#terminal computer guy brain

[qwertyfingers]

dads been getting back into making music in a big way and its so funny to have lots of back and forth about cool experimental stuff we've come across and i ask how his own tinkering is going and he tells me he's spent the last 2 days perfecting the setup on his RGB keyboard instead

[henry7931]

You Signed A Contract Part I

Jeremy:

I wish I never met Don Hughes and I wish I never signed that stupid contract!! It sucks because I can’t even talk about everything after signing that non-disclosure too.

The last couple of months have been awful. Ever since I met Don while on my shift.

*FLASHBACK*

I’m a college student so I wait tables part time. And one afternoon I met Don, who sat at my table.

He was charismatic and you could tell that the guy has money. We chatted for a while, he asked me about my life.

By the end of his lunch, he said to me, “if you ever want to make a ridiculous amount of money—call me.”

He handed me his business card and went on with his day.

It took me about a day before I called Don’s number.

When I called he automatically knew it was me.

“Jeremy, I was hoping you would call.” 

“Yeah sorry it took me a little bit to get back to you.”

“Oh no! You’re perfectly fine!”

We talked for a few before he told me to meet him at an address.

When I arrived I was shocked to see that it was a McDonalds.

Don was waiting for me in a booth grinning.

“Well hello Jeremy.”

“Hi Don.”

“Come sit, you hungry?”

“I could eat.”

We grab food and Don basically laid everything out on the table.

“So I have an offer for you, let’s look at it as a short term form of employment.”

“Okay, I’m listening,” I say taking a fry.

At first I thought Don was about to pimp me out. But what he said next shocked me even more.

“So over the years, my company has grown into high technology. We’ve created things that only appear in movies. You’d be surprised by how advanced this world could actually be…”

He pauses and takes a deep breath, “so what I’m offering is this— a short term body exchange. 3 months and you get $500,000.”

I nearly spit out my drink, “wait repeat that?!?”

“We basically swap bodies for 3 months, I have your body, you have mine. No one outside my company knows about it. I’ll have a very lavish apartment for you to live in, all expenses paid. And then after 3 months, you get your body back and $500,000.”

I was shocked, I wasn’t sure what to say. I mean $500,000 is a lot of money.

“Is it safe?”

“Yes, it’s safe. This isn’t the first time I’ve used this machine. In fact, my company regularly swaps bodies within our staff. It can be fun.”

“So no other rules? I have your body and you have mine. You won’t do anything crazy with it will you?”

“Good god no! I just prefer to be inside a more youthful body at times. And to be completely honest, I just found you to be very handsome. If anything, this swap could be more of a liability for me…. So what do you say? We got a deal?”

Don pushed over a contract to me and I hesitate for a second.

“I know this is a lot Jeremy but just think. It’s only 3 months.”

“Fine, let do it,” I say picking up the pin and signing the document over.

“Great! Now let’s head to my car. The swap begins immediately.”

A fancy all black car pulls up and we get inside. All I could think about on the ride over was that Don’s body was about to be mine for 90 days straight.

I look at his older hands and feel my stomach turn. I feel anxious and all of the what ifs start to fill my brain. What this guy has some terminal disease? What if he backs out?

Ugh… I try think about anything else. And then we pull up to what looks like an abandoned building.

A giant guy comes up and greets us.

“Jeremy, this is Rocky. He’s my body guard but he’ll be with you the next 3 months.”

I shake Rocky’s hand as Don heads inside. Rocky gives me a wide grin and says, “It’s a pleasure, don’t stress. This isn’t Don’s first rodeo.”

“Can you tell I’m nervous?,” I say to him.

“Of course, but it’s worth it. I promise. And I’ll be with you.”

Hearing Rocky’s words gave me a little assurance.

I head inside with him and walk into the biggest laboratory I’ve ever seen. Computers, machines are everywhere and multiple scientists.

I get directed to go down a hallway where I find Don again.

He’s sitting by a giant machine with two helmets attached to it.

They ask me sit down in one of the chairs. A scientist straps one of the helmets on me. And then Don’s sits and they do the same to him.

“Here we go Jeremy! 1…2…3..”

I tighten my eyes and then….

Don:

Being a very wealthy businessman, I always get what I want. Even if it’s supposed to be unobtainable. Like this body for instance. Jeremy is just one of many bodies I’ve taken over.

And honestly I get tired of them after a couple of months. But what’s nice about having a younger body means, I can still run my board everyday.

All of the members are fully aware of my body swap shenanigans. But they don’t fuck with me, mainly because they know I’ll put them in a random body so quick…

Oops, I didn’t say that!

What I love about having a body like Jeremy here, is that I can get my work done and then have fun at night.

I’ll fuck whoever I want, party at any bar, and I especially love seeing a cute face in the morning.

I have several fetishes— I like younger guys, feet, dominating people… but getting a new body to explore feels like my dirtiest fetish. Just touching someone else’s cock, licking a strangers feet while using there mouth, hooking up with another guy who has no clue who I really am… fuck! I’m getting hard just thinking about it!!

What’s great about all of this is if I stay out all night, I know bodies like Jeremy here can handle it. All it takes is a little headache medicine and a Bloody Mary. And I’m back in business!!

Now I think this time, I’m going to take things a step further… starting out, I’m going to have some of my selective staff swap bodies with some handsome guys. They’ll be my personal house boys.

Where I tell them how I want to be pleasured and they listen. God, just imagine— I say footjob and some handsome hunk comes in to just jerk me off with a sexy pair of feet…

It’s settled, “Henry, find me 3 handsome guys in there 20s. Offer them swap contracts.”

“Yes sir,” say my loyal assistant.

“Also, I want them swapped with 3 willing employees. I’ll pay them stupid just to suck my cock on demand.”

“Right away— and sir?”

“Yes, Henry…”

“May I be one of those employees?”

I grinned at my assistant who looks so eager.

“Ohhh have you taken a liking to this body?,” I say to him.

Henry blushes and says, “ for you sir, I’ll be anyone just to make sure you’re happy.”

“Great, well I want a handsome frat boy. You’ll need to suck this daily,” I say pulling out my cock.

“Yes sir!,” he says to me and then runs off to get to work.

Man, I love being this rich!

[mantisfriendd]

Ok so I talked about this in tags of a post earlier but I need to talk about it properly

So a couple weeks ago I finally pulled the trigger, I dual booted Linux Mint on my laptop

It has less of my vital files on it then my pc, but I use it more for videos and general Internet stuff, so I would know if I liked it

Installing was scary but after a bit of trouble shooting with disabling bit locker it was easy, and let me be clear, that's a windows thing, because Microsoft really really doesn't want you to have freedom over your machine.

