#I SCHEDULED THIS FOR JUNE 3 BUT TUMBLR HATES ME AND POSTED IT EARLY

[velvet-cupcake-games]

Made Marion June Development Update: Schedule Edition, Straight Talk

[I decided to post our June dev update early, because I have some difficult things to say, but I hope this will get us all on the same page about what's happened with Made Marion since our Kickstarter.]

Hi everyone! I've decided to check in early with a report on our development schedule and some straight talk on some tough stuff. I hope this will help us all get on the same page and be excited instead of worried about Made Marion's development process.

First of all, thank you all so much for your magnificent patience and concern! This is definitely not how I wanted Made Marion's development to go or how it would have gone if things were still the way they were for our team back when we ran our Kickstarter. We have been seriously kicked in the teeth repeatedly, and I'd like to offer a better explanation and our proposed solutions and revised schedule.

I'm also sorry for the lack of pretty pictures this month!  There will be many available very soon when Robin's beta test is ready to go!

The Problems:

1. As of fall 2021, things were going pretty well! We'd just run a beta for Made Marion's prologue and my route outlines were shaping up nicely. Then things began to go wrong. I had some issues at home that took up my attention, and then my darn town flooded. Drat it, ok, lost a couple months, but we can get back on track in 2022...

2. Then 2022, for various reasons was a disaster for pretty much our entire team (I'm only going to talk about my problems here, because those are the ones it is mine to share). It ended up being basically a wash for development. Why wasn't that obvious from our development updates? Because of my brain. I contracted Covid in January of 2022 and a few weeks later, the Long Covid symptoms started. I was near-narcoleptic for several months. It was scary and embarrassing and I didn't know how to talk about it. So I was as positive as I could be. Around May, my body started to recover. I was able to live more normally and I figured that meant I could get back to development.

What I didn't know and couldn't effectively communicate was that the brain fog was still there. I was writing, but not in a straight line. I wrote scenes for all the love interests here and there, scribbled a bunch in my notebooks, but a full, logical route for Robin wasn't happening. And the problem with your brain not working right is that it's very difficult to understand that your brain isn't working right. I thought things were cool! So it appeared that I wasn't being honest about the status of development without me realizing it did or even fully understanding that development wasn't going well. I'm very sorry about that.

3. Around November of 2022 my brain started working better again, but I was demoralized and felt like I'd forgotten how to write. I "eased" myself back into writing with a huge fic, along with finally getting back to putting words together for Robin. I wrote words!  Lots of words!  Good words!  Yeah!  We pulled together as a team and got our enhanced demo out, which was a lot of work but was super exciting.

4. Feeling guilty about the wash that was 2022 and excited because of how much verbiage I'd put out, I created an ambitious schedule toward an Early Access release of all the Sherwood routes this fall. It was based on the amount of words I'd been putting out, so I was convinced it was doable. Some of you wrote in to Tumblr with concerns that it was overly ambitious. You were wonderful and primarily concerned for my well-being. You were also correct.

The Solutions:

1. I need to accept that I have a disabling condition that currently has no cure and that, although it has greatly improved since last year, means that I can't always work at my peak capacity. This is super tough for a high achiever with general anxiety. I hate even talking about it, but I want to be as transparent with y'all as I can be.

2. The schedule: I still wish to keep a relatively ambitious target schedule for the remainder of development. I think it is helping us all Get Shit Done(tm). I just need to be a little less ambitious. I still plan to release Early Access this fall and I'm still hoping for October (which was always tentative), but November may be more realistic. It depends on how well my body and mind cooperate over the summer, and on the individual situations of our artists. Early Access will launch with Robin and Will's routes. John is going to need to take more time. It will be worth it, because he will get the full attention and care that his wonderful self deserves.

3. The weekly mini-dev updates: I have started posting mini-dev updates on Mondays on Tumblr. This is the place to go if you want a more granular report of the progress we've been making, and I think they're going to be very helpful for maintaining clarity and helping keep us all on-task.

4. Beta: I have more detailed information about Beta in the Kickstarter version of this update.

Conclusion:

Looking back from here, our original release date estimate from Kickstarter was too ambitious even under ideal circumstances. That was my development inexperience speaking. The rest was a lot of IRL horribleness. However, the gang is back together now, and the game is now, actually, truly, progressing nicely once more. Going forward, I'll be able to post much more concrete progress and I think doing so as I write each route is a better choice than posting a bunch of specific completion dates that we may not meet. You'll be able to see our progress as it happens instead.

Notes and Goodies:

Robin's new expressions are in!  I love the way he turned out and Arrapso (a fellow perfectionist, err, high achiever) seems happier with him now as well.  Awesome!  I will post some previews on Tumblr soon, once I have coded a few of the new expressions into the game client.

