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!)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's probably what it was. I...

[Kenta purses his lips as he recalls that night he suddenly woke up after seeing...]

I did remember... being in a temple. On the altar. And being given gifts. But I couldn't see myself. I just knew it was me. I received this a few days later.

[That sounds pretty similar to the memories he can recall pre-Citadel, so he nods.]

D'you think this might've been you, then? Up there on that altar...

[How strange on so many levels, to be asking someone he barely knows "hey how about that memory of just chilling out being a dang inanimate object." ...Or an animate object, he supposes??]

That's the most logical explanation.

[He's not happy with it, but Jirou just wants him to be a sword too and really, it basically is the thing that makes the most sense and that's saying something.]

I just... don't have a memory of it, for now. But there are too many similarities with Jirou's story, or even yours, for it not to be at least vaguely related.

[Wild, the things that love will have you accepting... He's also not at all fond of the idea, but he's had time to adjust on his own, at least.]

You'll probably remember more stuff the more you talk to him, especially if the two of you have memories that are tied together real close. It was like that for me and Yasu, too.

[Jerking a thumb over his shoulder to wherever the nerd is.]

...Even if it's pretty nuts for this to be the most logical explanation.

Honestly, absolutely nothing about this all makes sense and yet it still sounds less fantastical to me than anything have heard about Retrospec so far.

[An empty office building? Employees that send messages on the network but are nowhere to be found? No paper trail? This sound extra shady and that's a yakuza thinking that.]

But I do find it odd that we both received oodachi with very similar decoration patterns. They also look like they were made in the same time period, and then there is the temple connection.

I can kinda see where you're coming from.

[He's described Retrospec as literal cartoon villains before and he's not about to recant that statement, even if they apparently aren't as actively villainous as he first thought...

But! A thoughtful hum, and then:]

Maybe your swords were made by the same smith? Or maybe they were commissioned to match.

[That'd be kind of cute.]

That's another possibility. I'm sure Jirou would love that.

[Here is that smile again as he looks over at his boyfriend smiling and having fun and drinking.]

If they're heirlooms they could also have belonged to the same family. Or they could have been given tot he same temple. I need to look into Atsuta Jinja more. I went there as a child, but that was more than eighteen years ago. And I remember that they have a few thousand blades here, although the only one I remembered off the top of my head was Kusanagi no Tsurugi.

[These two are so in love, goodness... Kashuu is endeared.]

It'd be pretty nice, yeah? Yasusada and I were together a lot of the time too, in the past. [A beat, and then:] I think it helps a lot to have someone who was by your side the whole time.

[Or at least most of it.

Lord, but he doesn't recognize any of these swords.]

Is that the shrine you remember? It's good you know so much stuff about all this.

[SO IN LOVE, KASHUU!]

I think...even if things are crazy, if I'm with Jirou, everything will be fine.

[And it does help that Jirou is in fact much more grounded than people give him credit for.]

It's a pretty famous shrine in Japan. It's huge. But my memories of it are from going there as a child, not...

[A vague gesture towards the assembled company. He doesn't actually remember being held in that shrine if he was indeed a sword on an altar.]

It was Jirou who remembered the name first. That's how I remembered I'd been there before a long time ago.

That's good, y'know? That you two have each other.

[A good and solid balance. He thinks they compliment one another very well, anyway - it'll surely benefit them as things continue to work themselves out in this weirdass city.]

Ah - so he remembered it and then you did? [A nod; that's how he's remembered quite a few things, too.] Maybe if you did a streetview tour on google or something, it'd jog your memories even more.

I was just a child then. Barely five years old, I think. I don't even remember why I went there or who I was with.

[But the streetview thing is actually a good idea.]

Seeing pictures will probably help, though. I'll look into it. They're so famous they probably have a website with pictures.

Mm... Maybe Jirou can look with you, too? I mean, if you're gonna remember stuff and keep remembering stuff, you might as well do it together.

[Says this fool who barely shares his memories with Yasusada even to this day.]

He'll do it if I ask. I think he knows that I need... a bit more time processing this, so he hasn't been pushing me to do it for now.