So I booted in

And like

I literally love it so much

I knew people talked about how much better Linux is and how it speeds up literally anything it's put on over windows, but like WOW

It doesn't take 2 minutes to boot up or shut down, my CPU doesn't idle at 25% for no reason, the search for files feature doesn't take 40 minutes only to show me Internet results instead of files, its wonderful.

The default theme is (in my opinion) pretty ugly, sorry whoever made it, it's just not for me.

But that's the great thing, you can literally customize this almost however you would like.

Maybe you shouldn't trust my opinion on what looks nice because I instantly installed a theme that replicated Windows 7

But I got bored of the default colors so I literally found the files where the home bar is saved and changed them to be more "minty"

That along with some CSS color editing gave me this:

You just can't do anything like this in Windows 10/11. You can change the color on windows but if I wanted, in Mint, I could completely change everything, centered icons on the taskbar, icons left justified on the taskbar, no taskbar, make it look like windows 95, it's all yours to do with whatever you want.

There are issues, I won't lie, the biggest one that will probably haunt Linux forever is compatibility.

Simply put most developers don't make native Linux versions of their software, you are lucky if there is a Mac version.

Lots and lots of Windows software CAN work on Linux through compatibility layers like Wine and Steam's Proton, but it's not 100%

My biggest problem is FL Studio and Clip Studio, neither of these I could get working with Wine or Proton so far. I'm hoping in the future I will find a way to make this work, or transition to their free and open source alternatives, but for now I'm stuck with a win 10 pc.

The other issue I've faced is that Linux seems to have a hard time recognizing and remembering my wired headphones. Like sometimes it just works, but most of the time it fails to do so.

My solution to this until I have time to troubleshoot more is to use my stupid headphone jack to USB C dongle that I bought for my stupid phone with no headphone jack.

Luckily it works fine and the type C port on my laptop literally doesn't get used otherwise.

All in all, I'm like excited to use a computer again. I used to only be excited for the programs it allowed me to use, but for the first time in a long time, the "magic" of the PC has returned for me.

Once I save up the money, my next PC will be Linux, Windows doesn't cut it anymore for me.

Ok now I'm going to kinda just talk about Linux for a bit, unrelated to my experience because my brain has been buzzing about this topic lately.

I get why guys who run Linux are so annoying about it now, because it's me now, I love this stupid OS and everyone has to hear about it.

And chances are, you've used Linux before already!

Linux is used in a ridiculous number of places because of its open source nature.

Most servers and other cloud computing systems are running Linux, many public terminals and screens run Linux, every supercomputer in the world runs Linux, if you were in the education system for the past 13~ years you might have used ChromeOS, which is built on Linux, if you have ever used an Android device you have used Linux.

It's never going to take over Windows as the go to operating system in the home, most people don't even know they could switch, and if they don't know that there's no way they are willing to put up with some of the headaches Linux brings.

Although I've spent way more time troubleshooting Windows issues then I have Linux ones so far, so maybe Microsoft stuffing so much bloated spyware into their system is starting to cause windows to rip at the seams, idk.

When I try to explain Linux to people who literally don't understand any of this I use a car metaphor

Windows is like a hatchback SUV, you buy it from a dealer and it mostly works for everyone good enough that they don't complain.

Linux is like a project vehicle in a lot of ways, the mechanic can tune it up exactly to the specifications they want, tear a bit out and put a diffrent one in, it requires some work under the engine but once that mechanic gets it the way they want it, it's incredible.

It's not a perfect metaphor but I think it gets the idea across.

Uh IDK how to finish this post, please try Linux if you can, changed my life.

[cpu-gpu-smackdown]

P03 (Inscryption) Five Pebbles (Rain World) VS Hera (Wolf 359)

About P03: WEIRD OLD MAN!!! Look at his faces!! His design!! This thing has the energy of a computer who has gone though a divorce and only drinks energy drinks mixed with coffee and orange juice!!! He was also a weird stoat (???) and may or may not be a hacker (just like a certain cat expect P03 just hates everyone also he isnt swag) HE IS PATHETIC!! HE HAS A CRANK TOO LIKE THOSE OLD FUCKING FLASHLIGHTS AND UIJKBUYDGHAIJMKLDNBHVBGUK

About Five Pebbles: He's an asshole, he's a giant history nerd, he's THAT guy on discord, he's suicidal, he also doesn't want to die, when he tried to create a creature to override his programming so he could kill himself he hogged all the water basically killing his older sister and when she begged him to stop he messed up the whole thin and now he has terminal brain cancer that hunts and eats creatures, he also cares for said older sister very much. There is more but i don't have the strength or time to write it all out rn

About Hera: I love her. She's my favorite character of all time. Her creator gave her disabling anxiety so she wouldn't be able to escape and gain her freedom. She spends her time trying to think around her code and come up with ways to kill her human crew, but every time she accidentally nearly gets them killed she freaks out. She's best friends with the laziest and least motivated of her crewmembers. She sees All. She comes up with names for the colors the star emanates but that humans can't see. THE LOVE OF MY LIFE.

[sirstafford]

My weird theories:

As of Season 2 Episode 5 I had this thought.

As far as has been stated, it is vitally important that MARK finish Cold Harbor. Cold Harbor is obviously Gemma, his wife.

Why is it important that this happen? Well.. its a man. Refining the wife he thinks is dead. What is refining? Erasure? Sorting Tempers (4) into brainwaves/boxes (5)? Whose? Ms. Casey or Gemma?

Ok, so.. theory 1)

MDR is collating and sorting the info on severance chips. This only works because they can 'feel' the numbers. What if as a severed person, they have a sort of.. connection through the terminal to the chip they are refining? And the human brain is just better at it than a computer would be. This would mean the plan is 'Turn normal people into personality-and-memory-blanked computers to run our program that helps make MORE and BETTER personality-and-memory-blanked human computers.'

Perhaps all the innies we've seen are Gen 1 innies.

Gen 2 would be absolutely perfect human drone slaves.

Ok, cool. Why Mark and his wife? Well, Outtie Mark and Outtie Gemma.. are close. Maybe this will increase the quality of the connection and thus the work done on her. Total mind wipe. Maybe hes actually deleting all of Outtie Gemmas memories, leaving nothing but innie. A pure soul, tempers defeated, ready to worship Keir as he deserves.

Theory 2)

Lumon seems to be either at, or headed towards, total self sufficience. They can print any things, they have animals who can be uaed for milk or meat, they own a town or perhaps a state or.. the upper michigan peninsula (PE might be short for Peninsula).