John's role-playing choice has been re-configured a bit. I was previously calling it "conflict or compromise," but I was getting stuck on the "conflict" part because I didn't want Marion and John to be fighting all the time if you made those choices. It didn't seem like fun, or particularly in-character for John. I am now calling it "challenge or compromise."  Because John is kind and wonderful and protective but is also traumatized and stubborn and overprotective. Sometimes he needs to be challenged, and it won't always lead to an argument. I think this makes for more interesting choices and for John to have more room to be John.

I coded in Will's first use of his genuine smile expression (you get to confront him about his attitude early on in Robin's route) and am happy to report that it is SUPER EFFECTIVE.

For any of you Ren'py devs out there, I continue to evangelize matrixcolor.  It's relatively new, but you should absolutely check out what it can do. Previously, I used it to tint our characters a bit so they blended in better with evening and night backgrounds.  I also used it to sepia-tone memory sequences.  I've now used it to make images slowly disappear via transparency and turn our blood animation green instead of red for... spoiler purposes.  It is so easy and flexible, you should absolutely play with it!

I'll be reporting in later this month on our Beta test status!

#made marion #made marion dev update #tough stuff #Brains and nervous systems are super duper weird and modern medicine doesn't have a good handle on them yet

[incorrecthousamoquotes]

IncorrectHousamoQuotes in 2020

read me first please

so the blog anniversary was like... April 16. circumstances in 2020 made it so I feel like I owe an explanation for what I’m doing, and at one time I wondered if it’s necessary for a dumb meme blog but I know people care about this dumb meme blog. so this will be mainly 3 parts:

how narwhal had been feeling about the game in 2020

the future of incorrecthousamoquotes

closing remarks about the Tumblr community

how narwhal had been feeling about this game earlier this 2020 (spoiler alert: bad)

ok before I continue I want to say that I’ve been doing fine for myself in real life. I do acknowledge that I have the privilege of remaining financially stable this year and I am happy that I was able to keep my job I was just hired for in the beginning of the year. that being said please let me be internet melodramatic.

if you’ve known me personally and talk to me frequently in Discord servers then you may already know how I’m feeling in 2020. there’s a lot of people that don’t, though.

as part of me being internet melodramatic I do express the anger I felt toward the game and the fandom (outside of Tumblr) but I do not feel or say that the game, the fandom or anyone in particular did anything wrong. my purpose is not to criticize anything or anyone but just saying my feelings.

other than that, some of these feelings may be exaggerated and I do not guarantee my explanations of my feelings will make sense or be sufficient explanations for myself (then again since when did feelings make any sense)

basically me in 2020 was a result of major burnout in this game and the fandom.

my burnout technically began back in Christmas 2019 aka Mistake Christmas (I have feelings about this event but I choose not to elaborate right now) but I think the first thing that got me feeling burnout was late January with Main CH10 and translated CH9. until this point I liked to make self-deprecating jokes about how I haven’t read story yet but this was when I first began feeling I didn’t have a place in the fandom. like... who knew self-deprecating jokes could have a negative effect on my psyche if I think about them enough. how I can explain it is... in the past I wasn’t particularly crazy about new content in particular but I felt like I can vibe with people who were and I did have an interest towards new content. but CH10 was the first time I actively disliked new content and I took it really personally the fact I didn’t try to catch up with main story, so I started to mentally separate myself from the fandom even though I had no reason to. mostly because I held myself to more expectations than anyone would ever put on me.

so after Mistake Christmas & CH10 I ended up losing a lot of enthusiasm especially towards new content. I ended ignoring Val Timeslip completely but I did really like the Great Gendarme rerun. but my burnout hit an all-time low in April during New Semester 2020 which I will refer to as Worst Semester. now at this point I wasn’t looking forward to anything new at this point and the worst part about Worst Semester is that it was basically CH10 Part 2: about half of each banner was characters directly from CH10.

and this was when I started feeling angry at the fandom like an old entitled fan who hates change and can’t stand when people are having fun; basically it was a mix of envy and self-hatred that I couldn’t find anything to be excited about at that time. how could anyone like any of these characters, is what I felt.

that was even without considering the thing that tanked my mood for my blog in particular: summosnap. like even without considering the self-deprecating jokes about being cancelled it forced me to look back about how I’ve been running this blog and how I haven’t made a single new quote in 2020. long story short I kept comparing myself to the high expectations I put on myself and it ruined my motivation to work on what I’ve planned for the anniversary. so the blog anniversary passed completely burned out.

now I have been feeling better because the next few months weren’t particularly new content: May was just rerun month, and June was technically new but was basically from an old game that I liked a lot, so nostalgia has helped me feel better. now it’s July and we have completely new content and I’m feeling anxious over whether I’m willing to accept new content or not. right now in early July I’m actually focusing on other games right now (and reading main story on the side) so I’ll gradually start making more stuff for the fandom.

the future of incorrecthousamoquotes: the Tumblr

if you followed this blog in the past year, then you would know I didn’t have a regular schedule of making quotes in 2019, even though I did in 2018. in 2019 I did make quotes but it was released in batches every other month or so.

even in 2018 I’ve always made other Housamo content, so I’ve always given the impression that this blog is for whatever I feel like making (at least I hope I’ve given that impression) so when I remake my info pages, I will be taking the focus off of incorrect quotes. I can still make them when I get the motivation (and to clear my drafts of submissions I’m sorry) but my info pages won’t mainly talk about incorrect quotes as much as me just making whatever I want for Housamo.

I would like to make more personal posts like I did in 2018. For some reason I held off on the personal posts in 2019, but I think that contributed to my growing mental self-isolation and my eventual burnout. on a related note I’ve been ignoring my askbox and I’m sorry for that. one of the major reasons is that some of the asks I’ve been sent I have no answer to, but in the future if I have no answer to them I might just publish them anyway hopefully to start a discussion and have other people respond if they like.

I’m also going to be more open to just reblogging things because that’s something I’ve always been hesitant to do on this blog for some reason.

what hasn’t changed over the years is that I’ve always covered game news and game info and have taken time writing guides for this game. this will not change and I’ll continue to cover news in the future.

I still have unfinished projects in general and I hope to get them done this year.

the Twitter

as for my Twitter, I have mentioned before that I opened it again this April and will be using it just for uploading the video memes I make. growing the Twitter is not a priority for me, so I have no plans to change that right now.

--which is what I said before I clowned myself trying to make tweets that never took off so I’ve deleted them, sorry for trying to be an attention hoe

starting this month I’ve also permanently changed the name of the Twitter to summemepedia, which better fits the content I make.

closing remarks: I am so grateful for the Housamo Tumblr community

despite how I felt about this game in 2020 I’ve honestly never felt happier for the Housamo Tumblr community posting and writing about what they love. Tumblr as a blogging platform that encourages creativity is a website I will defend with my life and even though Japan mostly uses Twitter so it’s natural Housamo will revolve there, I will still be happy for anyone that still decides to use Tumblr.

I’ve made a list of blogs here that I’ve been saving for anniversary before I had my burnout so you can check out the list and suggest additions to it if you’d like.

#tokyo afterschool summoners #housamo #personal

[wrestlingisfake]

Best of the Super Jr. finals preview

This show features the New Japan debut of Jon Moxley/Dean Ambrose, so everybody is expecting a lot of first-time NJPW viewers to watch.  The show airs live on NJPW World at 5:30am Eastern time Wednesday morning.  If you can’t stay up that late or wake up that early, you can always catch it on-demand like you would on WWE Network.  (If you need help, ask around.  New Japan Tumblr has been pretty active about offering help for newbies.)

Shingo Takagi vs. Will Ospreay - This is the final match in the Best of the Super Jr. tournament, between the winner of A Block (Shingo) and the winner of B Block (Ospreay).  There is no time limit; there must be a winner.  The victor wins the tournament, a cool trophy, and the right to challenge IWGP junior heavyweight champion Dragon Lee at Dominion on June 9.

Shingo debuted in New Japan back in October, filling the void in the LIJ stable when Hiromu Takahashi was injured.  Since then he has never lost a fall.  Admittedly, for much of his run he’s been in tag matches with BUSHI, who could get pinned or tap out when they needed to lose.  But then he entered this tournament--the pinnacle of singles competition for New Japan junior heavyweights--and went on an impressive 9-0 streak.  Someone has probably advanced to the finals of this type of tournament without losing even one match, but it’s rare enough that it’d take some work to find out.  If Takagi wins this match, and closes the entire tournament at 10-0, he’ll be a frigging legend.

One year ago, as Ospreay was preparing to defend the junior heavyweight title against the 2018 BOSJ winner Hiromu Takahashi, he discussed some chilling comments from Dave Meltzer about his high-risk style.  Shortly thereafter, Ospreay began adjusting to a more grounded style, adding muscle and entering openweight competition.  The changes have paid off with a NEVER openweight title reign and big wins over Taichi, Kota Ibushi, Bad Luck Fale, and Lance Archer.  It looked as if his ex-buddy El Phantasmo was going to overshadow him in B Block, but ELP collapsed near the end to allow Ospreay to win the block with a 7-2 record.

What should make this interesting is that Shingo is controversially on the edge of the weight limit, giving him a size and strength advantage, but Ospreay’s openweight run proved he can beat far bigger men.  It’s as if Ospreay’s shift in tactics has been designed to find the solution for Shingo where luchadors, technicians, and cheaters could not.

