Hello, Blue Harbor! Happy Monday, and more importantly, happy ( almost ) fall!
As you may have already noticed, with the changing of the seasons, us admins have decided to do some housekeeping on the main. Over the weekend, we installed a brand new theme with matching graphics to better represent the time of year! We think this is a wonderful idea to keep things fresh, not only for us but for you all as well, so do expect similar updates every few months or so moving forward. For now, have a look around the new blog! If there's any questions about where a specific page is located, don't hesitate to reach out and we'll point you in the right direction!
That's not all, though! Alongside this housekeeping, we also figured that it was an excellent time to do some general maintenance, including but not limited to: updating our guidelines, reorganizing the news blog, adding fresh locations, and more! We ask that you please continue to read through this post in its entirety to familiarize yourself with all that may have changed.
GUIDELINE ADJUSTMENTS —
Starting on Sunday, September 22nd, we will no longer be accepting hiatus requests on the day of activity checks. While generally we have considered ourselves to be pretty lenient with hiatus requests, as we completely understand that this group is a hobby and should come secondary to real life commitments, we also understand that it may be unfair to other members if we continue to allow hiatus requests at the last minute. This is not to say that we will be striking the hammer down completely on this, since sometimes unexpected circumstances lead to dips in our online presence, but we simply ask that you uphold communication with us if you find yourself needing a hiatus, activity extension, etc! We're still here to help, and are more than willing to come to a solution so long as we're kept in the loop!
Additionally, we will no longer be allowing members to take up multiple ( 2+ ) wanted connections for the same mun. This does not apply for connections that currently exist within the game, but rather for character applications moving forward. We absolutely love that everyone is so interested in connections — to be entirely honest, we've never seen a group so eager to snatch them up, and we couldn't be more thankful for it — but in an effort to move forward with our inclusivity expectations, we'd like to implement this rule to further incentivize all members to branch out of their comfort zones!
OPERATION ADJUSTMENTS —
In regards to the Blue News blog, the weekly column will instead shift to the monthly column, posting on the first of every month. This ensures that we as admins can take the time to cook up new ideas and keep things fun and fresh for everyone, quality over quantity! This also gives you guys, our members, more freedom to make submissions of your own. If you have any submissions that you would like to make throughout the month, do not hesitate to fill out the form and it will be included in the next issue!
The weekly radio playlists will return, but biweekly, starting today! No big spiel on this, we simply have regained the time to put them together! The link to the playlist can be found here if you'd like to listen.
MISCELLENIOUS ADJUSTMENTS —
We've added four new locations! Including a lover's lane, country club, an impending multicultural institute and the renovation of one of Blue Harbor's favorites ...
Ahead of the last announcement, we have decided to re-enable the anonymous feature. However, please continue to be mindful. Questions and comments are perfectly acceptable, but outright rude messages will not be tolerated. Both of us continue to be open to kind and constructive conversation, but still withhold the right to disable the feature in the future if need be. We deeply appreciate your patience and understanding!
We have also decided that there will be a temporary ban on two careers: lawyers and writers, due to overabundance. This change will be listed on our application for future reference, and will be announced once it's taken off.
Last, but certainly not least, we will be expanding our mun count to 35! We are so honored and grateful to have kept up with being at full capacity for this long, and thought it'd be best to open a few spots to introduce new players to our lovely little community!
Thank you all so much for your patience and understanding, once again, as we implement these updates. Please toss this post a like after you've read it, and as usual, if there are any questions, comments or concerns, you're more than welcome to address them to the main.
Welcome to THE BLUE NEWS, Blue Harbor's best ( and only! ) newspaper, circulating weekly; otherwise known as @blueharborhq's extras blog. Consider this post a short introduction to the blog and all of its upcoming features!
MONTHLY COLUMNS.
Every month, we will be posting a big update to keep all Blue Harbor residents in the know with what's going on in this small town! We'll be posting updates from the weather, to notable events, to local shop sales and more! Feel free to use this knowledge to spice up your IC threads.
ASK MEMES.
We all love a chance to further understand one another's characters. From time to time, we'll be hosting ask meme weekends, where muns are free to opt their characters in to be asked questions ( taken from a list which we will provide ) that they can answer IC. These weekends will be planned in advance, and specific instructions to opt in will be shared once the time arrives, so stay on the lookout!