Cults often do this. They want to close the wals around them and just have their own little world. Perhaps a spaceship will be involved.

Theory 3)

Ok this one is real weird.

Firat you put a chip in a goat. Then MDR refines the chip to blank. Then you take the now blank chip out and put it in a human. Now you have a human body with a seperate, new mind, that can access the basic knowledge humans have. You have an Innie! It can walk and talk and read and everything.

Ok, so now.. wwhat if it wasnt a goat but a person. An enemy of Lumon. Shove a blank SDcard in their brain, it loads a copy of them up, you edit all the shit you dont want out, plop the new designer brand slave mind into a worker.. and you have an innie.

Which would.. in fact.. mean Innies and Outties are 100% different people. Innie Mark might be some.. other guy named Mark Sutherland who was captured, chipped, refined, and then put into Mark Scouts head.

Can only the refined become refiners?

This show fucking rules.

[possibly-j]

My Linux Journey

This was originally supposed to be a post on learning Linux but I got to rambling so enjoy my story about my journey with Linux. Expect a post on that topic at a later date.

~The early days~

I think my introduction to Linux was honestly quite smooth. See I'm poor and am not inclined to sail the seven seas when I can get by on a free option. And as I looked for free software I started to pick up that the safe ones were always "open source" and seemed to always support, sometimes primarily, Linux. Eventually my curiosity was piqued and I decided to look into it. I was confused by a lot of things, but I was setting up a Minecraft server for my friends and saw people recommend Linux, specifically Debian, for the job. So after unsuccessfully installing it once (I don't know how I think I got scared about formatting the drive) and not understanding how formatting works and deleting the operating system by writing it over with 0's (I keep adding comments but seriously where did I get the impression I had to do that?) and reinstalling I got it set up, downloaded everything I needed, and got it working in a few days. This taught me a lot. The command line, which I wasn't unfamiliar with but rarely used, was my new best friend, or rather only friend. I learned how to do updates, navigate the file structure, download software, and use Nano because, well, I had to. But most importantly, I like how clean everything was compared to Windows (subtle foreshadowing), and I wanted more.

~Adoption~

I was building my computer and really wanted to make the jump to Linux, so I researched and landed on Kubuntu. I installed it, smoothly this time, got some software, got confused by Snaps, opened Blender and- green bar. I had a new AMD graphics card, so driver issues weren't unexpected, but it deterred me enough to just install Windows instead. I did decide though to try on my laptop since it was older and mostly used for web-surfing. I installed Pop! OS because I thought the tiling was cool (more subtle foreshadowing) and... It worked great! I quickly got used to the nice GUI elements it provided and my prior knowledge of the terminal made it easy enough to fix odd issues that came up. However, and I'm sure everyone who knows anything about Linux sees this one coming

~Distro Hopping~

I'll save you most of the details but I think it went like this

Pop! OS, got mad at Gnome, switched to Manjaro with KDE (Which will be my DE of choice for the rest of this), wanted Arch but wasn't comfortable enough with the command line yet.

Broke something, switched to Debian, liked it on server thought I might like it on my laptop.

Wanted newer software, switched to OpenSuse Tumbleweed.

I used OpenSuse Tumbleweed for I think a year straight. It's just that good, but I can't leave good enough alone so

Alpine Linux, because I thought it was cool. Actually planning on moving back to it once I'm done needing my laptop to always be working because it meets that "clean" criteria like no other in my brain (See I told you it was foreshadowing).

And right now Endeavour OS, because I wanted something with good documentation and didn't feel like setting up Arch.

Oh and I use i3 now, to finish off the foreshadowing.

There were a bunch of short lived ones throughout that, but those are the memorable ones. Also I installed Fedora on the computer I built a few months back and now use it over Windows whenever I can.

~Where I am Now~

If it isn't obvious, I'm sucked in. I've almost built Linux From Scratch, three times, installed Gentoo a few times, and even tried expanding my horizons further with FreeBSD, which I love but the software support isn't great for my needs. Linux is natural to me and I even have my own bits of obscure knowledge on fixes for odd issues with my hardware. I have weird opinions about init systems (Weird because I don't actually care much, I just like OpenRC more than SystemD because it's simple). Windows feels slow to use, and not for hardware reasons it just takes me twice as long to do anything. I really love tiling window managers like I don't understand how I lived without them. I primarily use open source software when I can but flatpaks and web applications fill in the gaps nicely.

~Closing Notes~

I love Linux, probably a bit too much, but it's just a fun time. It works well for me and I've spent enough time in the ecosystem that it's what I'm used to. I see a lot of new Linux users on here so if you're new, welcome! Don't let the often toxic community (at least on Reddit, I don't know about here) get to you. My absolute favorite part of Linux is that you get to have choices. Make use of that, find what you like, and don't be afraid to reinstall Arch for the 10 millionth time. There's a lot to learn, and maybe my story will be of some help. To those more experienced than me, how the fuck do you understand chmod

:q!

[kurikive]

searching | kmj.

## cutegirlassemble

★ kim minji (04)

— listens to kehlani but SWEARS shes not gay (she is and she knows it shes just closeted), clean freak, peaked in highschool, now she's sad and poor she's only surviving by her pretty girl privilege, acting major, part of book club

★ hanni pham (04)

— real twt baddie, acts mean but actually a sweetie she just watched too much mean girls, out and proud but nobody knows she's gay for some reason, had a cover channel when she was 12 and she can't remember her password so she can't delete it, biggest minji enabler, music major

★ danielle marsh (05)

— sweetest girl ever, when you piss her off she's SCURRRRYY though, super extroverted and friendly, doesn't have too many friends but is infamously recognized by everyone, highschool theater kid in recovery (not really), you can tell this is her first twt, music major, part of theater club

★ kang haerin (06)

— wanted to study computer science because she thought she wouldn't get into k-arts and now she's regretting everything, her only purpose is annoying hanni and sometimes minji, tells everyone she's duna's sister but she's not, she doesn't even know who lena is, music major

★ lee hyein (06)*

— she wanted to be a model originally, but she saw how toxic modeling was and she got into acting (she's never making money), was weirded out by the theater kinds at first but now she's one of them, how her brain works is a mystery, but she's pretty and popular so eh, acting major, part of theater club

★ kang duna (05)

— lena's cousin, cutegirlism at its max, tries everything to tell people she's not straight but no girls seem to notice, they think she's just an ally, gives great advice, loves everyone but doesn't mind indulging in a little teasing, music major

