Review Blitz 2024 Kick-Off Thread

[Negrek]

Review Blitz 2024 Kick-Off​

As the year wanes, many cultures prepare to celebrate midwinter holidays. Here on Thousand Roads, we're gearing up for our biggest event of the year: Review Blitz! It's a whole month of feedback frenzy as we catch up on all those fics we meant to be commenting on throughout the rest of the year. It's time to get that chapter ready to post, start a list of fics to hit, and finish those review replies from last year (oops)... Review Blitz is on the way!

This is our sixth year of running Review Blitz, if you can believe it! If you aren't familiar with the event, feel free to check out last year's thread to get an idea of how it works; the general structure will be quite similar this year.

Whether you're a Blitz veteran or joining in for the first time this year, it's time to start thinking about your plans! As usual, we'll be looking for your help and feedback to organize prizes, approve reviews, and organize the event. Here's the run-down for this year's event:

When is Review Blitz happening this year?

This year's Review Blitz will run from midnight UTC December 22nd, 2024 - 11:59 PM UTC January 19th, 2025.

Interested in helping out?

We can't have a blitz without all the awesome people who log reviews, work behind the scenes, and provide prizes to all our amazing reviewers. If you're interested in helping out with Blitz this year, please reply to this thread with the following:

- What kind of prize(s) would you like to offer? In the past we've had people offer art commissions, custom drabbles, reviews, poetry, and more. If there's anything special you can make or write, it would probably be welcome as a prize; just ask if you're unsure. The more the merrier! Even if you only think you can toss in an extra review here or there, we'd love to have you.

- How many of each kind of prize would you like to offer? A drabble and a sketch commission? Three reviews? However many prizes you can offer, it helps the logistics team figure out prize tiers if we know roughly how many of each we'll have available.

- Would you like to help out with Blitz logistics? Whether you can offer prizes or not, we also need people to help coordinate the event. The logistics team does things like figure out the weekly themes and the point structure of the event, helps test the app, approves reviews, and assigns prizes. These are active positions that run throughout the entire Blitz. We are once again looking to add one or two people to the logistics team for this year's Blitz!

If you're interested in helping out this year, please reply to this thread by December 8th so we can get to work designing the prize tiers. One way or another, I hope you'll join me for another round of Review Blitz!

 

[Mirage]

Yay, another Blitz!

I'd like to volunteer to assist with the logistics team, if having an extra person would be helpful.

 

[elyvorg]

I would like to offer a somewhat unique prize, if the organisers think it'd be a thing people might want...

I can crochet a Pokémon! Any Pokémon of the person's choice, within reason (anything too complex may be turned down, but the majority of Pokémon should be doable for me). I will send photos of the finished creation, as well as potentially the pattern I designed for it if the person wants. Actually physically sending the finished amigurumi will cost me money and therefore isn't something I'd be willing to do, alas, which is why I'm unsure if people would want this for just photos/maybe a pattern, but perhaps...?

I think I'd only be able to offer one of these, since it can take me quite a bit of time and effort to design a thing.

 

[Dragonfree]

As in previous years, I can do an arbitrary number of art prizes, as I draw every day anyway and it’s useful to have subjects if anything. Ideally I would do single character illustrations, but I would also be willing to take on a limited number of more complex pieces if that would make sense - perhaps three of them as a baseline, though I could probably do more as a pinch-hitter.

 

[icomeanon6]

I'd like to help out on logistics, and I can write three custom drabbles for prizes.

Actually physically sending the finished amigurumi will cost me money and therefore isn't something I'd be willing to do, alas, which is why I'm unsure if people would want this for just photos/maybe a pattern, but perhaps...?

I think just a photo/pattern would be cool, but if I were the recipient of this prize I'd certainly be willing to pay you for packing/shipping! If you'd still rather not deal with arranging to receive payment from a user, though, that's valid imo.

 

[spinaltapdancer3]

I’ll sign up for giving:

-1 full art prize (max 4 characters, but anything else is valid. Willing to do background + coloring + shading)

I may later open up for more later but I want to see how my schedule shakes up for January

 

[kyeugh]

i can provide ~unlimited~ sketches. i'm able to do some basic shading, but monochrome is best for me to be able to maintain a high level of output—bad duck type rendering, but with more detail in the drawing.

