#GO STREAM TEOS NOW NOW NOW

[msnihilist]

I am working on a little something, here's the WIP!!

[bs-fangirl]

WE DID IT!!! In 24 hours, with no marketing help from Amazon or QCode, we got The Edge Of Sleep to #6 on Amazon Prime’s TV page and #9 overall in the USA!!!

This is huge but we can’t let up! If nothing else, we need to honor Markiplier’s request to dethrone Judge Judy from her spot. Also we don’t want Amazon to think this is a fluke if the numbers suddenly drop off. So keep watching TEOS, keep getting your friends/family to watch it, keep posting and hash-tagging it. And definitely watch it on the “official” release day, Friday October 18th, in case Amazon only decides to care about “official” release numbers.

Well done everyone but let’s keep going! Stay awake and keep edging your sleep!

IMPORTANT UPDATE FROM OCTOBER 18th!!!

In a YouTube stream, Markiplier said that the powers-that-be (Amazon, I’m guessing?) are going to be looking at the show’s average performance over a whole 30 days.

So we’ve done a great opening performance for the show’s debut but we’re not out of the woods yet. It’s not a sprint but a marathon. Mark said it’s to be expected that the numbers fluctuate from day to day but the average of the next month will be what’s important.

So now that we have a clearer guideline, we’ve got a month of sleeedging ahead of us. Hopefully it will open internationally at some point (he made it sound like that was in the works) to boost numbers even more. But don’t lose faith! We’ve got this!

[14dayswithyou]

💖 Day 3.5 is now available! 💖

For the last couple of months, only Server Boosters had access to the 3.5 update... Buuuuut now it's available for everyone to play in the 14DWY Discord — and soon itch.io once I'm happy with the QA and state of the game — so please don't feel pressured to join unless you want to!!

The full devlog + even more screenshots are under the cut ^^

What's been added to the 3.5 version?

📺 Streamer Mode!

I've been told that it's difficult to stream and monetise age-restricted videos on YouTube and Twitch, so I added an option to remove the sexual content and strong language used in the demo.

Now y'all can invite Ren into your bed for cuddles without putting your streamer career on the line /silly /lh

This won't affect the 18+ rating or dark themes/elements of the game, however! Although Streamer Mode will prevent you from seeing any "gruesome" CGs in the future, most of the core elements of the game will still be tied to the choices and decisions you make. So you won't miss out on the overall experience by using streamer mode!!

⚙️ Custom Pronouns!

It only took me one entire year to get around to it, but you can finally choose your own preferred pronouns (or use a set of pronouns instead)... At the cost of being able to change them mid-game ^^;

Since the original pronoun screen wouldn't update until a new scene was displayed, I temporarily disabled the feature. But once I find a workaround, I'll bring it back!

💗 Choose how others perceive you!

You can now choose how the cast and narration perceive you! Originally, the narration was kept strictly gender-neutral (outside of pronouns and genitalia picked by the player), but this will soon change in future updates.

For more clarity: you don't get to choose the words specifically, but you can choose between masculine, feminine, and androgynous terms!

📋 Separate top and bottom genitalia!

You can now choose your tatas and pps separately! >:3

Alongside that, you can also choose your preferred body type!

I removed the "both" genitalia option because a few players still assumed it was an obscure version of "intersex". That wasn't my intention and I don't want to mislead anyone, so I took it out for now ^^;

I also didn't want to include a screenshot of the new genitalia choices in action (because it's NSFW), so y'all get the same character menu screen for the nth time instead lmao

📱 Relationship Screen Overhaul!

You can now change your own status for more immersion, and long-term Server Boosters will eventually be able to submit and use their own icon within the game as well!

Stalking finding your friends has now become easier by using "Buddy Maps"; a new app that allows you to see the location of all the cast members!

I want to offer players more incentive to check the relationship screen since they tend to miss the status updates, so hopefully this might help ;v;

It also says it "updates every few hours" so folks don't go overboard and check every 5 seconds to see where Ren is gdsghf (also keep in mind that he's a hacker lol)

🖤 Additional Scenes Update!

Day 2 received a brand new CG!!!!! Originally, I planned on only adding a few CGs sporadically throughout the game, but it didn't feel right to leave Day 2 so... empty... so I added a brand new CG to (hopefully) make things feel more balanced and natural!

If you decline Teo's offer on Day 3, Leon will now call and try to convince you to reconsider. However, players are still allowed to decline, and if they do, they'll reach a dead end.

After listening to feedback on itch, I changed some of the dialogue during Days 1-3 to make it seem more consistent! They're only small changes though, so it's honestly not worth looking for sdgjssga

🎶 Updated BGM and SFX!

I wanted to try out a different style of music to see if it fits the vibe of 14DWY more! The BGM features more acoustics to suit the "beachy" theme of Corland Bay, though I made a conscious effort to include piano elements as well to stay true to the original!!

I figured it'd be better to give players a live example before I make a poll (to see if they prefer the change or not) and publish it to Itch.

Some new SFX have also been added, though it's very minimal and honestly not that noticeable.

How to download and play the update?

(warning: clicking on the following links will open Discord!!) To download the Day 3.5 update, simply join the 14DWY Discord server, verify your age, and visit the "14dwy-updates" channel!

Alternatively, you can also wait until the update is publicly released on Itch to play it as well!! (It normally gets released shortly after a round of QA testing/getting feedback from the server, though I may release it earlier if I feel like it hehe ^^)

Enjoy!!

[teosupdates]

Whoa, TEOS dropped early?! Thanks for letting us know! That's awesome but will it count to stream it early? It's even shorter than the podcast, since there are only 6 episodes that run 20-25 minutes, so I'll happily watch it on a loop every day to help Markiplier's numbers, but I'm worried people watching it now will not help if Amazon is only looking for it to go big on the 18th.

ooooh this is a good question. Obviously, I don't work for Prime or anything, so take from this what you will, but here's my answer to this:

In my experience, a stream is a stream. Once the content is public, it's live, which means things like "early" and "advertised" dates become arbitrary. So every stream counts, even if it's not on the date it was "supposed" to go live, because if I had to guess, there's some internal system that lists Oct 15th as the release date for the show, and it's started counting as soon as the show got auto published.