★ gong yubin (05)

— #1 hater, literally a bully, no one suspects anything though because she's so smiley, WILL laugh in literally anyone's face, she won a cooking show at 12 and that was her peak so she's bitter, she wrote cirlcle on her location on purpose because she wanted to piss minji off, acting major, part of cooking club

★ park gunwook (05)

— bisexual husband, another case of terminal straight face, you meet him and it's another case however, did i mention he's bisexual, needs boyfriend BAD, only guy in the friend group #feministally, he IS a cute girlie and he's proud, dance major

*for continuity and for things to make sense, hyein is a '06 liner

masterlist

[deme-real-life]

who is this girl?

as i approach 100 followers and soon become tumblr famous and known across the globe i think it's high time i made an introductory post. hiii ^_^ i'm deme!! or demeter. or delta. or jack. pick your poison from the tetrad

in my free time, when im not staring blankly at whatever assignment ive been tasked with doing (and that i am promptly not doing and that i am instead merely contemplating with growing dread), i like to create! i've been brushing up on my html and javascript in the past year or two, and i made a fully fledged choose-your-own-adventure last year on my birthday! what? you want to see it? erm. no. sorry. the site is scary i need to finish the rest of it you can wait til then

i enjoy long walks on the beach i mean writing and drawing! i'm working on like. three books right now? two are on the backburner. the third one is also on the backburner but i'm trying to reel it in like a bigass fish that is trying to pull me into the ocean depths. i also enjoy drawing from time to time but i would not say i'm particularly good at actually finishing pieces. i'm definitely better at finishing drawings than i am at finishing pieces of writing.

i've combined all three of these interests of coding, writing, and drawing, into my webcomic, finality! you can read it here. as of the time of writing, it's not very long, but i have most of it planned out. as of this september, i'll have been planning it out for a whole three years. scary!

along with she/her, i also use et/cetera! here's the structure for that:

she/her/hers/herself ("She's going to the store in her car to buy some food for herself, but can't find which car is hers.")

et/cetera/ceteras/etself ("Et's going to the store in cetera car to buy some food for etself, but can't find which car is ceteras.")

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

I'M TRANSGENDER! GOD BLESS MY NATION 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️

for fun i like going to https://crouton.net/ and on occasion https://po.ta.to/

i love video games. recently cried several times over outer wilds. i love the fuck out of ultrakill. many other games strike my fancy

i have a SHIT TON OF OCS!!!!!!! i've been developing my oc universe(s) since 2015 so there's like. ok i made a sheet to list them all recently and it's currently coming up on 300 little guys. hell, the characters from finality aren't even on there!!!

i have fixations on transmission towers, houses, and the moon

i run the sideblog @terminal-output, where i post snippets of stories ive written! i have an ongoing narrative forming here

if you are going to reblog shirtless men please tag it as shirtless men. i don't want to see them i'm sorry it's not my thing. honestly despite my womenliker tendencies this also goes for women but i don't think i follow anybody who posts shirtless women

CREDITS:

Made me // My parents

Creator of et/cetera pronouns // My beautiful brain

Certified Objectkisser Blinkie // by labratboygirl

Prayer to Computer Angel // by netcromancy

This Is Not For You Blinkie // by MEEEEEEEEE it took me an hour and a half. that's what most of the time spent composing this post went towards

Collected The Objectkisser Blinkie And The Computer Angel One And Generally Helped Me Find A Ton Of These // my friend pig who is so cool and follow them forever and give them treats or explode?

[flowersandbirdsflyingfree]

Uh. I've never done something like this before, but I love this concept, and my POSTAL obsession is hitting my hard, so.

Can I please get a POSTAL matchup? 🥺

I'm a cis guy with currently dyed hair that's faded, and I look like a natural redhead. I'm kind of skinny and have been called a "twink" before because of it, if that helps describe, lol. I love violent single player video games, but also adore anything of the horror genre, and will often be watching a horror movie (I have several on DVD: My Bloody Valentine, Halloween, Terminator, etc). I also love classic films and am a movie nerd. I love classic rock bands like AC/DC, Styx, Kansas, you name it. I like to draw, animate, make student films, write novels, and do stop-motion. I also like to speed run pretty much any task I give myself (usually finishing a sketch within twenty minutes or less). My humor is so bad and tends to be on the really dark or really sexual side, which is funny considering I'm on the aroace spectrum, lol. I dress very extra, often wearing at least two necklaces, earrings, one ring, a watch, usuall a button-up or coat, worn jeans, and work boots. Think a mix of JD from heathers and Dean Winchester from Supernatural, but a lot more graphic T-shirts. I actually have an outfit in my wardrobe that's very similar to P2 Dude, lmao. Aside from that, mental illness wise, I have autism, dyslexia, anxiety, and I'm kind of guessing I have depression, but who doesn't these days?

I hope that's enough info, and I'm sorry if some of this is just me rambling, ehe. Again, I've never done this before, so I hope that's alright. <:]

Thank you so much. :]

No problem! After all, I too am enslaved to the Postal obsession myself.

I match you with:

Postal 2 Dude

Ok so I admit I almost did Postal 3 Dude from your from your appearance alone so I could call your ship name “Paradise Lost”. But then I realized there is no other Dude more perfect for you than the classic himself. Also, based on your personalities, I think you’d want to fucking deck the 3rd Dude after 5 minutes.

Double twink duo. He’s a bit bonier with his hair a little scruffy. Has a little pudge of tummy due to alcohol consumption and a few scars on his chest.

You don’t have to worry about being aroace. The Bitch was right about Dude being bad in bed for the fact that: 1. He has erectile dysfunction 2. Can’t perform shit because he lasts 3 mins tops and most importantly 3. He has little drive anyways. He can shut up his hormones alone when he has to. Nevertheless, he too loves dirty jokes just for fun.

Dark humor is his forte. He pushes the boundaries often. He prefers making fun of the occurrences of ignoramuses around him. And of course, anything about that good ol’ fashioned ultra-violence! If it ever sounds too offensive, it’s never out of genuine bigotry. It’s only because he loves fucking with people to get a reaction. He hates everyone equally. Except you, pumpkin😘

The Dude and you both endure the turmoil of mental illness hand in hand. His own issues are schizophrenia, neurological brain trauma (the suicide attempt was not the first head-wound he got), ASPD and possibly Asperger’s.

His take on it all is to ride it out and conquer it when it happens. He will be very supportive when the going gets tough for you. If he trusts you, then you’re in it for the long haul together. “Hey. I get it. It really sucks. But I promise I’m not going anywhere without you. You make life worth it.”

