D_A's Spammery

Random thought about Nobutada's "typo" signature. Still unclear who that actually was, but it does seem to be 90% likely that it was Nobutada.

See. I have this crack idea that whenever the Nobuspawn brothers are together, the one writing/signing off the letters are actually Nobukatsu. Like, he's raised in a more noble household as opposed to just a regular samurai house, so maybe he's more eloquent writing-wise or something.

I don't know how common it is for -tada to be written with 直 in a name during the Sengoku (since like, I don't have lists for names of "random vassal Joe"), but Hanzo has this cousin(???) named Noritada whose name is like that. If that's actually pretty rare, it might actually amplify my crack idea. Nobukatsu's territory does already encroach into Iga, maybe he's already working with some of the Hattori relatives somehow. And maybe he's so used to reading and writing -tada names with a 直 that he forgot his own brother's name isn't like that.

Tried to look up the castle residences. I think it's not entirely impossible for Nobuspawn to have business with the Chigachi family.

Maruyama is the failed castle that nobody lived in, but that was part of the Kitabatake territory. Chigachi's residence is only like 1.5 hours away, I wouldn't be surprised if actually they have regular contact with the neighbours.

Like. Iga is not some isolated little village where nobody goes to. It's an entire damn province. We don't know what lordly business happens on the day to day between Ise and Iga, especially when the Kitabatake territory very obviously takes up space is inside Iga.

I wanna flail over Sengoku shitpost conspiracy 

In Japanese folklore at least, there has been instances where someone produced the first half of the poem as imagery, when what they actually meant is the second half.

There is a legend of Oota Doukan wanting to borrow a raincoat from a villager, but the villager presented some yamabuki flowers. Doukan got upset over it, but later his vassal told him it was a subtle reference to a poem that says “The Yamabuki blooms, but it’s a pity it has no fruits”. In Japanese the way “fruits” was phrased in the poem sounds like the word for raincoat, so the villager was trying to say “I have no raincoats” by presenting the yamabuki.

The whole issue with this conspiracy is that I don’t know if people “reading too deeply between lines of poetry” like this is a thing in the Sengoku or not, because I’ve only seen instances of this happening in Edo era stories, but I do wonder. The earliest I could find(?) if at all is Ieyasu having a snit fit over the engraving donated by Hideyori and using it as bullshit excuse to besiege Osaka over it. 

All other claims of double entendres in poetry and weird interpretations of such that I saw is from Edo. 

This ridiculously long preamble over with, what I want to shitpost about is Nobuspawn’s seal that reads 威加海內. This translates to something like “(my) might spread through all within the seas”, which is quoted from Emperor Gaozu’s poem “Song of the Great Wind”. 

“All within the seas” is just a euphemism for “the entire world/nation”. 

On the surface this sounds like an ambitious phrase, and a lot of modern people thinks this is meant to be an echo of Nobunaga’s Tenka Fubu. There’s reasons why “Tenka Fubu” might not even mean what you think it means in the first place, so this is moot anyway, but we’ll set that aside for now.

The full phrase of 威加海內 says this: 威加海內兮歸故鄉. Approximate translation is “(my) might spread through all within the seas, oh, now I return to my homeland”

So going by the above long-winded prologue about how what the person intended to say by quoting a poem is actually the unspoken half of the poem... What is printed is the “might spread all over the nation” part, but what he intended to say is “I’ve returned home”. As far as the current narrative is concerned, after Kiyosu Conference this guy was given lordship over Owari, or “home”. He’s been sent away to live in another province since he’s 10, so if for whatever reason he’s actually really sentimental about his homeland... 

This poem might be specifically chosen precisely because 威加海內 sounds deceptively ambitious and if he has reasons to hide his lack of desire to inherit Nobunaga’s incredibly massive territory, this is such a sneaky way to do so. 

I once made a comment that Nobu’s “brat” era was just him being a regular teenager, but I was thinking... why the hell did people let him turn out this way in the first place? Like, if it’s really that bad, why aren’t the parents up in arms about it and just smack him into decency?

The assumption that a lot of fiction is running with these days is that his younger brothers were living with both parents, but Nobunaga had been given a whole castle to live alone so he just ran wild without supervision.

But I’m curious about why his dad never yelled at him for it. Dad could come and make threats and scare him into obedience any time he wants, no? Like, were the tutors and vassals too scared to report on him? Like “Sir your son is a menace, we can’t handle him”. Were they afraid that they could get fired for incompetence if they did?  

