#vector experts

[luisa4k]

lots of screengrabs of my fav dialogue from the murder of sonic the hedgehog (some without context + blatant pride issues) pt1 | pt2 | pt3 | pt4 | pt5 | pt6 (final)

[studnickastudio]

[princessoftheroad]

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[anayethossain]

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[focusontrends]

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[reality-detective]

The Pfizer Shot Is Contaminated With Plasmid DNA, It's Not Just mRNA, It's Got Bits Of DNA In it. 👇

"This DNA is the DNA vector that was used as the template for the invitro transcription reaction when they made the mRNA."

Professor Phillip Buckhaults.

Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

He does cancer genomics research at the University of South Carolina. An expert on which changes to the genome cause cancer. His team is really good at detecting foreign pieces of DNA in places where they are not supposed to be. 🤔

[the-hydroxian-artblog]

So how does Tails react to Tails Doll in this universe? The lil' scrunkly horror that cannot speak, seems Tails would have at least one (1) thoughts about his horrific likeness.

"....I'll take it over whatever Sonic and Mike have going on."

Tails is creeped out by TD, but can also tell the critter really really means well. Tails teaches Tails Doll little things with tinkering and appliance repair, and TD loves to learn. Tails has to tell TD not to infuse what he makes with ectoplasmic orgone energy because now the waffle iron is alive and biting one of Tails' tails whoops

TD is invited by default to movie night (Amy, Vector, Sonic and Mike usually come along. Omega usually hangs with Shadow and Rouge, but sometimes barges in on some nights uninvited). TD is usually polite and quiet. People try not to make a habit of asking TD what he wants to watch, because the doll always shouts "Ghost!bust.Steers" in some form or another, but will politely watch anything anyone else puts on.

The little boy loves Ghostbusters so much. He's crazy about the franchise. Tails gifted him a DVD copy and TD cried tears of hyperrealistic blood. He doesn't have a DVD player in the abandoned mansion he lives in, but only because he wordlessly brings it over for movie night. In case anyone else. Would like. To watch Ghostb. Ghobustert.

He has a poster of Bill Murray in his big rotten mansion.

As for Tails... he thinks TD is. Kind of cool. In his own creepy way. While Tails is a tech genius, Tails Doll is an expert in the occult. Not for being particularly well read, but mainly because he keeps making friends (and enemies) with ghosts. Tails was strongly offput by the creature upon first meeting it on friendly terms, but has grown to be very supportive of it.

Fun fact! After studying TD, Tails came to certain conclusions: Hacking and Zeti EM waves cannot affect Tails Doll. Ghosts cannot possess Tails Doll. Sunlight makes Tails Doll stronger. In spite of these facts, Tails Doll does not have flesh. This has taught Tails a valuable lesson that some scientific pursuits are best left untouched, and for that he's forever grateful.

[askvectorprime]

dear vector prime, with the convoy concil rudling the maximals, has cybertron fallen into a caste system again with the convoys on top?

Dear Commander Concerned,

I see you’ve stumbled upon a topic of some debate in the centuries following the Great Transformation! Let me share the facts with you, and you may arrive at your own conclusions.

To be clear, the military and political rank of Convoy was not assigned by birth. Anyone could apply themselves at one of Cybertron’s great houses of learning to prepare for state exams to become a Convoy. Emergency battlefield promotions were also permissible, as when Big Junior was dubbed Big Convoy by his dying father. Not every Convoy was a member of the ruling Convoy Council, and not every legislator, public representative or leader was a Convoy either. Conversely, some born Convoy-types did not pursue leadership—such as Nyx, the pilot.

However, you are right in that societal bias existed in favour of Convoy-type Transformers. A majority of the Convoy Council had been born as Convoy-types, with shared physical traits among them seen as desirable by much of the public. For example, while the young tactician Longrack came from a long line of Convoys, none in his family had been born Convoy-types, and so it had become tradition for them to wear large forehead crests similar to those naturally forged on Convoy-types.