He doesn’t play video games. He will likely make fun of you for playing them… and then ever so slowly start denying that he was on your computer enjoying the game he watched you play. “What the- No! I’m not a fucking nerd.” Yes, Dude. Yes you are. Just like the rest of us. Don’t

He will likely buy you cool necklaces, chains and pins for you to wear. Also, he is a simple man in terms of attempting romance. He will surprise you coming home with a gorgeous flower bouquet.

Fuck yeah! Another fan of horror! He’s tough enough to handle it. Dude usually likes psychological thrillers, abstract arthouse horror, and cheesy dark comedies the most. Not a fan of horror games. It’s really funny to see him clearly a bit stirred up from them. He tries too hard to brush it off like it doesn’t bother him. Be a dear and try to soothe his nerves. Maybe curl up next to him watching a classic film of your choice.

I think he would love your artworks. Between stop-motion, writing and visual art, you sound like an incredible visionary! Dude is always asking what you’re working on and wants to support you. (Writer’s Note: I adore stop-motion and salute you!! It’s so underrated as an art form)

He likes nu-metal, grunge and classic rock. Sometimes, he just listens to random muzak since it has a semi-calming effect on him. He’d love to put on something like The Doors or Cars while spending time with you. Talk about being his soulmate

[fruttymoment]

Whoa linux user

Do you have a guide on how to switch to it? I have zero coding knowledge (i think that's required) and I trust you with my life

I perfectly understand the "linux is scary and requires very big brain and coding its too hard to use!" thought coming from a Windows/Mac guy, i really do! But in the end, a linux distro is just a computer kernel that also has a desktop environment and just does what you want it to do like an operating system

Coding on linux is not required. Linux has so many distros at this point that designed to be beginner friendly, requiring "no knowledge but TO gain knowledge while using it"

The linux terminal is the thing that scares most of the users, but trust me once you get used to it you'll realize how efficent it is to operate your computer and do certain tasks from THE terminal instead! In the end, the cold looking white text with black background terminals are the REAL face of computers. Desktop environment is made so EVERYONE can use computers!

The terminal of gnu/linux uses the bash language. In a nutshell, it is pretty easy to learn basic commands actually!

Super beginner friendly linux distros are designed for people (YOUU) who has no experience whatsoever with linux! They are designed and engineered so you dont have to use the terminal much! For example, Linux Mint is the best distro you should start with. It looks and feels like Windows, even! And Mint does not require much terminal usage. That is also their mission, to make an linux distro friendly enough that no terminal usage is needed!

As easy as this sounds, i actually do not recommend staying this far away from the linux terminal. Please start with Linux Mint if you gonna, its just the best for beginners, but also please dont avoid the terminal much! The linux terminal is important to learn because it also teaches you how a computer really works, and certain operations are much more efficent to do via terminal anyway!

Push yourself to interact with the terminal, even. Learn very basic commands like "shutdown now" , and the "sudo" privilege and how it works (linux always asks your password while doing stuff and you also cant do muc without the sudo privileges!)

"sudo" is the command that gives you the REAL admin privileges to do ANYTHING. With your password and sudo, you can even delete your bootloader lol. Linux wont stop you

This means to be extremely careful while using sudo, though! You can do ANYTHING with sudo privileges, and that also contains accidently trashing your computer! Unlike Windows, that doesnt even let you uninstall Edge, linux has no boundries. Its like "we are gonna assume you know what you are doing."

Of course, friendly distros DO warn you on certain stuff, so dont worry too much!

So ye. U can use linux with no coding knowledge, but i dont recommend staying like that. After starting to use linux, you GOTTA let it teach you stuff!

And to the "switching to linux for the first time" part;

I recommend not deleting your main Windows, actually. For first time using linux i heavily recommend the "dual booting" , which simply means booting operating systems more than one in an computer! You can use BOTH linux and windows in thay way! Although, you need to shudown your pc if you want to switch between them and do it in the booting menu

This is because if something goes wrong, or you get very confused, just let Windows be ready in there. Only make the switch the moment when you feel you can operate linux with no issues and easily!

Dual booting basically slices your disk and creates partitions for operating systems. For example if you have an 512GB SSD, in dual booting you can slice it and make Windows use 256GB and Linux use 256GB too! Ofc u can change the numbers here (linux mimt will help u,.)

Before completely switching to linux; be aware that its a bit of a different world. Sure, very popular softwares exists in linux too but some softwares may not suppor linux. Adobe products dont support linux, for example! You can of course just emulate them with Wine software heh, but that would be a bit of a work!

Another problem will be certain online games. Online games does not like linux becuse how easy it is to manipulate the system, so they just either dont run on linux or they ban/kick you when you try to emulate it on linux

An example is Valorant. Valorant does not tun on linux!

And any online game that has a cheap anticheat system will be a problem!

With that being said, linux now supports every single game from Steam, with the Proton software. Just be careful about them online ones! If an online game natively supports linux (TF2, for example!) , it wont be a problem! Check the steam game's info thingy for it!

Oh and official Minecraft works in linux lol

Discord, Spotify etc. popular softwares also work on linux!

Linux in fact has an "app manager" software in their distros, making you install stuff with no terminal whatsoever! Think like Google Play Store but on le pc!

Anyways hehe thats it fo me bascallya! If u wanna switch to linux with no experience, start with the Linux Mint distro i say and explore it well! Tamper everything before fully installing it, dont worry about it! Linux is free. Linux does not care if you want to kill the entire system, even. Linux is freedom

Also please research the dual booting! You'll gonna be needing an 4GB+ USB for it, and a software like Rufus!

The site of Linux Mint has everything you need in detail, step by step ^^ good luck!

[boltslutters]

The giant cell ppl no dbz (sorry lame joke)? Who are they?

You're lucky i have no clue what Dbz is.

Big gore warning under the cut! It's alien gore with alien colored blood but gore is gore and it's a little hard to explain these guys because they're just inherently pretty gorey

So the giant cell people are another one of my species I kinda forgor in my original posts. They're basically a weird version of cyborg where they're made up of large but few cells, like, each cell is around close to tissue box size and they can be more easily removed and placed. (You can kind of see it on this image)

This character is one I've got a bit of story for and I've been trying to draw for years: her name is Moondoc and she's a virologist turned field medic during a long and horrible war. Virology is a bit different in this world; as individual's cells are larger and need more control to operate correctly, they work closer to computers than regular cells. Virology in this instance means that they work closer to computer viruses than regular viruses: they infect and hijack a cell to spread malicious "code".

