hi everyone! i am so so excited to say that today is aurora bay's third birthday!!!
we're celebrating in style with brand new graphics for the main! not only that, but we've also decided to up our character limit to 18 so those of you who are crazy enough to have so many characters here already, we've decided to allow another for new year!
when we made this rp back in 2023 we were just hoping to be going for a month or two, so the fact that we've been going for years now (and with so many of the same muns since the beginning!) is just the most rewarding and wonderful thing us admins could have. running this group has been such a labor of love for us, so thank you thank you thank you to all our members, both past and current, for making aurora bay into what it is today!
from birthdays to weddings, babies, and graduations all both ic and ooc, our group has grown together over the years and we're still going so strong, so here's to venturing into year four of our group!!!
and as always for anyone new lurking the tags, come check us out! we have mun spots open and some wonderful wanted connections just waiting to be filled!
we just wanted to make a quick post saying we've updated the main! after a year and a half of being opened, we decided to give it a shiny new makeover!
a super duper special shout out to nicole for working on this for us for the last few weeks! u da best
Melodies - Aurora Bay's karaoke bar! Enjoy food and drinks while you sing your heart out to your favorite songs!
Seahorse Ranch - A horse ranch located about a half hour outside of town, owner Carl Engers' horses will now be available for weekend rides along Aurora Bay's beach!
Serenity Tea Room- Whether having a cup or purchasing to take home, enjoy a wide variety of loose leaf teas from all over the world! and don't forget to join for afternoon tea on the weekends!
we've added a few new locations! (occupations will be updated as well!)
Sunrise Winery
Located on the northern edge of town, the winery made its grand debut during this year's flower festival! Open to the public daily, the winery has tastings that can be done both indoors and out that will have monthly wine and cider specials paired with charcuterie and various food options as well! With live music every Saturday, Sunrise is perfect for date nights or any celebrations, spend your days learning (and enjoying) our amazing wines!
Putt Paradise
A family-friendly golf and outdoor dining experience! Featuring an 18-hole putting course, a full menu, and large TVs located all throughout the property to keep up with other sports throughout the day. Putt Paradise also encourages guests to order drinks and food anywhere on the course and keep score from your phone with the their app!
Rock & Bowl
A combination bowling alley and rollerskating rink, Rock & Bowl is the place to be for teens and adults alike on the weekends! With theme nights like 80's, neon, and disco, and a bar open late, you're sure to have a fun night here every night!
We announced in our discord that we will be working on a little newspaper for Aurora Bay called the Aurora Bay Times, and here is more information about it:
Firstly, this is not a gossip blog. From our experiences, gossip blogs can sometimes be hurtful and even cause ooc drama, which is something we never want here. We strive to make Aurora Bay a group that allows our muns to feel safe and a place where they can have fun-- especially since for a lot of us, roleplaying is an escape from our busy (and crazy) lives.
Here's how this will work!
Every few weeks, we will make a post written like it's a newspaper, sharing things about what the town is doing, discussing hype for upcoming events, and most importantly, it will have little pieces from our muns!
We want you guys to get join us with it and get creative! If business owners want an "Ad" in the paper, submit it to the AB Times blog. You can write something as simple as, "I want an ad for X business", and you can leave it at that or you can give us more info if you'd like! You can even write a whole paragraph on it if you want!
If your character wants to leave a review for an establishment, submit it to the AB Times submission box. Or even to drum up a little ic drama, if your character gets into a fight with someone outside of the Four Leaf Pub and want a little news blurb about it, submit that to the submission box!
Anything pertaining to specific characters or locations will need to be off anon and sent only to the submission box. That way we can easily discuss with the muns it involves to make sure they're totally okay with it!
There will also be a gossip column for our paper, so if you want to add something about your character (like a fight mentioned above, a nasty breakup, or someone just running amok in town) or if you've plotted for one muse to have wide-known tension with another and there's some juicy gossip there, submit it to the submission box! Again, please make sure there is nothing mean or malicious about someone else without explicit consent, and anything submitted specifically for the articles, especially if it's involving specific muses, must be off anon!
To keep the page going, we will have a character "running" the AB Times. Alejandra Gutierrez (Salma Hayek). She will be well-known around town, but she won't be on the dash anywhere other than the AB Times' blog. So assume "articles" are written by her.
Of course, if you have written an "article" yourself, we will tag you to share that it was written by you!
The only thing that will be allowed to be sent anonymously will be advice questions. You may send anons to Alejandra to ask her for her wonderful (or sometimes not-so wonderful) advice, and some will be answered right on the spot while others will be posted in the paper along with everything else!
Articles, reviews, interviews, updates from Aurora Bay police, the weather, what's going on in town, etc, are just a few things that will be going on in the newspaper. So again, get creative! We'll even ask around for stories for each article we do!
There will a short list of guidelines for the Aurora Bay Times ask and submission boxes, but it's just to ensure everyone has fun with this and no one gets their feelings hurt!
We're so excited for this and we hope you guys are too!
Considering we’re all adults with jobs and lives outside of the roleplay, we have decided that we will not be doing activity checks for now. Instead, we will begin doing interest checks as well as dming muns before deciding on any unfollows!
We may implement an activity check rule eventually but it will not be as frequent as before, nor will it be such a short window of time for posts!
Interest checks will be done bi-weekly on Sundays
You must respond to the interest check within 24 hours!
muns who fail to respond to the interest check will be put onto an activity check on the main and must contact the admins. if there is still no response within 24 hours, an unfollow will be posted.
We will not have a limit on characters as long as at least every third is a person of color
We will ask that before applying for another character, you are active on the characters you currently have, although there isn’t an exact number. Admins also reserve the rights to delay receiving new characters if it’s been an extremely long time since you’ve been active. This is just to ensure people have a fair chance at getting the faceclaims they want to play. Our current muns are pretty active, so we aren’t too worried about this as of right now.
If you know you won’t be available at all, you can request a hiatus to ensure your faceclaims will not be reopened. Hiatuses will last up to two weeks. Extensions are available at admin discretion if asked.
You must wait at least 3 days after coming off hiatus, as well as being active on your other characters before applying for a new character.
We do ask that you still post your intro within 24 hours of acceptance, as well as replying to two open starters before creating your own!
We are so sorry that we weren't as considerate before, and as previously stated, we were struggling to meet our own activity rules, so this is long overdue.
This is such a wonderful group and we want everyone to feel welcome and to have fun here! Any previous muns are allowed back any time!
due to deactivating accounts, the faceclaims of branden cook, sarah pidgeon, and melissa roxburgh, and the wanted connection for luca cochrane's younger sibling are now available!
it was so fun to read everyone's answers to these questions and as always, if any of our players have any meme games they think would be fun to use, please send them our way!