[Well he does sometimes suggest Kenta is a sword and that he wants him to be but the reason for that is he wants them to be together and Kenta kinda wants that too so....]

It does help to have him. Really.

That's really sweet of him.

[His expression softens a little, since he really does find this kind of support genuinely endearing... He nods a little at the second statement, understanding.]

S'probably a good idea too, anyway... Taking it slow, I mean.

[Even Kashuu had a near-breakdown once he was forced to actually confront the idea he was a sword, which he'd been dodging around acknowledging for literally like 3 months...]

[Kenta suddenly looks a little concerned. Kashuu was originally Jirou's friend, but they've gotten to know each other a little and from what Kenta understands, Kashuu was one of the first one of them to start getting memories.]

You didn't really have that option yourself, did you? That must have been hard.

[He offers a little smile, somewhat grateful but also not keen on making it seem like it was hard. It was difficult, but he's mostly over the worst of it now (or so he hopes?!) so he doesn't want to fish for sympathy for what's passed.]

Lucky for me, Yasusada was still on the network even if he wasn't remembering the same things at the same time. So even if there was a little while where no one knew what I was talking about, I wasn't ever, like... not able to talk to anyone about it at all, like some people.

[He counts his dang blessings every day.]

That's one saving grace of Retrospec...

[As annoyed as he feels with the app, it has brought some people together. But still...]

Do you think these are... past lives? Ourselves in different times?

[They're in agreement there, certainly, even if he'd never actually thank Retrospec for it...

As for the question, though--]

Mm... Well, did you hear about that theory Dave brought up on the network? The thing the sphinx told him?

I can't say I did.

[Because he rarely checks the network, what a shocker.]

What Sphinx? And what was it?

Edited 2017-09-26 17:55 (UTC)

[HE DOESN'T WANT TO BE THE BAD NEWS BEARER HERE, TOO... But it's too late now, he probably shouldn't just leave things hanging like that. SO:]

Eh... Well, a group of people who were out in unreality ran into this Sphinx that was from a destroyed world, I think? And the Sphinx basically said we're, like... being "reconstructed", not "reborn". As in... those people in the memories? Weren't us in a past life, but kinda are us and always have been. Obviously there's no way to confirm it or anything, but...

[He trails off, shoulders rising a little.]

[NOW JUST WAIT A SECOND HERE....
Kenta is not always with the program but he is not stupid.]

....so the lives we are living now are not real and the memories would be the real part?

[Because no. His life with Jirou is the best thing ever and he doesn't want to believe it's fake just because some random creature told someone he doesn't even know, but...]

...I liked the past life idea better.

[He just makes vagueish hand-weighing motions at that because yep, but also Who Really Knows.]

By that theory, anyway. There's no real way to disprove the other ones yet, or to prove that one right, or anything... We're kinda stuck in limbo until we get some more info, and who knows when that'll happen? Retrospec clearly has a super hands-off policy and there's all that junk about not being able to tell us stuff directly 'cause if we find out about it the wrong way, we'll attract unreality or something.

[He's but a simple bean and these things are all quite confusing... He would also much prefer past lives to the wild concept of "actually your world was destroyed and you alone, a vague scrap of existence floating around in nothingness, was salvaged to be rebuilt." He'll just... leave those nitty-gritty details out for now, either way. No sense panicking without proof.]

So... does that mean someone among us discovered something last month that they shouldn't have and it provoked the problems we had? Are they trying to pin this on us as well?

[Somehow this wouldn't even surprise him...]

I don't call this a 'hands-off policy'. It looks like they have no idea what they're even doing.

Nah, they have no idea what caused that thing last month. Or if they did, they didn't say... But they didn't blame us or anything. The guy I talked to, Maurice? He just said it's dangerous for us to know stuff, like... Mm, there were people in our groups who had access to higher levels of Retrospec, but because of that, they also attracted more monsters. That kinda thing, I think?

[Though he won't argue with the fact that it looks like they're either incompetent or extremely shady with no room for much else between the two...]

Having to get all the info second-hand is more than just kinda annoying, though.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[semi-closed]

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject