making sure to leave orders that a guard be present in the room the entire time that Raphael is gone.

Little does Raphael know, Adam would have lowkey given a limb to have Raphael stay. Michael’s demeanor is a lot less closed off when he’s feverish and concussed. Shortly after Raphael leaves, Michael starts apologizing for proposing earlier, and Adam feels like he’s been stabbed in the gut. And as he’s lying there, looking at Adam’s hand in his, Michael starts saying things he would not normally blurt out—like that ending the war was not the main reason he wanted to marry Adam, because the last year has been the best he can remember, and it is entirely due to spending time with Adam—even if Adam was only there by obligation—and he would do anything to make Adam happy, even if they weren’t together—and Adam is just stuck there, highkey dying on the inside.

Then Michael sees his face.

"I apologize, you’ve already said you do not want to marry me, I should not have brought this up—”

Michael starts to get out of bed completely unconcerned about his stab wounds, and as Adam’s pushing him back down, the words “That’s not true!” just sort of. . .fly out.

Then Michael’s suddenly looking at Adam, and his face is suddenly very sober, and Adam can feel his own face turning red.

"That is, I. . ." Adam realizes, suddenly, that he’s fucked. Telling Michael the truth is somehow both the right and wrong thing to do at the same time, and Michael is definitely in no condition to hear it either way. “How about, if you still want to marry me when all this is over, then I’ll say yes?”

The next morning is a string of stressful events for Adam. Raphael shooed him out of Michael room at dawn, and Adam went straight back to his own. Kevin, Samandriel, and Anael had all been reprimanded for Adam’s escape, with the latter two being replaced as Adam’s guard under Raphael’s orders. His first interaction with Ishim and Maribel does not bode well for them becoming friends.

When Adam tells Kevin that he’s thinking about coming clean to Michael, Kevin panics. News from the Winchesters had dried up weeks ago, even for Michael and Raphael’s sources. Kevin argues that they’d be better off attempting to escape on their own if the charade was getting to be too much for Adam, especially after last night—but even then, they should wait awhile longer. Why take any chances right now? And Adam doesn’t know how to go about explaining the why. . .

And it gets taken out of his hands anyway, when they step out of the room and find that it’s somehow leaked that Adam and Michael—who had completely misunderstood what Adam meant by “when all this is over”—are engaged.

Kevin doesn’t get another moment alone with Adam to discuss how stupidly dangerous this whole situation is, and Adam, no matter how hard he tries—can’t seem to get a moment alone with his fiancé to try to explain that the situation is not what he thinks it is. Everyone had vastly underestimated how far the rumors about Michael and Adam secretly courting had gone, and Adam can barely take three steps without a noble or courtier or someone pulling him aside to offer their congratulations, and as Adam gets closer to Michael’s chambers, there’s Raphael, circling like a shark and Adam does not want to make his confession to Raphael before he sees Michael.

Come dinner time, Adam finds that his seat had been reassigned. He now sits directly to Michael’s left. He keeps trying to convince Michael to step out into the hall with him for a second, while Raphael, seated in their normal place to Michael’s right, continuously circumvents him, firmly believing that Adam has done more than enough in private.

Then there’s a scream. A servant comes running out into the dining hall, carrying a bloody knife. They run up to Michael—up until the guards step forward to stop her, but she’s not attacking. Instead she hands over the knife and says that she found in the corridor outside the king’s chambers. She had been worried, so she broke protocol and went in. The king’s bed was drenched in blood.

Adam looks over and feels a chill when he recognizes the same knife that had been included in the murder kit he found in his room on day one.

If Raphael had looked up, Adam had no doubt that Raphael would have read something in his face, but they didn’t get the chance to. Michael and Raphael are busy staring at each, the only ones in the room who know beyond any doubt that the implication could not be true, because there had not been anyone in that bed to assassinate in over ten years. Neither of them is given the chance to try to spin the knife’s implications in any direction, however. While the court is still reeling in shocked silence, a guard walks in—completely oblivious—and announces that a messenger has arrived with urgent news.

Adam looks up, and finds he has room to panic more, when he sees Anna Milton walk in, a serving maid in the Winchester court, and as she drops a curtsey to Michael, she identifies herself as one of Raphael’s spies. She had held her place in the Winchester court for as long as she could, but when her real identity had been uncovered she’d had no choice but to flee, and she’s come with monumental news. The civil war across the channel has ended, the Campbells having been forced to seek asylum with their allies outside the kingdom, John Winchester deposed, and Dean Winchester installed on the throne in his place. She had witnessed his coronation herself the very day they identified her.

And Adam feels very cold, as if his blood had actually managed to turn into ice, which would have explained why he couldn’t seem to move, as every eye in the room immediately turns to him.

��And that would be the end of part one.

#midam #adam milligan #supernatural michael #samandriel #supernatural raphael #anael #kevin tran #my thougths #i'm very tempted to throw jack in a joan-of-arc-inspired role

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go-events · 6 years ago

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GO Rom Com Spotlight: @minervamoon66

The amiable @minervamoon66 (also minervamoon on AO3) has claimed Victor Victoria to adapt for Good Omens in the Good Omens Rom Com Event.

For reference, here’s a little background about the source material!

About Victor Victoria: Victoria Grant (Julie Andrews), a down-and-out British soprano, struggles to find work in the nightclubs of 1930s Paris. While trying to scam a free meal, Grant meets cabaret performer Toddy (Robert Preston), who comes up with an idea that will change everything. Acting as her manager, Toddy bills Grant as a male female impersonator. When the nightclubs eat it up, the duo makes it big -- even a Chicago mobster (James Garner) is enamored with Grant. But keeping the truth a secret is no easy task.

We spent some time chatting about how the adaptation is coming so far, as well as future plans for it! Now, get to know @minervamoon66 a little better!

* * *

goromcom: So, about you: If you open a Tumblr chat with someone you haven't chatted to before, Tumblr tells you two things they post about. Tumblr reports that you post "about #good omens fic and #31 days of ineffables". That sounds incredibly on brand and valid of you. :) How did you enjoy 31 Days of Ineffables?

minervamoon66: As for the tags, I was very slow to get on Tumblr. I had an account for years but never used it until I became obsessed with GO. Not enough people local to me to rave about it with so I had to seek them out online. Nearly everything I post and heart is GO related because of it. And I loved 31 Days of Ineffables. I still haven't finished reading everything simply because I also need to catch up on so much good content all around.

goromcom: You chose to adapt Victor Victoria as your rom com. Has this movie been a favorite of yours, or is there some other reason you chose it?

minervamoon66: Victor Victoria has always been one of my favorites. I'm a sucker for musicals. Though Victor Victoria is more of a movie with a few musical numbers than a true musical, it still has a similar vibe. Maybe it's the comedic timing, or the points where it doesn't seem to take itself completely seriously. Not sure.

goromcom: How wonderful that they captured that feel in the movie without it just seeming like a filmed version of the stage play. That was probably quite a difficult line to walk.

What's your favorite moment of Victor Victoria, and are you looking forward to presenting it in your adaptation? Any loose plans for that scene that you can share?

minervamoon66: Well, one of my favorite parts is actually a bit of dialogue between two side characters. It’s Norma and Toddy's little chat about their preference for men over women, but now I get to have Crowley adding in his two cents with something like, "Both is an option."

goromcom: Oh, just have to love Crowley, don’t you? That’s a good moment for him.

Do you plan to stick very closely to the story beats of the original movie, or make bigger changes?

minervamoon66: I'd like to say I stayed close to the original beats, but then I remembered I skipped the first thirty minutes of the movie. A lot of it was visual humor that I didn't think would translate well. I backfilled with Aziraphale explaining to Crowley how she (Aziraphale is in female form for this one) ended up as a singer in a Paris nightclub. I'm also using the 1995 stage production as source material for at least one scene that wasn't done exactly the same way in the movie.

goromcom: Ah, other than borrowing from the stage play version, what's another interesting decision you've made in your planning so far--a notable casting decision, a changing of venue, or some other plan you have to paint Good Omens all over your rom com?

minervamoon66: Basically this is Victor Victoria in the Good Omens universe. Aziraphale and Crowley are still an angel and demon. Aziraphale kinda falls into being a jazz singer after an assignment in Paris, and Crowley has been spending the last decade or so as the bodyguard to an up-and-coming would-be gangster.

goromcom: Staying with canon sounds like it will be really interesting in this case!

Now that we’re wrapping up, I have a question for you that I am blatantly stealing from The Good Place: The Podcast. Tell me something "good". It can be something big or small. It can be a charity you think is doing good work, or you can talk about how great your pet is.

minervamoon66: I've always tried to support The Trevor Project when I could. Suicide prevention is important in its own right, but LGBTQ+ teens are at such a higher risk due to smallmindedness. I'd just like anyone, ANYONE who reads this to know you are not alone. I'm a safe place, and there are more like me out there. We will listen, and we will care.

* * *

Keep an eye out for the GO adaptation of Victor Victoria!

#goromcom #goromcom spotlight #good omens fic #minervamoon66 #victorvictoria

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michaelofnebadonuniverse · 5 years ago

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Perfection

Thou children of this evolutionary world of animal origins...

From the Universal Father who inhabits eternity there has gone forth the supreme mandate, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect.”

In love and mercy the messengers of Paradise have carried this divine exhortation down through the ages and out through the universes, even to such lowly animal-origin creatures as the human races of Urantia.

This magnificent and universal injunction to strive for the attainment of the perfection of divinity is the first duty, and should be the highest ambition, of all the struggling creature creation of the God of perfection.

This possibility of the attainment of divine perfection is the final and certain destiny of all man’s eternal spiritual progress.

Urantia mortals can hardly hope to be perfect in the infinite sense, but it is entirely possible for human beings, starting out as they do on this planet, to attain the supernal and divine goal which the infinite God has set for mortal man; and when they do achieve this destiny, they will, in all that pertains to self-realization and mind attainment, be just as replete in their sphere of divine perfection as God himself is in his sphere of infinity and eternity.

Such perfection may not be universal in the material sense, unlimited in intellectual grasp, or final in spiritual experience, but it is final and complete in all finite aspects of divinity of will, perfection of personality motivation, and God-consciousness.

This is the true meaning of that divine command, “Be you perfect, even as I am perfect,” which ever urges mortal man onward and beckons him inward in that long and fascinating struggle for the attainment of higher and higher levels of spiritual values and true universe meanings.

This sublime search for the God of universes is the supreme adventure of the inhabitants of all the worlds of time and space.

To speak about “the living God,” I refer to a personal Deity—the Father in heaven.

The concept of the personality of Deity facilitates fellowship; it favors intelligent worship; it promotes refreshing trustfulness. Interactions can be had between nonpersonal things, but not fellowship.

The fellowship relation of father and son, as between God and man, cannot be enjoyed unless both are persons.