And the biography said all the people in town called him dumb, surely dad would’ve found out at some point? Unless when they say Nobu has a whole “castle” to himself, that includes the town attached to the castle too, and so Dad would not hear from it because his castle is technically in a different town altogether. 

I’m thinking that maybe Nobu is actually a spoiled brat, that’s why ma and pa let him run loose. Like, his tutors reports were “he’s really smart and skilled in swords and guns, he’s just lazy and likes to play”. And his parents response were like “Eh, if he's that smart, then let him play, he deserves to have fun”. 

I’m cool with the trope that his brother is so put together really because ma and pa are there to watch him all day long, though. Maybe bro is bitter at Nobu because like “why does he get to play, and I don’t???” And it just got worse when Nobu stops playing around and he’s actually really as good as the tutors say he was and bro just gets even more pissed off. 

You know this is kind of troll, but what if Hide’s original occupation is monkey trainer

It fits the vagrant/beggar version of the backstory anyway. Monkey trainers is considered a “begging” art. They put on a show and then hopefully the audience will give them some coins.

And like, even more troll would be Nobu’s first reaction on seeing him is “There’s a big monkey with a small monkey on a leash”

Hide: Screw you, you bourgeoise prat *throws the monkey in his face*

So if Okehazama was actually not Yoshimoto actually going after Oda territory, then doesn’t this mean that this is exactly the same as Yasu going “YEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” at Shingen during Mikatagahara? 

Nobu just got lucky and succeeded. Yasu had bad luck and got routed. 

I don’t think the letter story is true, but if it is you can spin a connection in this way. Like Nobu saying “bro, he’s not after you, don’t even waste your energy".

Yasu: “You won against my boss that one time tho. Why can’t I do the same?”

Nobu: “Dude, I just got lucky, don’t even... oh there he goes”

I’m separating this again in the reblog because it’s not really relevant to the original post.

So when I was Googling for pre-Edo omamori, I found pictures of this bag:

And this:

Reconstruction of a noblewoman’s costume

Supposedly, when a samurai daughter goes to marry her husband she would wear this marriage amulet called the 愛敬守 Aikyou no mamori. It’s a pair of male-female amulets of Aizen Myo’o, which was supposed to bless the couple with a good marriage or whatever (dkfhksjghkjh every fcking time I see “Aizen Myo’o” being a deity of marriage I cackle).

The Kotobank dictionary also quotes this story from Saihara Ikkaku’s Ukiyo Zoushi 浮世草子 saying that when the wife arrives to the husband’s house they take it away and keep it? I think? 

Some sites say that this is just a kakemamori  懸守, which is the precursor to the modern omamori (the thing that I was actually researching). It might not necessarily have anything to do with weddings. 

ANYWAY. The amulet bundle kinda looks like how Oichi’s “beanbag” was described in the legend, though. A bundle, tied at both ends, owned and worn by the samurai ladies?

I was thinking that if the story was in any way real, maybe someone just misunderstoof that it’s a wedding amulet. So Oichi’s message was more like “my husband can go hang, bro I wanna go home”. Ooor, Nagamasa was the one who sent it, like “I’m divorcing your sister".

(have I mentioned that I really don’t like it when dramas made up this whole big Nagamasa-Oichi romance because it’s not based on historical evidence? I’m clearly biased)

Or, like, if it’s really just omamori that’s not wedding-related, there might be some sort of hidden message in the bag. That thing is literally a bag. It can contain stuff inside.

Oh well. If I can’t use it for my serious history theorising, but I can use it for my own personal fantasies. 

I’m seriously curious if anyone else in Japan ever made the same connection that I did???? Taiga dramas lately have been showing the Sengoku wives wearing that bundle amulet rather often.

Nouhime in Kirin:

I’ve also seen some screenshots from other dramas, don’t know who the ladies are tho. 

WAIT THIS IS NEWS

Seishuu Gunki writes that Sanshichi was also in the Iga war. What??? 

THIS IS FODDER FOR FANTASY KDHFKJHGK

I’m so bewildered by this

Also.

My WTF headcanon/fanfic got “semi canon’d” by a text again. Semi because it’s the wrong brother. In my old SWD fanfic/headcanoning, I had imagined Kankurou being around for the battle strategy (and also bringing backup). The game had specified that the lord pup was the “second son”, so it means that a “first son” exist. Third son and onwards cannot be guaranteed.