Also keep in mind that US and Global streams are usually counted independently. Both matter in the end, the cumulative streams are what's going to get it to the Top 10, but it could explain why the show is being released to the US just a little bit earlier. Letting the US get a headstart creates a baseline projection for what the streaming numbers could look like globally. That's how they're able to determine if the show is underperforming or performing better than expected.

So in short, still stream if you can! It will count!

[iamonlyperson]

mark's subbreddit has become toxic (as some say) due of trying to keep teos on top10 as much as possible or complimenting how good teos is. basically whole subreddit is full of teos and "go no stop" posts.

let me also add two cents of it. first of all, we as a mark's fans, this is the first time we have a show on a streaming platform and it's amazing, finally seeing people starts to finally believe him. this also gives him a little boost up for creating more bigger projects and possibly we get more projects that is tended to streaming services. feels like we finally made it but it's still long journey to make it.

i understand those "go no stop" posts can be annoying but if it really bothers you, you can always ignore those posts. scroll. not that hard but don't come to people who genuinely trying to keep the show top10 (i think it's fallen by now). we take mark's dream seriously in here and i mean by that is we believe mark's projects or part of it. we genuinely think show being top10 can actually help him and get more recognition, especially the show what doesn't have any marketing whatsoever besides from mark himself.

second of all, how long we have been waiting for this show! 3 YEARS!!! of course we take time and stream it (whatever you can or not). i'm still that kind of space like holy shit this actually is released and we can watching whatever we want. nobody is saying you have to watch it or like it, but don't come at people and complaining we like the show and it's 1/10 like okay, it's your opinion and it's not that serious. we are just happy the show is finally out and good it is actually. can be worse but isn't. let us enjoy. just ignore us, block us if you are so bothered by it.

we don't actually force nobody to watch this show, it's up to you.

we want to keep mark's dreams up and we continue to do so. we want to see him being happy, knowing we as fans, we genuinely enjoy his projects and can't wait to see it more. also there is so many youtubers out there who cares about only money and money i mean how much they flex and buying cars and big mansions in their videos. you know how many those videos exists? A LOT! seeing mark's passion is doing movies and interactive shows and tv shows, shows there isn't a lot of youtubers left who actually is doing for themselves and for fans not for sake of money. yall just hate to seeing it.

we gonna keep this up because we want to show why Markiplier isn't the youtuber what they be thinking he is. mark takes this very seriously and we do too.

[mysticmistral]

Anyone else feel like The Edge Of Sleep is gonna maybe flop?

Like, not in a ‘oh it won’t be good’ way. I mean it’s been years since the audio of it came out, and I don’t remember seeing any trailers, any teasers it’s just “Let’s just announce it” after so long of silence and probably little hype. If it took years it’d be fine as long as there was teasers and confirmations and I’m not the most ingrained to the Markiplier sphere but I liked the story and I’ve heard very little.

They won’t even say what platform it is, only it’s dropping 17 days from now. It’s gonna reach top five at least but it’s marketing is heavily hinging on one person rather than a cast of characters and people going out and promoting it. With Iron Lung that’s fine, Mark is the producer, director and star making it for himself and it’s something that has a trailer and has a hype. TEOS just doesn’t have that. The only grace is that it did get announced in 2021 which was still pandemic times which probably slowed things down.

I hope a Trailer drops soon at the very least to showcase the show and say where it’s officially streaming at. Prime, Disney, Hulu, Peacock, Paramount, Netflix, Crunchyroll, I don’t know all the streaming platforms I just hope it’s one I have.

[eekahchu]

Did you see Markiplier’s stream last night? He said the show’s success is going to be measured by its average rating over the next 30 days. So we’ve had a solid opening debut but we’ve got more work ahead of us!

Yup! I also found out that he's been referring to the "Top 10 tv shows" rather than "Top 10 in the US" which is what *I* thought the plan was for. Here's a screenshot from his "The Plan has CHANGED!!" video showing him reading from the "Top 10 tv shows" ranking:

I had been freaking out after that stream bc the "Top 10 in the US" ranking is hard to get on but MUCH harder to STAY on. (I mean, TEOS hasn't been on that one for a couple days now.) So I feel like it would be a pretty unfair thing to ask of Mark (and us) to keep TEOS on "Top 10 in the US" for an ENTIRE MONTH. "Top 10 tv shows" is definitely doable. But I still say we try to get in back on the "Top 10 in the US" one again. We can do it!

Let's get our SLEEDGE on!!

[gottastayawake]

Stay Awake or Perish at the Edge of Sleep

Welcome to my TEOS sideblog!!

A place for me to reblog stuff about this wonderful series and make some noise! I have also got a Twitter/X acct at Gotta_StayAwake!

Spoilers are under #The Edge of Sleep Spoilers and #TEOS Spoilers, so if you want to avoid them, make sure to blacklist these two tags.

#Information will be used in regard of what you can do or how to help out in making some noise so TEOS is noticed. Check out this amazing post by @/lady-raziel, it comes with the PLAN of ACTION for what we can do to give our support to Mark and TEOS.

SO, WHAT CAN I DO?

Listen, I get it. I have to work a job I don't like, barely surviving my day to day, and I certainly have no money or a big following enough to try to change the mind of Amazon Execs about Mark and his projects. Hell, I made a whole new blog (which I have not done for anything else in fandom, my blog is an amalgamation of all my hyperfixations thrown in together) BUT I'm still gonna try by doing what I like to do. I'm gonna make posts and I'm gonna reblog, and I what I can do is sign up for a 30-day free trial to binge the series all day. I'm gonna livetweet my reactions to the show on Twitter and I'm gonna make memes and talk about my faves from the show. It's not much, but it's something I can do and will gladly do for Mark.

Markiplier has been a big part of my life and I really owe him keeping me going during the worst of my depression, I'm pretty sure without him, I wouldn't have been able to finish university. So now, I want to do as much as I can to support "The Edge of Sleep", its success will allow Mark to get his movie "Iron Lung" out and some bigshots in Amazon/Hollywood have now done their best to stop him. So it's important for us to do as much noise to get TEOS out there!!