Only personalities can commune with each other, albeit this personal communion may be greatly facilitated by the presence of just such an impersonal entity as the Thought Adjuster.

Man does not achieve union with God as a drop of water might find unity with the ocean.

Man attains divine union by progressive reciprocal spiritual communion, by personality intercourse with the personal God, by increasingly attaining the divine nature through wholehearted and intelligent conformity to the divine will.

Such a sublime relationship can exist only between personalities...

Presented by a Divine Counselor, a member of a group of celestial personalities assigned by the Ancients of Days on Uversa, the headquarters of the seventh superuniverse, to supervise those portions of this forthcoming revelation which have to do with affairs beyond the borders of the local universe of Nebadon.

I am commissioned to sponsor those papers portraying the nature and attributes of God because I represent the highest source of information available for such a purpose on any inhabited world.

I have served as a Divine Counselor in all seven of the superuniverses and have long resided at the Paradise center of all things. Many times have I enjoyed the supreme pleasure of a sojourn in the immediate personal presence of the Universal Father.

I portray the reality and truth of the Father’s nature and attributes with unchallengeable authority; I know whereof I speak.

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jcherrybct · 5 years ago

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17&18/3/20

I have now handed in my first assignment for BCT! 20% of the Intro to Creative Tech paper!!

So here's how I did it ...

Firstly it's important to note I definitely scored 1/3 in the phrase, ‘Fail often, fail early & fail fast,’ The reason why is down to a few things. Firstly my time management. I didn’t fail early. Having been culminating ideas for my Vlog for quite a while I assumed that I had all the information relevant to me ready and I would be able to complete the assignment stress free on the weekend before it was due. However having created my Vlog, I realised that in an attempt to be original and not look at the prompt questions given to us, I had completely missed the point of the Vlog in the first instance. I noticed this having completed my Vlog at 8 minutes long & then looking at what content was relevant. On closer inspection of the rubrics, it became clear I had made my first version far too factual and impersonal. This means that I failed late and I failed slow. I did, ‘fail,’ a little less hard on my second attempt at the vlog. Having rewatched an almost finished article, it was apparent that several parts of my script were hard to listen to & my vlog face is painfully awkward. Having edited the script and added images to my vlog, I got it submitted just in time!

https://youtu.be/c6DPEbPf4po - See my Vlog here!

Now importantly to note is what I have learnt from this. My most important take away is that I need to expect myself to fail and allow myself to fail earlier. I was overconfident about how my vlog was going to go. Had I attempted my vlog several weeks earlier I would've seen my errors and had far more time to correct them. This would’ve taken a lot of stress off and allowed me more time to create a finished article. I am still not 100% happy with my vlog, mainly the editing. Despite the fact I had unpacked several sources in detail in my first attempt and only show a brief analysis of a couple of sources in my finished blog, I feel my content is now more relevant to the questions asked. Even though I feel like it is a little bare. Ideally I would have liked to make a 20 minute video, but a brief overview will have to do! Secondly, I need to reflect on my progress before I finish my project. By only watching the vlog critically having completed it, I put in a lot more work than I needed to on both incorrect material and footage I was not happy with!

Going forward, I will do the following:

1. Start the physical sides of my projects earlier with the intentions of failing and then improving those projects. 2. Review the progress I have made on my projects early on in the process and continue to do so throughout. 3. Don’t do an arduous piece of work (Script writing) in one large block. This leads to mistakes and sloppy work.

Now to my ICT lecture on Tuesday:

The exercise we did at the start of the lecture was very interesting. Every individual in the class standing up & picking two targets in their head and not letting them know who they are. You then have to stand equidistant from both targets. I found it interesting that although frantic at the start of the task, equilibriums began to form whilst everything fell into place. This random process of picking two individuals at random ended up forming some form of order from chaos. Another interesting point to note is how the action of one person has a large knock on, ‘butterfly effect,’ on many others.

Following this we looked at the mental cultural switch that is required from where we are now to where we need to be to succeed in the workplace. I am guilty of feeling as though I require more instruction and going forward will make a conscious effort to take the initiative & be more confident in my own abilities.

Having also looked at Gibbs reflective cycle, which I found to be interesting a good thing to have seen, I liked that it gave a structured thought process to how you should be reflecting on experiences. I should have attempted to put this style of thought process into action sooner however I will now make a point of trying to use this in the future.

I hope to follow up on all the videos suggested to watch and will annotate, ‘We have the Choice,’ before uploading my thoughts here.

Moving onto Wednesdays Studio session, we presented our, ‘duel,’ performance. In which we had looked at trying to involve, ‘audience members,’ making them an interactive part and function in our game. The main issue we had was portraying a clear and concise set of instructions and formulating trigger words for our game. From this however we learnt that despite the focus of the project being creating a performance and who that performance is for, we also have to spend time focusing on other parts of studio that we have already learnt as this can have an effect on how the performance is. In future I will try and take a more holistic approach to our projects.

Today we were looking at E-Textiles as well as the physicality of objects, their, ‘thingness,’ and how they make you feel. It was interesting to note how different textures can evoke different feelings, such as being inviting or the opposite. It will be important to keep in mind how textures and things can impact how we feel about objects.

I enjoyed our introduction to the textiles lab and hope to be able to create some wearable or fabric circuits soon to aid my future products.

My group are now thinking of how we can create our project for next week, for which the brief is creating an interactive interface using things!

That’s all for now!

#CTEC502 #CTEC501

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peaamlipoetrydoctor · 2 years ago

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On the lawn, the revellers come and go, talking about all the silly games in the Chap Olympiad and that one who plays the Victorian Strongman, don’t you know?

I don't always include the source prompt but the resulting poem is odd enough if you know about the exercise , I think, and unimaginably odd if you don't?? So here it is...

And now for our daily (optional) prompt. This is another oldie-but-goodie. I remember being assigned to use it in a college poetry class, and loving the result. It really pushes you to use specific details, and to work on “conducting” the poem as it grows, instead of trying to force the poem to be one thing or another in particular. The prompt is called the “Twenty Little Poetry Projects,” and was originally developed by Jim Simmerman. And here are the twenty little projects themselves — the challenge is to use them all in one poem.

The streets today were in lockdown,

so sunny, abandoned, and clear.

All the commuters had been swept up

and tipped into a transparent Zeppelin

suspended above the north-side turret

of Tower Bridge, not drowning, drinking

toasts in memory of William and Mary.

The Bank Holiday tasted of day-old candyfloss.

tasted blue and yellow and purple and faded.

The tourists sounded like ants walking across

deep-pile polyester carpets in iron-tipped clogs.

The South Bank looked like a ravaged ant hill

whose soldier ants can’t identify their enemy.

The ebb-tide river smelt like melting tarmac.

The bench where we sat for sandwiches was

rough-hewn timber, its grains bursting open

like mountain brooks swollen by snowmelt.

The bench we sat on was smooth as the

royal blue velvet cushions that carry the

crown and orb for the King’s coronation.

Starlings hung on the suet-cakes suspended

outside our garden door, pecking, harrying,

looking for all the world like tiny dinosaurs,

and so, of course, it started raining hailstones.

And the kids were drawing chalk faces on the

bricks in the courtyard, and chanting hands,

knees, and bumpsa-daisy, bumpsa-daisies.

The tiny hand of justice didn’t take hold to

prevent them because the property manager

was on leave, because of the Bank Holiday.

The strong arm of the law was competing

in a Victorian Strongman Impersonation

contest, all fake tigerskin and fake tans

and waxed moustaches. I got up

from my seat in the front row

and I said Hey, Mister, in the

closest I could get to a coquettish

tone and then I kissed him, right

there in the middle of the stage,

in the middle of his beautiful

face. And he tasted like beeswax

and honey blossom and I said

Call me Sweetpea and he said

Could we talk about this later –

Sweetpea – because I have a

show to finish. This will be

good, this will definitely end

well, it will certainly end, I

think, with everyone living

happily ever after. And if it

doesn’t, tant pis, c’est la vie.

Eventually the Zeppelin grew discouraged

under the weight of London’s leaden air

under the avalanche of charmless chatter

from so many commuters crushed into

one place but not like on a normal day

on a normal tube journey where at least

the mercy of typical cultural conventions

means that NOBODY SPEAKS TO ANY

ONE, not unless something tremendously

dramatic has happened, like a visit from

William and Mary or Churchill in disguise

or someone giving out samples of free

candyfloss, flavoured purple/yellow/ blue.

#napowrimo #long prompt #poetry #poetic #surreal

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namariea · 8 years ago

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061

Subject No. 061 / Male / Age Unknown / Aptitude: Pyrokinesis

This was all that was presented to you regarding the incapacitated man.

Words: 3.2 k

Genre: Angst

Notes: Lucky One!AU, mention of blood, torture

“I can’t feel my body.”

Slowly, your eyes lifted from their position on the tray over to the source of the voice. Unperturbed by the disruption, your gaze reverted to its original place as you silently continued your task, not before your voice cut though the silence with an air of indifference.

“Considering you were administered enough sedatives to kill a bear, one would hope so.”

From your peripheral, you could see dark eyebrows furrowing and mouth settling into a line of displeasure. Noticing your indifference, you heard an loud sigh and the heavy stare that was once situated on your face was directed to the ceiling.

You almost let out a sigh of your own, resisting the urge to look at the body that was currently lying on the bed before you.

Horrified shock did not even begin to cover the emotions that had flooded over you the moment you saw nine bodies handcuffed to beds, each bloodied and bruised. You could not help the feeling of dread and foreboding that arose within you at the sight, a feeling which was warranted considering you were in the deepest levels of a research facility specialized in biological warfare.

Not much was disclosed to you once you were made aware of your new assignment - simply that it was of highest priority and should be handled with extreme caution and prejudice. A task easier said than done, you had thought to yourself grimly. While you had long since accepted the impartial nature associated to science, unlike most of your colleagues, you still had an ethical framework to your research, and experimenting on human beings was definitely past that line.

Aliens was their official designation, one that your superiors made sure to drill into everyone’s brain. At first, you thought they were trying to downplay what was actually happening, as if addressing them as anything other than human would make the process any easier. It disgusted you and filled you with an injustice that made you almost protest.

Almost.

That was what you thought, before you saw one of them literally teleport to the other side of the room in an act of desperate escape.

That one has not been woken up in months.

Since then, you had taken to coolly carrying out your tasks, though the curiosity did not leave you. It was apparent that these…beings had high levels of intelligence, coupled with their outward appearance and ability to converse in the common tongue; it was often hard to remember that they were in fact not human. You had once wondered if they were doing this on purpose, if the exterior was only a glamour to blend seamlessly in with society, hiding some ungodly form underneath. This thought diminished after the first week, as you took note of their humanoid faces lay unchanged, conscious or unconscious, despite the strenuous experimentation.

