SELF INSERTS - BNHA

Jo/Spiral - LoV Ver. - Self Ship with Tomura Shigaraki

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she/her | mid-20s | icon artwork by ali
CWs: Burnout, apathy, mention of potential for violence and not feeling safe, false confidence as autistic masking, LoV hazing, implied danger, threats etc; typical villain shit.

Jo's origin story has something to do with online games and college burnout and a lot of free time. She sort of has given up on college to game and is bitter that there aren't a lot of prospects for someone like her, whatever that means. Jo never bothered to attend a hero school, she has some disdain for the system but mostly finds it boring- in another life she might have wanted to study engineering or something similar but why would hero society want innovation when they can just get someone with a quirk to do it? It seems like most tech tracks she could afford are solely for hero support these days anyways, and heroes just aren't her thing.

Somehow she was convinced to visit (or discovered? She picks locks as a hobby but how she'd find it specifically I dunno; might just have been luck, though whether good or bad is hard to say) the LoV bar (how many bars are still open at her very late night owl hours?) And maybe she heard that a pro gamer spent time there, she figured she could learn from him?

She appeared only mildly surprised to find the villains there, the place was sketchy as hell but who cares? It has wifi and the villains can mind their own BS, she just wants to game and while away her persistent insomnia. And she may admit the shenanigans there are a little entertaining... or so she tries to make the others believe. In reality she bluffs and acts casual as a survival instinct. She's scared out of her mind, and very good at hiding it.

She may very well have survived breaking in unaware to the LoV bar solely by challenging Shigaraki to a game of Smash and brutally roasting the playstyle of everyone she's ever played against since the game now solely features famous Pro Heroes and everyone bases their moves off the ones in the media. She figured she was gonna die anyway but acted like she didn't really give a shit at that point... she was halfway resigned to it the minute she realized what she had walked into. Might as well get in one last win and rant since the world is not something she is happy about anyways.

Then, for some reason, Tomura decided that maybe she was worth keeping around (even if him being an All Might main and her being an Endeavor main should make them enemies on principle /gamer drama). She'd make a good hostage, he claims, and he doesn't have time to find opponents he wouldn't rather just kill. She just sort of deals with it, halfway because she doesn't really want to die and halfway because he's a decent opponent himself and she hasn't found many good ones either.

As for general skills, aside from her prehensile braids quirk, Jo can pick locks, "hack" physical technology such as motion sensors, jailbreak game consoles, and can almost beat Tomura at certain video games (he refuses to play certain kinds with her now- It's no fun when she wins too easily). She's good at appearing casual, bored or only mildly concerned even when pissed off or scared as hell; it comes from masking fairly successfully(to some definition of "success"- it actually takes a lot out of her). Her main defense mechanism is false confidence, but that fades after the edge wears off/in a prolonged situation (like the stressful one of being surrounded by villains who she is pretty sure are still going to murder her if she lets her guard down for even a minute- Shigaraki's interest in her notwithstanding).

She's nominally allied with the League of Villains, sort of (she hangs out in their "club" but doesn't seem to contribute much beyond sitting in her corner and playing handheld games). She is still technically a college student and while she has vague plans to drop out, at the moment her face and identity are technically in the college system so it is unwise for her to participate in missions as of now. She claims she'll start working for the LoV "when her hair grows out", but it is very long already so it is unclear what her real intentions are. How long will the others tolerate this before she falls into the category of "dead weight"? Time will tell...

The rest of the LoV do seem to enjoy casually threatening her, though it could be seen as a sort of hazing/trying to get her to react sort of thing. She also doesn't particularly care for inflicting violence herself, though as she gets more involved with the LoV she develops a willingness to fight against heroes more seriously, as they are trained for this and she doesn't expect them to hold back for her. She acts like she has a very similar apathy about everything (other than gaming) that Shigaraki seems to have had toward hero society early on in the series. He is annoyed that she doesn't seem to care about his plans for society, even though to some extent her own feelings are somewhat similar to his outlook as it appeared early on in the anime regarding who gets to use violence and how pretentious heroes can be in the spotlight. But she'd still prefer to just forget the world and game, regardless of how the outside world affects people… it's just not really something she considers her problem, unless it affects her own survival. For some reason, Tomura wants her to care about the things he cares about, and he doesn't want to get rid of her... yet.

Also, he wants to see if she can beat his latest high score. Among other excuses. And he likes teasing her! She is so much fun to mess with, it takes his mind off other things. She can actually get into good arguments about game stuff, and is knowledgeable enough about certain things it doesn't make him immediately want to dust her, for what that's worth.

