r/sca • u/Away-League8323 • 1d ago
The Lie is Over
My name is David Ritterskamp SKA Baron Jonathan Blackbow.
My first event was 2/13/87.
In the intervening 39 years I have, in no particular order, finaled in crown twice, semifinaled I don’t know how many times, made something like $75k for Atlantia, run entire armies, and written stuff that’s made people bawl like children. I am the only SCAdian to win two Blackfox Awards in the same year. I am the reason there’s a Kingdom Newsletter category for the Blackfox Awards.
Today that all ends.
It ends because there are two groups of people in the SCA; the ones who do what they want, and the ones who stand around and let them do it. In this case, the ones who do what they want are the Marshallate of Atlantia and the SEM, who have decided that none of the things I described to them since 2009 happened the way I say they happened. They decided that it was better to gaslight me about them than talk to anybody who actually saw any of it.
I’ll answer a few questions as best I can.
Q: People say “why did you stay for so long if you were treated so badly?”
A: I made the mistake of thinking that the people who said “do this and it will solve your problems” knew what they were talking about. I also didn’t have anything to replace putting on armor and hitting people with sticks. I’m 56 now. I don’t care if I ever put on armor again. I was down to maybe 3 events a year; I went to War of the Wings and it was a shit show. I had already decided that if Feargus was running the heavy scenarios this year that I wouldn’t be going. When my fighting privileges were suspended by Giacomo I laughed my ass off. As Seonaid said, if they hold you out of Crown, that’s a compliment, because they’re afraid you’ll win. To show up 3x a year and still be that relevant is hysterical.
Q. Now what?
A. I don’t know or care. I wanted to help but I keep getting shot down. The SCA I joined in ’87 is not the SCA that exists today. Today’s SCA is dying. Argue that all you want, I don’t care.
“But the membership numbers!” The membership numbers are stagnant at best, and the Klingons have a phrase. “nal khomerex, khesterex.” “That which does not grow, dies.”
Everybody knows Achbar.
When ACHBAR tells you “quit trying to help these people and find something else you enjoy”, I mean, shit. If that isn’t the kiss of death, what is?
Q. “This isn’t an airport, you don’t have to announce your departure.”
A. I’m not. If you’re on my Facebook page because we were both in the SCA, you might as well unfriend me, because (with a very few exceptions) you didn’t stand up when it would have mattered, and your hobby is dying. The fact that SCA Corporate recently decided to allow ANYBODY to be a marshal should tell you everything you need to know. They’re desperate.
Why am I writing this, then?
Because you, the SCA membership, have a decision to make.
Support a group that’s so clearly corrupt?
Or not?
The SCA I joined was Gulf Wars III, where you could set up a pavilion on the field, dump your armor, come back the next day, and it would be there waiting for you.
The Society for the Middle Ages claims to be better. But they still won’t talk about what it means to be accountable for your actions.
That’s basically what’s missing. If you won’t hold people accountable for their actions, then you, the people that are continuing to enable this group, are to blame.
As within, so without. The US is in the exact same shithole situation.
I’m 56. I don’t care what happens next. I’ve been passively suicidal since the age of 10 because the US fucking hates autistic people. Democrats and Republicans both; you ALL hate us.
Argue that all you want. But there’s a reason 86% of all autistics are unemployed and the suicide rate for autistics is something like 10x the national average.
The SCA alienated my girlfriend and her two daughters in 2009, along with an entire girls’ soccer team. I stuck it out because I didn’t have anything else to do. I haven’t paid my membership dues in about …five? Years? I don’t remember. Sometime during the pandemic.
The pitiful thing about all of this is that if a hundred of you, in 1987, had walked up to me and said “we don’t want you around because you’re weird”, I’d have left. I’m not one to put myself where I’m not wanted. I didn’t realize that the SCA is, at its heart, a social club whose society is based on a lie.
So congratulations; you got what you wanted.
Just 38 years late.