A win for Shingo here will probably lead to a long title run and extend the “who will beat him?” angle for months.  If Ospreay snaps the streak here and now, it’s already been built up enough that I think it signals big things for Will.  I could easily see Ospreay winning the junior title from Dragon Lee and taking it into the G1 Climax heavyweight tournament, to fulfill his goal of competing in both weight classes.  But for any of that to happen, he has to beat Shingo, and no one has in New Japan.  I just can’t pick a winner.

Juice Robinson vs. Jon Moxley - Robinson, best known to WWE fans as CJ Parker from NXT, is defending the IWGP United States championship.  Back on May 3, Juice was celebrating a victory when the lights went out and a video package appeared on the big screen.  The video showed a man carving an hourglass shape while watching Juice wrestle, ending with the messages “Time’s up” and “June 5.”  The “Time’s Up” videos continued to follow Juice to every show he appeared on, until Jon Moxley tweeted a version revealing that the hourglass symbol represents “MOX.”

Moxley, who once held the WWE world championship as Dean Ambrose, left WWE in April and dramatically debuted for AEW on May 25.  He’s all over the place lately and this will be his first post-WWE match.  It hasn’t yet been explained why he would target Juice, and I don’t buy Juice’s narrative that Moxley expects Juice to still be the rookie he knew in FCW years ago.  We probably won’t learn Moxley’s agenda in New Japan until his post-match interview.

This should be a wild brawl.  Juice is primarily known for his striking and big impact moves, not for technical finesse or flips.  And Mox is Mox.  They both lead with their hearts, although Juice’s heart is pure and dedicated to Shin Nihon Puroresu, and Moxley’s heart is filled with whiskey and cigarettes.

Everybody’s counting on Moxley to straight up murder Juice, and that’s a safe bet.  But listening to Juice talk about this match, I sure want him to prove himself to all the people who are gonna wonder who this goofy weirdo is.  The one thing that puzzles me is why this match was made for this show, and not Dominion four days later.  That makes me think they want to quickly get the US title on Moxley to move him onto something else for the #2 show of the year...but what could it be?

Hiroshi Tanahashi vs. Jay White - This is a rematch from February 11, where Tana lost the IWGP heavyweight title to White.  Later, at the Madison Square Garden show on April 6, Tana wrestled his last match before taking time off for elbow surgery, while White lost the championship in the main event.  Then on May 4, Tanahashi announced he’d be returning at this show to start pursuing the title again, but White didn’t like the sound of that and attacked him.  So both guys are trying to recover from their big title losses earlier this year, and they have to go through one another.

Tanahashi is basically the John Cena of New Japan, the biggest/winningest babyface in the promotion, who carried the company on his back for years, but now he’s getting older and seeing new stars slowly overtake him and talk about putting him out to pasture.  White was a jobber three years ago, but a huge push in 2018 elevated him to be the top heel and leader of Bullet Club.  You hate White for getting too much too soon, and then you realize he’s talented enough to thrive at that level and you hate him even more.  He’s really great.

There is a strong chance the winner of this match will receive an IWGP heavyweight title shot later this year, but it’s not clear when.  New Japan has big shows in Melbourne on June 29 and in London on August 31, so those are likely candidates.  I’m kinda thinking Tanahashi needs the win, but I can’t really imagine them hotshotting Okada vs. Tanahashi for one of those shows.  (Then again, Okada might lose the title beforehand, but I wouldn’t count on that.)  So my guess is that White beats Tana again to renew his unstoppable mega-push.

Kazuchika Okada & Rocky Romero vs. Marty Scurll & Brody King - Okada is the IWGP heavyweight champion and Rocky is his little buddy.  Scurll is the last guy left from The Elite following their exodus to AEW; he has since recruited King and PCO to form Villain Enterprises, which currently holds the ROH trios title.  The BOSJ tournament has been Brody’s first tour with New Japan, but since he’s a heavyweight this will be his first significant match on the tour.  This will be a good chance for King to turn some heads and leave a good impression, so that NJPW will want to bring him back soon.  But Okada has a big title match in a few days, and I expect he’ll win this one.

Kota Ibushi & Togi Makabe & Toa Henare & Tomoaki Honma vs. Tetsuya Naito & EVIL & SANDA & BUSHI - Naito’s team represents Los Ingobernables de Japon, the Japanese offshoot of the famous Mexican stable.  Naito will be challenging Ibushi for the IWGP intercontinental title on June 9, as part of his quest to hold both that title and the heavyweight championship.  Ibushi’s team features three of the midcard babyfaces--former top guy and current minor mainstream celebrity Makabe, up-and-coming rookie Henare, and recent neck injury survivor Honma.  LIJ is putting up a much stronger lineup for this one, so I expect them to win and for Naito to taunt Ibushi heading into their match.

