I'm going to post this, and I doubt anyone will do it. But it doesn't hurt to try something new. So here goes.
I want to see people write me a short story revolving around these images. It can be as long as you like, and about any subject that might be inspired by said pictures. I want people to push themselves out of their comfort zones and see what they can come up with.
If you do happen to do this, just tag it with: driver writing prompt
Show me what you got kids, I'm interested to see what you can do. If you don't want to publish what you write. Feel free to submit it to me so I can admire your creativity -- or even give a critique and advice.
Why are people tagging complete shit with these tags?
I know this isn't a job that we get paid for, but when you tag useless fucking posts with these tags, that makes you a fucking asshole. Why am I going to tag this under said tags? Because I'm hoping to knock some fucking sense into some of you. Then again I might be better off bashing my head against the wall, might get more of a result that way.
Sometimes I wonder about the intelligence level of some humans.
Because I have to show up Levi, and because I've been thinking about it for a while now. I'm going to open up my reviews. The things is, you have to follow my rules to get one. Not only that, they will all be private unless I feel the need to promote your roleplay -- which I might do for a select few. So bring on the requests, and lets see how many people I can make cry. Just like my friend I'll be a dick but I'll also be constructive. Bring it.
Hey bb, can you do a full review of my rp revengeanditsthrills-rpg? I'd love you forevah and evah.
Hullo, lovedove. Here it is, and I accept all your love. I hope you don't change your mind since I retained my honesty policy despite how much I adore you.
Url + First impression: From your url, I get a hint of what the theme might be, but not enough to give it all away. This is good seeing as it would intrigue me to delve further in. On that note, with suspense in your pocket, let's move onto the review.
=> FULL REVIEW.
Theme + Layout: The theme is pretty, I guess. I find nothing wrong with it, and at the same time it doesn't really do anything for me. I'm just being honest here, I didn't find it too impressionable. However I think that has less to do with the theme, and more to do with the colours which are dark - tying in with the theme, I assume, but they're sort of bland and unmemorable. I recommend playing the theme up with a more exciting colour scheme. There are a number of good colour schemes made by RPCs. Since you are one as well, you probably have a few of your own personal favourites and so I won't list any. I normally like ones from kgillsrpc though. [7/10]
Navigation and links: All your links work and that's fabulous. However I think that M should be on the masterlist. Otherwise the link might be easily overlooked. Simply section the masterlist, placing M, any confession/gossip blogs you might have in one list, and then the characters in a separate list on the same page. Otherwise this is fairly straight forward. [9/10]
Graphics: I adore the sidebar graphic. It's nice and bold and eye-catching. You have no character graphics, and while this doesn't matter to me it might matter to those applying. I recommend personalising the character gifs in some way, even if it is just simply adding text in a nice way. [3.5/5]
Extended Plot: Before I dive in on your extended plot, I'd like to say I loved your sidebar plot. It's short and neat, but exciting enough - in my opinion - to give reason to read more about the plot. Onto your extended plot, I'm not going to pretend this is the first mystery/suspense roleplay I've seen this month. That being said, it's one of the few I've seen with an eloquently written extended plot, which is long enough to be engaging and informative and still not too long - risking losing people's interests.
The extended plot provides enough information, giving the setting, time, and details of the roleplay quite well. There are a few parts where I wished you had ended the paragraph there. For example:
Now, eighteen years later after the community discovered this horrible string of murders, a new generation has sprung up in Crescent Lake High, the children of the high school students that had witnessed the murders of Thomas Archer. Everything has been pure, clean, and free of crime throughout the sleepy town of Crescent Lake for eighteen years since Thomas Archer has been dead, but just months ago, the high school was found vandalized in red paint with a very haunting message: “I am the forgotten Archer -M”. The police could not place anybody at the scene writing the message, not even footage of the event taking place.
My main problem is that "I am the forgotten Archer - M." provides suspense and that is excellent. Which is why I felt the paragraph should have ended at that point, and 'The police could not place anybody at the scene writing the message, not even footage of the event taking place' instead being the beginning of another paragraph.
Otherwise, the plot is an interesting and original addition to the genre. I haven't seen anything like it this summer and I wish you luck. [11/15]
Biographies: This is an OC based roleplay, and while I can tell your applicants are quite talented, I can't judge you for this category and it will be discounted from the total, docking the mark down to being out of 65 instead. [x/20]
Faceclaims/personalities: I have a problem here. I do not recommend banning FCs from your roleplay for whatever reason. It turns a lot of people off your roleplay and quite frankly, is something I don't understand either. They are certainly overplayed, and often have over-exhausted personalities as well, I'll give you that. However, I still believe you should give an allowance to let people use whatever face they want for their OC. If the personality doesn't suit you, you can always reject the application. Otherwise the FC list is quite neat and your applicants evidently have good taste. As for personalities, this is OC based so I have taken that out of the sum and the review is now out of 60 marks. [2.5/5]
Application form: I recommend changing the 'submit' link's caption to 'Apply'. You can do this by editing it in the html if the theme doesn't let you do that in the appearance bar. Otherwise the application is fairly straight forward except:
Can you use gifs without the gray boxes?:
I don't understand why that needs to be there. Yes it looks hellishly ugly on the dash, but instead of making it appear like you would single them out, or deny them acceptance based on that alone, I recommend you take that out, place it in the rules that they are not desired on the dash, and provide a tutorial in a link just in case they are unaware of how to get rid of them.