RADIO PLAYLISTS.
Music brings people together! Thus, we've decided to share a short playlist with the group on a weekly to bi-weekly basis! We'll gather songs from your character blogs, the OOC Discord recommendations channel, our own personal favorites and etc. to keep everyone in the loop on what the town is listening to.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE A SONG FEATURED, FEEL FREE TO SHARE IT VIA YOUR CHARACTER'S BLOG OR THE OOC DISCORD, OR YOU CAN SEND IT TO US VIA THE BLUE NEWS' SUBMIT BOX. These playlists will be short, so if you don't see your song featured one week, please look out for it the next! We promise to get to all shared songs eventually if a backlog occurs.
UPCOMING / IMPORTANT DATES.
Every event deserves to be celebrated in Blue Harbor! With this, we'll be highlighting important IC dates such as character birthdays, holidays, group events, the changing of the seasons, etc. Character birthdays in particular can also be found on the Blue News blog on the fifth link at any point in the year.
BREAKING NEWS.
Just like a real newspaper, The Blue News will be posting important news updates of town happenings! Whether admin created for plot-drops, or submitted by the paper's vigilant readers, no story is too small for Blue News!
FARMER'S MARKET.
Down at the farmer's market, the stalls rotate twice each week — Wednesday and Friday! CHECK THIS PAGE TO SEE THE CURRENT STALLS.
JOB LISTINGS / BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS.
There are businesses a-plenty in Blue Harbor, likely looking for new employees to fill their open positions and customers to keep the doors open. Here we'll be sharing occupation recommendations for new ( or existing ) characters, as well as highlighting businesses within town that may be having special sales in character. Feel free to use this information to spice up your threads!
IF YOU WOULD LIKE YOUR CHARACTER'S BUSINESS TO BE FEATURED, PLEASE SEND IT TO US VIA THE BLUE NEWS' SUBMIT BOX! Please fill out the appropriate form, found here, and we will compile the post for you.
Any new features of this blog will be added ( and announced ) as time goes on. As with anything, member feedback is extremely appreciated & any comments or concerns can be directed to the main or either admin!
Hello everyone, good morning / afternoon / evening! ❤️
First and foremost, we want to thank each and every one of you for your continued support and interest in Blue Harbor! Summer is a busy season for many of us, but as we reach the tail end and fall slowly approaches, we couldn't be prouder to foster a little community where we can all get away from the craziness of everyday life. As we'd like to reiterate, we strive to keep this group as inclusive and welcoming as possible — to new and old members alike! Thus, we want to issue a few gentle reminders to everyone in light of some feedback that we've received thus far to ensure that we all remain on the same page. Please read the entire post thoroughly and like this post once you've done so in order to acknowledge that you've read it.
As per our activity guidelines, we enforce a strict no bubbling policy. Each week, we require that all members reply to three different muns in order to pass our activity check. These three muns whom you interact with per character must be switched out as often as feasibly possible from week to week in order to ensure that you are interacting with as many other writers as possible within the group. In general, if you feel as though you are struggling with this, please reach out to us and we will do our best to help! Additionally, a 'randomized groups' task / event will be rolling out within the next few weeks in order to spice things up on the dash and facilitate new connections; if this poses any issues for anybody, let us know off anon!
In a similar vein, we ask that you please attempt to prioritize threads evenly. We completely understand that sometimes you have to go where the muse takes you, or sometimes there may be plot-driven threads that take priority over others, but we want to reiterate that everyone should feel welcomed here regardless of IC / OOC connections! If there are threads in your roster that you simply aren't feeling anymore, that's perfectly okay, but please try to let your thread partner know so you can think of something new together!
In terms of OOC activity, please put your best foot forward when it comes to reacting to calls and plotting. Slide a react to someone you may have not interacted with before, offer up your best ideas and apply as much effort as possible when fleshing out character dynamics. Additionally, we understand that sometimes things get lost and it may be hard to keep up with the sheer amount of amazing writers that we have in this group, but we also ask that you try your best to stay on top of messages as a result of calls and plots. We say that it's never too late to go back to a DM and continue the conversation!
