Hi Laura, could we have a first look review please? We'd really appreciate it!
Sure thing, love! It’s under the cut.
I liked it that you had a little information about your plot in the description box, it’s faster to decide weather someone likes your roleplay or not.
Now what did like a lot was the calendar thing. This has to be the first roleplay I’ve seen to have it and wow, it’s super original and super handy! Big plus for that.
I’ve seen similar plots like yours and I have to say I’m not a big fan of “two school” plots. But that is only my opinion!
Overall, I liked the whole thing together and I wish you the best luck in future! (:
Sure thing! The review is under the cut, and I’m just making sure that you know this is all meant to be constructive criticism to help you improve, and not meant to attack! If anyone notices me misinforming someone in a review, please let me know and I’ll amend the problem with proper information.
The url is rather vague, but effectively makes me think that it’s a town-themed roleplay, perhaps with a little twist to it because of the fact that it doesn’t tell much about what sort of neighborhood it’s set in?
I do like your plot! It’s pretty realistic, and if your players are devoted to helping execute it, I can see it playing out wonderfully. That being said, I’m not going to lie and say that it’s anything new, but I do think that it’s something that can’t be overdone, so long as it’s done right.
Your character graphics are lovely, and really unique, and while I’m not the hugest fan of gradients, I like them. I also like your bio setup too, it’s attractive and catches the eye. I can see that you have a few darker aspects to your bios— make sure that you’re putting a trigger warning on those, both in the tags and on top of the bio. You could hurt people by not doing so, and possibly lose potential applicants. I’d shy away from labeling people as insane to mean mentally ill, as done in Skylar’s bio— that’s a really stigmatizing and power-packed word when used in that context, and can upset people who are diagnosed with a mental illness. I think it would suffice to just say three family members. I’d also be careful not to allow too many plots that center around abuse of any kind— these are serious issues that definitely do happen, but you have to be extremely careful to make sure they’re not used solely as a plot to “spice up” a character, and be careful that you’re not romanticizing something like that. This is a good post explaining why I’m cautioning you on this.
Another thing that I want to touch on is that you need more diversity. A lot of your characters are white and cisgender, and it’s important to include POC and trans*/non-binary characters too, because there are a lot of roleplayers out there that are POC and/or LGBTQ+! Here are a few resources to help you find some POC faceclaims, along with resources to assist you in writing trans*/non-binary characters (x)(x)(x) (x). I’d also suggest making some characters that are canonly gay/bisexual/pansexual/asexual/etc. I can see that you leave sexuality up to players to offer more freedom, which is a great starting point, since I know some roleplays will assume that every character is straight— but as a mod myself, I also know that you run the risk of the large majority of your characters defaulting to heterosexual, which eliminates orientation diversity! You also should have body diversity— it’s extremely unrealistic in a town roleplay to have only thin characters. If you’re in need of any other help for diversity, you can check here first, but if you can’t find something, I’ll also be more than glad to help you out!
Another quick note regarding diversity— I can see you’re asking for male apps to balance out your female apps and are considering a female ban. While you’re doing this more respectfully than most roleplays and I’m grateful to see you not asking for “dicks”, I’d also recommend not putting emphasis on gender ratios, because it promotes both heteronormativity and cisnormativity, and can leave a lot of roleplayers feeling left out and unwelcomed, like myself. Women can have the same plots with other women that they can with men, and some people/characters don’t identify as male or female at all, or identify as both! I don’t recommend enforcing the idea that you need a male and a female character to have a good plot/relationship, because you don’t.
You’ve changed the theme since I first looked, and I do like this one quite a lot better! The colours are easier on the eyes than the pale lilac-blue was, but I’m not sure how the background ties in. It’s beautiful, certainly, but for a gossip based roleplay with a name that evokes the thought of neat houses in a row, this background gives it more of a supernatural genre feel. It’s not too much of a problem, because I can see how it works, but it’s just my opinion on it. Still, I like this one better and think it’s nicely done.