Minoru Suzuki & Taichi & Zack Sabre, Jr. & Yoshinobu Kanemaru & DOUKI vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Jushin Thunder Liger & YOSHI-HASHI & Toru Yano & Tiger Mask - Suzuki’s team represents Suzuki-gun, and they’re basically the assholes too cruel and unlikable for Bullet Club.  Taichi has a title defense scheduled against Ishii on June 9, and there are Suzuki vs. Liger and Sabre vs. Yoshi feuds that may get settled at that show as well.  Interestingly, Douki is not a member of Suzuki-gun, having been brought in as a substitute for the injured El Desperado; the ending of this match could help us learn if he’ll be officially added to the group or turfed out once they have no further use for him.  Douki’s score in the BOSJ tournament was disappointing to say the least, and it’s fairly clear New Japan wanted to tell a story about an outsider being outclassed by the talent they have under contract.  With that in mind, I think he’ll lose the fall in this match.

SHO & YOH & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. El Phantasmo & Taiji Ishimori & Robbie Eagles - Sho and Yoh are Roppongi 3K, the IWGP junior heavyweight tag team champions.  Normally Rocky Romero would team with them as their coach, but Romero and Taguchi have both been doing the coach gimmick and recently agreed to share those “duties” among the babyfaces.  Phantasmo’s team represents Bullet Club, and if they can score a fall over either Yoh or Sho that would set up a fresh junior tag title program, which would be very overdue.  There’s been a slow burning story with Eagles questioning his allegiance to Bullet Club, particularly as it relates to ELP, so I’m betting on Eagles getting the win here and Eagles/ELP pursuing the title shot.

Dragon Lee & Titan & Shota Umino vs. Bandido & Jonathan Gresham & Ren Narita - Lee is the IWGP junior heavyweight champion, so it’s a little odd that he’s in the opener when the main event is to determine his next challenger.  Lee and Titan are imports from Mexico’s CMLL, while Gresham and Bandido are imports from ROH in the US.  Umino and Narita are two of the “young lions” in New Japan’s developmental system, which means they they’re here to learn and do jobs.  I’d think Dragon Lee’s team should get the win here.

#njpw #best of the super juniors #jon moxley #shingo takagi #will ospreay #juice robinson

[captainwondyful]

Love, Simon at the Box Office

Hello, Tumblr.  One of my idiosyncratic fandoms is box office tracking and results.  If you’d indulge me for a hot minute, I would like to make a plea for you to go see this in theaters.

The following is a long post about box office numbers, life hacks for cheap tickets, and overall gay crying.

I have seen this film twice in the past 24 Hours, and I’m still struggling to find the exact words to properly describe how it profoundly affected me.

I’m somewhere between:

Love, Simon is a paint-by-numbers rom-com released by a major Hollywood Studio (Fox 2000).  Only the lead protagonist is a gay teen.  As Peter Travers of Rolling Stone states in his review:

A seemingly ordinary coming-of-age tale that looms large because of its inclusive romantic embrace, Love, Simon wins you over by capturing your heart without pushing too hard for the prize. ...  Yes, the plot mechanics tend to lean toward the disappointingly slick and sitcom-ish. But what redeems the film and makes it such an exuberant gift is the sincere joy Berlanti and the actors take in celebrating its protagonist's growing self awareness…. Love, Simon is a John Hughes movie for audiences who just got woke. And for all its attempts not to offend, it's a genuine groundbreaker.

I love this critique.  In Love, Simon no one dies, contracts HIV/AIDS, or is the victim of a violent hate crime.  The characters face complications and angst -- coming out in 2017 still is a huge undertaking with monumental stakes.  Yet in the context of this film, we understand that everything will be okay.  The genre makes it safe.  The audience knows that the homophobic bullies will get their comeuppance. The friends will make up.  The main protagonist will find love.

Love, Simon might not be perfect.  It might not be everything to everyone.  But it deserves its praise, and we (the LGBTQIA community) deserve to have more films like it, because everyone deserves to escape into indulgent, cotton-candy media where they can see themselves proud and happy.  Love, Simon is important; just as films like Black Panther, Girls Trip, Wonder Woman, and A Wrinkle In Time are important.

And we need to financially support it:

Money Makes The World Go Run

The film business is a business first.  Movies that don’t make money, don’t get sequels or start trends.  So I know, I know, I’m asking for a lot, but we need to embrace capitalism for just a second.

Love, Simon opened to a $11.5M Opening Weekend (OW) from 2,402 theaters.  

According to Deadline.com

Love, Simon drew 58% females, 42% males with 59% under 25. The movie over-indexed in the west, Northeast, and Midwest; slightly under-indexed in the Rockies; and under-indexed in the south and southeast. Top 20 markets that over-indexed include LA, NY, SF, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Minneapolis. Top grossing theaters came from LA, NY, SF, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, and San Antonio. Canada repped 5.6% of the weekend’s take.

Tumblr, you are driving this movie.  You are going to make it a success.  You have the power.  We need to get this film to bring in a total domestic box office (DOM) of 50M+

Love, Simon’s budget is between 10M - 17M, plus P&A (Print & Advertising) Marketing Budget.  I don’t have the P&A numbers.