Remember Our Flag Means Death, cut one season short before we could finish their story.

Remember KAOS, a show that Netflix cancelled a month after it premiere and that no one knew even existed bc Netflix never advertised it.

Now, TEOS has been dealt the same uncaring hand by Amazon. They made Mark not be able to reveal where it was coming out, we barely got a premiere date (October 18, 2024) AND THEN they shadow dropped it on the 15th with no notice and for the US audience only. We also know that they told Mark that if the show didn't get into the Top 10, then his movie is at risk of never coming out. Despite all of that, as of today Wednesday 16th, the movie is #7 and #Markiplier is trending on Twitter/X.

So if you can:

Stream the show. I'm cancelling the trial two days before they charge my card and streaming TEOS until then. If you are outside the US, you can use a VPN, and it will work, believe me. Hopefully, on the 18th we can get a world premier and everyone will be able to stream it, but if not, those options are available.

Make posts about it. Anywhere online where you gush about your faves, talk about it! Whether you have seen it or just know the Podcast, don't forget to tag it with #TheEdgeofSleeponPrime to make sure it stays trending.

If you have seen the show, leave a review on Prime, IMBD and anywhere else you can find!

Have fun! It's really awesome to engage with others who love the things you do, even if its just reading and liking posts (but if you are here on Tumblr then you must know that reblogging is the norm here!), so go out there and engage with the fandom, even if its just in your own corner.

Don't let the anxiety get to you, every little thing helps! Now let's get this to be the No. 1 show on Prime!!

[saturnine-saturneight]

Writerly Questionnaire

@davycoquette posted this up and it looks fun :)

About You

When did you start writing?

I started writing poetry somewhere in my early teens, then expanded to short snippets when my school had a creative writing workshop as part of a week long retreat. I did some minor roleplaying on the [Country redacted] version of Facebook, then started roleplaying on a fandom specific forum at 17... Started running with a group on Discord and Tumblr and learned how to write well with a dictionary always open in another tab. It's how I learned the majority of both my conversational and my writing English!

Are the genres/themes you enjoy reading different from the ones you write?

There are themes I really don't like to watch or read, but love to write, for example medical horror and body horror. I get squicked out when I'm not in control of those. I also adore detective fiction, especially Poirot, but don't have an interest in putting together a murder mystery myself.

Is there an author (or just a fellow writer!) you want to emulate, or one to whom you’re often compared?

I think the way I write is very conversational and very stream of consciousness. I'm a child of the internet, and you could make an easy comparison to other people writing indie online, but I'm not sure the comparison is as easy when you're looking at bigger, traditionally published authors. I think about the way I write in comparison to the Realism art movement sometimes. I want to emulate how people really talk, and I want to get deep into the nitty gritty of a psyche.

Can you tell me a little about your writing space(s)? (Room, coffee shop, desk, etc.)

Laying down ✌️

What’s your most effective way to muster up some muse?

Daydreaming! Dozing, napping, taking a walk, doing the dishes; anything that lets my mind wander.

Did the place(s) you grew up in influence the people and places you write about?

Not really. See above, child of the internet, but I'm also not sure I can capture what my country is really like. I never feel all that informed or all that "with it" here.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing, and if so, do they surprise you at all?

Come back with a warrant, lmfao.

Your Characters

Would you please tell me about your current favorite character? (Current WIP, past WIP, never used, etc.)

This is hard for me to decide because I really do love most of my characters equally when I just spend enough time with them. Of course it's Ron right now, I'm writing his story and he's living in a bigger corner of my brain than usual. I never really figured out what he had to say until pretty recently, he's always been a very taciturn narrator and loathe to talk about his feelings in dialogue. Throwing him into a fully moving plot and inflicting The Horrors on him really makes him react, and it's endearing him to me a lot.

Which of your characters do you think you’d be friends with in real life?

Matcha! She's goofy and sweet and she has a lot of things to talk about. We'd just need to set boundaries early because I'm not a fan of being flirted with. I also think I could get along with most of the rest, at least on friendly terms.

Which of your characters would you dislike the most if you met them?

Nat is an amalgamation of the worst traits and tendencies that I see in other people and myself. They're also a bully, which is something that personally makes me see red. They can go be a sympathetic villain somewhere else.

Tell me about the process of coming up with of one, all, or any of your characters.

So the very first one of the bunch was Teo. He was originally a pirate, and I made him to be weird and angsty and complex, but also kind of a liar who'd just boast about things unfounded. I thought this was easy to figure out, but I started noticing people taking him at his word, so I made Haru to call him out on his shit. These two were good foils, but didn't talk that much, so I made Rabbit who can never shut up to deliver some exposition.

When I make a character, they fill a niche in a dynamic, and/or have behaviors and beliefs that I want to write about. The rest is vibes.

Do you notice any recurring themes/traits among your characters?

I try to make them pretty diverse from each other, but there's always a general sense of overcoming and survival that I think is fascinating and write a lot about.

How do you picture them? (As real people you imagined, as models/actors who exist in real life, as imaginary artwork, as artwork you made or commissioned, anime style, etc.)

I don't have 20/20 vision in my imagination, things are pretty fuzzy. Real people, but stylized, I think.

Your Writing

What’s your reason for writing?

To create a space where I can really dig into the things I like and the things that are on my mind. I'm also pretty competitive towards myself. I always want to be better at something than I have been so far.

Is there a specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating coming from your readers?

I love comments that really pinpoint which moments or beats a reader enjoyed...

How do you want to be thought of by those who read your work? (For example: as a literary genius, or as a writer who “gets” the human condition; as a talented worldbuilder, as a role model, etc.)

Just some guy, please.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

Character depth and dialogue.

What have you been frequently told your greatest writing strength is by others?

Dialogue also, and a certain sense of... chaos? Urgency? My longer form stuff has been described as 'one long rollercoaster'.

How do you feel about your own writing? (Answer in whatever way you interpret this question.)

Eh. I'm happy when it turns out well.

If you were the last person on earth and knew your writing would never be read by another human, would you still write?