Twins shitpost headcanon intensify.

I’m in tears 

I don’t know if I just read the blog wrong, or if the blogger narrated the story wrong, but I was given the impression that when Sansuke pardoned two pages for “ulterior motives”, Sanshichi was like “Oh are you for fcking real” in a pissed off manner.

He actually wasn’t mad in the original text, he was laughing. Even if he thought it was dumb, I guess he thought it was dumb in an amusing/affectionate way.

Also apparently there was rebels from Sansuke’s half of the province that tried to run and hide at Sanshichi’s place. He caught them and sent them back to his brother, who executed them.

I mean, since he seemed pretty chill about that dumbass moment I guess they don’t dislike each other, but then what the hell is up with Shizugatake. 

I’m gonna just insist on my dumb “Hello this is Bob my new kagemusha” headcanon, where they faked Sanshichi’s death and just deadpan-lied to Hideyoshi’s face. It’s like the Tenkai conspiracy theory but stupider.

Speaking of Tenkai, I also have a shitpost headcanon that Sanshichi IS Tenkai. But I’ve thought up of a new shitpost conspiracy: What if they trade places, and the one who later becomes Joushin is actually Sanshichi. Tenkai is the original one LMAO, who yeeted much earlier because he can’t be assed to rule anything.

Why “Tenkai” (written with Sky/Heaven and Sea)? 

(the two idiot spawns hang out with Catholic priests pretty often so IDK, this is just shitpost)

Also now that I know the three idiot hellspawns DO hangout occasionally, I wonder about the weird signature thing again. Did one of them really occasionally sign off letters for his brothers, or do they all just happen to have the same “writing tic”?

Also I randomly have a Nobubu headcanon, please ignore me.

This is not history, this is my fantasy, so this is not useful information for anyone.

There’s just something about the Nobuspawns signatures being so similar that just dkjf hkdjhdk 

I’m digging through all my letter collection and I haven’t yet found an example of someone else writing the イ in 信 as something that looks like “t”

I have not find any examples of Nobu ever doing this even once, and there’s so many Nobu letters to look at. The closest thing to it is that he doesn’t even do the diagonal stroke of the イ in 信, so it just looks like a し

I’ve seen the Nobuspawns do this too sometimes, but I’ve never seen the reverse, where Nobu makes the “t” shape. 

Maybe I’m just not finding the correct ones??? It’s just weird that the Nobuspawns’ ones that coincidentally have this tic are so easy to find, though, but not a single one of Nobu’s. 

Maybe the brats were taught by the same tutor and so they end up developing a similar tic. Or maybe, for whatever reason, if they happen to be together, one of them writes the letter for his brothers and then goes ahead and signs it himself too.

In which case the only common denominator here is Nobukatsu, which is kind of weird TBH. Like, WTF, why is he the resident secretary if this theory is true? Does he have the nicest handwriting between them? Maybe he writes the fastest, so he gets to do the writing if they’re in a rush and the other person who needs the letter written is preoccupied?

IS HE FAKING LETTERS FROM HIS BROTHERS??? And if so, WHY????

Or maybe not, and they just happen to be working together and the other one is busy and there’s a letter that needs signing off and they’re like “Bro can you sign that for me? Thanks.”

There were two Nobutaka letters that has this signature and they were both post-Honnouji stuff. Legends/hearsay have said that Nobukatsu and Nobutaka worked together to clean up various affairs before Shizugatake happens.

There’s only one Nobutada example IIRC, dated 1580. It’s addressed to someone in Gifu/Mino, but where is it sent from is not clear. It’s very hard to tell when and how the brothers interact pre-Honnouji, but Ise doesn’t look like it’s that far from Mino, so it’s possible that they visit each other sometimes. If they rush and not bring too many attendants, they can make the trip in one day on horseback. 

Seishuu Gunki wrote something that sounded like Nobutada wandered by Nobukatsu’s place in Ise for some reason. If this account is true, the timing is adjacent, so it’s possible that this was written while he was visiting there. Wiki doesn’t say the exact when, and I can’t find the actual text of Seishuu Gunki, but he visited “Matsushima Castle”. It might be an archaic way of describing Matsugashima Castle, which was indeed built (or finished being built) in 1580. 