Toga claims it's because he has a crush, which he vehemently denies. Both Jo and Tomura react with horror and disgust whenever the idea is mentioned, which Toga insists is a sign they're in true love already.

Over time, Jo becomes slightly more comfortable with the ragtag group that is the early LoV... she won't admit it to herself just yet, but these villains, even when they seem threatening and dangerous, are the closest things to friends she's had in a long time. And when others threaten them, Jo realizes that perhaps she actually cares after all.

She'd never admit it to Tomura, though.

(He still owes her a rematch on the Pro Hero version of Smash, after all.

There's no way she'll give him any kind of leverage until then.)

Jo/Spiral - Hero Ver. - Self Ship with Yandere!Dabi

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she/her | mid-20s | icon artwork by pomutnenie
CWs: Yandere themes, violence, obsession, implied burning/wounds/danger of such, emotional burnout, implied burnmurder of civilians, unfortunate reaction to high expectations as a neurodivergent person in a competitive environment; Obsessive Dabi is his own warning c:

Jo, aka Spiral, the Braids hero. Named for the way she keeps her braids coiled up at the ends, with additional irony if she has a mental breakdown or some such. Her twin braids are typically kept around 10-15 ft long in this AU, unless burned or otherwise damaged. Since this whole thing with Dabi started, she's gotten her braids chemically treated to be more fire resistant. It helps… somewhat.

Dabi finds her to be an unwelcome distraction at first, but ends up realizing his obsession with her makes him want to break her spirit almost as much as he wants to break Endeavor, but perhaps in a different, more casual sort of way... she's fun to mess with, yknow?

A relatively recent hero, not really well known. A sidekick, part of Endeavor's agency despite her quirk not really being suited for it; she was and is determined to become one of the best, so she somehow managed to achieve a place there through sheer stubbornness (and hard work), but it is challenging all the same. She doesn't know why Dabi keeps seeking her out, but she's willing to try to fight on his level, if nothing else to protect others from him when he decides to pick a fight. She knows her quirk is unsuited for going up against him, but if he's going to attack her anyway, she wants to do as much damage control as she can manage.

Dabi thinks she should pay more attention to him. His obsession with her skews more yandere... but what will he do to her, in the end? She's just so adorable, surrounded by his flames... she'd be so *cute* to burn... but not yet...

She... barely... can manage to survive fights with him for the most part, mostly through frantic dodging and maneuvering using her braids to pull herself and others to higher ground to avoid his flames... but she can't help a nagging feeling that she is still basically losing, and this bothers her more than she would admit… he's clearly toying with her, regardless of how well she can hold her own against him (Why, again? He has to be going easy on her for some reason... otherwise, she'd absolutely be dead by now), and she doesn't know what his endgame is. She doesn't know what he wants, and that scares her more than any amount of blue flames coming at her... not to mention, his smug attitude really pisses her off. But she is stubborn, and, so far, refuses to let him get to her emotionally- or at least, refuses to show the strain it causes... for now. She focuses on keeping his focus on her- her collateral damage record had been a matter of pride for her as an emergent hero, even if it's all messed up now.

At the very least, she can save others, keep them from getting hurt by putting herself at risk instead... but somehow, there is always someone she fails to save... and even Endeavor is noticing this, and his disapproval makes her stresses even more fraught with anxiety over losing the place she worked so hard to reach...

(Dabi wants her to see that being a Pro Hero is, ultimately, a useless endeavor... and maybe, he wants to destroy the idea that such a hero is worth looking up to in the first place... heroes can fail, and Jo getting trouble from Endeavor and others for losing to him is just another fun lil way to destroy those good impressions.)

Even so, what with her starting to develop serious sleep issues and Dabi picking fights with her, she truly is starting to feel burned out (pun not intended but still fun! :D ) with hero work and life in general. She'll push through it, she always does, but she is running into limits, especially as an autistic person masking, and it worries her. Plus Ultra is supposed to mean Going Beyond forever and always, right? She doesn't want to stop improving. Her current life situation is rather overwhelming, honestly. The crazed villain she keeps having to deal with absolutely plays a big part in that. But at the same time, the chaos of the fight itself would be almost welcome as a distraction from her other stresses if it wasn't so fraught with tension and confusion (particularly the why is he so obsessed with her part) and trying to, yknow, stay alive.

Growing up she had a more carefree attitude and was actually a bit of a brat. When hero studies started to get more serious, she focused on learning and achieving rather than fun, which means she hasn't really had much of an outlet that wasn't just work harder, do better. She was lucky enough to grow up in environments that respected and were often supportive of her being neurodivergent, though as she entered her adult years she tried to push more of that side of her away for the purposes of masking and making sure she could do what needed to be done. Needless to say, this only made her more stressed in the long run, but her stubbornness meant that she couldn't let go of the focus on molding herself into what she thought she wanted, was supposed to, be.