There is a general rule of thumb in Hollywood called the 3X Rule.  It states that a film is a box office success if it makes 3X its production budget.  If a movie costs 50M to make, a 150M box office is a success.  This rule is NOT exact, because it does not factor in the Print & Advertising (P&A) budget of the film, or that a movie can do terrible at the box office but still be considered a financial success because of X-factors like merch sales (I’m looking at YOU Pixar’s Cars)

Love, Simon will need 51M to pass the 3X Rule.

It’s not impossible looking at the comps:

Everything, Everything 34.1M OW / 64.6M DOM (1.89X Multiplier)

Paper Towns 32M OW / 85.5M DOM (2.67 Multiplier)

The Fault Is In Our Stars 48M OW / 124M DOM (2.58 Multiplier)

But it won’t happen if we don’t get that multiplier up to a 4X+

Multiplier = The total DOM divided by the OW.  So for example:

Justice League (2017) 93.8M OW / 229M DOM = 2.44 Multiplier

The Greatest Showman (2017) 8.8M OW / 169.7M DOM = 19.04 Multiplier

We need to pull another run of legs like The Greatest Showman and keep it keep it theaters until Avengers: Infinity War (April 27, 2018).  Once IW shows up, the summer box office season kicks off, and, realistically, the jammed packed release schedule will push Love, Simon out of theaters.

We have Five Weeks - to go see this film, to tell everyone we know to go see this film, and support the cast and crew as much as we can.

The best way to do that is a positive Word of Mouth and Legs.

Word of Mouth: TALK ABOUT THIS FILM.  RAVE ABOUT THIS FILM.  Post on Twitter, on Facebook, on Tumblr.  Get a Rotten Tomatoes or IMDB.com account and post reviews.  You can NOT underestimate a good grassroots effort to get the word out.

Legs = Tied to the multiplier.  It’s how much a movie makes AFTER the opening weekend.  Movies like Justice League are front-loaded; meaning most ticket sales are opening weekend and in the first week. Other movies, like The Greatest Showman, have much stronger legs, where they earn a decent amount every weekend for a large total.

Weekend Drops: The percentage that a movie drops from week to week.  For example, Black Panther has had amazing holds with its (as of writing this) 5 Week Run: Weekend 1 242.1M Weekend 2 111.6M (-44.7%) Weekend 3 66.3M (-40.6%) Weekend 4 40.8M (-38.4%) Weekend 5 (26.6M (-34.7%) Even though it’s making less money every week, we can see that Black Panther’s domination over the marketplace is consistent.  Solid audience retention is why Black Panther is not dropping many theater screens, despite being out for over a month. This is the same reason why The Greatest Showman (which came out before Christmas) is STILL playing in 700+ theaters.  TGS actually had FOUR weekends out of its seventeen where it went UP from previous weekends, and had an average of a -20% week to week drop.

It is CRITICAL to Love, Simon’s success that this weekend only drops between 20% and 30%.  Some on the Box Office Forum I’m apart of are speculating that the next week will be CRITICAL to the success and failure of Love, Simon’s domestic box office run.

So, let’s go to the movies!

Cheap Ways to See Films

Going to the movies is expensive.  Here are some life hacks for discount tickets

MoviePass

Like Netflix or Spotify, you can sign up with MoviePass, and for $9.99 a month, you can see a movie a day.  Yup.  A movie a day.  It is a steal of a deal and pays for itself after the first month.   The only drawback is it takes a couple weeks for the company to send you your MoviePass card.  I think it took three weeks to get mine.  Still!  This is A VALUE.  And you can go see Love, Simon once a day for a month for only $9.99

Discount Tuesdays

Most movie theaters offer discount tickets on Tuesdays.  You will have to check with your individual theaters, but Tuesdays are the most common day across the US and Canada.  Our theater is $5 on Tuesdays.

AT&T Ticket Tuesdays

Do you have AT&T as a mobile carrier?  They offer Discount Tuesday Tickets.  Buy 1, Get 1 Free.  You can read the fine print here

Dealflix.Com

Check Out this site for discount tickets.

Groupon Has A Banner for Discount Tickets

in Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, Denver, and Washington D.C.  In the past, Groupon has also offered discounts on Fandango, MovieTickets.com, and DealFlix gift cards or vouchers.

Student, Seniors (65+), and Military Tickets

Many theaters offer current discounts to these three groups.  So check your local theater’s website, grab your grandma, friend in the military, and/or student ID, and head out to Love, Simon.

Group Rates

Often times buying tickets in bulk results in getting a discount.  So get 10 or 20 of your friends, and call the theater to see if they offer group rates.

Go To a Matinee!

Remember!  The early shows before 4 PM (6 PM at some theaters) are always less!