Your rules are nice and cover all the subjects! As mentioned above, I’d recommend adding a rule to make sure players are using trigger warnings when they write, but I think you cover most of what’s necessary, and I appreciate the fact that you encourage players to come to you with OOC drama instead of letting it leak through to the rest of the roleplay. For your app, I’d recommend adding a section asking players what their triggers are so you can add them to a public page on the main, and I’d recommend adding a preferred pronouns section. It makes players feel a lot safer and happier to know they’ll be respected!
Overall though, I think you guys are sweet mods with good intentions, and definitely have something worth shaping on your hands! I think you have a good start for this roleplay, and it could definitely pull in players. I think once you take into account trigger warnings, and start adding more character and faceclaim diversity though, it will give it something that not a lot of other roleplays like this have, and make you stand out from the crowd. Just remember to be careful not to make minority characters token characters, and to be careful with the sorts of plots you use for secrets, and to not romanticize serious and harmful issues. Other than that though, I wish you luck, and I’d be more than happy to help you on anything you need!
Hello! May we have a first look review, please? Thank you!
Of course! The review is under the cut, and I’m just making sure that you know this is all meant to be constructive criticism to help you improve, and not meant to attack! If anyone notices me misinforming someone in a review, please let me know and I’ll amend the problem with proper information!
First off, the url is intriguing, but to the point. It makes it obvious it’s a darker roleplay, but still keeps a reason for you to click on it and check it out. The icon is suiting as well. I’m not familiar with The Mortal Instruments, but from what I know, it works!
I really do love your main theme! It’s very neat, and very organized. The graphics are a high quality throughout, and this carries through in both the page graphics, the notice graphics, and the bio graphics. It’s all very uniform, and the colourscheme used is simple, but effective.
A quick browse through the bios and fcs, and I think you have a really great range of age diversity and bio diversity! I just want to say fuck yeah for the fact that this batch that you released was almost entirely POC— when I started this review off, it took me a bit of digging back into your older bios going through your all tag to find more than a handful of POC, even though you did have them. Make sure to keep releasing them frequently, so people don’t have to dig to find them! Releasing them frequently is important— someone just giving the roleplay a quick look may not be willing to go far back to find them and if you can’t prove you’re a safe space within the first couple of pages, chances are you’ll lose potential applicants. I’m sure you do usually release them frequently, but I want to emphasize this in every review because it’s so important. You’re doing a great job on having variety though!
This little section here will seem long, and I apologize for that, but lemme touch on your non-binary/trans* characters for a moment! I see that you are indeed including non-binary characters— but you should definitely add in some more trans* characters. I believe I only saw one. Keep including people of all gender identities— agender, bigender, androgyne, genderqueer, genderfluid, and every other identity! Being non-binary, I always love when people not only include non-binary characters, but have as diverse a range as they do for cisgender characters— so make sure to keep at it till you’ve supplied a diverse range of non-binary and trans* characters. It’ll really add a quality to it that’s hard to find if you commit to that! I have one note on Castor’s bio though— it says they never felt constrained by their sexuality. The way it’s written, with no other mention of their sexuality, it reads as if sexuality is being used as a synonym for gender/gender identity. Feel free to let me know if I misinterpreted, but I do think that that could use a little clearing up, as not feeling constrained by sexuality vs. not feeling constrained by gender adds two different things to how this bio would be played. I’d either tweak the wording, or add in a short sentence to further clarify that Castor’s sexuality is very inclusive and open. I would recommend putting a warning on Hayley’s bio for transphobia on it based on how zir father reacted. I also wonder though if it might be beneficial for you to remove the gender sorting system— you already have another way of sorting that’s effective for helping potential applicants narrow down their search, namely by species, and while it is important that each character’s individual gender identity is recognized and valid, sorting by gender isn’t quite as important unless you’re keeping tabs of ratios, which I’d recommend not doing because it promotes cisnormativity and heteronormativity. There will be some characters whose gender identity is hard to define and put a label on, and removing the binary-organized system allows for this without mislabeling a character or excluding them.