She hates the feeling of being burned, though, which is ironic given her current circumstances and profession.

Villain! Jo - Self Ship w/ Hawks

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she/her | adult, early 20s
CWs: violence, some ableist language, apparent lack of concern for dying or being injured, hints of mental illness/suicidal ideation/possible amnesia and/or brainwashing, repetition, hints of a history involving abuse

Jo loves pissing off heroes. She particularly loves pissing off heroes who she plans to kill or provoke into trying to kill her. This Jo has no actual morals, thinks being a villain is fun, and figures killing heroes is just another part of the game. She has barely any self-preservation; if a hero kills her after being driven over the edge, she would absolutely see that as a victory.

It's a mask it's a mask it's a mask it's all a-

Of course, Hawks is willing to banter right back at her, though he is honestly a bit disgusted by her carefree lack of value for any kind of life. They've clashed a few times, and while Hawks has the advantage of a powerful quirk, he can't completely prevent Jo from slicing through his feathers with the knife she keeps in her right braid. She's fast, and willing to endure a lot more pain than most people if she gets what she wants, so a few cuts and lacerations from the hero's Fierce Wings is like nothing to her. She would keep fighting even if she was bleeding out. And somehow, Hawks doesn't have it in him to just put her down completely. He figures he can capture her, maybe even rehabilitate her, and besides, if a fight to the death is what she wants, he won't complain but he also is reluctant to just give in to her crazed desires. She's clearly not right in the head, and he isn't about to stoop so low as to kill her when capturing her would piss her off a lot more... she doesn't think too highly of him being a "caged bird" either... does she know something about him and the Commission?

Who cares about goddamn heroes and their goddamn rules Tomura will fix it-

Jo has managed to wriggle her way out of situations that she really shouldn't have been able to escape from, and her loose ties to the League of Villains, or maybe just the lockpicks she also keeps woven into her braids, might be to blame. Whatever the case, she's an obnoxious brat and takes every opportunity to make heroes and law enforcement look like idiots. She seems to have a fondness for Tomura, though they are hardly ever seen together- maybe the leader of the LoV also can't stand to be around her, despite her being a useful asset in some situations and a loose cannon in others? Either way, she's a mess and a maniac, and fighting her is very tricky when she doesn't care how much of either party's blood is shed.

Something is broken inside, there's no point there's no point there's no POINT-

What happened to you? Does it have something to do with what they did to you?

Did you forget?

Teen! LoV! Jo - Self Ship w/ Dabi

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she/her | 15-16 yrs
CWs: violence, bullying mention, adult/teen, grooming

No one expected the quiet, shy Jo to snap one morning and attack her classmates (who of course were not bullying her regularly before then, who could imagine? /s) with a knife she'd hidden in her braid, before fleeing the scene as the other students were still processing what even happened. Everyone who knew her said she didn't seem to have many friends, but honestly, she was just such a quiet kid, yknow? Easily overlooked. Easily made a target. And not just for schoolyard bullies...

Dabi found her in an alleyway crying and saw the potential she had to be molded into a member of the growing League of Villains. Jo had never been truly wanted before, so the LoV sounded like a great deal! Much better than being arrested or homeless on the streets. And the villain who suggested her? He looks like he survived something serious, and that in of itself makes him the perfect role model, right? Jo wants to never be hurt like she was again. Dabi has some pointers and showed her a place where she could belong. Tomura Shigaraki isn't too happy to have another kid involved with the League, but Jo is good with a knife and easily malleable. Dabi took her under his wing and Jo seems to thrive when he praises her.

Jo is a villain now, and none of the people who hurt her will ever bother her again.

Teen! Hero Student! Jo - "Self Ship" w/ Dabi

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she/her | 15-16 yrs
CWs: violence, kidnapping, danger/threat of torture/burnmurder of a 16 y/o. Not exactly a ship, but things get complicated and Dabi gets obsessed. This one's a bit intense, folks. Spoilers for BNHA Season 3/Forest Training Camp + Hideout Raid arcs.

This Jo is a student of U.A. who was never very social with her classmates, despite others trying to draw her out of her shell. Most of her classmates gave up once she made it clear she preferred to be left alone, or were maybe put off by her morbid humor and the kind of jokes she found entertaining (which, to be fair, were a representation of her pain and loneliness, but were also kind of off-putting in their own right).