Oh that's a mean question. I do have a little bit of a "what's going to be my legacy" thing going on. Yeah, I think I would still write, though. I really do it for the fun of it as well. It's just a lot less fun when I can't bounce it off other people and see what it turns into where it meets their lives and their experiences.

When you write, are you influenced by what others might enjoy reading, or do you write purely what you enjoy? If it’s a mix of the two, which holds the most influence

On a line by line basis, I have an issue of trying to write to a worst faith reader that I'm trying to work through, but the larger picture is completely just what I enjoy and not written to a specific genre, reader, or market.

I am tagging @marlowethelibrarian @fortunatetragedy @paeliae-occasionally @lychhiker-writes @rotting-moon-writes and YOU 🫵

[kyriat-stories]

- Holy Astanna and Aphrodith! You look fantastic! So much younger! What happened to you? Have you lost weight? I think your relationship with Kyrios Yousif works out well for you? He must be keeping you very busy in the bedroom, right?

- Noor!! Eira blushed a little, but was smiling. It's not that! It's all the walking! Every day we go for long walks.

- Right…

- But we do!

- Let me have a proper look at you! My goddess, you are almost half size!?

- I know! At first I thought I was sick or something, but the truth is I feel so much better now. My back doesn't hurt, my knees no longer hurt, and I feel stronger and more energetic, even though I am more active now than ever before!

- That sounds incredible! I'm a little bit jealous...

- Then maybe you should start looking for a male companion?

- Like I have time to spend on someone outside the family! And now with the newborn that is not sleeping. And I try to help Areth as well, whenever I can.

- But don't you miss having some romance in your life? A shoulder to cry on when you are sad, or someone to rub your feet when you are tired?

- Rub my feet?! Noor laughed wholeheartedly. I can't imagine any man doing that. I'm much to ticklish!

- Well, I find it quite relaxing!

- Good for you! And the most important thing is that you are happy. Jokes aside.

- Giagia?

- Yes, moraki mou?

- Are you all alone in the world?

- Alone? No, Iliouloùsta, of course not! I have the whole family, haven't I? Why did you think I was alone?

- Papa Teo said that you had to leave your parents and live with your uncle, just like me. And Myrto said your husband died when she was just a baby. So now you have nobody to take care of you.

To her own surprise Iliouloùsta's words struck a cord in Noor's heart.

- Well, that might be true, she said after hesitating a few seconds, but I'm old you know, so I can take care of myself.

- You are not that old! And I believe everybody should have someone to take care of them anyway.

- Aww. You sweet little girl. You are right. Maybe you can take care of me?

- Don't be stupid giagia! I am a child! I can't even take care of myself!

- But you give really great hugs! Right now, that's what I need most of all. Can you give me one?

- That I can do! And when I grow up I will take care of you giagia! I promise!

- That's lovely to know sweetie. I'm sure you will be the best caretaker ever!

- I'm not really honest with myself, Noor thought afterwards. I do miss being taken care of by someone. I haven't had that for a long time. I always seem to take care of everybody else. Ax! I'm getting all melancholic now!

- TEO! I'm going down to the river for a little swim!

- Okay mother!

The thoughts from earlier was hunting Noor. Why was it so hard to acknowledge her own needs? Why did she feel that if she did it would be self-absorbed and selfish? Why where other people's feelings so much more important than her own? Why shouldn't she deserve to be happy, just like her sister?

- Who are you Noor? Are you just a reflection of what other people think you should be?

Tears run down her cheeks and made small circles as they hit the water surface.

- How pathetic! Sitting here crying like a baby. Pull yourself together woman!!

But she just couldn't. It was like years of suppressed grief and loss now came to the surface. It was a stream wilder and more powerful than the calm river that she was actually sitting in.

.

Previous | Index | Character overview | Next

[liviavanrouge]

???: *Tosses a child out, laughing as the van kept going* Walk home, brat!!

Teo: *Pushes himself up, covered in bruises, cuts and scrapes*

Teo: *Stands up, trembling as he starts to walk* I'm coming, Ma, Pa...

???: Hey!! Kid!!

Teo: *Looks up as motorcycles surrounded him then came to a stop*

Caesar: *Walks over to him then holds her hand out* Are you okay? We saw what happened..

Teo: *Trembles, starting to cry* They're making me walk....they threw me out..

Caesar: *Stares then takes Teo into her arms* Come on, let's get you patched up

Lighter: *Comes up beside Caesar, smiling at Teo, placing a hand on the boys shoulder*

Lucy: *Looks at Teo, scanning for any more severe injuries*

Teo: *Trembles then wails, tears streaming down his cheeks, his ears drooping*

Caeser: I gotcha....it's okay...