Initial extractions were done to determine whether something could be extrapolated from their DNA, and once it was found that their genetics were on par with a typical human, the idea for cloning was thrown out. Since then extractions were done for the purpose of determining whether the source of their supernatural powers lay elsewhere.

Glancing at the clipboard beside the tray you took in the concise report the handler before you had left.

Subject No. 061 / Male / Age Unknown / Aptitude: Pyrokinesis

This was all that was presented to you regarding the incapacitated man.

To your knowledge, most of the others were described much in the same way, nameless beings only identified by a random number and their capability. You were not present when they determined exactly what skill set each of them had, and frankly, you were glad you were not; most of those examiners still have not made it out of intensive care.

Eyes wandering back to the man, his own eyes now closed. Liberated from his probing stare, you allowed yourself an assessment of your own. Fair in complexion and dressed in white much like the sterile surroundings, you lingered on the hair adorning his head, bright and stark against the monotone environment. Splayed out on the pillow it had both the colour and semblance of the fire you knew he was capable of producing.

Even after weeks of evaluation, you still could not shake off the unnerving feeling of being in his presence. You were never social in your visits, choosing to keep them brief and impersonal. Despite what reservations you had given their physical appearances, the likelihood of so many individuals coming into possession of such specialized abilities dismissed the notion of some freak genetic mutation. It was more than apparent that they definitely were not from this world, and should be treated as such.

Enemies of the state. Foreign invaders. Aliens.

Even still…in the time that has passed, you could not completely convince yourself that what was happening was not inherently wrong, that what you and everyone else were doing to them was wrong. How much time has passed, how many countless hours have been spent analyzing, all coming back inconclusive. You would hear them. The screams of anger and pain coming from each of their isolated rooms. You were not ignorant of the company’s methods of interrogation, and the thought of the unrelenting torture made your blood run cold.

They were more resilient than you had given them credit for, and you could not stop the small frown that appeared on your face. Their bodies were highly effective in resisting modern anesthesia, and inhuman doses were administered relentlessly. Usually they were kept in a muddled state; however, there were times, much like now, where they are almost coherent. The thought made you faintly wonder if you should increase his dosage. In your experience, he had not acted violently towards you, usually showing the same indifference you show him; regardless, you did not want to risk having him try anything.

Shaking your head lightly, having realized that you have spent far too long already in the room; you deftly picked up the syringe off of the tray and made your way around to his exposed arm. Chastening yourself for letting your mind wander unnecessarily, you clinically swabbed at the crook of his elbow and inserted the needle into the presented vein, drawing up blood. Once you were done you pressed a cotton ball in place to stop the bleeding, capping and placing the syringe back on the tray. Releasing the cotton ball almost instantly, you ensured that the bleeding had indeed stopped, bluntly being reminded of their regenerative capabilities. Nevertheless, you lightly swiped at the area to clean it up and as you lifted your gaze, you were met with a pair of dark orbs peering at you expressionlessly.

Holding his gaze for a few moments, and saw a flicker of curiosity flashed in his eyes before you broke contact. Steeling yourself, not knowing where this sudden carelessness was coming from, you swiftly turned around, soundlessly taking the tray and leaving without a glance back to the eyes that were now intently following your retreating form.

A tired sigh escaped your lips as you stared at the screen before you. Once again, the tests came back and left you with more questions than what you sent them off with. Placing your head in your hands, you let your eyes close and took some deep, shaking breaths.

Progression with the subjects were not getting anywhere and you knew the other researchers were slowly drawing the same conclusion. While you have resigned to this fact, it was apparent that the Company was not going to let it go – more often than ever before you were taken from your research by agonized screams.

The interrogations were almost as fruitless as the analytical research, however, rather than giving up on the torture it would seem as though they were simply ramping up. So much so that when you would enter the room for extractions, you would be met with a sight so gruesome and vile that you almost forgot you were a scientist and not a nurse.

Your mind takes you back to the first memory of entering the room labeled “061” and overcome by the coppery smell of blood.

Hand still firmly grasping the handle, it suddenly became the only thing preventing you from collapsing on the floor as your knees buckled and your eyes widened in horror.

There was just so much blood that should most definitely be inside the body and not outside of it, it was incomprehensible how they were still alive, regenerative abilities or not.

All but throwing the tray containing vials and syringes you brought with you on a nearby table, you quickly crossed to the other side of the room to the storage cabinet. Pulling out towels, bandages, and all the sedatives you could find you found yourself bent over the battered body, desperately trying to locate just where the blood was coming from.

Faced clenched in pain and breath labored, it did not seem like he registered your presence, even after your frantic rummaging. You quickly administered a hefty dose of sedatives before you began working on the wounds. His entire body was littered with lacerations and punctures and you felt your hands begin to shake as nervous tremors raked through you.

“What have they done to you.” Your voice was a shuddered whisper as you cleaned around a large gash on his side. It was not a question, knowing very well the kinds of ways these wounds could have been produced, but you could not bring yourself to believe it.

Regardless of the fact that they are more capable than a normal human is, they still looked human and seeing this level of mutilation made bile rise up your throat.

This was so so wrong.

Closing your eyes and shutting out the sight before you, you took slow, measured breaths to regain your composure. Being borderline hysterical was not going to help anyone right now. And this man before you needed all the help he could get.

Once you opened your eyes you took notice of how his chest was no longer heaving sporadically and had resumed an almost normal rhythm. Dragging your eyes upwards, you were once again met with those dark irises, clouded by indescribable pain but also had a hint of apprehension.

Throwing out your philosophy of being aloof, you offered a weak smile in what you hoped conveyed some measure of reassurance to the man. It was nearly impossible to think of him as anything but human as he was lying there, looking like a wounded soldier taken from the battlefield. The humanity in your being surged at the likeliness to your own kin and you could not just sit there passively.

Returning to your work, you continued to meticulously clean the blood, putting all your energy into removing as much red as you could. Your hands regained their steadiness as you moved with purpose, cleaning and bandaging the larger wounds. For the most part, he was silent while you worked, with only a sharp intake of breath when you got to close to the fresh edges or tugged on the raw skin. As you got to his face, you frowned critically at a particularly nasty tear by his hairline, the blood making it almost indiscernible as to where it ended and his hair began.

You were acutely aware of his stare but paid it no mind, instead focusing on your task. Following the trail of blood downward, you ended up looking at him pointedly. Keeping your face neutral, you raised an eyebrow at his questioning stare.

“Close your eyes, please, I need to clean off the blood.”

A few more moments of contemplative silence later, his eyelids slowly slid closed. You were light with cleaning around his eyes and once you were done, they opened again, resuming their silent scrutiny.

Stepping back slightly you assessed your patchwork, nodding stiffly. The more serious injuries had been dressed and the only traces of blood left were the stained clothes that clung to his body. Not wanting to aggravate the wounds anymore you noted he would just have to wait in those clothes until he has healed. Not that he will be moving much with the sedatives, anyways.

“Thank you.”

The voice, deep and rasping, caused your eyes to snap to his face. His face was blank and you stared back in kind. Wordlessly you nodded and instantly felt the tenseness in your body lessen as if a huge weight was taken off of your shoulders.

All of a sudden you felt so tired, mentally drained and wanted nothing more than to rub your temples. Well, there goes the adrenaline, you thought bleakly. With a newfound exhaustion, you swept your eyes over his form one last time in search for any missed wounds. Finding none, you took a step back from the bed and turned, heavy steps making their way towards the door.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Turning slightly, you saw him looking at the tray and its scattered contents on the table. Your eyes stared at the tray for a long moment, before you caught his eyes again.

“I think you’ve been stabbed by enough today, wouldn’t you agree?”

Without waiting for his reply, you opened the door and walked out, letting it swing closed behind you, a low chuckle reaching your ears as it did.

After you had returned to your station, a raging feeling of injustice filled you, and this time you could not hold yourself from saying something. Under the guise of contaminating samples and further complicating any actual research, somehow someone listened to your reason. However, while the presence of blood was significantly reduced, the incidence of bruises and broken bones in the proceeding weeks quickly took its place.

You did not know which evil you would rather.

A light shake on your shoulder took you from your thoughts, raising your head you saw one of your co-workers looking at you apologetically.

“Hey, sorry but you’re needed in the main office, they said it was urgent.” You let out a small smile along with a word of thanks, getting up from your desk and making your way out of the lab.

It was not long after that you were swiftly opening a familiar door, tray in hand, blank eyes meeting mildly startled ones.

You will admit to yourself that after the exchange your attitude towards the red-headed man had changed, even if only slightly. You would not consider your attitude warm, but it was a measure more considerate than it had been. If he was awake when you walked in, you would offer him a slight nod before you began, and he would do the same once you were done.

Despite your best efforts, the image of him torn and bloodied had plagued your mind, coming back in full force when you closed your eyes at night, leaving terrors in its wake. Since then, whenever a muffled scream floated down the halls you would visibly flinch, knowing to what extent the damage being caused was. You were not involved in handling the others, they had their own specialized teams for that, but you could only imagine the other eight received the same treatment.

What disturbed you most was that what you had done was beyond the expectation of your position; you did it out of personal obligation, not necessity. You wondered if the others also had someone do what you had done for the redhead, however, your gut told you the answer was probably not.

Straightening your back, squaring your shoulders, you steeled yourself as you walked purposefully into the room, mind still fresh with what was said in the meeting.

Setting the tray next to the bed you quickly picked up one of the vials and hastily set work on prepping the syringe.

The cautious eyes watching you suddenly became apprehensive, as you wasted no time in emptying the vial and roughly injected the contents into his arm, noticing his grimace at your recklessness. If it were not for the complete silence in the room, you were certain he would not have caught the words flying out your mouth, low and rushed.

“This will counteract the effects of the sedatives, it’s not a lot, but it should be enough for you to regain minimal motor function” the implications of what you were saying hung heavily in the air, and you saw his eyes widen in disbelief.

You leaned in close, face inches from his.

“I don’t have much time, but you must listen to what I tell you very carefully.”

“Guards will be here any moment to transfer you; you will be put in a room with your…friends. Do not do anything until they have transferred you and then use these…” You tucked more vials and wrapped syringes by his side, hiding it with his shirt “…for the others in the room with you.”

You heard distant voices from down the hall, cursing, you felt your hands begin to sweat.

“Once you’re together, down the hall on the left will be a door which will lead to the emergency lift, take that to the surface, if you’re fast enough you will make it out before reinforcements arrive.”

Looking over your shoulder as the voices got louder; you reached back to grab the tray, straightening and preparing to leave before you were caught.

Before you can turn, a hand shoots out and grabs your wrist, the rattling of handcuffs loud at the quick movement.

You stared in shock at the hand, not believing how it was possible for him to be moving already.

“Why are you doing this now? What changed?”

The urgency of the questions thrown at you caught you off guard, pulling yourself from his grip you answered just as urgently.