 

[canisaries]

i can provide 3 character art pieces! these would be full body and full color with some shading and a solid-color background.

examples:

Spoiler: examples

 

[windskull]

I'm down to volunteer for art as always! I do one full scene piece, 2 flat color pieces, and as many sketches as needed (coordinating with the l3, l2, and l1 of previous years, respectively)

 

[Umbramatic]

I can give out as many arts or drabbles as needed!

 

[K_S]

I can offer review prizes, if the one month to produce timelimit is the same then 10 would be my max this year, feel free to pass them out as singles or a "review packets" whatever works for you all.

 

[Starlight Aurate]

I can offer review and drabble prizes this year! Maybe up to 5 reviews and up to 3 drabbles? I might be able to pinch-hit more, if needed.

 

[K_S]

I would like to offer a somewhat unique prize, if the organisers think it'd be a thing people might want...

I can crochet a Pokémon! Any Pokémon of the person's choice, within reason (anything too complex may be turned down, but the majority of Pokémon should be doable for me). I will send photos of the finished creation, as well as potentially the pattern I designed for it if the person wants. Actually physically sending the finished amigurumi will cost me money and therefore isn't something I'd be willing to do, alas, which is why I'm unsure if people would want this for just photos/maybe a pattern, but perhaps...?

I think I'd only be able to offer one of these, since it can take me quite a bit of time and effort to design a thing.

I know it's a little off topic...

But honestly I'd love to see some pics. Have you done mon crochets before of will the winner be recipient of your first project?

 

[elyvorg]

I know it's a little off topic...

But honestly I'd love to see some pics. Have you done mon crochets before of will the winner be recipient of your first project?

I have done quite a few before, hence my confidence that I'd be able to design most not-too-complex Pokémon! I generally post them in the TR Discord when I complete one, but since you're forum-only, here's a bunch of them:

Spoiler

(note: the photos the recipient gets should be better quality than these, as I should have a better camera by then)

 

[K_S]

They look amazing. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

I can offer the same thing that I did last year: 1 chapter of prize reviews for as many weeks as the prize delivery window is open. e.x. if the prize delivery window this Review Blitz is 8 weeks long, I am willing to review up to 8 chapters of story content across any combination of Level 1/2/3 prizes.

 

[Negrek]

Thanks so much to everyone who's volunteered so far! It sounds like we're going to have an awesome slate of prizes to offer this year!

Yay, another Blitz!

I'd like to volunteer to assist with the logistics team, if having an extra person would be helpful.

I'd like to help out on logistics, and I can write three custom drabbles for prizes.

Perfect! Thank you both--I think we're now set for logistics this year!

I would like to offer a somewhat unique prize, if the organisers think it'd be a thing people might want...

I can crochet a Pokémon! Any Pokémon of the person's choice, within reason (anything too complex may be turned down, but the majority of Pokémon should be doable for me). I will send photos of the finished creation, as well as potentially the pattern I designed for it if the person wants. Actually physically sending the finished amigurumi will cost me money and therefore isn't something I'd be willing to do, alas, which is why I'm unsure if people would want this for just photos/maybe a pattern, but perhaps...?

I think I'd only be able to offer one of these, since it can take me quite a bit of time and effort to design a thing.

Since the only thing people get for the standard art prizes is a picture and not even a pattern suggesting how they might make one for themselves, I think people would definitely be into a cute crochet! Like anon said, I wouldn't be surprised if someone were cool with paying for shipping to get a physical crocheted piece, but also extremely valid if you don't want the hassle of getting something mailed out. One way or another, thanks for offering this! It's super cool!

 

[Negrek]

Last call for prize volunteers! We have a pretty solid lineup ready to go, but we definitely have room for more prizes, if there's anyone else willing to try giving some away!

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

I can give a shiny pokemon from SV (well, most of them are *from* Go but you can't really trade in that game unless you're right in the area). I could trade from Home if anyone wants too.