Caeser: *Turns around* Come on..

~~~~~

Teo: *Swings himself up into the air, landing on the roof of a moving vehicle*

Lighter: Nice one kiddo!!

Lucy: Nice moves, I guess!

Caeser: *Grins at him and nods* That's our boy!

Teo: *Stands up, the breeze blowing through his hair*

Burnice: Nice job, Teo!!

Teo: *Lifts his hands into the air, grinning* YEAHHHHH!!!!!!!

Caeser: *Smiles, staring at Teo* Oh...he grew too fast for us...

Burnice: He did...

Teo: *Keeps his hands in the air, the sunset shining around him*

Caeser: *Smiles, her expression softening* He's a big boy now...

@queen-of-twisted

[azure-firecracker]

ATLA Live Action Stream of Consciousness (Episode 3, Part 2).

Teo looks so young but his acting is great!

Everyone continues to need to enunciate more.

Aaand Zuko continues to be a reckless idiot. We love him. And Iroh’s got some bite too! Interesting!

MECHANIST PLOT TWIST I mean I knew.

Okay who tf is Katara’s new boyfriend?

OH it’s Jet there’s the costume!

I do like that Aang isn’t very careful and sometimes can be childish.

Aaand another fight scene where Katara mostly stands there while her male counterpart does things.

Sebastian Amoruso is amazing as Jet! So much charisma!

“The world is filled with warriors but there are far too few great engineers” great line (as a physics girlie).

Teo’s such a sweetie.

Are there more freedom fighters now? That’s cool! But their camp looks like my summer camp’s ropes course.

Katara stop being surprised that other characters do things you should also be able to do things. I continue to be SUPER pissed off about her characterization. I hope if they get a season 2 they listen to fans�� feedback and they give her more spirit. Why do men have to tell her how to do everything?

Zuko and Iroh continue to get the show’s only good writers.

Lizzy Yu is doing some of the similar vocal inflections as the ones Grey Griffin did in the original which I think is clever since it makes her lines more interesting. Her working with Zhao is new…wonder how it’ll play out.

Finally they let Katara get angry…of course it was over a guy.

Sokka and Katara’s fight…interesting choices because that’s a very different conflict than we got in the original. If they’re going to not have Katara be the motherly one I like that she wants to break out and be taken seriously…it’s more reminiscent of her original spirit than anything I’ve seen so far. Sokka being overbearing isn’t new but the serious tone of the whole thing does make it feel more stifling rather than a joke. I’m glad we got this little argument, it fleshed out both their characters more (which they very much needed especially Katara).

Love the running gag of him not saying “my cabbages”

I have seen the Zutara nation talking about the scarf scene.

THERE’S KATARA THIS IS JUST PROOF THAT THEY NEED TO LET KIAWENTIIO ACT!! YELL AT PEOPLE!

“This guy? Again?” love!

And “this is my fight” okay Aang.

LOVE the random woman kicking Zuko’s ass we love to see it.

That fight with the scarves could be foreshadowing the dragon dance from book 3.

That mail cart chase is a lot more dangerous if you’re not an Airbender lol.

Zuko’s fire being triggered because Aang stole his diary is deeply in character.

MY CABBAGES!

Yay Katara does things but why does she have to look terrified whenever she does anything.

Someone take slo-mo away from Netflix.

Iroh self sacrifice? This is interesting! But Zuko you need to LEAVE.

Since when can air put out fire?

Ooh cliffhanger what’s gonna happen to Aang?

[disappointingyet]

This is my now traditional list of favourite movies of the year. These are all films that – as far as I can tell – were first commercially available either in cinemas or on streaming in the UK this year. So it doesn’t include eg, Hit Man or The Holdovers. Other than that, these are solely being judged on: did I like them?

As I did last year, I’ve also written about other stuff I have seen that you might be interested in – which this time turned out to be so long I split it into two: Broadly Mainstream & Documentaries and Arthouse & Indie.

2023, then, the year of Barbenheimer (I saw Barbie, didn’t see Oppenheimer). And the year of the great superhero box office crash. Meanwhile, there were two austere French courtroom dramas critics loved, two films about young women born in Korea but raised elsewhere trying to make sense of their identities that also got excited reviews plus an avalanche of movies featuring cast members of Chicago restaurant TV drama The Bear.

I saw plenty of films, and there weren’t many I think I missed out on. Ridley Scott’s Napoleon felt like a film to watch with friends but we couldn’t sort out a time. Eileen and Dream Scenario sounded interesting but non-essential, but BlackBerry I very much did want to see but couldn’t get round to.  Saltburn generated a fair amount of debate, but by most accounts is precisely Ripley x Brideshead set in 2006 with tunes by Flo Rida and MGMT by the director of Promising Young Woman, and that’s a film I don’t need to see. 

Some near misses from this list: The Innocent, Alcarrás and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem. Oh, yeah, and maybe the most fun I had in a cinema for what was officially a 2023 release was seeing the 4K etc restoration of Stop Making Sense, but a bit of a scrub-up does not equal an actual new movie. And on that note, here’s the list:

1. Kuolleet Lehdet (Fallen Leaves)

This is recommended cautiously – there are other films on this list I would steer most people towards before this one. But it is a movie I absolutely loved. I think it’s the 18th feature film made by director Aki Kaurismäki in a 40-year career, and easily in his five best. If you’ve never seen a Kaurismäki film, the easiest way to describe them is like Jim Jarmusch movies but Finnish. And if you haven’t even seen a Jarmusch film? Well, his movies are slow (but crucially short!). Most of the characters dress like they are living in the late 1950s or early ’60s and drink in bars that seem to come from that time too, but the films are set in the present day. The characters are usually somewhat on the margins of society and often somewhat lonely. There’s not a lot of dialogue. And, this is very important, they are funny as well as melancholy. In short, this is a very distinctive world that you’re likely to find either very appealing or pretty baffling.

Fallen Leaves is a simple story about a woman and a man who meet and have a series of misconnections while other stuff is happening in their lives. It’s very lovely but if you lose patience within the first 10 minutes, I get it, I really do. But I think it’s great. 

Full review here

2. Past Lives

We open with someone speculating about the two men and a woman drinking together in a New York bar at 4am – who are they to each other? Then we are whisked back to Seoul a couple of decades earlier, and gradually make our way to that late night and learn who Na Young/Nora (Greta Lee), Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) and Arthur (John Magaro) are. Céline Song’s drama is about friendship and love but also very much about the trauma of (bourgeois) emigration – the sense that not only did you leave a place and its people behind, you left a version of yourself there.

It’s an elegant, restrained yet emotionally raw film. I was going to say it feels in places like a three-hander but would be to forget Hae Sung’s drinking buddies, who provide welcome comic relief. And when your quibbles are as nit-picky as ‘maybe one too many magic-hour shots’, then you’re talking a seriously good movie.

3. Rye Lane