Though... his brother is doing the paperwork for him because...? Maybe he passed out drunk or something, and that’s why Nobu got mad at him. 

PLEASE, SURELY THIS IS SOMETHING THAT IS DEAD OBVIOUS AND SOMEONE ELSE HAS ANALYZED IT. I CAN’T POSSIBLY HAVE FOUND SOME NEW DISCOVERY THAT NOBODY KNEW. THESE PICTURES ARE OLD, SURELY SOMEONE ELSE ALREADY NOTICED, I WANT TO HEAR AN ANALYSIS FOR WHY THIS IS THE CASE

I’ve even tried looking at the bodies of the letters, but there’s nothing there, or I can’t even tell what the word is supposed to be. Like if it’s an extra-curly な, there would be a “t”-like shape, but it’s irrelevant. And besides, a scribe could’ve written the letter so analyzing the letter body might be moot. 

I looked up Ebizō because I wanted to hear his "natural voice". I've only ever heard him talk in "Theatric voice" as Nobu.

It's deep, but definitely sounds softer than the theatric voice.

Nō theatre utai is also like that.

So. Nobubu headcanon: He learns Kōwakamai (and/or Nō) actually more to learn how to do that projected theatric voice of the utai rather than the dance. Like, I headcanon that his natural voice is actually too soft/delicate, so during formal meetings or in war he uses that "theatric voice" to talk.

He talks normally to Frois but asked him not to tell anyone LOL.

I did remember another so-called testimony from a woman who was present, saying that in all the confusion she thought she saw Nobu escape towards the kitchen. Where... the fire supposedly broke out from. Hm.

Okay, time for new conspiracy: Nobu did survive, but he gave up his position as a samurai to live a quiet live because he’s just So Damn Tired of everything. Bonus points if My Lord knew, that’s why he was late and didn’t do anything to Akechi. Like... IDK, maybe he found dad, and dad said “You know what, this is all pointless, do whatever you want”. So he just shrugged and went “okay, cool”. 

And then later when somehow Kiyosu Kaigi ended up with him as the new lord he is just like “NO WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME”. And just kicked up such a huge tantrum to piss off Hideyoshi on purpose. 

Bonus conspiracy: Yasuke did actually managed to save Son, but Son is Even More Tired than Nobu, so they all just yeeted into somewhere unknown and never came back. 

Seriously. “They committed seppuku and then their bodies just got buried under rubble” is so convenient LOL. I mean, it’s not that it’s not possible. But it’s such a convenient handwave-y explanation that allows room for “naw, they escaped but just never came back”. 

Bonus conspiracy part 2: Hideyoshi also knew. He wasn’t trying to lie when he sent all the letters saying “Nobu and his son are fine”. Someone told him, and he really thought “oh okay, everything is mostly fine but I gotta come back to do damage control”. But then he came back to find that Nobu and son are not back, and everyone still thinks they’re dead, and nobody knew where they went and so they had to play it up as “yeah I lied about them being alive, they’re actually dead”.

I said I hate over-the-top emphasis on ~one~ super speshul vassal specifically but I just wanna shitpost because I’m grumpy about the bad hot takes I’ve been seeing + this is an idea nobody tried yet so:

Nobubu likes Hide a lot because he’s like the brother he wished he had. Because the one he has at the time are either horrible ones who wants him dead, too young, or just lives too far away.  

Nobu’s traitor brother is usually identified as being maybe 2-3 years younger than him, so approximately the same age as Hideyoshi. The classic stories  also theorized that Hide first showed up in the Oda house around the same time when that brother is rebelling.

Like, if we want to be fair maybe after a while the novelty wears off and Hide then becomes the same as every other senior vassal, especially with his legitimate battlefield merits, but you know. 

Samurai artsy shit headcanon. History-leaning/non-fandom, but it’s mostly for the purpose of fiction writing (if/when I ever get to do it) and not scholarly analysis.

Nobu has a good eye for art/refined taste, but isn’t actually very fond of being dainty. That one goddess dance he somehow can do because he likes it a lot for personal reasons. The fancy shit he’s just curious about but he is actually rather discerning about what he personally likes, the rest are just there for courtesy (it’s rude to reject the Europeans’ presents, for example). I've recently decided that Nobu is not as bling-y as people thought he was anyway.