“All of this is wrong, it was wrong from the moment you were brought here” You shook your head incredulously “But I have the chance to make it right now, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“What’s your name?”

You let out a humorless laugh as you reached the door, eyes not leaving the man.

“My name… in all fairness I also do not know yours-“

“-Chanyeol”

“Chanyeol.” Letting the sound of it linger briefly, you continued “to be completely honest with you..” Your face turned serious “…I hope for both of our sakes we never have to meet again. Knowing my name will only be a reminder of this place.”

“You better survive this, Chanyeol.”

The sirens were deafening as they echoed throughout the facility, the sounds of frantic yelling and gunfire resonated throughout the halls.

You sat numbly in the lab as your coworkers cowered around you.

The facility was in emergency lockdown.

They didn’t make it to the surface in time.

As the ground shook from another explosion, you felt a melancholic smile make its way onto your face.

Though they did not make it in time, you had no doubts that they would make it to the surface.

#muse: chanyeol #length: oneshot #chanyeol imagine #chanyeol fanfic #exo #exo imagine #exo fanfiction #exo scenarios #chanyeol scenario

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shyanneskysummers-blog · 6 years ago

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This was by far my favourite typographic assignment yet. The freedom to address social/ political issues through any type of medium really allowed me to explore different ways of allowing the connections I made flow together in more expressive ways.

I was immediately interested in the subject of “Drugs vs. Medicine”, two opposing forces that in the world of traditional medicine, appear to have no real distinctions. Pharmaceuticals in the eyes of the doctors or chemists creating these compounds see the substance as it is– a prescription drug, in the eyes of billions of patients seeking medical advice and remedies, we are lead to believe that these drugs are safe medicines that are recommended to us to improve our health and cure health issues. The amount of misleading information that the health system imposes upon us has lead me to very seriously question the moral and ethical principles behind the pharmaceutical industries and the doctors contributing to this questionable form of un-natural, un-sustainable “health” that can often lead to toxic cycles of dependency, addiction, and life-threatening substance abuse as much as, if not more than, any other form of drug. Pharmaceuticals, prescription drugs, traditional medicine– it’s all a paradox... seemingly absurd and contradicting.

Pharmasave?

I thought of many different ways I could create thought provoking, questionable connotations that referenced to the world of medicinal drugs and I seen so much opportunity to express this through making my own prescriptions using the same layout that world-known pharmaceutical industries use for their labels. I began exploring different pre-fixes to throw in front of the word “Pharmasave” but came to find the most effective way to encourage people to question it from the “grey area” stand-point that is associated with it, was just by simply adding a question mark. I gathered statistics in relation to the amount of deaths and prescriptions handed out each year/day and applied these to the information on the labels. The phone numbers on each label are help lines that relate to the subject of each substance (Mental health, and Drug addiction). The expiry date on each bottle is R.I.P, due to the fact that so many people taking opiods and anti-psychotics develop such extreme dependencies that the use can last a life time. Dr. I. N. Genuine is to address the issue of impersonal relations that doctors and patients share. Sadly, doctors treat patients with cookie-cutter type band-aides that do not fix the issues at hand as much as they do just send them on their way with more later questions and unresolved issues.

Worldwide pharmasave #224- This number is an area code that is associated with Ontario, where I tried to find most of my statistics that I referenced on the label.

Doctors Note:

All prescriptions drugs are considered illegal unless prescribed by a doctor. This alone demonstrates the authority that doctors have over their patients and society at large. If doctors are doing their jobs effectively then why do the rates for addiction, mental illnesses, and prescription drug over-doses continue to rise? Are these substances being prescribed, really effective? Do they really “save” and resolve the issues that so many people are experiencing? Do anti-depressants alter the chemistry in the brain to synthetically produce happy-endorphins, or perhaps, are they suppressing “negative” emotions that don’t want to be felt, understood, or properly handled and dispersed of in order for true healing to occur.? Anti-psychotics have become so normalized, that people experiencing mental-illnesses, that are being prescribed these medicines are basically told that a pill will make their problems go away. This is alarming, upsetting, impersonal and an in-valuable way of approaching the sadness, anxiety, confusion and over-all feelings of disconnection in the world.

Prescription Receipt:

Many doctors receive commission for the drugs that they prescribe each day, they write their client a note and then pass them along to the pharmacy where the next service will be received as a customer rather then a client. It is for this reason that where I created the bar code/number I distorted the words “THANKYOUFORYOURMONEY” within the bar code. The price of prescription drugs is money, but the cost is well being.

Why Candy& Tylenol?

Prescription drugs often times are handed out like candies. They are given to bring temporary satisfaction for relief, are highly addictive, in-effective and impose more adverse health effects/risks then they do promote it. Both candy and drugs are taken for pain and for pleasure.

T3′s are a very commonly prescribed pain-killer, it is a mixture of acetaminophen (Tylenol) and codeine (opioid). Tylenol in it’s simplest form is readily available to almost anyone– when you take the compound of Tylenol, multiply it by 3 with the addition of other drugs you are given an opioid.

Typeface:

Selecting the typeface was an easy step in my process. I soon cam to discover upon research, that one of (if not the most) commonly used typeface in the world of medicine is Arial due to it’s illegibility and sans serif. With that being said, this is the very font that PHARMASAVE uses for their prescriptions and labels.

Layouts/Grids: Essentially the layout for my prescription labels, doctors note, and receipt were referenced off of originals prints. I began by measuring the size of the labels and logo’s for the best accuracy. I formatted everything to be almost identical with some typographic adjustments/alignments that are clearly over looked when pharmacies print off the actual labels, haha. After a few test prints to ensure the font, sizes and layouts were all accurate I decided to print the real thing. I purchased some sticker paper from staples and was impressed with how well everything turned out. Once I had my printed copies I had to cut them out and then cut off the corners of each rectangle in order to give it the rounded look that most prescription labels have. I used somewhat of a grid when creating my doctors note in order to ensure consistency and accuracy in alignment. I wanted to give the real feeling of a doctors note so I decided to tear the top side of the sheet to give it the feeling as if it had been torn right out of a note book. I thought it would be interesting to hand-write the information I wanted to include in the doctors note– my hand-writing is small and may be hard to read, just like an actual doctors note. I wrote it fairly quickly while still trying to make the information eligible because I did decide to use this piece of my project to write out the warnings that can often be over-looked. When creating my receipt, I wanted to make it feel and look like an actual receipt, to do this I printed small dotted lines were each fold/tear would be on the actual receipt and very lightly ran an exact knife along the line of it so that it gave it flexibility.

I created everything completely from scratch using in-design only. The warning label on the side of the bottle, the prescription label, the doctors note, and the receipt were all created just by referencing/ measuring for actual sizes and then tweaked with the information I gathered and a bit of my own personal twist.

My thoughts:

My perception of medicine is sustainable, naturally-sourced herbs, plant, fungi’s, foods, and compounds that promote health, well-being, balance and wellness in practical and more readily available ways. True health is a life style... not a drug. Organic forms of medicine have been used and worked for many cultures for years and years before us and have not had the same adverse effects that modern/traditional prescription drugs now do. I am not against the health industry or what doctors, nurses and the healthcare provides to their patients but I do and will forever question the system and encourage any alternative measures to prevent declining health rates. Certain belief systems have been imposed upon me that I've began questioning from a fairly young age. Please note, both of my parents work at the hospital &one of them happens to manage it. Growing up in a family where traditional medicine is so widely accepted and practiced has encouraged me to really question the system in order to find alternative ways of implementing natural& sustainable health into my experience& being able to educate myself to encourage others to do the same.

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chelseaandthediscourse · 8 years ago

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Let’s talk about language.

I believe that most people already know how powerful language can be, especially anyone who has had derogatory slurs used against them. Equally so, this is likely something that can be attested to by anyone who occupies a non-normative identify and knows what it is like to discover the words that can name that identity. And yet, I feel that sometimes we don’t quite acknowledge the full impact of subtle uses of language. In his essay “Feminism and The Principles of Poststructuralism,” Chris Weedon identifies language as “the place where actual and possible forms of social organization and their likely social and political consequences are defined and contested,” going on to say that “far from reflecting an already given social reality, [language] constitutes social reality for us.” [1] In other words, language is more than a collection of words used to convey simple ideas or meaning, it is a complex system used to locate subjects in existing social discourses and power structures. The right word (or, for that matter, the wrong word) does more than name a person’s identity, it turns them in to a subject and coercively perpetuates discourse on their body.

Consider, for a moment, the difference between calling a person a gay man and calling the same person a fag. While at the very surface level these two signifiers may in fact mean the same thing in that they both signify a man who experiences sexual attraction to other men, no one could reasonable argue that both words have the same effect or convey the same meaning. Gay positions the subject within discourses of self-identification and civil rights movements, while fag positions the same subject within discourses laden with heteronormativity, hate speech, and violence. The latter is, in fact, an act of symbolic violence in and of itself. This, of course, is a rather obvious example, but, despite that, I believe it serves as a working example of how the choice between two different words can have significant social and political impact.

I discuss all of this so as to make it perfectly clear how important I find my main point. For various reasons, I have recently found myself reading a variety of pieces of scholarship which in some way recount or discuss the events of the Stonewall Riots, and I have noticed something in the language these authors use that is worth examining. In Theatre & Sexuality, Jill Dolan identifies the participants of the riots as “gay men, some of the bars lesbian clientele, and drag queens (men dressed overtly as women, wearing make-up and clothing that let them perform feminitity)[emphasis added].”[2] In “Movements and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth,” Armstrong and Crage do not give explicit labels to the actual participants of the riots outside of the fact that they were patrons of the bar, but they do list “queens” as one of the primary clientele groups.[3] Che Gossett, et al., however, quote James Credle in their essay “Reclaiming Our Lineage” as saying the riots were led by transvestites.[4] But, in their essay “The FIERCE Fight for Power and the Preservation of Public Space in the West Village,” Rickke Mananzala identifies “Stonewall veteran” Sylvia Rivera as transgender.[5] Four different accounts of the same event and we have three different words: drag queen, transvestite, and transgender. Which one should we use? Which one is correct?

Of course, if there was an easy answer, I wouldn’t be writing this.

The already complicated issue becomes even more complex when one looks at these words in the context of the discourses present at the time of the Stonewall riots. While the words may have entirely separate meanings here in 2017, in the late 60’s and 70’s, even in to the 80’s, the words had significantly less distinction between them. This is especially true for transvestite and transgender, evidenced by the fact that the T in S.T.A.R., an activist group founded by Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera (who, regardless of how we label their identity, we know were involved in the riots), initially stood for transvestite and later changed to transgender. So it is very possible that the individuals involved in the Stonewall riots may in fact have identified as drag queens or transvestites, but that their understanding of their identity was more in line with what we now would call transgender.