In terms of IC activity, we want to clarify that our definition of an interaction consists of a traditional written thread. We absolutely adore the increase in text / call / facetime threads on the dash, and we do not want them to stop by any means. We think they're a wonderful way of keeping muse high and furthering development for characters! We just ask that you keep in mind that they do not count towards activity check, and you will still need three different thread interactions in order to pass each week! This will be further clarified on our official guidelines page as we realized it was not previously specified.
In general, have fun! Writing on a platform like this is a truly wonderful hobby and we can’t express enough how awesome it has been getting to share it with every single one of you over the course of the past two months! We’ve been having an amazing time witnessing all of your enthusiasm and we hope you have been too!
As always, we are open to any comments and concerns addressed to the main. The more specific, the better! We want to help in any way that we can. Like mentioned above, please read the entire post thoroughly and like this post once you've done so in order to acknowledge that you've read it.
As we’ve said before, and we’ll continue to say a million times over, the both of us want Blue Harbor to be as welcoming as it possibly can be. Inclusion is a very serious goal of ours that we strive for every single time that we log onto the dash each day, both as admins and players. At the same time, we understand that a lot of the heavy lifting in that department comes down to you guys, our members — which is why we want to first and foremost thank every single one of you for all of the work you’ve put into helping this goal of ours come to fruition, giving us the opportunity to house your beautiful muses in the process. We wouldn’t be going two months strong (and counting!) without you guys!
That being said, we want to make sure that each and every one of you has fun, feels appreciated, and is heard most of all. Which is why we’d like to put out a few reminders in light of some feedback that we’ve already received re: inclusivity, for old and new members alike to ensure that we're all on the same page!
In terms of on-dash activity, we enforce a strict no bubbling policy. Per our guidelines, we require that all members each week reply to three different muns in order to pass our activity check, and ideally the three muns whom you interact with per character will be switched out whenever possible! We feel fortunate in that we do not see an issue with this actively occurring here, however, it's always good to interact with a wider range of members than usual. For your next threads, try and switch things up!
As a continuation, please continue to utilize our STARTER BLOG and reply to any opens that need a little more love if you have the time / thread space! In general, a good habit to keep is replying to two open starters before posting your own so that nobody feels ignored.
In terms of OOC activity, we want to remind everyone to continue to put your best foot forward when it comes to reacting to calls and plotting. Branch out and react to somebody you may not have interacted with before, offer up your best ideas and apply as much effort as you can when fleshing out character dynamics, etc etc! If anybody feels as though they are struggling in this aspect, as we’re no strangers to struggling sometimes ourselves, we’ve found two lovely guides on plotting written by fellow RPC members that may be of some help! Found HERE and HERE.
In general, have fun! Writing on a platform like this is a truly wonderful hobby and we can't express enough how awesome it has been getting to share it with every single one of you over the course of the past two months! We've been having an amazing time witnessing all of your enthusiasm and we hope you have been too!
As always, we are open to any and all comments or concerns, addressed to the main or privately on either admin's Discord. Please toss this post a like after you have read it fully. Thank you!
Hi everyone, hope you're well!
We first just wanted to say thank you to our members. Whether you've been with us from the very beginning, or have only recently joined Blue Harbor, we cannot thank you enough for the support we have received. We are so proud of the community we have created, and are really touched that each and every one of you have kept it as welcoming and safe as possible!
Unfortunately, due to some unforeseen circumstances, we have decided to close the doors to Blue Harbor for the time being. With different responsibilities that us admins are taking up in our personal lives, as well as private struggles we’ve endured, we simply do not have the time or energy to maintain a large scale group at this moment. We owe it to ourselves to take some time to focus on the things in our life that demand priority, without juggling our responsibilities to you guys to put in the time and effort to maintain an active group. We simply haven’t been putting the love and care in Blue Harbor that it deserves, and vow to do better. But to do better, we need some time away.
We are so sorry for letting you all down, and we hope that you’ll greet us with open arms once we decide to come back to the community! We are disappointed that things have worked out this way, especially as we believe so strongly in Blue Harbor and all that it represents. We will be officially closing the doors of the group, and deactivating the server on December 15th 2024, 2pm EST / 7pm GMT, which will hopefully give everyone time to sort out plots and character arcs with everyone.
