I just really like how words look in this script

Hello! Updates on my stuff and original works can be found here and posts about some of my interests and stuff!

[apathmakerstale]

Backrooms Movie Spoilers!

It occurs to me with the Backrooms movie that Mary doesn’t have a proper ending. As in, yeah she survives, but in the end she kinda just ends up just stuck in a clinical room. Wating. She doesn’t really get to process her trauma, she doesn’t really get to be free of the Backrooms, she doesn’t really get an ending to her story. She’s just stuck in transition. There’s no proper ‘ending’ to the film either. The film itself was stopped right at the threshold of something greater. It’s making you wait.

Mary is in a permanent stage of liminality, always at the threshold but never able to move on.

Clark was at that stage- which is why he was able to live so long in the Backrooms. He was unable to take that step, he was in the same state as Mary until she helped him. He ‘made the next step,’ (or in this case, stepped back) he was not longer in a state of transition, he made a choice and stuck with it. Which is why Still Life Clark killed him right after. He no longer belonged there.

It’s why the scientists and ASYNC are so obsessed too. They’re now looking to make the next step in human history, believing this to be the greatest discover in history, but they’re unable to at the moment because they don’t understand it. They’re stuck wating too.

The Backrooms is the Threshold of reality, one where you can’t make that next step. Because around that corner is going to be that same yellow wallpaper, on and on, forever.

But you’ll keep walking, wondering when you’ll be able to take that next step.

[apathmakerstale]

The Backrooms Movie!

The Backrooms movie is fantastic! It will however- I guarantee it, run into the exact problem that Iron Lung had in that it is a movie that savors the scene. It is not interested in rushing (except when it does!) and quite willing to spend minutes just taking in the sheer vastness of the Backrooms and let you drink the scene in it's entirety.

Liminal Horror is a byproduct of Cosmic Horror pretty much, the vast unknown sprinkled with the idea that something might be there. Instead of concepts beyond us, it's concepts so familiar to us. Just an unendingness that goes on forever and ever, never knowing what's around the corner but also knowing exactly what is going to be.

Cosmic horror is a swirling madness of the unknown, while liminal horror is a static insanity that's so familiar.

[doona-baes]

#mood today

[apathmakerstale]

I comm'ed a former guild mate of mine to draw my WoL Chara for me! It came out so absolutely perfect!

Go check her out! @starweavingwritings <3

[tritoch]

ffxiv is so fucking funny because relatively few people in this playerbase understand how good they have it (which is a fine thing overall because it means the game isn't horrendously flawed). like in my browsing just now I went from a long discussion about roulettes and whether they should be tweaked to change player incentives to a destiny 2 postmortem where someone's explaining that part of the game's problem is they just straight up ripped out large chunks of it as they went and you simply cannot play "the main story of destiny 2" in any meaningful way.

like on the list of things that make FFXIV insanely good to play is "most content except seasonal events should be evergreen and always playable, and there should be incentives for endgame players to go back and do it." you would think this is the most basic player retention and growth thing ever and yet the other mega-successful mmos don't actually do it (which is not to say it's totally unique, waving to my eso friends here). class dps balance issues which make people frustrated here wouldn't even register as issues in most games, which have significantly higher deltas in damage output between the best and worst performers.

which is not to say people should not complain about and critique FFXIV! only that sometimes, listening to the complaints, I feel a bit like I'm in the front room of a nice house, and someones pointing to and complaining about a crack in the window, and it's not that they're wrong—the crack is real and should be addressed—but they don't even realize the finger they've pointed at the crack is also pointed at the dilapidated apartment building across the street I used to live in, which I can see through the window, and I can't really follow the complaint anymore because I'm just like "wow it's soooo much nicer not living there anymore"

[apathmakerstale]