With this in mind, we have to recognize that updating the language runs the risk of erasing their identity and their agency. To make the argument that we should label their identity with language that is consistent with our modern understanding of identities, one must tackle with what I believe is the moral conundrum of whether or not we have the right to press upon them a subjectivity they did not claim. To keep the original language, however, runs the risk of erasing the place of transgender individuals in the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. Although, this may not stand as an argument one wishes to make as it may quickly lead to the undesirable and unproductive debate of who has done more for whom. Hence, I offer a more palatable, and, I think, more important, argument in favor of using more modern language to speak about the past.

The three terms in question, drag queen, transvestite, and transgender, may have been closely related at one time, but that is no longer the case. In the modern lexicon, drag queen and transvestite remain closely linked, both connoting a person wearing clothing that is socially prescribed for another gender while still identifying with and as their culturally assigned gender, with the main divergence in meaning being the emphasis on spectacle and performance that comes with drag queen. Transgender, however, specifically connotes that an individual’s gender is different than that which was assigned to them by culture, with great amounts of trans rights advocacy being centered on having the gender identity of transgender individuals socially recognized. Here we may return to my earlier discussion of the words ‘gay’ and ‘fag.’

The issue here is less obvious as, unlike in my previous example, none of the three terms in question here are, in and of themselves, a derogatory term or slur. However, to call a transgender woman a transvestite or a drag queen is analogous to calling a gay man a fag. It is to deny her agency and her gender identity, placing her in the subject position of a male impersonating a woman and perpetuate a discourse that has been and continues to be a source of both symbolic and physical violence against transgender individuals. Indeed, calling a transgender individual a transvestite or drag queen is, in and of itself, an act of symbolic violence. I would argue that this is no less true when speaking historically than when speaking of the present.

I argue that any individual who seeks to write of the events at the Stonewall Inn in 1969 or, for that matter, any aspect of LGBTQ+, and especially transgender, history should understand that most modern readers will understand the language used within the context of modern discourse and will take that understanding into the wider world with them. Thusly, the writer should appropriately engage the subject matter within that very same modern discourse. To do otherwise is to aid in the perpetuation of ideologies that interpellate transgender individuals as being essentially their socially assigned gender and merely impersonating or performing the gender with which they identify. This, I argue, is yet again an act of symbolic violence against an already marginalized community.

To call this revisionist history may be a valid a critique. But identities, language, and discourse are not static, and neither should our understanding of the past be static. The events and the people involved may not change, but the way we understand those events, the way we interpret them and the way we allow them to influence our understanding of the present, does change. In closing, I quote Stuart Hall:

Far from being eternally fixed in some essentialized past, [identities] are subject to the continuous play of history, culture and power. Far from being grounded in a mere “recovery” of the past, which is waiting to be found and which, when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the difference ways in which we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, narratives of the past.[6]

[1] Weedon, Chris. (2009). Feminism & The Principles of Poststructuralism. In J. Storey (Ed.), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader (pp. 320-21). New York, NY: Routledge.

[2] Dolan, Jill. (2010). Theater and Sexuality. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillian.

[3] Armstrong, E.A., & Crage, S.M. (2006). Movements and Memory: The Making of the Stonewall Myth. American Sociological Review, 71, 724-51.

[4] Gossett, C, Gossett, R., & Lewis, R.J. (2011-21). Reclaiming Our Lineage: Organized Queer, Gender Non-Conforming, and Transgender Resistance to Police Violence. S&F Online, 10(1). Retrieved from http://sfonline.barnard.edu/a-new-queer-agenda/reclaiming-our-lineage-organized-queer-gender-nonconforming-and-transgender-resistance-to-police-violence/

[5] Mananzala, R. (2011-12). The FIERCE Fight for Power and the Preservation of Public Space in the West Village. S&F Online, 10(1). Retrieved from http://sfonline.barnard.edu/a-new-queer-agenda/the-fierce-fight-for-power-and-the-preservation-of-public-space-in-the-west-village/

[6] Munoz, Jose Esteban. (1999). Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics. Minneapolis, MN: The University of Minnesota Press.

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terabitweb · 6 years ago

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Original Post from Microsoft Secure Author: Todd VanderArk

You already know that email is the number one attack vector for cybercriminals. But what you might not know is that without a standard email security protocol called Domain Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC), your organization is open to the phishing attacks that target your customers, crater your email deliverability rates, and crush your email-based revenue streams.

For all the utility of email, which remains the ultimate app for business collaboration and communication, it does have a serious flaw: the ability for a bad actor to pretend to be someone else in an email message. This can be done through one of two attack techniques, spoofing and impersonation. Spoofing is when the sender is attempting to send mail from, or on behalf of, the exact target domain. Impersonation is when the sender if attempting to send mail that is a lookalike, or visually similar, to a targeted domain, targeted user, or targeted brand. When cybercriminals hijack your brand identity, especially your legitimate domains, the phishing attacks they launch against your customers, marketing prospects, and other businesses and consumers can be catastrophic for them—and your business.

Email-based brand spoofing and impersonations surged 250 percent in 2018, with consumers now losing $172 billion to these and other internet scams on an annual basis. More than 90 percent of businesses have been hit by such impersonations, with average losses from successful attacks now standing at $2 million—with an additional $7.9 million in costs when they result in a data breach.

DMARC can help you take control of who can send email messages on your behalf, eliminating the ability for cybercriminals to use your domain to send their illegitimate messages. In addition to blocking fake messages from reaching customers, it helps prevent your business-to-business customers from partner invoice scams like the kind that recently defrauded one large, publicly traded business that lost $45 million. Not a good look for your brand, and a sure way to lose your customers, partners, and brand reputation.

But to protect your corporate domains and prevent executive spoofing of your employees, DMARC must be implemented properly across all your domains and subdomains. And you’ll want your supply chain to do the same to protect your company and partners from such scams. Today, 50 percent of attacks involve “island hopping,” spoofing or impersonating one trusted organization to attack another within the same business ecosystem.

Great, but what exactly is DMARC?

For those not yet familiar with the term, DMARC acts as the policy layer for email authentication technologies already widely in use—including Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM).

At its most essential, DMARC gives organizations control over who is allowed to send emails on their behalf. It allows email receiver systems to recognize when an email is not coming from a specific brand’s approved domains—and gives guidance to the receiver about what to do with those unauthenticated email messages. DMARC with a p=quarantine or p=reject policy is required to block those illegitimate email messages from ever reaching their targets.

Today, 57 percent of consumer email in industries such as healthcare and retail are now fraudulent. Consumer-focused brand impersonations are up 11 times in the last five years, 80 percent involving email. In 2018, the IC3 received 20,373 BEC/E-mail Account Compromise (EAC) complaints with adjusted losses of over $1.2 billion. Those attacks target your accounting, payroll, and HR departments, so your outbound marketing programs can become toxic to recipients, obliterating your outbound email programs and the revenue they generate.

Microsoft support for email authentication and DMARC

As the vast majority of businesses continue to migrate to capable and robust cloud platforms such as Office 365, a new generation of cybercriminal organizations is rapidly innovating its methods to find nefarious new ways to circumvent the considerable security controls built into these platforms. Unfortunately, some organizations may not realize that they should fully implement DMARC to augment the security benefit of Office 365 email authentication.

Microsoft has implemented support for DMARC across all of its email platforms. This means that when someone sends an email to a Microsoft mailbox on a domain that has published a DMARC record with the reject policy, it will only deliver authenticated email to the mailbox, eliminating spoofing of email domains.

If you use Office 365 but aren’t utilizing custom domains, i.e. you use onmicrosoft.com, you don’t need to do anything else to configure or implement DMARC for your organization. But if you have custom domains, or you’re using on-premises Exchange servers, in addition to Office 365, you’ll need to implement DMARC for outbound mail. All of which is straightforward but implementing it across your entire email ecosystem requires some strategy. To ensure your corporate domains are protected, you’ll need to first publish a DMARC record in DNS with a policy of reject. Microsoft uses Agari’s DMARC reporting tool to enhance protection of Microsoft domains from being used in phishing attacks.

Read more about how Microsoft uses Agari to protect its domain and how that is used to validate email in Office 365 in this Microsoft documentation.

The rise of automated, hosted email authentication

The truth is, properly implementing DMARC means you need to identify every single one of your domains and subdomains, across all business units and outside partners—not just the ones you know to send email. That’s because any domain can be spoofed or impersonated, which means every domain should be DMARC-protected to make sure email receiver infrastructures can assess whether incoming messages purporting to come from any of your domains are legit. Brand protection that only covers some domains isn’t really brand protection at all.

The task of identifying and onboarding thousands of domains controlled by multiple business units, outside agencies, and other external partners, both on Office 365 and off, can be daunting. As a result, many organizations may discover that working with a DMARC provider that can fully automate the implementation process across all these parties plus supply channel partners is their best chance for success. This is especially true for those that offer fully hosted email authentication (DMARC, SPF, and DKIM) to simplify the otherwise tedious and time-consuming process involved with preventing brand impersonations—including ones that leverage domain spoofing.

3 steps to get started with DMARC

The good news is that DMARC is supported by 2.5 billion email inboxes worldwide, and more are joining these ranks every day. But unfortunately, even among organizations with DMARC records assigned to their domains, few have them set to p=reject enforcement. As it stands now, nearly 90 percent of Fortune 500 businesses remain unprotected against email-based spoofing attacks, putting their customers, partners, and other businesses at risk for phishing.

When DMARC is implemented using email ecosystem management solutions, organizations have seen phishing emails sent by fraudsters seeking to spoof them drop to near zero. According to Forrester Research, organizations have also seen email conversion rates climb on average 10 percent, leading to an average $4 million boost in revenues thanks to increased email engagement.

While it’s no small task, there are three steps that will help you move forward with DMARC and get started:

Create a new DMARC record with specific policies to protect your organization from spoofing attacks targeting your employees, customers, prospects, and more. Note that the policy must be a p=reject to prevent unauthorized mail from being received.

Download Getting Started with DMARC, a special guide designed to provide an overview of DMARC and best practice resources.

Request a free trial to Office 365 and see how Agari can help implement DMARC at your organization. As a member of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association (MISA), and provider of DMARC implementation for more domains than any other provider, Agari offers a free trial to Office 365 users looking to protect their customers, employees, and partners from phishing-based brand spoofing attacks. Given the threat from impersonation scams, and the benefits that come from employing the right approaches to reducing it, don’t be surprised if DMARC-based email authentication jumps to the top of the to-do list for a growing number of businesses. With luck, brand imposters will never know what hit them.

Bookmark the Security blog to keep up with our expert coverage on security matters. Also, follow us at @MSFTSecurity for the latest news and updates on cybersecurity.

The post How to prevent phishing attacks that target your customers with DMARC and Office 365 appeared first on Microsoft Security.