Still, she works hard and is trying to improve her quirk just as much as the others, even if Prehensile Braids isn't as flashy as Explosion or whatever the heck Izuku Midoriya has. She is very much aware of her lack of experience, however, having joined Class 1-A after the USJ attack, mainly due to a fluke in the admissions process and a lot of hard work on her end- that is to say, she had never faced down a villain before the Summer Training Camp Incident…

So maybe the reason she got captured is that she still had something to prove. That's what those who (think they) knew her will say on the subject at least, when asked to speculate or worry about her fate, trying to think of this as something that was good for her in the end, trying to respect her memory and the strength they convince themselves they always knew she had…

In a way, it would have been in character for her.

The reality is a bit different.

Stuck up a tree and the villain keeps laughing and making more flames and she fell down cuz the stupid branch broke which is stupid and there's fire everywhere and she's trapped and for shit's sake she is not going to go down without a fight. But she can't hope to match his firepower and instead she just laughs and laughs as he gets closer, she's going into near hysterics because it can't end like this and he lets his guard down taunting the weak little girl who thinks she can be a hero and when he gets close enough she gets her braids around his ankles and twists and then runs like hell and the villain is pissed off of course but she runs and runs and runs and then the remnants of gas in her lungs finally take her down, it's too much and she collapses and there is no expectation she will ever get to wake up again but at least she got him good one time and then there is nothing until-

She wakes up long after any chance of rescue, the LoV already lost All For One and Bakugou and they were going to just get rid of her too, just throw her marble down a sewer drain or something like Shigaraki wanted, but Dabi says he wants to keep her around, he says he took a liking to her spirit and maybe he has something to prove because these U.A. kids keep thinking they can win against villains, and maybe he's pissed off about losing and maybe he just wants to break her because she laughed at him.

The thing is, Jo sees this as another test she has to get through to become a fully fledged hero. So she will not go down easy, but she doesn't know what the villains have planned for her and the uncertainty makes her anxious.

She hides her fear, but Dabi can see right through her.

It's only a matter of time before she gets rescued, she tells herself.

It's a test. These assholes won't break her down.

Dabi's all too happy to burn her, though, to put this brat in her place.

He's just waiting for her to show her fear again, so he can show her he means it.

So that's a thing.

Dubious Morality Jo - Self Ship w/ Hawks

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she/her | late 20s
CWs: Codependency, keeping secrets, manipulation, underground villainy/conspiracy, murder mention, slight hint at DabiHawks gone wrong if you squint

This Jo has a complicated history, though it isn't widely known, and she prefers it that way. She's managed to keep most knowledge of her past even from Hawks... not necessarily because she doesn't think he'd accept it, but she is aware of his ties to the Hero Public Safety Commission, and isn't about to take the kind of risk of them noticing her.

Despite herself, she's grown rather attached to the HPSC's pet hero, and the idea of them using him to get to what she knows, about the various underground activities she still has access to... makes her feel a little sick at the thought of it, of her possibly only true friend being used against her. It's for that reason, she tells herself, that she doesn't tell him everything. He knows enough to connect the dots, and she won't put him in danger.

Hawks is aware that her morality in the past has been... dubious... but he feels he knows Jo and trusts her implicitly. Sometimes she's been the only shoulder he could cry on, and if she'd wanted to, the things he's confided in her could make her a very powerful player in the underground. Yet she's been there for him and hasn't dismissed, abandoned, or betrayed him, and that counts for something.

On Jo's end, she has her ways of finding out information that is typically kept concealed from those such as heroes or the HPSC, and she balances managing a life as Hawks's confidant and a life at the edges of the world of villains, information brokers, and the like. She doesn't get deeply involved in this stuff anymore but is aware of most things that go on underground to some extent. Some secrets aren't hers to tell, but if she has to keep anything from Hawks chances are she is trying to find a way to handle it herself to at least prevent him from getting hurt by it. Even though it puts her own standing at a lot of risk... and she doesn't pretend to herself that she can't just cut her losses and run if needed, except... something about betraying Hawks just doesn't sit right with her. He needs her. She can't just leave him to face this world himself!

So, she maintains her position of managing what appears to be a quiet life while hiding her past and supporting Hawks when he visits. There are things he doesn't tell her as well, and she reads between the lines when she can and accepts it when she can't.

There are rumors of something big coming, though, and there are things Hawks hasn't been telling her. Someone is trying to trace her information and there are too many things she doesn't hear about when she really should have. When the sudden murder of another hero by Hawks hits the news, and the HPSC cuts him loose to protect their image... she is the only one he has left, it seems. But he can barely tell her anything, only something about "undercover" and "Dabi"...