Yasu is not really into the fancy shit beyond the courtesies, and prefers classic but elegant stuff. Not the the point of being completely dull or anything, but it’s more in vein of “old Heian classics” or whatever. It’s probably Yoshimoto’s influence TBH (as much as he doesn’t want to admit). 

Hideyoshi is very good at learning the artsy stuff, even the dainty things, he just doesn’t really have an eye for art. Feels more like the monkey see monkey do (as ironic as it is) sort, who can copy perfectly but not create. Definitely more on the “oo shiny!!!” side by nature, he just tempers it down for the sake of not sticking out too much. (if he ever listens to the missionaries at all, he probably would love the Revelation passages that says Heaven is made out of gold and diamonds everywhere)

Random thought.

An art connoisseur once said that Hideyoshi's handwriting is Very Good. Now I'm not sure if this dude's words has any merit to it. I have no idea if this person is an expert in archaic calligraphy.

I have no alternative opinion, curly writing looks all the same to me. But let's run with a handwriting-related conspiracy!!

Conspiracy/WTF headcanon number 286439299: Hideyoshi was one of those guys who does performative painting thing, but like with calligraphy. Somehow. Nobu saw and thought it was cool and asked if he can do normal writing, and he could, so yay.

Conspiracy part 2: He's like a less obnoxious version of Tenka's Kennyo. He begs for alms, but gives this very intricately written sutra segment or ofuda in return. And like, somehow Nobu catches hold of one and got impressed by the writing and goes "Hey, I need a new secretary, come along".

I mean, nobody in their right mind would want to pretend to come from nothing in that era, so Hide being poor at some point is probably not fake. Unless the past he was hiding is somehow worse than being poor. Like... an assassin or murderer or something really weird.

(LOL ninja conspiracy theory, anyone?)

~~~~~~~~

Swerving to another vaguely Hide-relevant topic, since I'm in a babbling mood. It's mostly just Nagahama tho.

1) Is Nagahama so revolutionary in that it also serves as a ship dock to ferry across the lake? Why does Nobu NOT have a ship dock in Azuchi??? Like, there's this little inlet and there's boats in there for fishing I guess? But when Nobu needs to cross the lake he has to go to Nagahama to get a boat. Like why tho. Nagahama is not that close by that era's standard. It would be a pain to have to go there first on horse and then still ride a boat across. At least have the boat dock be NEAR Azuchi, if there's no space for it in the Azuchi town area itself.

2) There was the text in Shinchōkōki where it says people assumed Nobu would have a rest stop in Nagahama and spend the night, but he didn't and everyone panicked when he showed up because a bunch of people were slacking while he was away. Does this mean that Nobu regularly spend the night in Nagahama after ferrying across, or did the people just assume he would be tired and would need to spend the night? I mean, Nobu pulled off round trips without staying over on land all the time. Why do people assume water trips would be different? Do Nobu usually get sick on boats? That would be a riot if he does.

Midnight shitpost number 473967398647 DO NOT TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY

Recently I started to like the BrOTP of Hide and Inu’s brother instead of the usual Hide-Inu

IDK, I feel like Inu is already a higher-tier page or attendant during the time that Hideyoshi was supposed to be first hired. It just doesn’t feel like it makes sense for them to be BFFs until much later. 

Now his brother though, could have been a newer page and so is somewhat on a similar “n00b” level. There was one story that said Nobu was out being Nobu and the attendants named for this trip was Hide, Inu’s brother, and one other guy. If this is a true story and not made up fluff, then they’re pages/attendants together for a time while. 

Also. Inu’s bro is called Touhachirou. Similar enough to Toukichirou it makes me want to assume extra degree of friendliness.

(Now that makes me wonder how Hide and Inu became friends... Maybe bro introduced them? They lived in the same yashiki??)

Headcanon shitpost

My lord raising his son and his nephew, both named Sanboushi

Dunno how that happened maybe he was drunk that day

After a while he realized it was a bad idea and decides to call the big one Sanzou, and the small one gets to keep Sanboushi

Some time later he eventually calls the small one Songoku, in true troll Nobu fashion

Mostly because the mini one adores his cousin and follows him around

Won’t even explain why, and the brats don’t really care I guess, until the big one had to go to school and learns to read and find out about the Xi You Ji

A decade later the smol one grows up and his adult name may or may not have been “Hideyoshi” (it’s currently being read as Hidekatsu, but well... there are other opinions...)