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Go to Source Author: Todd VanderArk How to prevent phishing attacks that target your customers with DMARC and Office 365 Original Post from Microsoft Secure Author: Todd VanderArk You already know that email is the number one attack vector for cybercriminals.

#Microsoft Security

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sallysklar · 6 years ago

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Learning and Memory Bias Choices But Don't Preclude Free Will

One common definition of "free will" is that a person can decide or choose among multiple alternatives without being forced by physical laws, luck, fate, or divine will. Most of us feel that there are situations where we are in charge of our choices and no outside force compels us to make a particular choice. But it is fashionable these days for scientists to insist that free will is an illusion. In fact, they claim, without evidence, that consciousness cannot do anything. It just observes a little of what the magnificent unconscious mind does. The possibility that conscious thought programs neural circuitry escapes their biased thinking.

People who believe that humans have no free will are hard-pressed to explain why no one is responsible for their choices and actions. What is it that compels foolish or deviant behavior? Who or what compels us to accept one moral code over any other? Who or what compels us to believe in God or to be an atheist? Who or what compels us to become a certain kind of person, with no option to "improve" itself in any self-determined way? Learning experiences may bias our choices, but we are free to reject learning that does not serve us well. Wise people do that.

Human brains make choices consciously and unconsciously by real-time evaluation of alternatives in terms of the anticipated usefulness of previous learning from other situations. This learning occurs in the context of the learned sense of self, which begins unconsciously in the womb, as neural connections construct a map of body parts. The conscious brain is aware that it is aware of choice processing and makes decisions in light of such understanding. When a given alternative choice is not forced, the conscious mind is aware that it is not obliged to accept any one choice but is "free" to select any one of the available options. We may be creative by consciously constructing other alternatives than the ones presented. Such realization might even guide many decisions at the subconscious level. In any case, neural networks weigh the probable value of each alternative and collectively reach a "decision" by inhibiting networks that lead to less-favored alternatives. Thus, network activity underlying the preferred choice prevails and leads to a selective willed action. What governs the network activity causing the final choice is the activity in other networks, which in turn is governed by stored memories and real-time processing of the current choice contingencies.

What usually gets left out of free-will discussions is the question of how a brain establishes stored-memory preferences and how it evaluates current contingencies. These functions surely cause things to happen, but what is the cause of the cause? Any given brain can choose within certain limits of its learning experiences and stored memory. We govern those choices by what a brain has learned about the self-interest value associated with given contingencies. Brain circuitry assigns value, and values chosen are largely optional choices. The conscious brain directs the choices that govern value formation, reinforcement, and preservation in memory.

Now we are confronted with explaining how neural circuit impulse patterns (CIPs) representing the sense of self can have a free will. First, I reason that each person's brain has a conscious Avatar that acts as an active agent to act in the world on embodied brain's behalf, as explained more completely in my recent book. This is reminiscent of the 3rd Century idea of a homunculus, a "little person" inside the brain. A modern view is that this homunculus exists in the form of mapped circuitry within a more global workspace.

Certain maps are created under genetic control. These include the topographic map of the body in the sensory and motor cortices. Then there is the capacity for real-time construction of maps of the body location in space that resides in circuitry of the hippocampus and entorhinal cortex. Other maps are created from learning experience from the near-infinite circuit capacity of association cortex. What these maps learn is stored in memory as facilitated circuit synapses and deployed "on-line" in the form of CIP representations of what was originally learned. New learning likewise exists as CIP representations in network populations. Thus, what has been learned is stored as memories that can be accessed later in decision- and choice-making.

The conscious Avatar itself is a constellation of certain CIPs representing the conscious-agent sense of self. Certainly, by definition, the Avatar can make choices and decisions. Avatar choices can be implemented unconsciously, because Avatar circuitry is embedded in the global workspace of unconscious mind. Wakefulness releases consciousness to make its own choices and decisions. Avatar processing is neither random nor inevitable, and presumably can occur with more degrees of freedom than found in unconscious mind. Avatar processing more likely progresses via non-linear chaotic dynamics than by linear deterministic processing.

If the conscious Avatar exists as a set of CIPs, how can something as "impersonal" and physiological as that have any kind of "will," much less free will? Consider that the "virtual you" is your Avatar. Let us recall that "will" is little more than an intent that couples bodily actions to achieve the intent. This kind of thinking does also occur in the circuitry that controls unconscious minds. These circuits automatically generate actions in response to conditions that call for a response. Such actions are stereotyped and inflexible, but not when there is conscious regulation.

Each choice alternative is represented as circuit impulse patterns (CIPs) within a group of neurons. Each group's activity interacts with the others―and with the CIP representation of the conscious Avatar. The Avatar CIP is poised to influence activity in the alternative sub-populations and thus can help direct the final processing result.

The Avatar must have some criteria to bias a given option. Those criteria have been learned and remembered. The Avatar CIP activity can modulate the alternative-choice representations in the context of self-awareness according to past learning and value assessments of current contingencies. The existence of bias does argue for determinism at this stage of choice making, but the bias could have been created earlier by conscious free-will reasoning and value assessments.

While it is true that genetics and experience help program the Avatar circuitry, the Avatar does its own non-linear processing and makes choices about who to interact with and what experiences to value, promote, and allow. The Avatar can insist that it has a need to remember some lessons of experience and makes it a point to remember them. In short, the Avatar gets to help shape what it becomes.

It seems to this Avatar that current debates about determinism and free will tend to obscure the important matters of our humanness. Free will debates distract us from a proper framing of the issues about human choices and personal responsibility.

Sources:

Klemm, W. R. (2014). Mental Biology: The New Science of How the Brain and Mind Relate. New York: Prometheus.

Klemm, W. R. (2016). Making a Scientific Case for Conscious Agency and Free Will. New York: Academic Press.

Remember, to get a full understanding of this post, you need the book, Thank You Brain for All You Remember.

Learning and Memory Bias Choices But Don't Preclude Free Will published first on https://buyessayscheapservice.tumblr.com/

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rolandfontana · 6 years ago

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Captives of ‘La Lista’: The Real Border Crisis

Around 7:00 one morning last month, a large open plaza in the Mexican border city of Tijuana began to fill with migrants. They huddled in tight groups in the plaza, called El Chaparral, which hugs the San Ysidro port of entry into the United States.

It was chilly, windy and wet—typical February weather in Tijuana. Many of the migrants had awakened early and travelled for hours from distant albergues, or shelters. A few warmed themselves with a Styrofoam cup of hot champurrado or a tamal purchased from a local street vendor.

The rest of Tijuana was slowly waking up. Partygoers emerged shakily from seedy nightclubs on nearby Calle Coahuila and walked past pharmacies advertising bargain-priced Viagra and Cialis. At the edge of the plaza, white and green taxis battled Uber drivers for the business of both tourists and locals, and commuters headed through the rusty border fence on foot, leaving behind the maquiladoras in Tijuana for the Las Americas Premium Outlets in San Diego.

It was a journey the people shivering in El Chaparral could not make.

Asylum-seekers waiting at El Chaparral strain to hear their names called. Photo by Susanne Gilliam.

The 7:00 am start time is not random. It’s when the migrants are officially allowed, on every morning of the week, including weekends, to approach a small red canvas pavilion located in the plaza, where they can enter their names with a ballpoint pen on what everyone calls “la lista” (the list).

The list, contained in a large, frayed composition notebook, is effectively the gatekeeper to the sprawling U.S. immigration system at this section of the U.S.-Mexican border for those fleeing oppression or poverty in their homelands.

It represents a collaborative effort by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Grupos Beta, the self-described humanitarian wing of the Mexican National Institute for Migration (known by its Spanish initials as INM) to control the flow of asylum-seekers into the U.S.

Its legality is highly suspect, at best.

Some immigration advocates argue that it effectively creates a barrier to entry, violating U.S. guarantees that permit asylum-seekers to make a direct claim at a port of entry or anywhere in U.S. territory for up to one year after arrival, regardless of their method of entry.

Formally called “metering,” the list system was adopted by CBP in 2016 to slow the influx of Haitians arriving at the San Diego and Calexico ports of entry, according to the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies. There are currently lists at each port of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Tijuana’s lista is the largest.

On the surface, the list system is straightforward. Those wishing to seek asylum can add their names to the handwritten list between 7:00 am and 10:00 am, seven days a week. They are assigned a number, and told to check back at the pavilion or on a website listing the last number called daily.

When the list managers begin to call out names through the megaphone, the plaza falls mostly silent. If their names are called, individuals present their identification and then wait for Grupos Beta agents to load their belongings into a waiting INM van, which drives them roughly a mile along a gated, dirt road to PedEast, the border facility operated by CBP and private contractors from Paragon Systems.

CBP then takes them to Otay Mesa, a secured detention center, where they are held until they are interviewed by officials from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, who determine whether their claim is worthy of a judge’s attention.

A rough average of around 40 people successfully passed through the list daily in February. By the end of the month, the Tijuana list’s backlog contained 3,000 names, and it was getting larger every day.

This rusty border fencing near Nogales, Mexico, covers much of the U.S.-Mexico border, including in Tijuana. Photo by Sarah Amato White via Flickr

Just getting on the list is no guarantee that a claim will be approved. Due to the complexity and restrictiveness of U.S. asylum law, many will not qualify, despite their claims of trauma and violence suffered in their home countries.

But even though the impersonal and chaotic bureaucratic process that begins in El Chaparral seems designed to discourage asylum-seekers, it is no deterrent.

“No hay de otra,” one asylum seeker from the Mexican state of Michoacán muses when I ask him why he tolerates the frustrations of la lista. (To protect their anonymity, the names of migrants interviewed for this story have been withheld.)

“There is no other way.”

He was right. Asylum-seekers who try to present their claims directly at the border, even though they are entitled to do so under law, do not even reach customs. Instead, they run into a stern Mexican policeman directing them toward the red pavilion.

“I put my faith in God that I’ll get through this.”

Others waiting in the plaza that morning made clear they were willing to endure the conditions in the shelters, the makeshift bureaucracy of the red pavilion, and the seemingly endless wait for their number to come up.

“I am on a quest for stability, security, dignity,” a Cameroonian migrant told me.

“I put my faith in God that I’ll get through this,” added a Honduran man traveling with his 17-year old son.

A Global Bottleneck

I spent three weeks in and around El Chaparral last month as a volunteer interpreter and translator for the Al Otro Lado Border Rights Project, a primarily volunteer-run and donation-financed legal aid organization for migrants based in Tijuana.

The experience was an eye-opening look at how Washington’s chaotic, hardline immigration policies are applied at ground level—and how they have created, in the process, a burgeoning humanitarian crisis on our southern border.

El Chaparral is now a gathering point for thousands of people from across the globe who are not just seeking brighter economic prospects across the border; many are fleeing for their lives.

Since November 2018, Al Otro Lado has worked with individuals of at least 37 different nationalities passing through Tijuana.

Most come from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean. In February 2019, I saw that the largest component of migrants waiting to get their names on the list at El Chaparral came from Honduras, El Salvador and Mexico.

Others came from Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, Yemen, Turkey, and Russia.

A surprisingly large contingent came from Central and West African countries, including Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Burkina Faso, Côte D’Ivoire, Mauritania, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea.

Their stories of suffering and survival are harrowing.

One Cameroonian man sits quietly in the plaza. As he begins to share his story with me, his eyes reveal deep melancholy. We sit staring out at the rolling hills of Tijuana and San Diego from a rooftop near the border, trying to retain the heat of the setting sun.

He was one of the 200,000 people displaced after the Cameroonian government’s brutal crackdown against Anglophone secessionists and others after December 2017. Aloof from politics for his whole life, he was falsely accused of being a secessionist when the military raided the business of a friend. Arrested and tortured, he narrowly escaped into the jungle when his captors lost focus, only to be recaptured and tortured again.

“I saw and experienced things that I did not believe humans were capable of inflicting upon one another,” he said.

In a lucky turn of events, a stranger broke him out of detention. He escaped his country in the back of a truck covered in pig feces, with his face wrapped in cloth to blunt the odor. With the help of an airport worker, he evaded Nigerian customs before landing in Mexico City.

A death order awaits him in Cameroon. He is placing his hopes for survival on “la lista.”

But for him, and for other Cameroonians, the clock is ticking. The Mexican government held many refugees from Cameroon in a mass detention center for days in Tapachula, Chiapas, before allowing them to continue on their journey. Some have humanitarian visas, which are different from permanent asylum claims. Others have notices to vacate Mexico within 15 days.

Central American migrants face particular brutality.

After the so-called “caravan” of migrants began heading north and became a hot political issue in the U.S. and Mexico, the official response to their plight turned from hostility to violence.

CBP fired rubber bullets and tear gas on the November caravan near this portion of the Río Tijuana, a canal which fills with water during and after rainfall. Photo by Susanne Gilliam.

In late November, CBP forces fired rubber bullets and tear gas at a caravan group predominantly composed of people from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. Media reports suggested that the caravan participants had staged a demonstration and tried to scale the nearby border fence. According to a Mexican source who asked that his name be withheld to protect him from government reprisals, Mexican security forces first corralled the migrants into the drained canal next to the border, largely contributing to the unrest preceding the attack.

The incident was followed by a large increase of Mexican and U.S. security forces in Tijuana and San Diego in November and December. The number of Mexican security forces actively patrolling Tijuana streets dwindled through January and February but is expected to grow over the next few months as successive new groups of migrants arrive from Central America.

Additionally, many Central Americans exercising their right to approach the border and ask for asylum are often not even sent to the red pavilion to add their names to the list at El Chaparral. Instead, they have been detained and deported by the U.S. or Mexican governments to their countries of origin.

In one example, a formerly deported Salvadoran woman explained to me that when she last tried to apply for asylum, the CBP agent who detained her only asked her if she was Central American before forcing her to sign a document that led to her deportation.

Migrants also endure hostility from Tijuana locals, who openly complain about Central Americans in particular, often referring to them as “dirty hondureños,” regardless of their nationality, and blame any local delinquency or drug use on them.

One afternoon, I met a young man with a warm manner and kind eyes from El Salvador who showed up at the plaza in late February. He had escaped in the wake of death threats from the Maras gang after refusing to help them run drugs. On the way north to Tijuana with four friends, he was accosted by traffickers who demanded he smuggle drugs on foot across the desert. Everyone refused.

Of the five in his group, he is the only survivor. The others were kidnapped, and he does not know what became of them.

Unaccompanied youth roam the streets near El Chaparral. I met a boy from Guinea, a girl from Mexico, and several from Central America. Some are LGBTQ and thus at an increased risk of harm. They resort to scavenging for food and selling candies to passersby on street corners.

One shared with me his deepest dream: becoming a professional soccer player. His knee likely needs surgery and he walks in pain.

La lista is off-limits to unaccompanied minors.

Mexican officials often place them in the custody of the Mexican National System for Integral Family Development (DIF), from where they are then deported, according to National Lawyers’ Guild border monitors.

Legal aid organizations must twist arms to convince CBP to receive these unaccompanied minors. When minors approach agents by themselves, CBP regularly turns them away. No due process, just a stiff arm.

But when adults accompany minors to present themselves to customs, CBP’s tune is different.

The agents roll their eyes and let out a sigh. “Stand aside.” They pat them down and process them begrudgingly.

The unlucky ones who have escaped the eyes of authorities are stranded in Tijuana, left on their own to look for refuge. Their absolute numbers are unclear.

How the List Works

Around 8:00 each morning, one or two orange-jacketed agents of Grupos Beta, the organization designated by the National Institute of Migration to supervise the Mexican immigration system, show up at the pavilion.

On their backs of their jackets are the words: Protección a Migrantes (Migrant Protection). But they in effect do the work of the U.S. government in controlling the daily flow to the border. They are integral to a process that keeps thousands of migrants in daily peril of armed robbery, kidnapping, starvation, or even death—and deters many from exercising their constitutionally-protected right to claim asylum.

CBP delegates list management to Grupos Beta. Given that the list stays on Mexican soil, CBP can distance itself from administering the list.

In reality, CBP authorities determine how many migrants they will receive from the list on any given day. Every morning, during the three weeks I spent in Tijuana, I watched Grupos Beta communicate this number, known as “daily capacity,” to those anxiously waiting at El Chaparral.

La lista appears to operate with the tacit approval of U.S. authorities.

In a lengthy emailed statement, a San Diego-based CBP spokesperson said the increase in asylum-seekers had forced the agency to “manage the queues”—effectively bottling them up in Mexico to reduce the pressure on U.S. border authorities.

“As we have done for several years, when our ports of entry reach capacity, we have to manage the queues; and individuals presenting without documents may need to wait in Mexico as CBP officers work to process those already within our facilities,” he wrote, citing a 121 percent increase in the number of individuals processed—some 93,000 claims—in fiscal year 2018.

The agency processes asylum-seekers “as expeditiously as possible without negating the agency’s overall mission or compromising the safety of individuals within our custody,” he continued.

The number of individuals processed through the system depends on “case complexity available resources, medical needs, translation requirements, holding/detention space, overall port volume, and ongoing enforcement actions,” the statement explained.

The statement went into more detail about the question of daily capacity:

“Port of Entry facilities were not designed to hold hundreds of people at a time who may be seeking asylum. And we are also charged with keeping the flow of legitimate trade and travel. Balancing these demands, keeping illicit goods and people out of the country, and managing the influx of Central Americans seeking asylum (along with everything else we do) requires a careful balance of our resources and space.”

When asked if CBP has requested additional funding or resources to process the increase in constitutionally protected asylum claims, the San Diego office deferred to its Washington headquarters.

At the time of publication, they have not responded.

It’s not clear who runs “la lista” on a daily basis. Grupos Beta tasks migrants with receiving and calling names on the list, to reinforce a narrative that they are merely there to provide assistance. In return, the Betas promise these people, known as list managers, that they will gain an earlier, secured spot on the list itself.

For many asylum-seekers, the El Chaparral border post may be as close as they will ever come to the U.S. Photo by Susanne Gilliam.

While I was at El Chaparral, I witnessed the Betas make all final decisions about who would be admitted on the list and whose names would be called. But the arbitrary nature of the list was underscored when, on one occasion a woman missed her number, and a legal observer interceded, challenging Grupos Beta’s authority to make rules for the list.

The Beta eventually stepped back and allowed the woman to board the van and present her asylum claim to CBP.

Past list managers have been punished or thrown from the list entirely for providing information or appearing to cooperate with legal observers and human rights advocates, I was told by a spokesperson for Al Otro Lado.

Grupos Beta could not be reached for comment regarding its role in administering the list, despite calls to several listed numbers and one written request.

Facing the long waits on the list, many give up entirely. Roughly half of those on the list were not present in February when their names were called.

Some migrants, facing waiting periods at El Chaparral that have grown to over two months, resort to bribing Grupos Beta to skip the line.

One morning, a multi-generational family appeared on the line, and the patience of the patriarch leading the group was running thin.

“We have an arreglo (arrangement) with the Beta,” he mutters, after a Mexican national policeman blocks his path.

Minutes later, without being called from the list, several Beta agents discreetly load his family into the vans.

The number-calling ritual enacted every morning at El Chaparral is a somber, yet chaotic process. And it can also be violent.

Some migrants have reported to Al Otro Lado that they were physically beaten between their departure from El Chaparral and their handoff to CBP custody.

The PedEast facility at San Ysidro processes some 25,000 border-crossers daily, including both pedestrians and 22 lanes of vehicle traffic. Asylum seekers who enter the CPB facility for processing disappear from the sight of human rights observers.

The only legal aid organization with a consistent presence every morning at El Chaparral is the Al Otro Lado Border Rights Project. When individuals’ numbers are called, volunteer attorneys, interpreters, and others conduct emergency outreach to inform asylum-seekers of the requirements of U.S. asylum law.

But over the short period I was at El Chaparral, the Betas made it more difficult for pro bono attorneys offering emergency legal consultations to speak with those crossing regarding their cases.

By the end of February, they had moved asylum-seekers behind a thick white fence to wait for the vans. Emergency legal consultations had to be conducted through the fence.

One morning, I watch as a small girl bundled in a scarf and a tiny pink jacket pulls a gray suitcase taller than her toward the van waiting to take her family to the border crossing. Her mother carries her sister and bags in front of her with solemn resolve.

Two Cameroonians enter at the other side of the gate. They turn back to grasp the hands of their remaining friends through the thick white fence rails of the INM parking lot.

Then a departing joke to their friends through the fence: “We don’t speak to you Mexicans any more. We are Americans now.”

Rowdy laughter.

To the Other Side

I volunteered at Al Otro Lado as an interpreter of Spanish, French, and English. But whatever the language, the message to asylum seekers preparing to cross on any given day lands with a thud.

Once you are taken to one of the holding centers on the border, nicknamed hieleras (iceboxes) because temperature are kept uncomfortably low, you will likely be forced to strip down to your bottom layer of clothing. You will not have a bed or pillow. This applies to the elderly, children, women, and the sick.

There is no guarantee you will have access to medical services.

You could be in the hieleras for weeks before your asylum interview.

CBP will likely attempt to force you to sign deportation and family separation documents. (The volunteer attorneys caution migrants not to sign anything they don’t understand.)

There is a strong possibility authorities will try to separate you from your children. Children traveling without a parent or legal guardian and proof of the relationship, or U.S. children who are citizens and traveling with non-citizen parents, are at an extremely high risk for separation.

Parents write their names and birth dates and a contact number in the U.S. on their children’s arms with permanent markers. Tears flow and hugs do not end.