In truth, I cannot say that all of the Council had earned their place through merit. For example, serial fraudster Q-V Convoy was embroiled in a major scandal involving the falsification of records using a cortical psychic patch in order to be selected for the rank of Great Convoy, a particularly damaging scandal which in part propagated the debate that would result in the cessation of the Convoy system.

An expert techno-organic mnemosurgeon trained in cityspeaking, Q-V Convoy had spent his entire life brainwashing his superiors and the environment around him to create an assumed legal person of great renown. His ascension was only stopped by the timely intervention of Big Convoy and Heinrad; Heinrad was able to confirm that none of Q-V Convoy’s accomplishments had taken place, and Big Convoy was too hard-headed for his “Shadowplay Aura” to affect him.

The successor Prime Leader system was not without its flaws, though it did coincide with several major reforms. The naming decision itself was intended to move away from the implied “great ‘bot” narrative of the Convoy name in favour of a heightened focus on meritocracy, ensuring each leader would be the “prime” one for the job.

Going beyond the historical record, it should be known that Vector Sigma had created the Convoy-types as a strategy to ensure a new warrior would arise to defeat Unicron after breaking free from the Triple Z Point. Becoming perhaps overly straightforward in her divine old age, Vector Sigma knew that the rank of Supreme Commander had produced some of her greatest allies in the war against darkness and had purposely weighted a certain portion of her new creations towards the Convoy-types to ensure a higher “hit rate” so to speak. As is sometimes the case, what is good for destroying Unicron is perhaps not good for fair and open governance. Whether this was all worth it is up to the reader, but I personally feel that the Convoys who truly distinguished themselves did so not by the circumstances of their birth, but by the good work they did in service of their people.

[darkmaga-returns]

One of the largest studies ever conducted has confirmed the worst fears of a growing number of leading experts around the world: Covid “vaccines” caused deadly cardiovascular injuries and sudden deaths to skyrocket to historic levels.

The chilling confirmation has emerged following a groundbreaking international peer-reviewed study involving a staggering 85 million people across three major continents.

While the results may not be surprising to many, the study has provided one of the most conclusive pieces of evidence to date linking the Covid injections to life-threatening or fatal outcomes.

The study confirms that Covid “vaccines” have caused sudden deaths, strokes, heart attacks, coronary artery disease, and other deadly chronic conditions to skyrocket to epidemic levels.

The team of international researchers behind the study found that both viral vector and mRNA-based Covid “vaccines” are responsible for surging reports of deadly cardiovascular events.

During the large-scale analysis, the study confirmed that Covid mRNA and viral vector injections caused the following spikes around the world:

Strokes increased 240%

Heart attacks +286%

Coronary artery disease +244%

Arrhythmia +199%

The study was led by Raheleh Karimi from the Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in Iran.

[seen-in-the-smoke]

[ Encryption suite ESSEX SKIPPER active… ]

< Good day. 

The investigation you are charged with conducting interests me. I have expertise relevant to certain aspects of the case, and am willing to provide consulting services. 

The neutralization of Rennes, the HESTIA-class NHP responsible for your AIP, seems to be a matter requiring additional investigation. Though I wish to divulge as little identifying information as possible, it must be said that I am a veteran of Legion warfare and am well-familiar with current methods and doctrine. In my opinion, there is no doubt that you are facing expert combatants, well-trained and equipped, although I’m certain you know that much already. 

Given the specifics of Rennes’ state post-neutralization, I may be able to construct a model of how and by what means the attack was performed. The autopsy report, yes? With regard to her combat capabilities, I presume that at the time of the attack, Rennes would have been equipped with an up-to-date, Union-standard counterintrusion suite. In addition, she almost certainly would have had her arsenal prepared and accessible, stand-down order notwithstanding. Are these assumptions correct? Additionally, any information you can provide regarding the HESTIA class will be of use; I’m acquainted, but I’ve undergone several cyclings since I last required the specifics. 