Moondoc's work as a virologist actually comes with a couple unique quirks: this species has the ability to take apart their bodies and put them back together: like a robot, but more organic. They have a much more mechanical control over their own bodies. See the ring on Moondoc's neck? That's actually a protective measure against viruses: It's a one-way information band. If a part of her arm were to become infected persay, then it can't spread to her brain. However, this does mean she's more detached from her own body, and she's got to manually upkeep and clean her own organs so they don't decay for other reasons.

(you can actually see the panels that make up her skin in the bucket).

Moondoc's slowly suffering from a terminal illness that started since childhood and has hollowed out their right eye. She doesn't like to be close to others because she knows she's going to die pretty soon. Doesn't stop her from making friends with two other guys and trying to stop a Particularly Strange Virus from getting to the capitol and causing mass destruction.

[megamangx]

RUBY SPEARS verse megamanGX defender of the world

late new year fic hoped you liked thcirstmas and got good toys.

this is not canon to main megaman gx worlds but megamangx from the ryuby spears megaman timeline.

MEGAMAN GX DEFENDER OF THE WORLD

Megaman had defeated wily many times with the help of roll and his best friend rush the dog "megman using a new proton armor system i have built you a brother called megamanGX he is realy powerful" doctor light said "i hope its not like brian bot again that was mega annoying" megaman said "arf arf haha" rush laughed.

MegamanGX woke up "good to meet you brother lets be an unstoppable team" he sied and they did the epic handshake "looking forward to it mega bro"

meanwhile at Doctor wily layer he was building an evil plot "WITH ZIS NEW MOBILE PHONES APP I CALLED WILY SURFERS I WILL CONTROL ZE MINDS OF THE YOUTH YOU KNOW THE OTHER PLAN" wily said and protoman nodded "yeah you want me to film your brainwashing cartoon show WILY GUY RIGHT"

back at the city megaman, MegamanGX and roll where having a good time at the arcade "you really are an epic gamer brother not to bad" megaman said and they noted evberyone was on phones watching a game with a train where wily was main character and in corner was footage from a cartoon where gutsman was in a white shirt and protoman was in an orange wig "remember the time super mario was at the door" gutsman said and cutsman dressed like a white dog sighed.

"what is this cartoon its really bad and why they watching it and playing this boring game at the same time" megamangx said

thats when protoman came in with a big gun and an army of evil robot masters "OH YOU DON'T GET IT BROTHER AND NEW BROTHER WILY HAS CREATED A NEW WEAPON TO HYPNOTIZE AND DISTRACT EVERYONE SO THEY CANT FIGHT BACK OT RESIST HIM ITS GENIUS" protoman said and shoot at them but they dodged and megamangx did the spincopter kick booting him into the bar. meanwhjile megaman stole icemans power and froze the army.

"We better warn docter light" said megaman

at thelight house they did "yes this game is using multiple distractions to numb the brain and make everyone not want to fight doctor wily we need to shut wily surfers and wily guy down before wilts invasion army takes over" doctor light said as he hacked the terminal

megamanGX went to wily lab "YOU VILL NOT STOP MY PLAN TO RUINS ZE MINDS OF ZE CHILDRAN WITH ZE SLOP CONTANT ONCE MY NEW INVANTION WILYTOK IS READY HAHAHAHAHA" wily laughed sending airman to beat megamanGX up but he went into his booster form before steaing airmans power and using it to blow up wilys super computer shutting the network down "NO YOU FOOL YOU HAVE RUINED EVERYTHING!" Wily said escaping in his ship.

at the partyt everyone was happy "we need to build a better way of things becuse entrainment is good but so is learning and having balance" m,egamangx said to the camera.

the end

[doingproblematicmedia]

Velma Wrapup: On Adult Comedy

Hey fam. I know this is mad late, but let’s be honest, trying to write a wrapup on Velma was about as painful as watching it. Enjoy!

---

So speaking of HBO, I just watched Marc Maron’s From Bleak to Dark, which is one of the funniest standup routines I’ve seen in a long time.

It was also deeply dark and pretty disturbing in places.

I mean, he didn’t hold back. COVID? Auschwitz? Terminal illness? Abortion? Disinformation? Antisemitism? Suicide?

All there.

And it was funny as fuck.

-

I’m gonna keep coming back to Kurt Vonnegut here, because I think he got to the root of comedy: that all humor is based on fear. “Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning do to do afterward.”

From Bleak to Dark worked because of this fear. We’re exhausted. The state of the world doesn’t seem to be getting any better, and it’s just hard to navigate being human right now. How on earth can you make this material funny?

And the answer is: by reaching deep into the dark places of the soul, plucking the strings of our agonies and worst fears, and dragging them into the light. Saying: Hey, I’m human, you’re human, and here we are trapped in the mess of our humanity. I see you. Hi.

And we laugh.

Because what else are we gonna do about it?

As both Maron and Vonnegut remarked, the jokes in Auschwitz must’ve been amazing.

-

I stumbled on this essay by Matthew Morgan on the state of modern irony, and it stuck a chord:

One feature of the free mind is an ability to entertain contradictory ideas simultaneously; at its most refined, this is an appreciation of the ironic, which Schlegel showed is borne of contradiction. Albert Camus talked about the Absurd as the search for value in a valueless universe. Humans are both the only known creatures who comprehend the meaninglessness of the cosmos and the animals most insistent on discovering meaning, demonstrating that irony is at the heart of the human condition. To embrace irony is, therefore, to embrace life.

Irony, the essay points out, strikes at the contradictions of our messy lives. Vonnegut was a master of irony, using it in such a subtle way that it sailed over many peoples’ heads. In an interview with Playboy in 1973, he famously stated: 

You understand, of course, that everything I say is horseshit...But it’s a useful, comforting sort of horseshit, you see? That’s what I object to about preachers. They don’t say anything to make anybody any happier, when there are all these neat lies you can tell. And everything is a lie, because our brains are two-bit computers, and we can’t get very high-grade truths out of them. But as far as improving the human condition goes, our minds are certainly up to that. That’s what they were designed to do.

Vonnegut’s comforting lies contradict the inherent meaninglessness of life; they give us something to hold onto. Something to reach out with, to show us that we understand each other. That we all want and fear. That we can form community with this shared understanding. An understanding based in irony. In the contradictions of life.

What does all this have to do with Velma? Bear with me. I’m getting there.