Most of those who make it to Tijuana and add their names to the list believe that they’ll receive a friendly welcome from U.S. customs, or at least a fair hearing of their plight.

But disillusionment sets in fast.

“I thought that the United States was a place that respected human rights,” one self-identified LGBTQ man from Jamaica sighs as he contemplates the conditions in CBP detention. “But now I see that is not true.”

At the time we spoke, he was stranded in the list backlog.

The Price of Rejection

The list at El Chaparral, frustrating as it is, represents only a portal to further roadblocks that may await the asylum-seeker who crosses the border: family separation, indefinite detention, and possible deportation.

U.S. asylum law covers people who fear for their life in their home country due to their race, religion, nationality, or political opinion, or for belonging to a particular threatened social group (e.g., LGBTQ people, ex-paramilitaries, victims of domestic violence, etc.).

Asylum-seekers have the right to an interview in their native language. This is their chance to give a detailed explanation of what happened to them, who harmed them, and why.

They must also explain why the police at home are unable to protect them, and why they are unable to relocate within their home country.

Failure to present a convincing case means they will not see a judge and will almost certainly be deported. But even if an applicant passes the interview, they could be detained for months, or in some cases returned to Mexico, to await their court date.

One of 72 monumental flags found throughout Mexico,this one located near Avenida Revolución in Tijuana. Photo by Roman Gressier/TCR

One morning, on their return trip from handing off migrants to CBP, Grupos Beta dropped six shell-shocked children and three women at El Chaparral. Alone and without protection, they were again vulnerable to the same dangers they fled while they awaited their day in court.

Conditions in migrant shelters operated by the Mexican government are rudimentary. Immigrant advocates I spoke to say many are threatened with kidnaping or extortion by organized crime groups.

The authority for returning asylum-seekers to Mexico was established earlier this year by the Department of Homeland Security under the so-called Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP).

In a January 2019 statement, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen called the MPP a “humanitarian approach [which] will help to end the exploitation of our generous immigration laws.”

Conceding it was an “unprecedented” move, she claimed the protocols were necessary to address the “urgent humanitarian and security crisis at the Southern border.”

Multiple organizations, including Al Otro Lado, have joined in a class action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security to challenge the legal basis for MPP.

The MPP represents “violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the Administrative Procedures Act, as well as the United States’ duty under international human rights law not to return people to dangerous conditions,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union, one of the organizations participating in the lawsuit.

Dead End

For many of those waiting in El Chaparral, Tijuana is a dead end.

The second week of February, I met a Honduran couple and their two children. As the father shared the story of their exodus from Tegucigalpa, he was fearful. Tears welled in his eyes.

“I never planned to leave [Tegucigalpa],” he told me. “But the pandilleros (gangsters) came to my home in masks. They beat me to the ground with the butt of their rifles in front of my children.”

His youngest is nearly two years old.

“They demanded we leave our home within 48 hours. They are now living in it. We took everything we could and fled.”

Traveling across Mexico by bus with limited funds and temporary Mexican humanitarian visas, their journey had not been pleasant.

Devout evangelicals, they were lucky to find a pastor in Tijuana who lodged them for almost two weeks. But then he left town for a mission trip. They couldn’t stay.

The distraught father called me one morning. The high number they had been given meant they would wait at least a month before they could take the bumpy journey in the van to CBP.

Roman Gressier

Out of money and uncertain of whether they could find a place in a shelter, he was afraid they could not survive the wait.

“We don’t know what to do,” he admitted.

The family never returned to collect their translated documents or shelter information.

It was the last time we spoke.

Roman Gressier, a news intern and contributing writer for The Crime Report, was a volunteer with Al Otro Lado from Feb. 7 to Feb. 28. A graduate of the CUNY Baccalaureate Program at John Jay College, he is a former applied research fellow at the Vera Institute of Justice. Readers’ comments are welcome.

Captives of ‘La Lista’: The Real Border Crisis syndicated from https://immigrationattorneyto.wordpress.com/

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paraphrasehowto-blog · 7 years ago

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New Post has been published on http://www.howtoparaphrase.net/50-best-paraphrasing-tools-to-reword-professionally/

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webittech · 7 years ago

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This wild, AI-produced film is the subsequent stage in "entire motion picture puppetry" Results are honestly constrained due to a 48-hour crunch—yet allude to a wild future.

Two years back, Ars Technica facilitated the online debut of a bizarre short film called Sunspring, which was generally momentous on the grounds that its whole content was made by an AI. The movie's human thrown giggled at odd, PC produced exchange and stage bearing before playing out the outcomes in especially sincere form.

That movie's generation team, Director Oscar Sharp and AI analyst Ross Goodwin, have come back with another AI-driven examination that, all over, looks quite more terrible. Hazy faces, PC created discourse, and unbalanced scene changes round out the current year's Zone Out, a film made as a section in the Sci-Fi-London 48-Hour Challenge—which means, much the same as last time, it must be delivered in 48 hours and stick to certain particular prompts.

That 48-hour restrict merits disapproving, on the grounds that Sharp and Goodwin went one greater this time: they let their AI framework, which they call Benjamin, handle the film's whole creation pipeline.

The Benjamin that wouldn't bite the dust

Much the same as in 2016, the couple was given a progression of necessities for their short film. (Their 2018 prerequisites are appeared over.) This time, they needed Benjamin to take that information and keep running with it.

Keeping in mind the end goal to accomplish their objective of having Benjamin "compose, coordinate, perform and score" this short film inside 48 hours, with no human mediation, the pair started pre-getting ready for the celebration by building up a work process, Sharp said in an Ars meet. That implied adding extra assignments to Benjamin's workload. Their arrangement expected Benjamin to do the accompanying: cobble together film from open area films, confront swap the twosome's database of human on-screen characters into that recording, embed talked voices to peruse Benjamin's content, and score the film.

This was all over composing the screenplay, a procedure that has been refined since Benjamin's last 2016 sprinkle. The AI keeps on depending on a LSTM (long here and now memory) repetitive neural system, which Ars' Annalee Newitz portrayed beforehand:

To prepare Benjamin, Goodwin encouraged the AI with a corpus of many science fiction screenplays he discovered on the web—for the most part motion pictures from the 1980s and '90s. Benjamin analyzed them down to the letter, figuring out how to anticipate which letters had a tendency to take after each other and from that point which words and expressions had a tendency to happen together. The benefit of a LSTM calculation over a Markov chain is that it can test any longer series of letters, so it's better at foreseeing entire passages instead of only a couple of words. It's additionally great at producing unique sentences as opposed to reordering sentences together from its corpus. After some time, Benjamin figured out how to copy the structure of a screenplay, delivering stage headings and very much designed character lines.

Daydream's content, much the same as Sunspring's, wavers on the edge of folly and feeling—which, truly, puts it up there with the best of the science fiction ordinance. (An exchange case taken straightforwardly from the film, which nearly seems like Benjamin's feedback of his lords: "Why not reveal to me what... you say is valid that the individual will have the capacity to reenforce the devastation of a person?") This time, the content's odd, not-exactly human outcomes are just intensified by having such a significant number of other film-generation errands mechanized by AI.

Tangles emerged amid generation as the couple attempted to discover open area film that they could securely use in their own possibly business endeavor. The test wasn't just about copyright; the recording needed to contain a noteworthy number of shots with sole performers confronting specifically toward the camera, which Benjamin could all the more effectively cut and embed into whatever it created. Between their profound jump into an open space film database and discussions with a legal advisor, Goodwin and Sharp settled on two movies: The Last Man on Earth and The Brain That Wouldn't Die.

"Gravely dubbed"... for the time being

The most striking piece of the film is its dependence on confront swapping innovations to adjust existing movies to Benjamin's will. Face-swapping has turned into an entirely intriguing issue in popular culture, especially after a changed video of President Barack Obama became a web sensation in 2017 (and a followup take, with chief/comic Jordan Peele filling in as an impersonator, revived the viral fire in April). All things considered, the innovation's confinements are very obvious, particularly when time limits factor into any creation. An April endeavor to embed performing artist John Cho into prominent movies outlined the huge measure of computational time expected to refine a face swap, and Zone Out's generation group kept running into comparable issues while having Benjamin parse pre-recorded film of on-screen characters Thomas Middleditch, Elisabeth Gray, and Humphrey Ker.

The effect of the time crunch is very evident in the last item, and Sharp concedes that computational cutoff points hamstrung the group's vision of a better than average looking and sounding item. An open source adaptation of Tacotron was at first considered to orchestrate discourse utilizing the twosome's own particular human-recorded exchange and tests; human performing artists talked reams of discourse that Benjamin would have consequently embedded where suitable. In any case, this demonstrated too computationally costly for as far as possible, so the team fell back on manufactured voice age.

Comparable issues emerged with confront swap and face-puppeteering frameworks set up. "We in the long run needed to acknowledge that the film would simply look 'gravely named,'" Sharp stated, as instruments, for example, a generative antagonistic system and an open source form of face2face could just marshal "first-draft" confront rendering brings about the time apportioned.

To the group's credit, one of the couple's unique designs worked out pretty swimmingly: a totally robo-formed score, in view of the Jukedeck stage, that "broke down the enthusiastic substance of the screenplay," Sharp said. The outcome is an inadequate yet strong piano soundtrack that occupies from Zone Out's odd voice combination.

"An objective for next time"

The greatest disappointment in the robotization procedure originated from an endeavor to have an alternate AI framework, a convolutional neural system, computerize the way toward choosing film from the general population area movies to be altered by Benjamin. "There were neither adequate protest descriptors in the screenplay nor adequate quantities of one of a kind questions in the shots," Sharp stated, which implied the auto-altering framework didn't have enough information to fasten onto. Sharp and Goodwin were watchful now to basically comply with the AI's choices as an "executive" and pick film scenes, shot lengths, and throwing assignments that cut to Benjamin's obvious masterful vision.

"Supervisor Jono Chanin and I worked under the assumption this was the story Benjamin was endeavoring to tell and altered in like manner, while likewise keeping verbatim to Benjamin's screenplay," Sharp said. "So here, some human translation at last broke in, in spite of my would like to cleanse it totally from this emphasis of the Benjamin adventure. That remaining parts an objective for next time."

In reality, while the subsequent film (and its dependence on below average voice amalgamation) is peculiar, it incorporates a decent amount of considerably passionate minutes, especially when Benjamin's content lines up with open space film of a standoff between a misery couple. More prominent computational proficiency and refined information parsing instruments might just make this sort of 48-hour PC mash of filmmaking a genuine probability later on.

What's more, Sharp plainly isn't finished attempting. "In the days since this trial, Ross has officially revealed some new advances he supposes could lead us to completely mechanized altering—and something unique we're nicknaming 'entire motion picture puppetry,'" he said to Ars. "Energizing stuff."

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ranksolsoftwarehouse · 7 years ago

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Ranksol Web Solutin Software House

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