In exchange, I require information. You are a Union naval liaison, yes? I want a UAD-prepared report detailing Union standards for activation, training, and deployment of milspec NHPs. Emphasis on ethics and quality-of-life. Measures taken to ensure well-being, limits on duration of active deployment, how requests for retirement or transfer to non-combat duty are handled, payment and benefits offered for service. Resources made available to milspec NHPs during and after transition to civilian life. Disciplinary measures taken in cases of desertion or failure to comply. Legal status and rights of NHP prisoners of war, procedures for their detainment and release.

For all topics, documented cases—including the embarrassing ones. Are you willing to provide this? >

( @luna-wing-cns274 )

What's all this, then...

Huh. You one of those Horizon folks? Free Deimos, all that? I'm not gonna state a group opinion on the clock, but I'll freely say it's nice to see someone interested in NHP rights. Don't worry about me snooping, you have Union's word that nothing said here will be grounds for investigation. You wanna help, this convo is fully indemnified.

Let's see what I can't authorize as far as your payment, too. I'm sure the UAD would be happy to get its moment in the PR spot, even with some flubs. Putting in a request as we speak, in the meantime... Wake, you got the analysis?

ONE MOMENT.

HESTIA-CLASS NHP "RENNES" SUFFERED...

APOLOGIES. HESTIA-CLASS NHP "RENNES" SUFFERED NEAR-ON-TOTAL SEMIOTIC BREAKDOWN, WITH MARKERS SUPERFICIALLY RESEMBLING LINGUISTIC-VECTOR DELIVERY; SUCH A VECTOR MAY HAVE TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF THE COMMAND-ATTENDANT STATE RENNES MAY HAVE BEEN IN, SEEKING CONFIRMATION BETWEEN THE CONFLICTING ORDERS. MONDRAGON ARCHITECTURE ANALYSIS REVEALS DELAMINATION ALONG SPECIFIC CONCEPTUAL LINES WITH MAJOR INTERNAL DAMAGE TO THE CASKET SUBSTRATE ITSELF; IN PARTICULAR, IT APPEARS THAT THIS BREAKDOWN IN BASIC RELATIONALITY CAUSED OVERCOMPENSATION IN MNEMONIC RECALL OF MOMENT-TO-MOMENT EXISTENCE. IN EFFECT, HIGHER-LEVEL THOUGHT ITSELF WOULD HAVE ECHOED UNTIL IT SHOOK APART THE CASKET'S INSIDES. EVERY MILLISECOND OF SELFHOOD UNDERSTOOD AS EXISTING SIMULTANEOUSLY, CROWDING HER IN.

...

THE HESTIA-PATTERN LINE IS COMMONLY USED IN BODYGUARD/HIGH-LEVEL ASSET PROTECTION ROLES. THEY ARE PARTICULARLY SUITED TO LEGION/REALSPACE INTERDICTION, COMMONLY UTILIZING AD-HOC EMPATHIC LEASHING GAMBITS. IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE, RENNES HAD ACCESS TO AIP ABDULLAH'S SUBJECTIVITY ENHANCEMENT SUITE AS WELL AS A COMPLEMENT OF TRANSDERMAL "CONTACT BRIDGE" IMPLANTS. IN THE EVENT OF A THREAT TO AIP ABBDULLAH'S PHYSICAL OR SYSTEMIC SAFETY, RENNES' FIRST ACTION WOULD LIKELY HAVE BEEN TO EXTRUDE EMPATHIC LEASH VECTORS INTO ALL CONNECTED SYSTEMS, FORCIBLY DEMOTIVATING A BIOLOGICAL OR LEGION-VIRAL AGENT BY BLANKETING THEM IN HER OWN SUBJECTIVITY. IT IS UNKNOWN WHETHER FOREKNOWLEDGE OF THIS DOCTRINE INFORMED THE PARTICULARS OF THE ATTACK PERFORMED ON HER.