Imagine you play through Evercold, and it's revealed halfway through that actually there's another older Primal called 'The Cager' that secretly has manipulated the Ascians and Meteion behind the scenes and made Emet-Selch commit all that genocide and is the reason why the shard split actually, the WoL was just playing into their hand. Also Zenos secretly made a deal with them and the reason why he's evil is because it actually split his soul apart and the part that's evil is why he killed everything so you reclaim it and it turns out all the genocide he did was fine and you forgive him and let him go off to go find this background NPC that you never knew about except in one sidequest back in ARR who he actually super loves and has a special connect who has a cool name like "Kate Scythereaper' and totally isn't the self insert character of Natsuko Ishikawa and his entire personality now is trying to find her and condemns himself to superhell to do it and leaves while also having a throwaway about finding the souls of the genocide victims, mostly Keepers of the Moon and Duskwights, he caused (they're not important really it turns out the Twelve let that happen so that Hydaelyn could get an influx of souls but The Cager stole them and sent all the people who believed in her to superhell). Also midway through they bring back Emet-Selch and have him fuse with Aymeric who got kidnapped and the reason that's not a bigger focus is because there's like two cutscenes for it and he's forgotten, but then he turns up as a trial boss powered by the soul of Emet-Selch who is then wiped from existence and Aymeric goes off on a vison quest, shaving his head and talking about how he's so sad and traumatized and Halone. Oh, and Merlwyb, Kan-E-Senna, and Nanamo were also kidnapped but they get one in game cutscene and Merlwybs is about how wise and amazing Aymeric is.

This also takes place entirely in the Lifestream and you're constantly seeing dead people like Minfilia and Papalymo but not really the're just turn in NPC's. Haurchefant and the WoL get one line that's not even an ingame cutscene it's a quest bubble dialogue.

They also reveal at the very end there's this even older group of Ancients that lived on the stary called 'The Ancienter Ones' and they actually created everything.

Also this was actually planned since Final Fantasy 11.

[apathmakerstale]

I think ultimately one of the reasons why I really really liked Worm (and later Ward) is because it hit one of my favorite concept and themes.

To have hope in a seemingly hopeless world that's pit against you. Despite the level of cynicism and bitterness in it, I do feel like there is a sense of just, people who don't know how to exactly make the world better, wanting to make the world better.

It's why I do like Taylor, because at her core she just really wanted to help people.

Or, as my favorite quote from it puts it-

We’re s- so very small, in the end. 

Which I don't see as an inherently bleak quote. It's just factual. We're all small in the end, but we try our best to do what we can.

[apathmakerstale]

When I'm not in my Fallen London phase and don't do anything in the game really, I normally just go to Mrs. Chapman's Boarding House and park my character there and just chug a buncha soup to farm items.

It's a very funny image.

[apathmakerstale]

FFXIV Jobs

I kinda want a point in the future expansions to have a moment where our Job Stones item description change (though I recognize from a technical standpoint that might never happen) from-

"Upon the surface of this multi-aspected crystal are carved the myriad deeds of heroes from eras past."

and,

"Unlike other soul crystals, the surface of this multi-aspected stone has yet to be carved with the record of past deeds."

To something like,

"Upon the surface of this multi-aspect crystal are the carved records of your deeds for those who will come after."

Just to show that we have basically taken each of the Jobs that are in FFXIV to pretty much the absolute apex they can be strength and versatility-wise. We started creating new techniques back in HEAVENSWARDS!

Really the WoL has created so many new techniques for future users of our Soul Crystal to use that it's impressive. Dragoons will get to utilize Nidhogg's power for good, Dark Knights slice blades of pure shadow with Shadowbringer, Black Mage created a new type of Flare, Flare Star. Flare is already in lore is a army killer. Scholars can BECOME SERAPHIMS! We might even be one of the last Summoners since we're so good at our job. For Blue Mage and Machinist we are the makers basically. (Soul crystal wise at least, really hope we meet the Whalaqee one day)

My favorite is that as an Astrologian, since we derive power from the Stars we managed to resonate with Etheirys itself since it's a 'Star' and therefore that's why we can remain in each sect and call upon the stars indefinitely without needing to see them/cut off from them. The quest NPC mentions that's impossible but we did it anyway.

Like whoever is going to inherit our Soul Crystal is going to have a hard time reaching our heights. (If they even need too!)

[apathmakerstale]

FFXIV AZEM SPECULATION THEORY!

I've seen a theory popping up that the WoL will become Azem and the whole story is a time loop. It's gotten a lot popular with 7.5 it seems and I gotta say I don't like dismissing theories, but my fellow warriors of light-

That literally goes against the entire themes of the previous expansions.

Hydaelyn entrusted the protection of the star to US- the fractured pieces of man.

Emet was proved wrong by those 'shades that are not truly alive' and left the legacy of the Ancients to those 'shades.'

Elidibus was inspired to shoulder the burden of carrying the hopes and dreams of his people by a sundered soul.

