Bright Flames, Dark Shadows: My Hero Academia

[X] Built for Counters
[X] Our Hair Ribbon

To be honest though, unarmed is the most Hero Academia option.

Like, ribbon is the best weapon because it's actually an interesting use of our powers. If it doesn't relate to our powers though, a weapon is just kinda dumb looking and out of genre.

[X] Built for Endurance
[X] Unarmed

Look folks, here's the truth. Chumps use weapons. We aren't chumps. We are Endeavor's daughter and we're endeavoring to be better than our dad. So why the hell would we use a weapon? Our powers don't need a weapon. We don't need a weapon. It doesn't even fit our aesthetic; any weapon we use would be pointless compared to just ripping off a piece of our uniform or an object if we need to weaponize something near us.

Can you imagine it? "Oh, Todoroki, did you hear about your daughter? She can't use her hands. She needs a samurai lance", because now we're just roleplaying as ice samurai! For some reason! Can you imagine what the rest of Shiketsu Academy would think about such an IMPROPER CLASH OF GENRE?!

No way. We are a hands-on hero. Let us embrace the problems that being a hands-on hero would entail and deal with it.

[X] Built for Counters
[X] Unarmed

I'm with Cetashwayo. Let's just beat people up with our bare hands people like a proper superhero.

[X] Built for Endurance
[X] Unarmed

[X] Built for Counters

Should Rin carry a tank of water everywhere she goes? Or a high-power humidifier if her power works on strictly moisture.

[x] Built for Counters
[X] Naginata


Offense is very tempting. but the combination of a reach weapon and a power that lets use grow ice spikes from any part of our body is just to good for countering.

On the Discord the idea has been tossed around that two pieces of support gear that Rin needs are water grenades and fog grenades.

Erebeal said:

[X] Built for Counters
[X] Unarmed

I'm with Cetashwayo. Let's just beat people up with our bare hands people like a proper superhero.

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I think you give up too early and this is why:
1. Ribbon in itself isn't even a weapon, it's our quirk that make it one.
2. Ribbon is the most harmless looking weapon i can think of, it wouldn't damage our image or make us threatening. Which is good because on one side normal people wouldn't afraid of us, while on the other villains could underestimate us.
3. Weapon that versatile is what we need for counters.
4. It weighs next to nothing.
5. If didn't need weapon we just leave ribbon in its place, but if we need weapon than it always with us.

FakePriest said:

I think you give up too early and this is why:
1. Ribbon in itself isn't even a weapon, it's our quirk that make it one.
2. Ribbon is the most harmless looking weapon i can think of, it wouldn't damage our image or make us threatening. Which is good because on one side normal people wouldn't afraid of us, while on the other villains could underestimate us.
3. Weapon that versatile is what we need for counters.
4. It weighs next to nothing.
5. If didn't need weapon we just leave ribbon in its place, but if we need weapon than it always with us.

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Oh, I'm not giving up, I just wanted to give unarmed some support so it could be a contender as well.

I'd be fine with either.

Erebeal said:

Oh, I'm not giving up, I just wanted to give unarmed some support so it could be a contender as well.

I'd be fine with either.

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Unarmed option is good classic, but why restrict ourself? I really like your idea with ribbon because it gives us more versatility than any other option, including unarmed one.
[X] Our Hair Ribbon

I see a lot of heretics are arguing against the idea of the naginata. Do not fear, my loyal children! I shall purge them in fire and silver.

First, the issue of length. Fundamentally, an argument that a naginata is too long applies just as equally to a staff, on account of the fact a staff is a naginata without a blade. If we must consider only weapons that are capable of fighting indoors, then our list gets a lot shorter—both metaphorically and literally.

Of course, this is a problem with an available solution! It is not unlikely that somebody who designs a long weapon for heroing work has probably thought of length issues, and thus made the weapon collapsible. A telescoping spear or staff or naginata is not exactly a gigantic mental leap forward, and if similar things exist today (fishing rods, for example) then I would argue a society with actual literal superpowers and an industry built around them has done the same for actual weapons. This also solves any issues about the difficulty of carrying it around and adds an intimidation factor—because someone unsheathing an actual literal spear is a fairly awesome mental image, don't you think? We're already shaping up as an ice princess, so I don't see any reason not to double-down on that aesthetic.

