recolle | [semi-closed]

[semi-closed]

WHO: Sword Sufferers Anonymous
WHERE: Public Library/Hollingberry Field
WHEN: Friday
WHAT: A bunch of people are turning into swords and it's a wild time. Info-sharing session for swords and/or a place for other people regaining swords to stop by and wonder If They're Next™.
WARNINGS: None; will update if needed!

[SO HERE IT IS. The dust has settled from the insanity of the last month (somewhat), and life goes on in Recolle. Mostly.

Maybe you've heard about it through word of mouth - that some other people are having some weird troubles with their regained weapons. Swords in particular. Maybe you've caught wind of a few familiar terms like "Retrograding Army" and you're curious to learn more, or maybe you've just caught a bad case of Sakura Fubuki-itis and you want to know what to do next. In any case, there are two meetings going on today. One at the library - a perfect place to pour through those history textbooks and look up a little more about all those ye olde historical names and terms coming to mind lately!

The other is in the park, since it's a better place for open discussion without having to worry about getting hushed by a frazzled librarian. This is also the place to pick up any sword care items you could need, since Kashuu's brought a metric asston along with him! Good work, team.]

(Feel free to use this to mingle as you see fit! If you need a reason for your character to show, we can handwave a direct or misfired text from Kashuu. Anyone meandering by who'd have reason to poke their heads in is free to, since these are both taking place in public locations!)

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So Jirou thinks that, too... I think it's worth thinking about, though. As for your sword, I'm not sure, other than that a giant might have wielded it.

[ HE'S 100% SERIOUS. but it turns out jirou is actually pretty wise beyond his drinking and laughter, interesting...

rindou doesn't actually know anything about swords beyond swinging one, and that's just muscle memory. so he just stares at his sword for a while, as if he expects it to have a label that reads "tachi", and cluelessly looks back at kenta when he realizes there's no such label. ]

A what?

Jirou can be ... very logical at times. I suppose we'll see, if and when I remember more things.

[At the stare, he shakes his head.He forgets not everyone actually knows swords who got one. That actually is a bit dangerous in his opinion.]

A tachi is a long sword. The standard Japanese sword that people call katana is actually called an uchigatana. They only appeared around the 12th century. Older swords are usually Tachi, long swords. They are also more curved than uchigatanas.

I did notice mine was more curved than Kiyomitsu's and Yasusada's...

[ which he'd found a bit odd at first, but he couldn't explore the reason behind it without the proper sword knowledge — now provided by kenta.

but rindou makes a face, counts the centuries backwards on his fingers, and glances back at him in abrupt horror, because he has Priorities™ to address. ]

Are you telling me that I'm over nine hundred years old?

Well, if we're going by the whole 'people are swords' theory and you are, indeed, a tachi, then we can speculate the blade was forged earlier than the 12th century. Some were probably forged later, though.

I have an interest in the blades, but I don't know enough to be able to tell you what period it was made in. I can only tell if it's an old blade or a modern replica, nothing more. That's how I could tell Jirou's sword and mine are probably originals or ancient replicas at least. Maybe if you show it to someone with knowledge of the decoration style of the sheath...

[Sorry, Rindou, he doesn't see how potentially awful this is for you.]

I mean, it does sound pretty plausible. You say you've never met anyone taller than you, and now you have a sword that's longer than any other one you've ever seen. It's fine if you want some time to think it over, though.

[ skepticism is probably the more common reaction, with people like kiyomitsu who denied it for a series of weeks and toshi who tossed his spear into the closet and never looked back... meanwhile, he thought the idea of being a sword person/spirit/thing was pretty rad, and jirou just flat out remembered it. ]

I'll look into the sheath later — knowing which centuries to start around is already a great help. What about yours, then? Does it have a name like mine, like 'tachi'?

Edited 2017-09-15 23:41 (UTC)

I don't want to say it's not true, since Jirou remembers it. I just can't remember it myself.

[But if Jirou says he does then it's true, because Jirou is always 100% correct and that is how this relationship works.]

I don't know if the blade itself has a name. The style of sword is called an "Oodachi". It just means 'big tachi', really.

You trust Jirou a lot, don't you? [ it's kind of cute?

to be honest, he was expecting a sword style with a fancier name, but it's simple and enough for him to understand with his limited japanese, so he supposes it works. ]

Huh... that really is just 'big tachi'. [ DISAPPOINTMENT... ] Do you know them as well as you know tachis — like, what era they're from and what they're usually used for?

I have no reason not to. He's been my best friend for eighteen years.

[And now his boyfriend also make that 600 years and you'll be closer to the truth but he doesn't know that yet.

AND SORRY FOR THE DISAPPOINTMENT HE DOESN'T CHOOSE THE NAMES.]

