What we’re about
An Important Read:
Sorry to start with a warning, but people can suck, and I want to make this extremely clear: this is an adults-only community based on self-exploration. Queer-Positive, Kink-Positive, Alphabet-Mafia-Positive, and Nerd Positive people only... not "accepting", positive, even if you aren't a member of some of those communities yourself. Also, if you disrespect any of the locations we meet at, I will disrespect your butt right out of this group!
What is our purpose and what do we do?
While the big events we'll meet up for are largely centered on Live Action Roleplay, ours might not be the type of LARP that first springs to your mind! We won't be hitting each other with big weapons while running around a field, but rather exploring aspects of ourselves and stepping into worlds of fantasy that we create together. Our main hangout and community touch-stone is meeting on Monday evenings at Dragon's Lair. There, you can find us playing board games and social games, especially hidden role games and/or games where we get to know ourselves or others. Often we will talk about consent, a topic that we care fiercely about and believe should be honored and consciously respected even in the most casual of spaces. Occasionally we will run informative workshops about custom built relationships, negotiation of intimacy, and kink-community terminology - something terribly useful for explicitly negotiating LARPing vampires and evil mages, etc. And sometimes, when the Faerie can find a location, we LARP!
Kink group? Kinda.
When you aspire to build a community of people who feel safe to channel their intensity through full-immersion fantasy dynamics, it is important to be able to talk about exactly what your boundaries are, what your interests are, what kind of a headspace you want to get into, and what you'll need to keep "bleed" from occurring too terribly. When you might physically be acting out a fight scene, you sure need to be able to negotiate touch boundaries, injuries, triggers, trauma, and experiment with levels of pressure / hold types that you want or don't want. When many of your community members' characters will be Terrible Villains delighting in capturing someone else, or an elven princess distraught at her ropes or chains but whose player is thrilled as heck, and you know for certain that many players will have enemies-to-lovers dynamics between them, spitting insults at each other over their clashed swords, and you just know that some of those players are going to want to do a private post-LARP scenes of what happens when their characters finally give into their feelings, you need to talk about kink.
So I do! I educate, about terms, about proper engagement, about labels. I talk about safe blanket touch negotiation, about the importance of asking before touching people, and practicing doing so, even when you're just sitting down next to someone at a game table and needing to scoot close to make room for a new chair. Our LARP events are about three hours of play, but last all day, because I'm running safe touch workshops, negotiation workshops for Enemies and Rivals and Romance Interests, trust workshops so that we feel safe immersing ourselves and channeling raw emotion and stepping into a different headspace - all of which are absolutely things that fit under the kink title, if they scratch a psychological itch of a need or make you feel particularly fulfilled!
In our beautiful, forever weird Austin community, there is a thriving kink community, and our spaces and meet-ups absolutely are a place I want them to go, to learn all of these safety things! Many people who seek the kind of intensity, headspace-stepping, power-dynamic experimenting, and imagination / roleplaying that we pursue at ARCH also wish to pursue those things in their own private life, and it is as important for those who don't have those interests to be positive and accepting of lifestyles other than their own as it is for those in the kink community to only talk about aspects of their lives and interests that everyone in the room enthusiastically wants to hear about.
Who should join:
Adult explorers who wish to learn about themselves and each other, create friends, build a community, and step into worlds of fantasy... who read the beginning and are ready to adhere to our cultural values of kindness and acceptance!
Who shouldn't join:
- Anti-vaxxers: we require vaccination for membership unless there is a medical condition that prohibits the individual from safely receiving it.
- Anyone who doesn't take consent seriously. Consent is not just a sexual thing. Consent applies any kind of touch, no matter how casual. Consent applies to peoples' consent to experience (especially socially), such as what sorts of activities they want to be around. Consent applies to peoples' emotional and psychological boundaries, in tabletop imaginings, in games like Cards Against Humanity, in conversational topics and word usage, etc. Lizzy the Faerie will be regularly teaching gatherers about truly healthy consent culture, and anyone who has a problem faithfully following her teachings at events and respecting those around them will not find a soft pushover of a faerie regarding their presence.
- Those who don't want to be in an adults-only environment. As people consent to it, the interactions around you might be flirty, and there will likely be sexually-exploratory conversation! You consent to experience hearing these things by showing up at our events, but always retain the right to express a boundary on any topic or any level of explicitness, either privately and anonymously or by simply speaking that boundary out loud.
- Those who treat location staff badly or disrespect the spaces. Guys, listen: we are so lucky to have the places we have, please keep us in their good graces and eager for our return!
Who's in charge?
Me! Lizzy! I am the Faerie of the Court! I befriend the Good and the Curious, work to ensure peoples' safety, and write / coordinate the events and LARP games.
I wish you the courage to explore every part of yourself and travel as far as the edges of your imagination. Love and light!