Moving on, if we can reasonably expect to be able to shrink our weapons depending on our environment, why the naginata? It has a blade, doesn't it? Blades are scary and they hurt people. We shouldn't do that, we're a hero! Better that we use a staff—a blunt weapon—or a ribbon that can be anything.

Bluntly—if you'll forgive the pun—that's silly.

For one, you can use a naginata to do that too. It's a staff with a blade on the end. Anything a staff can do, so can it.

More importantly, for two, if we may only take down people non-lethally, we can't hit them at all. Hollywood knockouts are not a thing, and I'm sure we all know it. Whether you're using a staff or a tonfa or the back of your hand, if you hit someone hard enough to put them down more than momentarily, you have hit them hard enough to seriously hurt them. A blade is actually better for this—not because you can stab someone any more safely than you can hit them, but because people are afraid of being stabbed. If someone is pointing a whopping great spear at you with a shiny blade on the end, you are more likely to put your hands up and do what they say than if they're pointing a staff at you instead. Especially if you think you're tough and can take a few beatings but are still aware you are a small fleshy human whose toughness offers no defence against cold steel.

Of course, this is where the ribbon seems to have the advantage—because the ribbon can be used to tie people up, which is a much better way of dealing with them non-lethally than whacking them with a stick. It also lets us be creative in case we need an alternate solution to a problem that might require tonfas or a staff or a naginata or whatever else springs to mind.

The problem with that is that if we use our ribbon to tie one person up, it's no longer available and then what do we do? Better to use it as a catch-all so we can have any weapon we want, right? That way we satisfy everyone.

No, we don't. We all know it's a theme of SV questing that we must have our cake and eat it too—so of course the option that seems to do this is invariably going to be popular. But don't fool yourselves into thinking it's ever actually a good idea.

For one, if Rin is to learn to use her ribbon as a weapon, as a whole bunch of weapons, she must learn to use every single one of those weapons. She's never going to be more than mediocre at using any single one of them because she has to master so many different, sometimes conflicting impulses (there is a reason most people who are good at something are good at something not somethings) that she'll basically just be a jack of all trades—and then what's the point? No matter what she pulls out against someone, she won't be very good at it, and the main weapon where not being very good with it still means you're scary is, wait for it, the spear or equivalents. If we wanted to do the most advantageous thing in most fights when having the ribbon, we would invariably end up defaulting to making it into a naginata or the spear because otherwise we're deliberately shooting ourselves in the foot because of our lack of skill.

So why be mediocre with the naginata when we could be good with the naginata, because it's the one weapon we've focused on in the past and will continue to focus on in the future? Why settle for being average when we could be talented?

For two, let me briefly dismiss an unmade but probably unspoken argument for the ribbon: there will be no whip swords.

For three, let's talk aesthetics. I've already dismissed the staff and the ribbon for being a) the naginata, except worse and b) the mediocre master-of-none option that will invariably default to the naginata anyway if you intend to fight to win respectively. But maybe you don't care about that! Maybe you're just into whatever idea looks and sounds the coolest to you—a train of thought I entirely support and the main reason I suggested the naginata to begin with.

We're already leaning toward the ice princess aesthetic. Why not take it one step further and lean into the ice samurai princess aesthetic?

Beyond that, a naginata is a weapon with reach—a weapon to fend off foes and defeat them from afar. But it is also a trap for our enemies. A common idea—even if it's partly a misapprehension—is that to defeat a spear user, you must get inside their reach. Except... "You were, at your core, a fighter who had to get up close and personal due to the nature of your quirk." Anyone who gets close to us makes us more dangerous—but unlike if we were using a close-combat weapon, they're not going to realise it until it's too late. If we're chasing someone around with our fists or a tonfa or whatever, either they're never going to let us get close because obviously that's what we want, or they themselves are a close-combat fighter and will be expecting us to be dangerous up close and trained to handle it. If we use a weapon with reach, like the naginata, people will not only come to us but also expect us to be panicked and terrible when they do—and that's when they lose.

By using a naginata, we embrace the idea of trickery and outplaying our enemies—especially if our style is counter-attacking, which I will change my vote to now that I've considered it—and we set ourselves up as an inexorable heroine who cannot be fought at range and cannot be fought up close. We set ourselves up as inevitability; the idea of defeat before the battle has begun. How is that not something interesting? How is that not awesome? It makes us a symbol that other heroes can look up to and aspire to be; a much better symbol than Endeavour, because we will be calm where he is aggressive and cool where he is violent.

