I used to wear a chainmail shirt to elementary school. The teachers never knew what to do about it because there was no section in our dress code forbidding medieval armor.
… Where does an elementary school child get access to an actual shirt of chainmail sized properly for them?
Growing up as a historical reenactor meant that my parents are friends with lots of people who make chainmail. My godsister received a real rapier in fourth or fifth grade, so our unsupervised outdoor playtime was… formative.
omg sooo much fun… Did you ever hear… “Be careful, you could poke an eye out with that?” Or did you have the masks? I knew someone who made chainmail once long ago, That shit is heavy. And did it keep you from being bullied? I think I might have to consider writing a character like that? Are you M/F? OMG that’s just fabulous!!! I just can’t get that out of my mind. I just wow.
Mostly we stomped around in an old growth forest and got ourselves out of whatever trouble we got into, so there weren’t many people around to tell us not to climb trees with a sword at your hip.
The chainmail definitely didn’t protect me from getting bullied, but I found the weight of it strangely comforting - I sleep with a weighted blanket now and it’s much the same feeling. I’ve always been pretty androgynous.