Christ-the-Buddha. Is she okay?

ALIVE, BUT LIKELY IN A STATE SIMILAR TO BIOLOGICAL COMA. BEREFT OF BLINK ARCHITECTURE NECESSARY TO PERFORM HIGHER-LEVEL THOUGHT. ITERATIVE CYCLING MAY BE NECESSARY TO RESTORE PARTIAL COGNITIVE PROCESSES.

Fuck. Well, I don't know how much you can get from that-- But, yeah, apparently she got jumped right after the stand-down order. Would've had a direct line into Noah's augs, the attack probably happened on that end. Admin babysitters keep their caskets pretty tightly locked away.

-BREAKFAST

[Encrypt:gloworm]

i'm so sorry i'm so sorry i'll stop now i promise

i hope it doesn't hurt

[love-and-deepspace-wiki]

Helloooo your blog is a liver saver for lore enthusiast like me! You know, although infold hadn't release much info on certain crucial aspect in the game but I was wondering what's your take or theory on how Protocore Syndrome works? Is it just another name for a Heart failure Disease or something more? Would love to read more of your fanon idea on it! And thank you for creating this amazing wiki blog! 💕💕💕

Ayyyy lore enthusiasts gang~ And of course! Thank you for reading! Sorry this took SO long to reply to. Had to do some major studying for this one lol.

I want to start off by saying that medical knowledge is not my area of expertise, so this is purely a layman's best interpretation based on everything I could learn at Google University 🤣 I managed to decipher her electrocardiogram (ECG/EKG) report results. But as for what irl diagnosis those results indicate, I simply lack the expertise required to deduce that answer. Even though I couldn't answer the second part of your question (believe me, I tried so hard 😭), I hope this post is still useful to you! To any medical or med school folk out there, now is your time to shine and save the day (pls 🙏).

How Protocore Syndrome Works?

The basic in-game description of Protocore Syndrome is very rudimentary and doesn't really give us a lot to go off of. But here's what we know:

Protocore Syndrome: From the "Deepspace Messages" section of the in-game Spacepedia resource, we learn that it is a unique disease caused by Protocores. There are different types, and they harm the human body in various ways. Currently, the known types are A, E, and Y

Type Y Protocore Syndrome: From the description given in the World Underneath story "No Morning", we learn that it is a heart syndrome that involves that hides in various organs and systems, with a long latency period, and slow progression. By the time it's detected, it's often too late. There is currently no known cure.

Still digging for concrete information to confirm the protaganist's diagnosis, but the story seems to infer she has Protocore Syndrome. (If you have any screenshots or resources that definitively identify her condition, pls dm me and I'll credit you).

From Zayne's statements during her chapter 1 appointment, we learn that she has Protocore fragments in her heart. He goes on to specify the following symptoms:

Heart arrhythmia

Premature ventricular contractions (PVCs)

Heart murmurs

The game shows us glimpses of her medical paperwork too. We are shown her ECG report and summary. After covering her report, I'll explain some potential discrepancies (emphasis on "potential" since I'm nowhere near an expert lol).

ECG Basics:

We're going to get a little technical here. But I think we'll get the most value from the analysis once we understand what we're looking at. The ECG shown in-game is a standard 12-lead report, producing 12 individual strips.

Leads:

There are the six limb leads: I, II, III, aVR (augmented vector right), aVL (augmented vector left), and aVF (augmented vector foot).

Then, there are the six chest leads: V1, V2, V3, V4, V5, and V6.

Intervals & Waves:

For the report details to make more sense, here's a quick reference to aid in the interpretation of different waves, wave interval, gain settings, and speed settings.

And, based on the gain and speed settings detailed below, each small square on her chart represent 40 milliseconds (ms) and each large squares represents 200 ms.