You could, I suppose, argue that the ideal also makes us distant. That it takes us away from not being Endeavour, because we're leaning to some degree into intimidation, that it makes us arrogant and closes us off from those around us. To which I say we are a teenaged girl who wants to be a hero. We are not some forty-year-old jaded spite reactor. We still want friends, the way we've been written clearly shows we don't have enough hate and cruelty in us to become the lone wolf right off the bat if ever, and just because we seek an ideal doesn't mean we must let it dominate us in all ways. It is perfectly possible to be the ice princess on the battlefield and still have friends and still be nice to people and all that.

(Also, we're in training, so we have years to make friends and talk to people and everything while we seek to come out of it as the inexorable ice heroine. Don't conflate where we'll be with where we are).

Now, allow me finally to dismiss the idea of fighting unarmed with three words: Endeavour fights unarmed.

Which brings me to my closing remarks.

Every other option is bad, vote naginata because I said so. \o/

One last thing to take care of:

[X] Naginata
[X] Built for Counters

[X] Built for Counters
[X] Unarmed

Magery said:

Beyond that, a naginata is a weapon with reach—a weapon to fend off foes and defeat them from afar. But it is also a trap for our enemies. A common idea—even if it's partly a misapprehension—is that to defeat a spear user, you must get inside their reach. Except... "You were, at your core, a fighter who had to get up close and personal due to the nature of your quirk." Anyone who gets close to us makes us more dangerous—but unlike if we were using a close-combat weapon, they're not going to realise it until it's too late.

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this is kinda why I went with it to be honest. The idea of using a reach weapon to sucker peopel into trying to get inside its reach is a tempting one.

Magery said:

I see a lot of heretics are arguing against the idea of the naginata. Do not fear, my loyal children! I shall purge them in fire and silver.

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Alright, let's look at this.

Firstly, the argument against Hollywood knockouts fundamentally fails for obvious reasons. MHA fights work on the basis of people getting beaten up and blunt force trauma being surprisingly non-dangerous. Cutting implements however, as is common in the anime physics paradigm, are dangerous - and in this case are generally used by villains.

It is hardly becoming for a hero to be threatening to stab people. Moreover, being intimidating and scary is exactly the way That Man operates, when he goes around being all scary and firey. If we want to not be like him, then maybe we should start with not trying to scare people by threatening to dismember them.

It is, of course, certainly true that the ribbon would be a complex weapon to learn to use effectively - which is why it's a good thing that we've retroactively had years of training isn't it!

That being said, that is a reasonable argument in favor of unarmed - which, it should be noted, is the most efficient option in that regard.

And as for the "oh, Endeavor uses unarmed so we can't use that" argument, I'll point out that if you look at the end of his fight with the Nomu in season 2 he takes down the flying Nomu by throwing a fire spear at it. Logically then spears, and by extension naginatas, must also be considered inappropriate.

The point about collapsible naginata is a reasonable one. However, the rest of the arguments really better support the ribbon or unarmed I feel.

Edit: also, we could carry multiple ribbons. They're really compact and convenient like that.

really if you think about it endeavor has somewhat tainted the concept of hands altogether, perhaps we should wear big hooks instead

[X] Built for Counters
[X] Our Hair Ribbon

[X] Naginata
[X] Built for Counters

Magery made some good points and honestly I'm still unsure which weapon I want more. That aside a counter style still best suits Rin.

[X] Built for Counters
[X] Our Hair Ribbon

[X] Built for Counters
[X] our hair ribbon

[X] Naginata
[X] Built for Counters

Ignoring all other arguments, swinging around a naginata is good exercise. Build those muscles.

[X] Built for Counters
[X] Unarmed

In MHA a character is meant to fight in a way that emphasises their quirk.

Like how Stain wields lots of bladed weapons to help him get the blood for his quirk or how Snipe uses a gun because he can sontrol where bullets go.

In MHA a character's quirk is their weapon.

Our quirk is touch range which means we want to be really close to our opponents and unarmed is the best choice for that.

[X] Built for Counters
[X] Tonfas