Delightful romantic comedy that manages to both play by the rules of the genre and feel fresh. Girl meets boy at an art show and they spend a day and evening wandering around together and getting into low-stakes misadventures. Set and very tangibly filmed in places I know extremely well* and does so without triggering my ageing South Londoner’s prickly defensiveness.  (*In my review, I say that the geography is all plausible. Recently I had dinner with friends who live locally and have seen the film, and they were not buying into the idea that you would buy hot food at Brixton Market and eat it in Brockwell Park – approx 15 minutes walk away. Which I guess makes them even more South London than me...)

Full review here

(Disney +)

4. Fremont

Afghan interpreter for the US military tries to get to grips with life in California. Gruelling social realist drama about trauma and exile? Uplifting/flag-waving account of the power of living free? Broad culture-clash comedy? No? How about ultra low-key indie, filmed in lovely black & white, in which Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) shuffles between her job making fortune cookies and her sessions with an eccentric psychiatrist (Gregg Turkington). The b&w, the gentle eccentricity of many of the characters, how little Donya says even though she is on-screen in almost every scene, have prompted comparisons with Jim Jarmusch, which I think are fair, although there’s much less of the fetish-of-cool stuff here (also, as it happens, in none of the Jarmusch films with a sole protagonist is that character female.) Very little happens, and I really liked it.

5. Anatomie d’un chute (Anatomy Of A Fall)

Bloke falls to his death out of the window of his house up in the snowy French mountains – question is: accident, suicide, murder? If murder, the only suspect seems to be his widow (Sandra Hüller), a writer who doesn’t much like living in France, especially not in the mountains, and also doesn’t feel confident expressing herself in French (the bulk of her dialogue is in English), attitudes that doesn’t seem likely to endear her to the local media or legal system. Because, yes, this is a courtroom drama, if very much not one in the manner of John Grisham. It’s an intense, relentless film, one almost without a score (what music there is – and it’s important to the plot and the film – is mostly diegetic, but there is a little cheating on that). Hüller is very good as the protagonist we’re not meant to be sure whether to root for (although I’m inherently sympathetic to anyone who would rather be in London than stuck up a mountain, however beautiful that mountain is). A few side thoughts: the kid made me think of The Omen, the prosecutor of reality TV  judge Rob Rinder and I would have sworn blind that the defence lawyer was in some band that had an EP out on Creation Records in 1988, only the actor is about 15 years too young for that. 

(It’s a very good film.)

6. Asteroid City

Wes Anderson’s latest comes with multiple levels of story within story that felt unnecessary the first time I saw it – on rewatch they made more sense. But the main narrative – of parents and their children fetched up in a sun-baked nowhere town in the 1950s – I found effective and very moving both times. Anderson’s films always have at least an undertone of sadness, but this is probably his most directly mournful picture since Moonrise Kingdom. As usual with Anderson, the cast is ridiculously stacked – Tom Hanks fits in surprisingly well – and there are actors (Ed Norton, Adrien Brody) who are vastly better in his films than they generally are in anyone else’s. I laughed, I cried – no, I really did, and I think this was the only film this year that made me do both.

7. Killers Of The Flower Moon

Is Killers Of The Flower Moon a masterful piece of film-making, a supreme example of Martin Scorsese’s novelistic ability to guide a camera to the details that bring a culture to life, featuring a luminous performance from Lily Gladstone and telling an important story? Yes. Is it a sadistically long* movie that runs you through the same incidents three and sometimes four times, one that inflicts on us many scenes of Bob De Niro and Leo DiCaprio doing that terrible Method-bore jutting lip/downturned mouth thing at each other? Yes, that too. 

It tells an ugly tale from American history – we’re in the 1920s and oil is discovered on Osage land in Oklahoma, making that nation’s members all very rich. Inevitably, tragically, a lot of white folk aren’t having that, and start scheming about how they will get their hands on the wealth. What I wasn’t expecting is that along with the murder the film’s title previews, the plot involved lots of white guys marrying Osage women. It’s fascinating and horrible and Scorsese tells it with great images and some humour and there’s great casting. But it’s still unnecessarily long (think of the span of time covered in GoodFellas – and that came in at a respectable 2hrs 26mins).

*In the debate about whether there should be intermissions in this movie, some people were saying. ‘Who are you to presume to know more about films than Scorsese and his legendary editor Thelma Schoonmaker?’ Seems like a fair point… except: these are people who seemed to have thought Polar Expressing De Niro in The Irishman looked OK, so I’m saying their judgement isn’t what it was. 

8. Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

By and large, the critical response to Across The Spider-Verse was split between those who felt it was even better than Into The Spider-Verse and those who thought it was good but lacked the ‘blimey, look at everything they are managing to do and oh my god it makes so much more sense to do superhero movies as animation than clunky CGI’ shock-of-the-new of the first film. The latter is basically my position: this is a very good film but Into The Spider-Verse was a near-instant classic.* ATSV is not as funny, and suffers (for me) from the fact that much of it happens at a larger scale and there’s more multiverse stuff to get your head around etc, and it ends on a cliffhanger (boo!) But it’s still easily the best big budget/action film of the year for my money.

(*Although somehow only 7th on my films of 2018 list! In retrospect, I’d move it up, but still only to maybe 3rd – 2018 turns out to have been a great year for films I like.)

9. Reality

If you are phobic to excruciating small talk, you should probably avoid this film. The dialogue comes entirely from an FBI transcript, and the agents spend a very long time trying to put their suspect at ease before finally getting to the questions about what she allegedly did. So many awkward attempted bits of connection about pet ownership and going to the gym…

It starts with Reality Winner (yes, that is the name of a real person), played by Sydney Sweeney, driving home. Before she’s out of the car, two FBI agents have come up to her window. Almost all of film is them and her standing outside her bungalow doing the prelims for the questioning and then finally going inside to interrogate her. It feels like real time but it’s not quite that. The look of the film is quite raw, there’s no score, it feels very plain although there are a couple of welcome weird touches. 

It’s an uncomfortable watch, but if you can stay with it, it’s an impressive and rewarding film.

10. All The Beauty And The Bloodshed

This documentary wants to tell you two important stories. One is about the campaign to get artistic institutions to distance themselves from the Sackler family, the generous donors who (alas) made their money from Valium and Oxycontin. The second is a history of assorted art movements and bohemian scenes of the late 20th-century US. The person whose life connects all this is the photographer Nan Goldin (the art world’s most influential figure, apparently). Goldin’s pictures are also a key part of this film’s visual appeal, and the director Laura Poitras is well of aware of that, and happy to give them the space they deserve. Quite a brutal watch, but worth it. 