We defied fate to prove them wrong, that we are capable of being more and saving our home. For it all to be a plot by Azem and us, who secretly knew how everything would happen, would BE chaining us to fate. We'd be retreading a path we've already taken- and not breaking new grounds like Azem would want.

The reason why Azem is so similar to us is because Azem believed in people- not a mission, not a creed, a goal, or destiny. They looked to gather people in their travels to help them reach their full potential- to walk their own paths, find meaning in their own self, they shepherded people on their own path of life. The sun you look to to keep going and the stars to know your way. It's been shown in so many xpacs that really everyone is the same. They all have hopes, dreams, and sorrows. Be they ancients, mortal, or even aliens.

In total, I really think us becoming Azem would just ruin that message, and it opens a whole can of worms.

[apathmakerstale]

FFXIV Sprouts! Keybinds are key!

I saw my HUD customization post was useful to some people, so I figure that I'd show the second thing you really want to play with when it comes to FFXIV and what will really help you play multiple Jobs like I do.

Hotbar and Keybinds are pretty important for playing the game, since you really need muscle memory to quickly pull off moves like a quick Elusive Jump to avoid and AOE or a Rescue to pull some out from certain death.

My normal keybinds are shown and explained in the picture below. As you'll see I make liberal use of 1-5, Q, R, and E. That's because they're where my hands are usually. (Funnily enough I don't use base Q and E lol)

Standard 1-5: My base combo, the bread and butter you'll be using every single fight.

Alt + 1-5: My AOE attacks, and in this Job my Fang and Claw combo right above their triggers.

Shift + 1-5: My buffs, I keep this the same across all jobs. If modifies damage, healing, or defense on a 60s or 120s timer, it goes there (with exceptions of course).

Shift + R, Shift + E, and Shift + Alt + E: For DPS Jobs, it's my Role Actions, for Tank it's DPS buffs, healers is AOE shields and critical healing actions etc. I change it up often.

Alt + Shift + 1-5: Special Job actions normally, like whatever effects the Job Gauge or uses those resourves. It's Jumps for Dragoon as you can see, and Fell Cleave or Blood Lily, etc for others.

Alt + Shift + Q, Alt + R, Shift + Q, Alt + Q, Shift + M3, CTRL + M3: This is my most dynamic keybind set, it pretty much changes every single Job, but I try to keep it for the big dps actions, stuns, interrupts, Rescue etc. I try to keep Alt + Shift + Q for movement across all classes though, but as you can see it's not the case here. Whatever works for you.

Me :D

Now I reccomend heavily that you do try to keep Role Actions in the same place. I try to keep Second Wind for DPS in Shift + Alt + E, Stun in Shift + M3, and True North in Shift + E. For Tanks, as you can see below, and Rescue is always in CTRL + M3 for Healers.

I keep Provoke in the same spot for all Tanks for muscle memory, Rampart, Tank Stance, the emergency invulnerability, and so on. But I do change it up! Paladin for example has Stun in my Alt + 1-5 bar and i even have Interrupt two times on Warrior just so it lines up and I don't have an empty space.

It's half vibes! I don't adhere to the order I use 100% of the time, I change it up on how I like it and what works for the Job. I normally try to keep Melee DPS's one ranged attack to Standard 5, but for my Dragoon I have it at Alt + R, just cuz I'm used to it now. Change it up how YOU like!

Now where can you change these keybinds?

Keybind menu of course!

Specially, the Hotbar menu for when you want a keybind bound to a certain hotbar slot. I split Hotbars half and half as you can see above, so it changes around 6 at all the hotbars. But also

You can use it for non-combat stuff!

Middle Mouse Button 5 (I have one of those mouses that have two buttons on the side of the mouse, I don't actually like MMO mouses really, but wow if you have those) is Limit Break so I can always access it quickly, END is whatever I want to, CTRL + ALT + M3 is my Chocobo mount, Alt + M3 is my HUD switch to my Job hub (see my last post on HUD!), and my most used button in the entire game, Alt + E, my sprint button.

Whatever Hotbar you use is where you want to bind the keybind too, there's 10 hotbars you get, and a Cross Hotbar with an additional 8.

I'm not even using keybinds to their fullest potential, you get so many to play with. It's good to play around with!

AND LIKE MY LAST POST SAID- THIS IS ALL SYSTEM SIDE- IT IS NOT SAVED SERVER, YOU NEED TO BACK IT UP TO THE SERVER! CLICK THE GEAR, THEN UPLOAD CLIENT DATA! DO IT, IT WILL SAVE YOU ONE DAY!!!!!!!! IT HAS SAVED ME MULTIPLE TIMES!

