I’m an old school SCAdian. Joined in 1978 in Caid and then moved to the East. I’ve remained pretty active and avoided the politics while holding a couple kingdom offices. I just stepped down from a regional seneschal position due to a life change.
It is possible to work around the politics, and not get involved in the vitrol. I’ve done it for over 30 years. We have people here in the East that are pushing the concept that if it happened more than 3 years ago, it’s time to let it go and move on. If people don’t let things go, then they get left behind.
It might depend on where you are, but I’d suggest joining the local groups’ email list and just lurking for a while. Most SCA lists where I live are on yahoo!groups. Pick out an activity you like (cooking, archery, whatever) and go to a practice for just that, so you can meet a smaller group of people at first.
When I was in (Kingdom of Atlantia) over twenty years ago, the SCA was a hotbed of romance. Also polyamory. Also people claiming to be polyamorous who were technically just hoping their significant other wasn’t looking.
But first and foremost, flirting. You could hardly interact without people flirting with you, demanding you flirt with them, or people trying to flirt with whomever you’re talking to while pointedly trying to cut you out of the conversation. Flirting is fun, but imagine being flirted with by everyone, even people who may be vastly different from you in age, appearance, and gender preference…all the time.
I understand there are also politics going on somewhere during (brief) pauses in the flirting.
Contributing to this behavior, certain types of medieval garb can be very flattering to a wide variety of figures.
LOL - yup, to know Stefan is to love him, and want to whack him occasionally =)
I know Gunthar has been king a few times, I don’t bother with the various titles any more, I am pretty much retired because I refused to play the game. I simply got tired of everybody else getting the cookies because they were connected and I simply do not brown nose.
I was in Isabella of York and Antioch’s Gilded Pearl for the last couple of years I was in, and have done a lot of research and teaching. Because I refused to apprentice to someone I am not qualified to get a laurel, nor a pelican, no matter how much work and teaching I do, so I stopped caring. If you dont reward the donkey, the donkey stops working.
Not to pick on you aruvqan but I think this is the crux of one of the problems. I have know people who do what they do only so they could get the “cookies” and I’ve known people who have stopped doing what they loved because they did not get the “cookies”. (inside the quote/outside the quote, I never know where to put the punctuation :rolleyes:) Both situations made me kind of sad because it didn’t look like they were having fun anymore.
What is wrong with doing something just because you love it? Is there really a need for “cookies” when you are enjoying what you are doing? For me the enjoyment has almost always been about what I was doing and not whether someone else was getting recognition I thought should go to me. (Sounds pretty selfish but it’s really not. Honest.) I did, and still do, work that I don’t find particularly enjoyable because it adds to the overall enjoyment of the event/society. My “cookie” is that the overall experience is more enjoyable for me and my friends.
Of course I’ve only been in the SCA around 14 years so I probably don’t have as much experience with it as you did but I’ve managed to get by without being dragged into any nasty political type stuff. Or this might be the kind of political wanking you’re talking about but since I am just a humble Lord with some minor awards I don’t see how it could be.
I did the research for myself, to round out my personas [I have 4] several thousand pre-internet hours spent scrounging to make contacts with people in universities and museums, and many thousand internet hours, then many thousands of hours actually learning to physically do various arts and crafts, to a very high level of competence. I freely taught, wrote articles, donated clothing that was hand made [as the joke goes the tailors child goes naked] and even schlepped a kiln and materials from Connecticut down to Virginia and ran a 6 week class in forms of period pottery. I worked in kitchens, from washing endless dishes to feast management. I worked in troll, I worked probably every job I was asked for the 7 years I was in Thescorre, and then the 5 years I was active in Marinus. I did every job they asked me to after I moved back to east kingdom … I have a whopping AoA that I finally got 5 years after I moved to BBM [they assumed I already had awards until someone was actually writing up a precedence for court and discovered I had a baronial level service award] and a single baronial level award I got because Mikey of Bedford, who seriously disliked me refused to sign off on anything higher than baronial.
If I had been pursuing fuckiing cookies I would have brownnosed any ass I could have suckered into giving me an apprenticeship. Funny silly me working my ass off thinking people might actually be interested in learning something about ceramics, how to turn a sheep into dinner and a dress, persian food and clothing, making clothing from the proper materials, embroidering the decorative banding by hand, constructing the clothing b hand the way researchers determined it was actually done … and seeing all these idiots who brown nose their way into awards for shit like a cross stitched backgammon board … machine made dresses trimmed with store bought trim … or how about cooking an entire feast that was actually nouvelle cuisine … at least they didnt overcook the venison medallions to toughness like many cooks will do [it is a very lean meat and easy to make tough and yucky] Silly silly me. All I needed to do to get a laurel or pelican was to whip off lots of cheap tawdrey clothing on a sewing machine, slop a whole lot of nonperiod unresearched food onto the table for a bunch of stick jocks who have no interest in anything except fighting and taking crown and belly dancing. :smack:
Well learning to fight and in many cases making your own armor takes alot of time, money, effort, research, and practice as well. Its a different but no less time intensive thing to learn.
I like camping, I like the period, and despite the political BS many have mentioned, it is a well developed and stable organization with alot of good people, who have alot of fun. How far I want to take it is up to me, and I will probably get too old to play long before I max out on any given aspect of the society.
Not so much that, socially speaking, an SCA event is one giant nerdfest and EVERYONE THERE is basically the same flavor of nerd. You don’t have any concerns about people thinking you are weird because everyone you meet is the same kind of weird. So now that you have eliminated that hurdle it makes it easy to connect with people.
Just like there may be those uncomfortable with your experiences and mindset having been in the millitary and participated in combat actions, but others in the millitary would see such things as irrelevant because they are part of the same world.
Yes I know, dear, I got started in West Kindom circa AS XX (1986.) I’ve been a chronicler, chatelaine, deputy seneschal, marshal, bard, autocrat, feastocrat, and occasional throne barnacle but when I moved to An Tir I never really got into the local group. My grandson is in love with the SCA so I sometimes break out the tourney gear to take him to an An Tir/West war or something but I don’t think I’ll ever get into it the way I did back then. Although I do have a friend who’s wanting to check out the SCA life pretty fiercely, she might be able to nudge me into attending more events. Maybe.
Actually I did start out as a stick jock, in combination with all the research. I was hand making italian renn when most people were still in bedsheet pseudo viking. I gave up A&S contests when a flashy synthetic fabric renn with machine sewing and store bought trim won out over a hand made linen renn with all hand embroidery.
Not so much that, socially speaking, an SCA event is one giant nerdfest and EVERYONE THERE is basically the same flavor of nerd. You don’t have any concerns about people thinking you are weird because everyone you meet is the same kind of weird. So now that you have eliminated that hurdle it makes it easy to connect with people.
Just like there may be those uncomfortable with your experiences and mindset having been in the millitary and participated in combat actions, but others in the millitary would see such things as irrelevant because they are part of the same world.
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True that … where else would you find people that can easily get dropped in a refugee camp and have no problem losing any modern conveniences?
Right about 37 seconds a guy mostly in heavy leather with a black helmet crashes through a couple spearmen, followed by the rest of the guys in the front line about 2 seconds later.
Honor system mostly. The red parts of the weapons are the ‘death’ parts, and whenever you’re hit with it you stop and say you were hit. If it was an arm or a leg that was hit you do the Black Knight dance and just don’t use it to continue to fight.