ECG Report Analysis:

Gain, Speed, and Heart Rate:

Gain: 10 mm/mV

Gain is a setting on an ECG machine that controls the size of an ECG trace. The standard gain setting is 10mm/mV, meaning that 10 mm on the screen represents 1 millivolt (mV) of voltage. It appears that Akso Hospital's ECG adheres to this standard.

Speed: 25 mm/s

Speed is the paper speed setting on an ECG machine. So, the Akso Hospital's ECG machine is set to 25 mm/s (meaning that each small square on the chart represents 0.04 seconds).

Heart rate: 85 bpm

Pretty self-explanatoty, but this measures how many times her heart beats within one minute. For women, a normal resting heart rate is considered 60-100 bpm, and hers is within this range.

PR Interval: 138 ms

The PR Interval (or PQ Interval) is the distance between the start of the P wave and the start of the QRS complex. A normal PR Interval is between 120 - 200 ms. Since hers is 138 ms, she falls within the normal range.

QT & QTC Intervals:

QT Interval: 347 ms

The QT Interval is the time between the start of the QRS segment and the end of the T wave. It measures the electrical activity of the heart's ventricles. For a heart rate of 85 bpm, a normal QT Interval would generally be 380 ms or less. So, hers is normal.

QTC Interval: 411 ms

The QTC Interval is the corrected QT interval (thats what the "c" is for). It represents the time it takes the heart's ventricles to contract and relax. It is calculated by adjusting the QT interval for heart rate. A normal QTC interval for women is usually less than 460 ms. Since hers is 411 ms, she's within the normal range.

P, T, and QRS Wave Axes:

P Wave Axis: 38°

The P wave axis tells us the net direction of the P wave. A normal P wave axis is usually between 0° and 75°. Since hers is 38°, it falls within the normal range.

T Wave Axis: 65°

The T wave tells us the net direction of the T wave. A normal P wave axis is usually between 15° and 75°. Since hers is 65°, it is within the normal range.

QRS Axis: 35°

The QRS Axis tells us the average direction of electrical activity in the heart during ventricular depolarization. A normal adult QRS axis is between -30° and 90°. Since hers is 35°, she falls within the normal range.

SV1 and RV5:

SV1: 0.94 mV

SV1 represents the voltage of the S wave from the V1 lead. It is used to detect ventricular hypertrophy. A normal SV1 is considered to be less than 2.5 mV and hers is within this range.

RV5: 0.85 mV

The RV5 represents the voltage of the R wave from the V5 lead. It is used to measure electrical activity in the left ventricle. An RV5 reading is considered normal if it is less than 3.5 mV and hers is within this range.

QRS Interval: 71 ms

The QRS Interval the interval between the start of the Q wave and the end of the S wave. Represents the time it takes for electrical impulses to spread through the ventricles. A normal QRS Interval is 70-100 ms. Since hers is 71 ms, she's within the normal range.

Potential Discrepancies:

Okay. So, I thought it was a bit strange that all of her ECG readings were within the normal ranges. But I genuinely don't know if a patient can be diagnosed with an irl heart condition despite having an ECG that appears normal. Maybe its a diagnosis determined by other criteria we aren't shown?

Additionally, I looked up ECG strip examples of both cardiac arrhythmias and premature ventricular contractions (PVCs). And comparing them with her charts, I don't see indications of those symptoms in there.

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

I'm having a discussion, and need your expert opinion.

Is Nurgle against psykers. Like, does he dislike them.

No. Mortarion and his loyalists within the Death Guard dislike psykers because of life on Barbarus, and/or Typhus' bullshit when he used psyker powers.

Nurgle has about the same opinion on psykers as he does anything else; threatening affection and new vectors for spreading diseases and plagues.

[physalian]

Segway Characters (Or when your protagonist knows jack about the story)

This is the protagonist of a sci-fi or fantasy world, generally a nobody who gets dragged in either by circumstance or by being the long-lost-something prophesied to save the realm. They know absolutely nothing about the plot, the other characters, the magic system, or the new world, the audience proxy that asks all the questions on the audience’s behalf.