[azulcrescent]

Proper member of society ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

[apathmakerstale]

Change up your HUD in FFXIV!! Mini-Guide!

Since a lot of people seem to be getting into FFXIV with the new trial, I figure I should take the time to say above all else, play with your HUD settings and learn how to use them. FFXIV has such a good HUD system that you can customize to your absolute liking. It looks more daunting than it is, but it's pretty simple and forgivable since you get FOUR HUDS to play with, so you can just decide to experiment with one of the others while keeping you main one.

I'll give a crash course in it, just to show what it's capable of.

For example, this is my default HUD for most stuff I do or HUD 1 as it's saved under-

I've marked it up to show my thought process on why I put stuff where they are.

Basic info like server, time and MSQ progress.

Chat window that's adjustable, 'E' is 'Events' or NPC dialogue and actions, while 'P' is a tab dedicated to party chat. Quick and easy.

My buffs on the left and debuffs on the right.

Hotbars with a buncha hotkeys (also, abuse hotkeys as much as you can). I find three are enough for all the actions of pretty much all Jobs. I even have extra spaces for future actions.

My health, mana bar, XP bar, and 'permanent buffs' like mounts, foods, status, special buffs etc.

Job gauges, and I have a hidden hotbar there for other actions like summoning carbuncles, fairies, hide for ninja etc.

Where my 'Duty Notification' pops up, money, and menu. Out of the way, but accessible.

My two hotbars dedicated to random buttons I want, and for the hotkeys I use to manipulate my HUD further. As you can see I heavily use keybinds. They are your friend. Alt+E is a godsend for Sprint as I've found. You can change keybinds in your Keybinds menu and whatever hotbars you chose to use.

Minimap and Duty List, simple and out of the way.

Me :D

Now this is what I've settled on after years of tinkering, it's what suits me. You can add or change stuff very easily, and get this, you get FOUR sets of HUD to play around with that you can switch to on the fly, and is what I use for something very important.

As you can see, I don't have any Job stones up there or keybinds for them. Now I don't go to gearsets every time I want to change it no- I've used one of those four HUDS you get as a 'Job and Duty hub'-

The little blue crystal with the Keybind Alt+ M3 (Mouse Scoll Wheel)

Which brings you to this! HUD 4 for me!

As you can see, all of my Jobs, battle or crafting, and some emotes I use often! Clicking on any of those Jobstones switches me automatically to that Job, while also taking me back to HUD 1. Basically letting me switch on the fly quickly and having a neat AFK screen if I want. I learned this in a video I sadly can not find anymore, but I'll pass on that knowledge!

Now this also requires a minimum of two hotbars that are not 'Shared', now this is a setting that looks more scary than it is. It's located in 'Character Configuration' under 'Hotbar Settings'

This is the first tab and as you can see, you can change the orientation of the hotbars from horizontal, bunched up, or vertical, just standard look. It's the next tab that' important, 'Sharing'

Basically this tab controls if your buttons change when you switch Jobs. Checked boxes means that it's shared across all Jobs, like #8 in the picture at the start is the same for both my Dragoon, Monk, Fisher etc. While the unchecked boxes change with it, see #4 and 6 in the picture at the start that have my Job actions on it.

Hotbar 5 and 7 are what I use for those (I dunno why I just chose those) and as you can see they're shared across all Jobs. Now this is because when they are shared, it means you can't change move something on on Job, without all Jobs having it moved. I.e I move my Teleport button in #8 (the mini person) as a Dragoon and it will also be moved on my Monk. So it limits you unlike the hotbars that aren't shared, which change and won't affect other jobs.

Now Cross Hotbar is the same, but it's for people who use controller. I don't really use it so I'm not really experienced with it, but I do use it as an extra Hotbar to use for my Crafter Jobs, it's the Hotbar that looks like a D-Pad in the third picture.

That's the Hotbars settings I use, which is honestly the most complicated part. The last part is the macros which are really easy.

This is the macro I use to change to HUD 4, very simple and it's keybinded to Alt+ Middle Mouse Button for speed.