Full review here

11. Wham!

The angle this documentary takes gives us the story of Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael as a benign version of Single White Female with a touch of All About Eve crossed with Pygmalion. Here, the person who has had their look and career appropriated turns out to have been coaching the impersonator and at the end wishes them well as they soar off into superstardom. 

That’s how I’ve long understood the Wham! story but this fills in the details and adds some ambiguity: Ridgeley enjoyed songwriting and being tagged the ‘talentless one’ clearly hurt him. The image choices that led some to assume George Michael was gay (many years before he came/was forced out) were actually made by his busily straight bandmate – we were right for the wrong reasons, which is to say wrong. But what I found fascinating is that once George* – who had been strong-armed by Andrew into a music career – started to understand how good he could be, he developed a Michael Jordan-esque competitive fury.

The voices of the two Wham! members provide the bulk of the narrative, added to by lots of excellent archive. The short span of Wham!’s career is a huge plus for a pop documentary - it avoids the usual problem of what to do about the later stuff only the subjects of the film care about. Just like the band, the documentary knows how to stop when the going is good.

*I can’t treat ‘Michael’ as a surname in this context.

(Netflix)

[niennandil-me-writes]

Goretober 5: Self-inflicted

CN: self-harm

[takes place right after our Aberrant oneshot]

He woke up with his hands gripping the leather-wrapped haft of his weapon. It was a familiar feeling. One he had been yearning for the last weeks. One that flooded him with a relief he hadn’t even known he could still experience.

And as soon as he opened his eyes to look at Dex, there was that familiar chastising, a glare that existed only to him.

“I will take care of that,” Teo told the blade as he sat up. “I know. I know she’s my responsibility.” He’d been made to accept that, even though he’d avoided it for a long time. “I’ll make sure she won’t do anything stupid again.” His right hand wandered up the haft to the axe head, brushing over the flat side. “Must run in the family, making stupid decisions.”

His fingers traced the engravings, images he knew by heart, though they had faded years ago. Then he frowned, turned the axe a bit. “You know I don’t mean you with that.”

He hadn’t talked to Dex in what felt like eternity, not since he had been taken from him, and now, just like with Dexter in Aberrant, the words were hard to find. “I’m just glad to have you back.”

And he was. He realized he was smiling, even though he hadn’t even killed anyone since waking up yet. “You know I’m lost without you. Couldn’t even make it a week. I’m a bad person, you know that better than anyone, but I get a whole lot worse when I don’t have you around.”

A second passed, then he smiled. “Well, it’s true.” His fingers wandered from the blunt metal slowly to the edge. Fingers covered in scars dancing over the blade, then back to the engravings, scars of their own.

“I should get something to clean those,” he said. “Haven’t taken care of the engravings in ages.”

Because he didn’t want to think of the past. Because the images of a peaceful garden didn’t fit what he did with this weapon. Because he didn’t want to look at his own reflection in the polished metal...

“You might be right about that.” His fingers wandered back to the edge, and this time he was less careful. A drop of red appearing at his fingertip, running down his hand and then falling to the ground. He sucked in the air through his teeth, smiling.

“I missed you,” he said, as more lines of red joined the drop, flowing down his arm and the metal. He watched his own blood flow over the twin blades. Engravings turned into riverbeds for the red streams. Scars torn open all over his fingers and the palms of his hands, as he held Dex close, caressed the blades.

“I don’t care,” he said at the warning that he might lose a finger. His words were muffled as he pressed his lips to the flat side of the axe. Kisses that tasted of steel and his own blood, and then pain as he moved his mouth to Dex’ blade.

“I don’t care,” he murmured again at another warning. There would have been something beautiful about dying like that, especially now that he couldn’t die by the hand of another person he loved anymore. He pushed those thoughts away and kept kissing him, tried to ignore the cut at the exact point of the scar on his lips.

He pulled back and looked at Dex, now fully covered in his blood.

“No, you’re right,” he said. “I can’t die now. I have to...” And he paused as he realized what he was saying. “I have a reason to keep going now.” He gave out a short joyless laugh. But he smiled again. “Haven’t had that in a while, huh? But you were right. I have to do this for her. I might be a horrible father, but I have to at least try to make this right by her.” He stroked his hands over the blade again, but more gently this time, only nicking his skin. “And if she found a way – no matter how bad it was... then I’ll find one, too, somehow.”

He tilted his head. “Wouldn’t say that’s it. I haven’t had hope in a long time. But with you back, who knows.” He stood up, took a piece of cloth from his coat to clean the blood off Dex. “But first, I still have a job to do. I’m already two weeks behind because I took time off to find you. And I don’t want to sit through another lecture from that demon. Besides...” His smile turned into a sharp grin. “I really, really need to kill someone right now.”

[mariacallous]

“Big Auto and Big Oil have been in a partnership for a hundred years,” said Tim Sahay, a senior policy manager at the Green New Deal Network. “Now the automakers need to form new partnerships with metal companies.” The electric vehicle boom is underway, and U.S. automakers’ efforts have been turbocharged by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). U.S. firms are scrambling to create new relationships and hit production targets—but are often finding that their Chinese competitors have gotten there first.

Metals is a diverse business, but some countries dominate: lithium from Chile, cobalt from the Democratic Republic of the Congo—and for nickel, most roads lead to Indonesia.

Indonesia has 22 percent of global nickel reserves and in 2021 provided 37 percent of the global supply. The Indonesian government has cannily exploited its position. Tariffs and exports bans have helped push companies not just to dig in Indonesia but to process metals there, too.

Battery and car companies, looking to guarantee a steady supply of nickel, are considering getting involved. However, as with lithium and cobalt, Chinese companies already hold a dominant position.

Making up ground will be hard. Chinese metals companies benefit from long-standing relationships with Indonesia. “When Chinese companies are developing assets in Indonesia, there’s a very steady stream of parts and labor and material going from China to Indonesia to enable them to build new assets quickly, on schedule, and on budget,” said Harry Fisher, a project manager at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

This efficiency has helped Chinese nickel producers quickly pivot from focusing on nickel pig iron, used for stainless steel, to mixed hydroxide precipitate, or MHP. The vibrant green powder is quickly becoming a preferred feedstock for batteries.