Wait! I Don’t Live in the US or Canada

You’re going to have a wait a little bit, but PLEASE go see this once it's released.  Foreign Box Office is a HUGE part of a film’s success, sometimes it even saves it!

So, Save the Date:

March 22, 2018 - Brazil

March 29, 2018 - Australia

April 6, 2018 - UK, Ireland

May 3, 2018 - Argentina, Singapore,

May 4, 2018 - Finland, Taiwan,

May 9, 2018 - Philippines

May 10, 2018 - Hong Kong

June 14, 2018 - Czech Republic, Netherlands, Slovakia,

June 15, 2018 - Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Sweden

June 21, 2018 - Hungary, Portugal,

June 27, 2018 - France

June 28, 2018 - Germany

June 29, 2018 - South Africa, Spain

August 30, 2018 - Italy

Even if you watch (or have already watched) a CAM online, please still consider seeing this in the theater when it comes out it in your country!

The more we can show Fox/Disney that we are willing to put our money where our mouth is, and go support this movie, the more likely it is that similar films will be made. Hollywood is constantly searching for the next big thing, so if they see a hit or potential trend, they going to try and figure out how to copy it.

I Just Don’t Have the Funds or Means to Get to the Theater

The goal of this post is drive box office success.  I get that sometimes you just can’t get to the theater; or, because of the nature of the film, it might not be safe for you to attend.  You can STILL help out with Word of Mouth

Fox is checking Social Media.  Keep tweeting and posting about how much you love this movie, and how much it means to you.  Make sure to use the Hashtag #LoveSimon.  Reblog this post so others can get the information.  Tell your friends to go, and RAVE about it.  Post positive/rave reviews on Amazon, Rotten Tomatoes, and IMDB.  All of those things help Love, Simon.

If you’re still here, I know that was a lot, THANK YOU, and I hope you get a chance to enjoy and love this movie.

#movies #Love Simon #box office #signal boost #please reblog #go see this movie

[zzpopzz]

Really long rant about how I made Vanilla Twilight, I typed it at 2am so it’s kinda crappy and boring, just skip through this post.

So I'd been thinking about it for a long time now, even before finishing Vanilla Twilight that I'd talk about it if someone asked, well that never happened so I was just thinking that I'd let it go but that post is so important to me so well fuck it I'll just talk about it anyway. I did it completely on a wimp like how cool would it be if I make a lyricstuck for Toumaki like I'd be the first (if anyone did this before me im sorry). The first song I intended to do wasn't VT, it was a much shorter and easier song. I saw the music video first time after a while and the lyrics gave me some scenes to draw right away, like the tones, the atmosphere, the lyrics all fit them very well, made me wanted to draw something happy but sad. The ending for it was a happy one instead of a sad one like other songs I did (I didn't post the ending for any of them, just let the viewers decide what it's gonna be) I was very scared like what if it won't turn out ok and people gonna hate me for it or no one even gonna look at it. Also what I visualized are mostly illustrations with backgrounds, what I never done before so high chance it won't go anywhere. I thought well let's just see how far will I get and won't talk about it at all until I post it so at least I won't be all barks no bite. I was very traumatized that someone might know about what I did so I locked all the files when I shut down my PC in case someone hack into it lmao. I started with making a storyboard(kinda) for it, this is where I first got trouble because there was some part I didn't think of when I visualized what I'd draw at first ( 'I don't feel so alone' part mostly and some in between) and it's only at this point that I realized how many I'd have to draw (over 40 images total) and it's mind blowing for someone who rarely finish a painting like me at that time, that number is more than what I'd draw in a year. VT doesn't have choruses that meant I can't do tricks like repeat some panels (I don't like this anyway). I usually painted on small canvas before that but I wanna make sure I can fix things later and some idea I had was pretty big so I used 3000x5000px canvas then trimmed them down ( I didn't know how big it was and it's huge). The idea was to make a tumblr scroll-post like a lyricstuck (my favorites are by paperseverywhere and toastyhat/emptyfeet , they made really cool tutorials about these) so I tried to drew out compositions that would look good scrolling down panel by panel and have some connections between them (this didn't turn out so good in the end because I wasn't good lol) Since I was scared that people might point out that I draw something wrong, it took me almost a week or something searching for references (check my pinterest board) like the streets, sky, houses, roads, outfits, poses,... I was going to draw. I got some knowledge about bikes by this too, like I can tell the differences between road bike, mtb, touring bikes,... I also see and captured bunches of screenshots and reread ywpd trivia countless time to make sure I won't get anything wrong. If you take notice, every outfit Toumaki wear in there are all canon, from anime or promos. The first few panels was really exciting because I had never painted so many with backgrounds before, I was really happy when I almost finished the first verse even compared to the full 3:50 of the song it was only 20 seconds and I thought maybe I can pull this after all. The last panel was intended to be Makichan standing infront of his house looking at the sky but I wanted to show the sky at the end of the panel and that wouldn't work on scroll-down post so I had to leave it for later, I repainted this panel for about 3 times and finished it just 30' before posting. The first panel of the second verse wasn't turning out alright too because that was my first time doing a 3 points perspective drawing and the colors didn't turn out as I wanted either (my intention was a green/gold dawn scene). Things kinda worked well despite that until the scene when Toudou sits in his ink, gdi I didn't know why I was so caught up in that and painted every piece of that wooden floor, it took me almost a week but turned out better than I expected so I was ok with it. I was going to make sketchy paintings for all of the panel but I did too much details on that one so it gave me the impression that I'll have to do just as much for every others. Now I still had school to go and that semester my uni got me pretty crappy schedule that made me have to wait for classes at school frequently, I was frustrated because I didn't get to paint during that time and I might finish it too late (even though I didn't set a deadline) and when I got home I just spent so much time checking twitter and just can't pick myself up to draw and ended up feeling shitty about it. *Side story*  I was so mad because I didn't get anything done and there's still more than half of the whole thing to do and the worst part is that I had no one that I can talk to because I didn't have any friend who ship Toumaki and I also don't want to publicly talk about what I was doing, I wanted to surprise people when I'm done, I didn't wanna give people the expectation then screw it up (I literally thought I'd drop a bomb not a grenade lmao) I can't remember how long was that shitty phase but I felt like it was so long, I barely finished verse 2 at that point. I was so mad at myself and my progress so I spent a few days to look at time management threads and this helped a lot, I changed my habits completely  by this and I still apply those methods now, like I used to stay up til 3am to read fics (bless you writers you fueled me with your writings bless you all) then I switch to bed before 12 and get up early for a good start or reduce working time while increasing quality* After that I kinda got things together,I just went ahead with painting tho it's still kinda tiring, I had to work on 5 essays during this time too. At this point I was like screw all, I give no shit about what everyone thinks I'm just gonna finish this and get some good nap (I practiced power nap to get more focus time for painting but dude everyone wants a good long nap) 10 days before uploading I found out that there's a Toumaki day (I'm so sorry), I was going to posted on the first sunday of June (I did researched on which was the best time to post on social medias so I randomly picked a sunday) and Toumaki day is the last sunday of May, that meant I had 10 days left and 15 panels to paint! I was going to ignore that but I already made it big I should make it right too so I shit my pants going through those last panels. I purposely hiding Toudou's face till the last verse to emphasize the feelz and got so relieved that I finally got to paint him (I read some tags that some viewers got emotional at this part so I'm so glad it worked). The whole things was put under Makichan's perspective so I was so sick of painting him at that point, he showed up in every panel and I can't paint him ugly because he's beautiful (especially his hair, I spent shitload of time painting them). I can talk lots about why I picked to do so but that's headcanon shit and it's embarrassing so let's just skip that. The last day I had only 3 panels left and I was hell confident that I've got this and somehow spent the whole evening rewatch Toumaki pingpong ep (end me). Of course that didn't end well, I managed to finish those by midnight but I still had like 3 panels that needed  repaint completely and all 43 needed retouch and edits. My plan was to post at 9am sunday (thats 9pm saturday est) so I had to get up at 5am and finish all that, I ended up cutting down 2 panels and simplified the instrumental panel (some tags said that was nice so I was at least relieved). Unlike other songs I did, the length of every line's quite different and the original sizes I did would make viewers have to scroll slower or faster at different parts. I didn't plan this beforehand and had to trim down some panels even the parts that I really liked and spent lots of time on. I also found out that people outside the homestuck fandom might not familiar with this type of post so I made a video too (I’m sorry I have zero skill in editing). After posting I was terrified of people's reactions or worse, there won't be any reaction so I turned everything off and went to sleep and woke up with an unimaginable number of notes I'd got, I set the target of 500 notes and I really didn't think that I'd get past that number like maybe 2-300 (well my other songs didnt even get 200), at the end I got 5000. I spent the next week reading and screencap tags given in reblogs, I put them on desktop and they're still my motivation til now. Vanilla Twilight is the thing I'm proud of the most even until now, when I've done other songs and projects that look somewhat better. If I have to recommend one thing on my blog I'd recommend it despite its' unskilled paneling, poor composition and muddy colors. It was the first time in my life that I'd put so much effort into something and went through such emotional roller coaster, the feelings I put into it was raw and the idea was very original compared to other songs, I improved and changed a lot during the 2 months I spent on it and never once regret doing it. ***Anyway, you sure have much free time to read it this far, here's a little game for you: I put random things in VT and HF like some characters/stuff from other series, my ocs,... (there wasn't anything purposeless in there even the logo on their cups or the bags they wear) just send me anything you find and I'll draw you something in return**

#toumaki #tweetdump #rant #poopask