Once I'm at HUD 4, The macro I use is the same for all of them, just change "Soul of the Dragoon" to whatever jobstone you need like "Soul of the White Mage" to change the Icon, then whatever gearset you have that Job saved to, (Lancer was my starting class) and then the most important thing, /hudlayout 1 which is what will take you back to to the default HUD 1 I have up at the start. Very quick and simple.

Now if you accidently switch HUDS and can't or don't want to switch Jobs, you can just click Dragoon again and it will switch you back with the little swap animation.

This is purely QoL for me, but if you don't like switching and seeing 'glamour assigned' every time you switch Jobs, you can just make a mini macro to switch back.

This, I just use the Auto Attack Icon since I like the way it looks. But you can see it in my HUD 4. It's purely just for me. All the icons I use are just what I liked, you can look them up and change them to your preference.

And that's about it! I figured I just put it out to show that you can customize the HUD layout to your preference as much as you want. The sky is the limit and you get four HUD set's to use. I don't even use my HUD 3 and HUD 2 is just on that's minimalist for when I do raid and need to see the screen better.

ALSO TO ADD: Hotbars are HUD wide changing a hotbar button on HUD 4 will change it for HUD 1 if it’s shared!

IMPORTANT EXTRA TIDBIT TOO! HUD IS SYSTEM SIDE! NOT SERVER SIDE! IF YOU CHANGE COMPUTERS OR CONSOLES YOU WILL LOSE HUD SETTINGS UNLESS YOU BACK IT UP!

YOU CAN BACK IT UP TO DOWNLOAD ON OTHER SYSTEMS ON THE CHARACTER START SCREEN!

Click the gears, then 'Upload' and it will save it to the servers.

To add more, the official Square Enix FFXIV website has a whole guide on HUD layout. Check it out!

Anyway that's all! Good luck Sprouts!

[apathmakerstale]

Heavensward Spoilers

You know, thinking about it in hindsight, it really is insane that back in Heavensward the Warrior of Light did in fact canonically fight all The Knights of the Round at the same time while they were powered by both eyes of Nidhogg, thousands of years of prayer, and having just drained the aether of a Unsundered Ascian and didn't just win, but mopped the floor with them so bad that Thordan freaked out and saw us as Azem.

Really should not have killed one of their closest confidants.

Like wow, hands down one of our finest moments. Insane in hindsight.

[apathmakerstale]

I felt so bad, I pointed out a One Piece Nico Robin figure to one of my friends and she point blank looked at me and said, "What do you mean, whose Nico Robin? That's Miss All Sunday."

[apathmakerstale]

My monitor has a thing where it will randomly turn off and I swear to god I clicked an SCP article and it went blank the minute I clicked it and I felt true fear for a second.

[apathmakerstale]

FFXIV X EVANGELION?????

WHAT

[apathmakerstale]

FFXIV EVERCOLD SPECULATION!!!!

I think, just via watching the new trailer and the keynote on how this new saga is about "Uniting the stars," AND how the trailer specifically calls out 'The Traveler' aka Azem, so we're gonna be seeing what Azem was doing during the Sundering.

I think, since the Winterer's seem to be preparing for a 'great freeze' as in due to Zodiark dying, the Source and Shards aren't bathed in massive amounts of ambient aether imbalance everywhere, thus they start to 'wither' and 'nature's proclamation' is that the lives of the Source and Shards can't be currently sustained by the amount of aether now in the system of life. It's an unnatural way of living, not due to souls, but the fact that the environment itself suffers. Even though we can survive in harsh conditions, other life and the world can't always after all.

I.e we killed the biggest aether battery in the star, and now we're in a aether deficit.

Zodiark was born of the star being sundered into 14 Shards, the current arrangement of the stars is unnatural. It's not how 'nature' is supposed to be. By bringing it together it stands to reason it would be fix the 'withering' like if you cut off enough tree branches the original dies.

Now, 'that's what the Ascians wanted to do,' well yes but the way they wanted to was the equivalent of smashing a meteor into Earth and hoping it reforms slightly bigger while also killing off everyone they considered inferior.

With Azem the Traveler's key, someone whose entire job was to unite people, I think their magic is the key to bringing the stars together safety without mass death. It would make sense their magic works like that and why so many people are coveting the Key. It would also give chance to show how Venat did the Sundering in the first place, as she being the former Azem, would have access to the same type of magic. So it makes sense we'd be able to 'learn' and end it properly.

Azem's duty was Shepherd to the Stars in the dark and it's a Shepherd's duty to bring their flock back together safely.