They were supposed to be infantry swords, but they so difficult to use there is literally almost no record of any of them being used in actual combat. Most of them were votive offerings to temples. Their use as actual sword was forbidden at some point by one of the Tokugawa shogun and a lot of them were reforged into shorter blades, which is why they are pretty rare even now.

Jirou remembered that the sword Jiroutachi was kept at Atsuta Jinja, and they have a few thousand blades there. There's a good chance that such a big sword was also made for a temple and not meant to be actually used for fighting.

Oh, so you guys are like Kiyomitsu and Yasusada.

[ regarding being friends with each other for a long time, but his ears are always open to hearing about blossoming sword romance... with that said, kenta clearly knows his stuff, and rindou's head spins a little again with era names and place names. ]

I thought swords were usually made for fighting... [ says the person who bases most of his sword knowledge on fictional video games. ] It's strange to have one made if you're just going to leave it at a temple with a thousand other swords, you know?

This used to be a thing where crafstmen would make an exceptional object for the purpose of gifting it to a temple and dedicating it to the gods. Probably as a way to bring good fortune to their trade. It's possible some of them may also have been commissioned. Some blades were also probably gifted for safe keeping if the family they belonged to could not claim them for some reason. There's a number of circumstances that would see a sword ending in a temple.

[He's never truly thought about how that could seem strange from an outside perspective, really.]

Yours is beautifully decorated, but it's still a practical sword. There's a good chance it was used in actual comabt.

Does the same thing apply to shrines? Or would sword practices be the same across shrines and temples...

[ he knows there's a difference between the two places themselves, but he wasn't even aware they housed swords in the first place. but hearing about the beauty of his sword never fails to gently stroke his ego, and he smiles a little. ]

For some reason, I'm glad to hear that. Getting to fight with this sword makes me happy — except for dealing with the whole "feeling through my sword" thing, but you get used to it after a while.

I believe it's probably similar, although Shinto shrines tend to be built more around natural places... besides, temples in japan often have elements of both Buddhism and Shinto mixed together, with shrines inside a bigger temple.

[Thos last words are a bit strange, however.]

"Feeling through the sword"? What do you mean?

Natural places... like waaaaay deep in the forest, or just in places with lots of different types of nature surrounding it?

[ tell him more about shrines, he needs this for science.

but it's probably better for kenta to keep in mind the sword-touch mechanic for now, rather than finding out he has it through slamming his sword on a hard surface... like rindou did. with that said, he's aware of how odd this might sound. ]

Yeah! If you poke my sword, I can tell you where you've poked it without looking. Want to see?

You can find both, actually.

[At the invitation, he looks hesitant at first, but then nods.]

How does it work?

I'll show you! Move over a bit.

[ he unsheathes his sword and sets it on the blanket between them, angling it so that the handle points towards kenta. holding the sharp side of a sword with his bare hands just seems like a bad idea, and he's not keen on attempting it... which is why it's on the ground. ]

Press any number of fingers anywhere on the blade after I turn around, but don't tell me where. That's... all there is to it, actually. Give it a go!

[ keeping his sword out of his sight makes him a bit uneasy, but kenta seems to respect swords. he trusts kenta. so he spins halfway around, then waits. ]

[Kenta hesitates for a second, then puts three fingers down on the flat surface of the blade, just below the hilt of the sword.]

... Like this?

[ perhaps he's grown more used to the sword-touch mechanic by now than a month ago, as he finds himself needing to concentrate less than usual. his vocabulary is still shaky when it comes to describing sword parts, but he replies almost instantly — that should be enough. ]

Three fingers — around the, what do you call it... the hilt of the sword, right?

... Yes.

[Well, that is really weird. Kenta slowly removes his fingers and rubs his hands together. It feels like he may have done something a little forbidden even though Rindou invited him to do it.]

That must really feel... strange.

[ why is it forbidden... but he turns back around and resheaths his sword at his side. ]

Trust me — the first time Kiyomitsu showed me this trick, I was really surprised! You get used to it after a while, though.

[ whether getting used to the sword-touch mechanic is a good thing or not is... debatable. ]

But if something like this comes up, then I'd say that the probability of you being a sword really shoots up, you know?

[Because it's like he touched your naked body or something it's just weird okay.]

I'll... keep an eye out for it, then.

[He doesn't sound too enthused by that. The one saving grace about that thing is that it allows Jirou to make penis jokes all the time and it's making him happy that his boyfriend is finding some silly humor in it.]

[ ...DON'T THINK ABOUT IT THAT WAY??? goodbye, this trick is now forever cancelled. ]

Mhm! On the bright side, there are also more convenient things, like speedy recovering from injuries.

[ which would've helped last month, actually... ]

... I don't think Jirou has that. Or I.

[THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN BLOODY CONVENIENT WHEN JIROU GOT AN ACID BURN, RETROSPEC.]

I suppose we also could have different... abilities. Since the swords look different and even we don't look identical, after all.

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