Some people are new to tumblr roleplaying and there should be no impression that they would feel out of place amongst the others. So, provide a means to learn about how to cut posts, get rid of grey boxes, and anything else you hate seeing. I don't know if that was already your intention, however it isn't clear simply from the application form and that's a problem.
Another thing is that you ask for an account with para samples on it. It's more conventional to ask for a specific amount of paragraphs minimum, and say that IC is preferred but unnecessary. It's a little strange for me, but also unwise since not everyone has necessarily roleplayed on tumblr before and it gives the impression newcomers are unwelcome which is not something you want to imply. [2.5/5]
Adminstration: You seem professional and polite, I have nothing bad to say about you. However I have to advise you since I noticed you tried to find a common time for all the players to be online for the event, don't. The wisest thing to do with events is to let them stretch on for 2-3 days such that people in different timezones can participate comfortably. Another thing is that since you announced it's semi-canon now, make sure to place that in your sidebar as well. [4/5]
Literacy (i.e. grasp on the English language): There are a things which irk me slightly. I'll try to go through them as briefly as possible.
Firstly, when you are naming something this way: 'My sister's friend, Maisie' and want to continue the sentence, it is imperative that there is a comma after Maisie as well. So in your plot, instead of saying 'Crescent Lake, Maine is the home to one of the most brutal string of murders in the 1990’s. ' it should be Cresent Lake, Maine, is the home to one of the most brutal string of murders in the 1900's.
'Now, what motive would anyone such as the Thomas have to commit four murders? ' I don't see why this is relevant, if i'm to be honest. I don't think 'the' was intended to be there before Thomas. Why wouldn't Thomas commit four murders? You should give small background on Thomas if that sentence is to be of any importance or impact. Normally in articles about murderers, they give you a glimpse of who they were on the surface so you can share with the feeling of being shocked even though you might not personally know the person. So who was Thomas? What was he like? Why should I care about him? For the sake of comprehensibility, I suggest you elaborate on who he was as a person before they unveiled him as this cold-blooded murderer.
I also noticed you do this thing where you place commas where one would normally pause in speech. Don't do this. Unless of course, the comma should actually be there. Examples of this in your plot are:
'When the officer went to investigate, he saw the man bringing the body of the girl in the basement of his house, to which he called for back up, and he, and five other officers broke in and discovered the bodies of seventeen girls that have been missing from Crescent Lake over the last three years. '
'and he, and the other five officers' to be exact. The comma does not need to be there after he. Also that is a very long sentence. Run-on sentences happen to everyone, so don't sweat aout it. However please work on them. This might easily lose and confuse your audience. That can be split up into shorter and more comprehensive sentences.
The other example of commas which should not be there is in 'But, every couple of weeks, there would be kids, and sometimes adults, coming to the police due to strange messages being left on their properties, or sent to their phones.' But does not need to have a comma after it ever. Ever. Unless it is a sentence such as: But, considering the way Mary had treated him that morning, Harold wasn't so certain he should go home after all. I'm not a huge fan of starting sentences with 'But' in general, but if you insist on doing so please don't place unnecessary commas afterward. That's another run-on sentence as well, which seem to be your main problem. I suggest proofreading everything and breaking it down into smaller sentences to enhance its readability.
Another thing I noticed was a severe amount of tense confusion. For example: 'And then just one month ago, two people have gone missing. ' This is describing something in the past, and yet you used the word 'have'. I advise you to stick to one tense if you're unable to keep up with your tenses. Also it would simply be 'And then just one month ago, two people went missing'. (By the way you should add in why these people are relevant to the guy at all. Murderers normally have patterns - sort of like their own personal signature. GIving your murderer a pattern would make him all the more real, scary and unique. I recommend it.)
Note: Tongueless is a word, so you do not need to hyphenate it.
In a nutshell: fix the run-ons, tense confusion, and comma abuse. Otherwise, good vocab - nothing too pretentious. Nothing else to say here.
I am going to talk about your rules now. Your first rule already had me raising an eyebrow. Posting once every three days is reasonable, yes. However I do recommend activity warnings and follow-up. It shows that you care. Since you said pictures do not count for activity, please describe what activity means to you. They're not psychic so you need to tell them exactly what to expect from this roleplay and the way things will be done. Otherwise it's more your fault than theirs.
'Quality over quantity here' cannot be said seriously after placing a minimum on paras. At least not on its own. You should explain that while you value quality over quantity, it is good to stretch your limits and at least write two paragraphs. I have seen quite a few para-ers who manage impeccable quality in only one paragraph. It just doesn't look right in the same sentence as it is right now.
Stop saying you like being classy though. I like to be classy, too, but redundancy is not classy. Say it once, and trust that they got the message. Classiness does not go hand in hand with politeness or inclusion, so it doesn't need to be there. Also people's perspectives on classy differ so if it means a lot to you, I would elaborate on what you mean by classy exactly. Including everyone is a good rule though. However it's a bit far-fetched to expect everyone to reply to 10+ oneliners, which is what happens. I suggest adding in a note that unless a one liner is absolutely necessary, don't start a new one if there are many unanswered ones on the dash and answer one instead. That way you avoid a string of 'Hi's with waving GIFs.
Oh gosh, we have gotten through everything I have to say to you. Everything else is great.
[5/10]
Overall [44.5/60]: 74%
It could use a fair amount of work, but it's generally an alright roleplay.
Would I join?:
Probably not to be honest. It's a wonderful genre that I personally adore, but there's not enough to hook me in the roleplay as is. Perhaps after some spicing up, I'd reconsider as an applicant.