- 

Morgan’s essay also gets at what I think is an issue with a lot of current comedy:

...social commentary has been lost amid the exponential growth of shock-value comedy, the inanity of which is exposed by its label: rather than using shock to change values, the vacuous comedy of something like Family Guy values only the shock. This kind of humour merely consolidates one’s place within the in-group of cynical cool kids by sniggering at increasingly “offensive” jokes, a sort of lack-of-virtue signalling.

...The reason that shows like Family Guy are so empty is that they want to mock everything (because that’s detached and cool) while refusing to show us anything (because that would be old-fashioned and ridiculous).

And here’s where we get to Velma.

-

High school is a weird time. Lots of teenage media would have us believe that high school is when we come into our own: amongst the parties and rebellion and teenage love and heartbreak, we are tested, and emerge from this crucible as a fully-formed person. Nothing could be further from the truth. High school is messy, ugly, and painful. It doesn’t look like what it does on the screen. The idea that ‘high school is the best years of your life’ is oft repeated, which in hindsight is horseshit. But maybe we believed that deep down, back when we were in high school, and were terrified that we were doing it wrong. 

And so many of us emerge from this with scars. 

There is a lot of adult media about high school kids! Because on some level, we’re all still trying to process this time of our lives. Putting it into art, stylizing it or flaying it open, helps us to do so. And for teens watching this media, hopefully we’re saying: it’s ok. This is messy ugly and painful, but you’re not alone.

I think Velma is trying to do this. Velma goes to some serious lengths to dig into this messy high school experience. It also pokes at how the media treats the high school experience, which is awesome in theory.

The problem is, it falls into a very high school sort of trap. The kind of trap that we were supposed to mature past. The kind of trap that a lot of shock comedy hasn’t matured past.

As Morgan says, it’s that Velma wants to mock high school media - because it’s detached and cool. I remember this being a thing in high school. In order to be cool, you had to be detached. You could never show real emotion or real hurt. Everything had to roll off like water on a duck’s back.

Because showing real vulnerability wasn’t cool. Cool was not caring. Cool was being able to hurt others, without showing any hurt yourself. Velma wants to skewer the idealized version of high school we see in media - but instead, it just becomes another high school bully.

And all the criticism that has been levelled at Velma? It’s rolled off. Like water on a duck’s back. HBO has renewed it for a second season. 

It’s like watching your high school bully get elected class president.

-

I’m not gonna dissect the content of Velma, because enough people have done that already. The piles of shitty jokes, the weird meta commentary, the moments that don’t work, the moments that hurt - it’s all been compiled, and I don’t want to beat a dead horse (I’m the horse in this metaphor. Because dealing with Velma is painful). 

But I do want to say, it’s an exquisite study on how comedy fails. Fails to reach out, fails to plunge deep into its audience and pull on its worst fears. Fails to make us seen, fails to find a shared humanity.

Doug Walker, who of all people is qualified to comment on bad comedy, probably said it best: 

[Velma has] this wall of protective bullshit that's stopping it from being really funny or really clever.

And that’s that. There’s a wall. Velma is not reaching an audience, because it physically cannot. 

Is it the writers’ own fears that built this wall? Fears of being mocked? Wanting to be detached and cool? 

Because to make real connections, we run the risk of being hurt. Being hurt is a part of life. And the best comedy overcomes this. Says ‘Hi. I know you’re hurting. So am I. Can we make this less painful together?’ 

If Velma is to be believed, we cannot. All we can do is carry on hurting each other, with no connection or relief in sight. 

But as good comics have shown, we can ease the pain with shared laughter.

[the-firebird69]

Runaway (1984) Trailer

Talk to you from Morningside ice this is a psychotic person and he doesn't have very much reasoning and we know it he is going to be insane and he is and people think they can use it and control it it's not really control and he actually quite a terrible person we do need him out of the way but this is him and his Gene Simmons and he has emotional issues and he says it because he does and his brain is worse than ever Tommy f up front and he is a mess and he does this movie and he's trying to hit his own son and his son says I hope you know what this means and he says I do cuz I'm trying to stop you and he says it like that cuz he's a weirdo he says it means war and we won't stop until you're dead and we don't care what you're doing anymore a lot of people feel that way about you. And he says this I certainly don't care anymore either and Tom Selleck says did you hear what I said you have caused yourself to be dead and he heard he's not the only army after him for him to be gone so he says you two are gone and we say no you are that's what's going to happen I'm 5 years old in 5 years old little boy got a little kid it's just yelling or something Tom Selleck says I'm the one talking to you so answer his question are you a 5 year old child that's all you act like and he stops and says what was the rest of it apparently you're a 5 year old child now and you probably should be you got hit in the head so many times but really the guy doing it having it done is not me and it's not him and our point is that you are or have caused a war and we will terminate all your idiots and then you the guy doing it is someone that you buried in some yard of yours and he shot you in the green zone and started it all off I thought it was Lincoln and I didn't know he was my brother at all it was you not telling me so he says what do I have to do with it cuz I don't know I think he hit me and said it was you and sixth grade and beat you up it says okay I was set up right this doesn't really change anything you started a war you continue to be a massive past you go after people when things to calm down you took everybody's stuff they really have no choice but at least you could go and try and figure out why Dave is doing it to you or what he's doing and with what I know what it is and you're not up for the challenge you'd rather kill your own family it looks around and says this is for the birds but I get it answers it's an invisible force it's like magic and he took a lot more computers than you did and he takes over whatever you take I'm pointing it out it's right there on the border between Georgia and Florida you're full of machines that make nights in White satin and you guys don't have the technical ability and I don't want to hear it these things that you're playing with are on TV like every night with you high school kids and that's what it is a toy and that's what it is that's all it is but that's what he knows and you want to kill your kids with a toy and he's sitting there saying and what do I do I said I don't know wait till this corpse is gone so you can't stop his computers or you afraid of it you're afraid of him and he hears you now and he's saying I think I am afraid of him and I'm not going with you to revive him in that kind of environment when he's after me and he says oh yeah that's true and I'm not a professional fighter so he says okay and he's trying to shy away from me but yeah he doesn't have the answers and Dave is taking stuff over we all know that he's still doing it and he doesn't that's the problem so we have this delusional murderous swine running around so let's get to it and take the robot computers down and anything else this moron thinks he's controlling and it's used as a front

For. We're going out to this joker and that's what we call them and we're going to follow orders and get him

Thor Freya

We are in the above we are going to take him down and he is a joker and he's a front and he's a piece of nothing

Hera

You still mentioning the stuff for talking about what we're saying is you piss the clans off and they went after you and you're screwing around with the kid who's not one of them he's very valuable and you're stupid you're tired of hearing your messages with you killing your family now your family is mean to us so it's like okay another one bites the dust are you trying to prove that you have the computer you say it out loud because you're a lousy retard Trump

Mac Daddy

It might be so but I have him here and you don't have me here you don't have anything here except the propane bottles and you're probably blow yourself up and he's saying he's going to move the propane bottles to a round back so it's been driving by and having people drive by for it

[lustrumlane]

Action Replay || Witness(es) || RE: Maya, Dante, Emerson, PACKET-MAN

Many questions get many answers; the witnesses start to answer.

“Eee-ee-eek,” he says in a dolphinny way, “Bad news, scoreboard, the paddleheads said we can’t really say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to whether or not someone killed the ‘victim’ or not as a witness in this jacked up freak court, but I can say I didn’t shoot him, and you didn’t tell me you were gonna, and I didn’t see you kill anyone, and that we were together from after I ran away from shooting Matt onward, aaaand I never saw this Uroro fella, which is about the same, right?”

Poly steps side to side, back and forth, and flaps his flippers as the others ask questions.

“Now you have to listen to me— and I hope it sucks! I reely don’t know no-fin useful, I think, but I’ll play ball, whateveeeer.”

“When I saw Matt— the silver guy, right?— he got all cagey and was trying to talk to me about something, and of course I go, ahh, do not do this jackpot to me right now— I just got here, I’m not ready for the murder yet, and this guy doesn’t even have a screen yet so I can’t even pull the old ‘seize-and-desist’ on anyone! He started getting close to me and I panicked— I shot the ever-flipping skillshot out of him! I didn’t realize it would be so loud, I ran out of there soon as I did it. Before the stairs, I saw some kind of sparkly, effeminate figure and got scared and jumped out a window.”

PAIMON speaks calmly. Its voice is a slightly effeminate, level, polite automated voice, in contrast to Poly’s loud one. It’s somewhat similar to Hesychia’s, but has a detached calmness whereas Hesychia sounds cold and, ironically, more emotional.

“Many of you had been passing through the Hall to watch the videos I had intuited were being collected, from listening to passing conversations. I was unable to see, to remind those unaware: I could only hear thanks to the reconfigured speaker set up attached to my terminal. I could not tell you everyone that passed through.”

“At a point, I heard Victor’s voice. We had spoken earlier about him transporting me around the area so I may better know where I am; I wished to take him up on this. After some words were exchanged, I assumed it could not truly be Victor I was speaking to.”

“I decided to carry through anyway, in case Victor were in danger. I walked Poly through the relevant steps to allow me to upload myself onto Victor as well.”

“Then, it said, I will quote: ‘this guy has a machine gun arm and I don’t even know how to use it, can you help me, pretty please?’ I will note, the mistake is its, not mine, Victor’s model does not have a ‘machine gun arm’, it is an automatic rifle.”

“I saw the arm was broken. I also saw what Polybius.exe was as I was scanning all files on Victor’s system. It was determined a threat. I complied and supplied the knowledge to repair the gun to appease it as I started to delete Polybius from the inside to remove it from Victor’s systems.”

“I was not fully successful, only some files were deleted. I was forced to watch Polybius shoot Matt and leave to escape with PACKET-MAN, leaving behind the program now printed on the table. Alone in Victor’s systems, I did not let the reckless script run. I wanted to return to the Hall to return myself to my terminal, but the damage Victor had sustained was impairing operation. I did not leave him before we were assembled here.”

“This would all indicate I was in his system from the point of initial contact, prior to Matt’s shooting and before the arm was repaired, until just now when I was removed.”

“I was not able to be found nor removed by either Emerson nor PACKET-MAN. Both can confirm this. Victor’s systems are layered due to the type of computer implanted into his brain. In order to avoid irreversible brain damage from system errors, models such as this have a highly encrypted inner system that is nearly impossible to access at a casual pass. I stored myself in here once able to, because Polybius did not have access to this cortex either; he hardly had surface level permissions.”

Poly stares at PAIMON’s watch quietly. Then he laughs.

“Hee-ee-eee! I don’t know flip about computers, I couldn’t fix a gun or program a script to fry an egg! I probably needed the help! Did you scramble my memories a bit with that stupid trick of yours? I couldn’t remember some of that, the gaps were bugging me!”

“It is very likely.“

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

So here's what confuses me about the Leagues of Votann.

So.

You've got The Kin - what they call squats now, they're called kin - and they live in groups called Kindreds. Fine. Kindreds can range in size from a couple dozen through a few thousand up to several million. It's basically a clan. They're all literally related because they're all artificially created from the same, uh, robo-wombs, basically.

They keep getting called a clone race but they're not clones? Like, the computers mix up the genetics to pop out new guys? Artificial, yes. Clones, no. But that's me. It's like calling the space marines 'genetically engineered' when they're kind of not.

Anyway.

Back to Kindreds. Kindreds band together into leagues - the titual Leagues of Votann. A League is made up however many Kindreds, and typically has some sort of broadly-shared ethos. Fine.

Now here's what confuses me.

The Votann (aka Ancestors Cores) are massive, pre-Imperial supercomputers. They got STC's, they got everything the squats might ever need. You ask 'em, they got it. Fine. Votann are super-duper important for the squats because they're basically required for their whole society to continue functioning and also they have a whole ancestor-worship thing going on since they also feed their brains to the Votann after death to, you know improve the gestalt.

Following this?

Now here's what confuses me: how many Votann are there?

Does every Kindred have a Votann? That wouldn't make a whole lot of sense, because there's lots of Kindred and Votann are implied to be pretty scarce - the Trans-Hyperian Alliance is notable for having a whopping three of the things. And since the squats need a Votann to even reproduce, surely it's impossible to be a Kindred without a Votann? So what did Kindreds do before joining a League? Were they always in a League? How do you get new Kindred? They just spring up in a League? Then stick with them?

Unclear.

Each Kindred communicates with a Votann using their Fane - it's a fancy-pants sci-fi gothic computer terminal, whatever, neat - but which Votann does this talk to? Their League's Votann, presumably. Do the Votann talk to each other? Are they networked? Don't think so. If you're not in a League, what does your Fane do? Who does it talk to?

The Kronus Hegemony's Fane (specifically the Fane of Korynn's Kindred) gained self-awareness one day and turned into a Votann. Guess they get to start their own League?

Suppose it all just plays into squat society being fairly static since they're stated to be fairly reluctant to change their minds and if you need a Votann even to function, well, you'll be sticking with the one you've always had, right?

There's probably answers to all of these questions.