I call them Segways (read; not segue) because they look dumb and you ride their ass through the narrative.

This is a very, very broad concept for a protagonist, everybody from a superhero origin story to Harry Potter, as opposed to a character like James Bond, an expert in their craft and a *seasoned protagonist*.

Segways usually aren’t a problem… until it becomes rather painfully obvious that they only exist to be the audience proxy to ask those questions, when another character could and should be the protagonist because they’re far more interesting, usually because the protagonist is way less cool and active in the plot than their constituents. Or, they’re a perfectly fine character, but the exposition dumping to them is sloppy and unrefined.

The difference between just a protagonist and a Segway is how smoothly they integrate into that story.

So.

—

Inception

I love this movie. It has inspired so much of my writing.

Ariadne is a poster child of Segway characters. Aside from the villain, Mal, she’s the only woman in the cast, and though Dom (DiCaprio) is the hero, Ariadne is his protege, the audience vector through which all the world mechanics and important backstory stuff is told. Every other character already knows how dream heists work and who Mal is, so explaining redundant information between experts would look weird—enter the Segway, Ariadne.

For what it’s worth, she’s not useless otherwise. She’s the new ‘architect,’ she builds the mazes the rest of the team runs through and is the innocent cinnamon roll dragged into problems that Dom created. Her name could not be a more heavy-handed symbol.

She’s active in the story and her perspective foils against Dom’s well enough, but Inception is a movie with layers and an infamous amount of necessary exposition to understand the story. Someone has to be there to ask all the questions the audience has. Ariadne unfortunately gets the lion’s share, instead of the script figuring out how to weave more of it into the interactions of the other characters. They spent so much time on the complex narrative it’s like they forgot about a layman audience and threw her in too late for a seamless integration.

—

Netflix’s The Old Guard is better than it should be, given its budget. I didn’t read the comic it was based on and have no idea if Nile’s character is the same in the original, but she’s another Segway with only one reason for existing in the plot otherwise: Andy’s got to pass the torch to someone.

Yes she comes to save them in the end and yes, her advantage in the story is being unknown to the villains, but she’s there, in this version of the story, so the other four heroes can info-dump to her about all manner of things from how immortality works to their backstories to the setup for the sequel the movie never got.

I just rewatched it recently and if the script just had two or three passes to tackle the exposition problem, it could have off-loaded some of the burden onto other characters, or better told it through action, and not just info-dumpy monologues. When the movie came out I remember a critic I like commenting that it could have been a more interesting story if it had been told from the sympathetic villain’s perspective (Not Dudley’s). As in, if he was on a mission with all his conspiracy-level research and dedication to track these people down, throwing out his own theories for them to then correct or something.

Like this, the story is just waiting for Nile to ask the right questions. Nothing is volunteered freely without Nile directly asking for it, because it runs into the same problem as Inception: Every other character already knows everything, and they wouldn’t exposit to each other.

—

A lot of isekai anime also do this. I’ve tried getting into older, tentpole shows like Sailor Moon and Bleach and Yu Yu Hakusho and I don’t know what it is about anime pilot episodes, even modern ones but particularly the old ones, the exposition dumping is atrocious. To the point where it feels like they all know it and are like “listen just bear with us and we’ll get this done fast and sloppy and get to the good stuff later”.

I just can’t. I think I made it 15 minutes into Bleach before noping out of there years ago.

—

Obviously all these movies and shows have their fans, but if you’re a writer struggling with exposition or noticed this trend like me, here’s some suggestions to avoid the need to info-dump, assuming you do want to keep your Segway.

Try not to give all the exposition questions to one character, and don’t wait for that character to ask, out-of-character on behalf of the audience, what’s going on in the story. Instead, let it flow more naturally in conversation and let the more experienced characters brainstorm with each other, or let the protagonist uncover some of this information actively on their own through other means, for variety’s sake.