MHP contains both very high-purity nickel and a small quantity of cobalt. Thanks to MHP, Benchmark predicts that by 2030, Indonesia will produce 80,000 tons of cobalt—roughly 20 percent of global production.

Indonesia now has three plants capable of producing 164,000 metric tons of MHP yearly. Some 26 more have been proposed. All—bar three scheduled to open 2026—involve Chinese companies.

The vast majority of MHP produced also seems to be sold—possibly at knockdown prices—to Chinese companies. Intriguingly, the Chinese nickel ore trader Lygend Resources & Technology Co. seems to be the main client of Indonesia’s Harita Nickel and is carrying out a joint venture with Harita at the Halmahera Persada Lygend plant that processes ore into MHP.

In 2021, Jessica Roberts, the head of forecasting at Benchmark, speculated that the global nickel market might split with a well-supplied China and the rest of the world facing shortages.

Multiple people close to the Indonesian government insist that it would like to diversify in this regard. The country practices careful neutrality in international affairs. Balancing Chinese investment with investment from other sources would fit. Indeed, the Indonesian government has publicly been courting companies such as Volkswagen and Tesla.

However, Western companies looking to enter Indonesia face significant barriers. Mining industry professionals regularly rank Indonesia as one of the worst places to do business, according to annual surveys by the Fraser Institute.

“Many Indonesians believe that foreign investors are here to pillage the country’s natural resources,” said Bill Sullivan, a senior foreign counsel with Christian Teo & Partners, a Jakarta-based law firm, who concentrates on Indonesian mining.

Onerous legal requirements change unpredictably with the political winds. Indonesian courts also almost invariably favor local parties. Many Western miners left Indonesia altogether in the late 2010s.

Meanwhile, Chinese companies, Sullivan said, “are often much less concerned about compliance and are usually much more comfortable operating in opaque and uncertain regulatory environments such as one finds in Indonesia.” Their links to the Chinese state and Indonesia’s cautious attitude toward China might also help.

Western companies looking to enter—or reenter—Indonesia face the daunting task of building relationships from scratch. “Getting to understand the dynamics of the industry, but also the politics of the industry, that takes time,” said Chris Gower, the CEO of Altilium Group, which advocates a less polluting nickel refining process.

Some Western companies are nonetheless looking for ways in, but “they don’t really want to do it with Chinese companies,” Gower said. Americans are apparently particularly nervous.

Yet securing MHP without Chinese technological know-how looks difficult. Converting Indonesia’s low-grade laterite ores into MHP uses a process called high-pressure acid leaching, or HPAL.

Ore is poured with sulfuric acid into autoclaves—huge titanium pressure cookers. It is then subject to temperatures of around 255 degrees Celsius (491 degrees Fahrenheit) and pressures of roughly 4,500 kilopascals, equivalent to being 450 meters (1,476 feet) underwater.

HPAL has been in use since 1961, but companies have long struggled to master the process. Many plants failed to meet production targets.

Now, Chinese companies seem to have cracked the code. Since 2021, they have been involved in building and operating all of Indonesia’s HPAL plants, each of which was built quickly, on budget, and produces reliably. Better designs developed by China ENFI Engineering Corp., a subsidiary of the state-owned China Metallurgical Group Corp., are apparently key.

Finally, environmental issues could deter Western consumers and investors alike. HPAL produces huge amounts of toxic waste. Storing it safely is challenging, especially in tropical climates.

Adding to the headache, well over half of Indonesia’s electricity is generated by burning coal. Given the energy intensity of HPAL, the nickel and cobalt needed for clean cars come with a big carbon footprint.

The Indonesian government is working to assuage concerns. Investment laws are being reformed. Dumping mining waste in the ocean has been banned, and President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo recently promised to improve environmental monitoring of nickel mining. Decarbonization, long delayed, is also picking up steam.

But as these efforts get underway, U.S. efforts to tie decarbonization to domestic reindustrialization and competition with China have added new complications.

IRA subsidies for passenger electric vehicles, or EVs, are subject to strict sourcing requirements. A certain percentage of metals and battery components must be processed in the United States or free trade partner countries for the EVs to qualify.

In an era of growing U.S. worry about competition with Beijing, the IRA makes working with Chinese firms particularly tough. The “foreign entity of concern” rules also bar EVs from receiving subsidies if they are produced using critical minerals or battery components sourced from companies “owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of” the Chinese government. It remains unclear how much—if any—involvement from Chinese companies operating outside China will be acceptable.

Ford may prove a vital bellwether. Last month, the U.S. car giant announced plans to invest in building a behemoth $4.5 billion HPAL plant in Pomalaa on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The plant is expected to produce 120,000 metric tons of MHP every year.

Its choice of partners speaks volumes. One is PT Vale Indonesia, the Indonesian subsidiary of the Brazilian mining giant. The other is China’s Huayou Cobalt Co., which already operates one HPAL plant in northern Sulawesi.

PT Vale is a smart and unproblematic choice of partner. The company has a thoroughly Indonesianized management. It also has a good record on environmental, social, and corporate governance, attracting the praise of Jokowi. The Pomalaa plant is also designed to use hydropower.

Partnering with Huayou is much riskier. The firm, founded in 2002, pronounces on its website that it is “[r]ooted in China and making friends all over the world”—but features the politically necessary encomiums to the Chinese Communist Party prominently in its publicity materials. Ford might benefit from an overlooked loophole in the IRA that makes commercial vehicles—e.g. vans, trucks, etc.—eligible for subsidies without being subject to sourcing requirements. But the company is already under fire for partnering with another Chinese company, CATL, to produce batteries in the United States.

That they are taking another political risk shows the indispensability of Chinese suppliers. “There is no, in inverted commas, ‘Western’ MHP being produced in Indonesia at the moment,” Benchmark’s Fisher said.

Fisher does expect this will change, especially given the Indonesian government’s recent environmental commitments. Still, he added, “This isn’t a quick fix—it’s a mid-to-long-term story particularly when you think about switching to renewables.” For some time yet, companies scrambling for nickel may find that Chinese companies in Indonesia are the only game in town.

[iamonlyperson]

honestly i still haven't loose hope for teos tv show like i believe they going to release this but takes far longer for them to release teos tv show. we are going our 3rd year but i sure believe that 2024 will be that year specially when they want to release this on streaming service (i heard somewhere that). i would loose hope for 5th year but right now, nope.