I think it’s great that you put trigger warnings both in the tags and on top of the bio. It’s helpful to people who don’t have something blacklisted, and gives them the choice to decide whether or not to read.
Your rules are great! They’re not as demanding as a lot of roleplays I see around that require activity every three days, but they’re still firm, and I think that’s great. Remembering your players have lives outside this is helpful to creating an understanding community in your roleplay. The only comment I have here is that you may want to add into your rules a piece about the legality of underage smut— simply to keep you and your players safe from the possibility of prison. Even if you decide not to add a rule, I’d make sure you keep a list of player ages, and make sure to warn people via message if they seem to be planning to smut with someone underage. It seems unfair, but truly, this could save them (and you) a lot of trouble. Here’s a link that may help if you decide to employ this rule.
Overall, this review’s a little long but I think that you’ve done a really good job with this roleplay so far! I think it’s definitely doing well and you’re doing a good job with it. Just make sure to keep releasing POC characters, and try to get some more trans* and non-binary characters into your cast! I enjoyed reviewing you, and if anyone’s looking for a Mortal Instruments roleplay, I’ll point them in your direction!
These are my opinions only, please don’t be offended by them! I’ll try my best! (:
First of all, let's start with your theme. It was a pretty simple, basic theme. It looked quite good. I liked it that you had a little information about your roleplay in the description box.
I liked your plot as well, it was something I've seen before yet still something original in it. The whole idea of your plot and roleplay is well said and I think you will have a lot of success with it! Good luck! (:
These are my opinions only, please don’t be offended by them! I’ll try my best! (:
First of all, your theme. It was quite nice, kind of matched the whole idea of your roleplay. I liked it that you have a little description of your plot shown, it gives an idea about your whole roleplay.
Your full plot was interesting, I liked it because I have a roleplay with similar plot like yours, so I am fan of your plot. It was well written and everything was explained well.
I think that you have everything set up for your roleplay to go! Good luck! (:
These are my opinions only, please don’t be offended by them! I’ll try my best! (:
The first thing I saw was your theme. It was pretty simple yet it looked quite good. Little advice - try to use a bit smaller gifs when making the posts, that way your page looks a bit "cleaner" and it just looks tidy.
Your full plot, as I understand, is the life after the storm? It was a bit hard to understand it from your plot, I think you should add more details to your plot. For example, you should describe how is the life in the island now, after the storm. You shouldn't talk only about the past, add more details about what's happening there now.
Overall your roleplay was quite good, just "upgrade" it a little and you're all set! Good luck! (:
These are my opinions only, please don’t be offended by them! I’ll try my best! (:
Your theme was pretty simple but I think it fit in quite well. It matched to your plot and the whole idea of the roleplay, it was dark and mysterious. I got the whole information about your roleplay from the description box and it's good because some people might be lazy to look for the full plot.
Your full plot was quite mysterious, as I mentioned, and interesting. I've seen similar plots like that but yours is different which is good! My only advice would be to put a little more facts in the plot. About the hotel, where is it, what is in it and stuff like that.
These are my opinions only, please don't be offended by them! I'll try my best! (:
The first thing I noticed, obviously, was your theme. It was a nice, pretty basic theme. It looked really nice. I really liked your sidebar, it was made really nice.
It's always good to include little info about your roleplay in the discription, that gives a little clue of what is your roleplay about.
Your navigation had all the links I would need, + you had the tags in a very noticable place, that is also really important.
Your plot was what I enjoyed the most. It contained a lot of information, it was interesting, the whole idea of the angels was very interesting. Props for your plot author!
All together I would say you have a good theme, you have a good plot, I don't see anything wrong with your roleplay! Good luck! (:
