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Raw

Mark Fischbach, aka Markiplier, has been making progressively more ambitious projects for the last several years, including starring in a television show for the Qcode podcast The Edge of Sleep. The podcast is excellent; it's a sci fi apocalyptic medical drama about a mysterious disease causing people to fall asleep and never wake up. The TV show went into production around 2018 and fell into development hell.

It's finally being released, but with a pair of truly upsetting conditions:

- No one involved in the project is legally allowed to say where it will air before the day it debuts, and

- The company releasing the show is holding Mark's most recent project for ransom. His film, Iron Lung, which he's spent the past two years working on almost exclusively, will have a path out of development hell through this company -- but only if Edge of Sleep debuts on their platform in the top ten.

That means zero marketing outside of Mark revealing the air date, and the audience's prior knowledge of the podcast. The company is dangling Mark's future as a filmmaker above his head at a truly frustrating height, and he's asked his fanbase to get him there, because his hands are tied.

Try to focus on your actions rather than your traits:

E.g. “I’m sorry I keep ghosting you, I’m shit at friendships” –> “I’m sorry I keep ghosting you, I’m really struggling to keep up with my friends right now”

Then, if you can, turn the conversation back to the other person - you’re apologising because their feelings matter to you, so show that.

E.g. “I don’t mean to - our friendship means a lit to me, and I know it must make it seem like I don’t care.”

This gives the other person an opportunity to express their own experience so you can talk it over more if they want to, without skipping ahead to reassuring you that the relationship isn’t broken.