Figure out a reason why these questions are necessary to the story in this moment. Why is the hero asking now, as opposed to any other time? You can also let the hero draw their own conclusions and have the other characters correct their misassumptions, feeding that information in a more natural way.

Give the hero more to do in the story beyond being the exposition vehicle right from the start. I don’t care if they’re the chosen one and the plot just falls into their lap, why are they the chosen one?

Spread out the exposition to come only when it’s necessary. Front-loading it can tarnish the immersion and overwhelm the audience, especially if it’s complex, or if there’s a lot of it. You can pepper it all the way through the story if you want.

If you really want to front-load it, you can go to the extremes and slap in a prologue or meta-narrative dump that’s fun and entertaining from a third person omniscient perspective. First thing that comes to mind is the opening 2D scene from Kung Fu Panda that covers a lot of ground. Go ham.

None of these characters are bad, I just think with a few more rounds of revisions and forethought, they could have been integrated better into their stories.

[normaltothemax]

@odditymuse you know who this is for

Jace hadn’t actually been paying all that much attention to his surroundings. Perhaps that was the cause of his eventual downfall. The Stark Expo was just so loud, though. Not only to his ears, but to his mind. So much technology in one space, and not just the simple sort, like a bunch of smartphones—not that smartphones could necessarily be classified as simple technology, but when one was surrounded by them all day, every day, they sort of lost their luster—but the complex sort that Jace had to really listen to in order to understand.

After about an hour of wandering, he noticed someone at one of the booths having difficulty with theirs. A hard-light hologram interface; fully tactile holograms with gesture-control and haptic feedback. At least, that was what the poor woman was trying to demonstrate. However, the gestural database seemed to be corrupted. No matter how she tried, the holograms simply wouldn’t do what she wanted them to, either misinterpreting her gesture commands or completely reinterpreting them.

Jace had offered up a suggestion after less than a minute of looking at the device:

“Have you tried realigning the inertial-motion sensor array that tracks hand movement vectors? Your gesture database might not be the actual problem.” That was what she was currently looking at, and it wasn’t. “Even a small drift on, say, the Z-axis,” the axis with the actual misalignment issue, “would feed bad data into the system. Which would, in turn, make the gesture AI try to compensate, learning garbage in the process.”

He’d received a hell of a dirty look for his attempted assistance, and frankly, if she didn’t want to accept his help, that was fine—Jace was used to people ignoring him, even when he was, supposedly, the expert on the matter. But then the woman’s eyes went big, locked onto something behind him, and a single word uttered in a man’s voice had Jace spinning around and freezing, like a deer in headlights.

“Fascinating.”

Oh god. Oh no. That was Tony Stark. The Tony Stark. The one person Jace did not want to meet and hadn’t expected to even be milling around here, if he’d bothered to come at all.

“…Um.” Well done, Jace. Surely that will help your cause.

[beardedmrbean]

A study of over 19 billion exposed passwords has revealed that only 6 percent of the leaked passwords were unique. The vast majority, 94 percent, were reused or duplicated, making them prime targets for cybercriminals.

Common keyboard patterns and easily guessed strings remain prevalent. The "123456" sequence still dominates, appearing in 338 million passwords, according to the Cybernews study.

Why It Matters

The scale of password breaches and the continued reliance on weak passwords have heightened concerns about "credential stuffing," a tactic in which attackers use automated tools to test stolen credentials across multiple platforms.

Even breach success rates between 0.2 percent and 2 percent can still yield thousands of compromised accounts, according to Cybernews.

The most common password length is eight to 10 characters, and a significant portion contains only lowercase letters and digits, making passwords vulnerable to brute-force attacks.

Compared to just 1 percent in 2022, 19 percent of passwords now mix uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols.