Of course, it's not a requirement to stick around before that date if you decide to leave us ahead of time (which, of course, we completely understand!) and both of us will be around as much as we can to answer any questions you may have.
We once again say thank you to you guys for the best eight months we’ve had, and bringing Blue Harbor to new heights we never imagined it could have reached! It truly is because of you guys that this silly little dream became a reality.
Wishing you all the best this holiday season,
Happy Sunday members and tag-lurkers alike!
We are aware as we get closer to the holiday season, priorities change and life gets busy, and you may have noticed a number of unfollows as of late! For those simply observing the group, this is just to let you know we did an interest check with our members, and with the overwhelming positive response, we are proud to announce Blue Harbor is here to stay! That said, due to real life commitments of both admins and with this time of year, we have scaled back the group in terms of:
Mun count. We are now back to 30, and have no plans to change this in the future as of yet.
Locations. We have combined and removed a lot of redundant locations in our directory, as well as modified a few original locations to have a fresh feel, and to not seem as overwhelming to our members. We are still allowing member-submitted locations.
We have also made the following changes due to an influx in interest about joining:
We are once again accepting twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays, 6pm est / 11pm gmt
We have lifted the overabundance ban for musicians, lawyers, writers and owners of bars/clubs
With these new changes, we hope to continue to create a thriving, active space for current and new members alike, and we just want to thank us all for sticking by us during this period!
With much love,
Admins Kellen and Soph, Blue Harbor.
P.S — Keep the look out at fun winter-themed events to be dropped soon...
Hi everyone! We hope you’re having a good day so far!
We just first and foremost wanted to thank you all for what a welcoming and accepting community Blue Harbor has become since we opened back in May, and it truly wouldn’t be what it is today without the dedication and effort brought in by our members! Us admins strive each day to make sure every last person here is feeling safe and comfortable, and always aim to go above and beyond to help out where we can.
In light of recent discussion, we have received a couple of messages expressing concern about certain character ideas. Whilst we hope everyone who is part of Blue Harbor has no malicious intentions when it comes to portraying certain aspects, we are also aware that sometimes despite people’s best interests, certain plots and ideas aren’t always translated well into a roleplay setting. We also know a lot of people use the hobby of roleplaying to provide an escape from real life issues, and do not wish to see these matters of the outside world being potentially replicated in an online setting. To further ensure the safety and well-being of our members here at Blue Harbor, we are declaring a blanket-ban on the following professions, to be implemented immediately:
Police officers
Police detectives
Prison guards/wardens etc.
Any other ‘law enforcement’ subtype
Any ‘criminal career’ (gang/mafia etc.)
If you are unsure if the blanket-ban applies to you / your character(s), please get in touch with us and we would be more than happy to go over specifics with you!
We hope everyone understands this decision we have made, and is respectful of our choices as admins that we hope further fosters a safe and welcoming community. If you have any questions, or would like to discuss the matter in further detail, feel free to message either admin on Discord, or through the main. Thank you.
Hello everyone, happy Sunday! We hope that you’ve all had a wonderful weekend and will continue to have a wonderful week. The both of us just wanted to address a particular anonymous message that we’ve received in response to this question that we answered earlier this weekend.
We completely understand that within the RPC as a whole — while it has progressed in some ways since many of us have joined this community years ago — that there are still some aspects that need tremendous amounts of improvement. Especially in regards to diversity and inclusion with faceclaims. Unfortunately, there are people out there that will make deliberate choices in order to avoid having to use faceclaims of color, especially Black and Indigenous faceclaims, and that’s something that we want to prevent in our own space as much as humanly possible. We understand that we as admins could always, always be doing better to push for diversity as well, which is why we’re not opposed to making any changes necessary in order to do so. Inclusion, especially of those who are often underrepresented in the RPC, is something that we take very seriously. Thus, we invite any and all feedback to make this happen, and appreciate what we have already received in order to make Blue Harbor a more diverse place!
All this to say, we will definitely consider a change in rules in our faceclaim section to specify our diversity expectations. Additionally, if we feel as though there are potential applicants who are choosing their faceclaims with malintent, we hold the right to deny the application to advocate for an alternate choice. For the time being, however, we deeply encourage anyone with any further inquiries about this to come to us privately, off anon. We’re more than happy to continue the conversation there! As always, we’re here to listen and help!