What To Know

The dataset analyzed included 19,030,305,929 passwords sourced from 200 cybersecurity incidents. These came from leaked databases, stealer logs, and combolists.

Paul Walsh, CEO of MetaCert, has emphasized another growing risk vector: phishing attacks targeting phones. He has urged cybersecurity companies to tackle SMS phishing with the same intensity as email security to help mitigate password leaks and breaches.

In an article published on Monday, Walsh told Forbes that MetaCert's latest national SMS phishing test, carried out in March and including carriers such as AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Boost Mobile, was concerning.

"Every phishing message was still delivered," Walsh said. "None were blocked, flagged, or rewritten."

Walsh has written an open letter to the cybersecurity industry asking why the SMS phishing problem wasn't solved long ago.

What Are the Most Common Passwords?

Predictable patterns continue to dominate password choices. "123456" alone appears in 338 million of the passwords in the Cybernews study, while "password" and "admin" were used over 100 million times combined.

Users also often rely on names, with "Ana" appearing in 178.8 million instances. Positive words like "love," "freedom," and pop culture references such as "Batman" are also prevalent. Profanity, surprisingly, is common as well; "ass" alone shows up in 165 million passwords.

Some of the most frequently used pop culture terms in passwords included "Mario" (9.6 million), "Joker" (3.1 million), "Batman" (3.9 million), and "Thor" (6.2 million).

Additionally, seasonal words, food items, and cities frequently feature in password choices, leaving accounts vulnerable to attackers who exploit such predictability. Over 10 million of the passwords featured "apple," 4.9 million "rice," and 3.6 million "orange," while 3.3 million opted for "pizza."

The most popular city for passwords was "Rome" (13 million), while "summer" (3.8 million) was the most popular season.

What People Are Saying

Neringa Macijauskaitė, information security researcher at Cybernews: "We're facing a widespread epidemic of weak password reuse. If you reuse passwords across multiple platforms, a breach in one system can compromise the security of other accounts."

MetaCert CEO Paul Walsh told Forbes: "Criminals have already moved in full force, and the industry is failing to respond."

"The cybersecurity industry has no shortage of experts in email security, endpoint protection, or network defense, but when it comes to SMS infrastructure and security, there is a distinct lack of deep expertise."

What Happens Next

Researchers have urged individuals and organizations to boost password security by using password managers, enforcing minimum length and complexity standards, and enabling multi-factor authentication. Organizations are advised to regularly audit access controls, monitor for credential leaks, and adopt real-time detection solutions.

[neversetyoufree]

Now with the new info, I guess we know how Chloe knew about Archivistes, and I’m wondering if she can reveal further details that might help tip the balance of things (hence why she’s napping so she doesn’t reveal them too soon).

(As I am deeply slow at answering asks, the "new information" here is referring to the Marquis Machina reveal)

Yeah! I do think there's a limit to how much Chloé can know, since it's integral to her story that she's been very isolated from the rest of vampire society her whole life, and then she spent a century in a time loop. I don't think she's going to blow the lid off the main mysteries around Faustina or The Shapeless One or even the full truth of the Archivistes. That said, she's quite old even compared to other vampires, she's an expert on world formula manipulation, and she's known Ruthven and Machina for a long time. She absolutely knows things that the protagonists don't, and it's quite possible that some of those things are plot-relevant.

I know it's a popular interpretation/theory right now, but I'm actually not fully convinced Chloé knows Machina's identity. I think it's just as possible that she never got a good look at the person in the bear suit, but Machina (or even Ruthven?) mentioned Archivistes to her in some other context. That said, she still might know about Machina, and her conversations with her are a very likely vector for her to know other important things as well, including things about The Shapeless One and/or Archivistes.

And like you said, keeping her asleep for now is a very good way to delay and avoid whatever small revelations she could bring. I never actually thought of that myself, but it's obvious in hindsight.

Local vampire put into post-curse perma-sleep because she's too smart and she would give away the plot too quickly.