She hasn't heard of this Dabi figure, but somehow he's had Hawks wrapped around his finger for too long... how had she not known about this? How the fuck did she not know?

...and of course Hawks forbids her from going after the villain for this, but she'll be damned if she's going to let Hawks get hurt again. She will save him, no matter the cost.

"He's too dangerous" and "I can't lose you too" just mean Hawks is hurting, and Jo is going to fix that, too.

Scared-of-heights!Hero!Jo - Self Ship w/ Villain!Hawks

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she/her | early 20s
CWs: Acrophobia, threats, some violence perhaps. AU where Hawks is a villain for some reason. Brief mention of falling/impact damage and potential for death in 2nd paragraph.

Fairly self-explanatory. Jo is a relatively new, rather inexperienced hero with a terror of high places, that the laid-back villain Hawks seems to have taken a liking to for some reason. And he just looooves to take her flying with him, all helpless in his arms in the air... he could drop her at any time, or leave her on a tall building for the wind to pull at her braids and over the edge... but mainly he just likes to hold her as she tries not to freak out and panic enough to make him drop her. She does not have a good time with this, of course.

This is kind of a twisted version of the "he bullies you because he likes you" bit. Hawks genuinely finds it hilarious to see Jo's reactions as she tries to hide her sheer terror. He is also a little annoyed that she isn't very happy to share his sky, so he tends to be a bit mean about it sometimes, but hey, she's entertaining and he doesn't exactly feel like making her go splat anytime soon, and, well, he doesn't have all that much else to do when most heroes are too slow to catch him and tend to have other things occupying their time. If only someone was around to make sure heroes had too much time on their hands... too bad Hawks has no interest in the hero 'biz, if they'd even look twice at him given his family history and all that.

Aimless!Jo - Self Ship w/ Dabi & Hawks

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she/her | early 20s
CWs: Codependency, cheating, unhealthy relationships, Dabi is a manipulative asshole, Jo is bad at healthy relationships, brief mention of NSFW activities, mention of potential violence/burnmurder.

This Jo dated Hawks in secret for a while before things sort of fell apart, or rather, she lost interest and become much more interested in a certain villainous fire quirk user, who, in turn, was interested in finding out more about (and messing with) the girl who caught Hawks's eye.

While Hawks was attracted to Jo because of her wildness (read: freedom) and his own hope that he could bring her onto a more hopeful path without damaging his own hero career (or reining that freedom in too much- this comes up later and makes things very complicated), Dabi was interested in her because he thought he could make her worse, and hurt Hawks by destroying her.

Both of them were wrong in a way, they didn't quite know her. Jo was and is self-destructive and looking for someone to rely on emotionally but also someone to totally wreck her. When back-and-forth bickering and messing around with Hawks, testing how much he really cared about her as a person, wasn't enough to fill the empty space inside, she ended up wandering off a bit too far and flirting with Dabi behind the hero's back, when the flame villain found her alone and vulnerable.

Something about the fact that he could have just killed her (but didn't) appealed to her, made things more interesting. And maybe she was annoyed with Hawks and his responsibilities as a hero, and maybe she just wanted to cause him pain. Hawks knew something was up when she didn't call him for 5 days, then showed up where they used to meet like she hadn't gone no contact after their last fight. She seemed upset when he confronted her, and ended up storming off and ending up in the arms of Dabi once again. Rinse and repeat.

Jo does care about Hawks, in a way, but he doesn't pay enough attention to her and that bothers her more than she would admit. Her relationship with Dabi is more one of opportunity, which bothers the villain more than he would admit. His original plan was to wrap her around his finger, mess around with her for fun, and break her heart (or burn her) and send what's left of her back to Hawks to destroy that last bit of hope in the hero's eyes. Or something.

But Dabi sees more of himself in the young woman than he would like to admit, and that… also complicates things.

Jo thinks she wants Hawks to suffer, but really she just wants to be accepted as she is, wanted despite being broken, damaged goods or whatever. Hawks is just a bit too uncomfortable around Jo and her complicated emotions for her to feel truly satisfied… she doubts she's really his priority, and tries to push him to find out if that's the case.

With Dabi, well, she's playing with fire but at least he doesn't pretend, or at least she thinks she can see right through it when he does. She'd rather have Dabi fuck her brains out than say he loves her; she thinks he might understand, at least somewhat, what it's like to want to be, well, wanted, but she's sure he'd ever say so and is fairly confident that neither of them want to get attached or dragged down by a relationship when all this other shit is going on anyway.

Hawks is more worried about her than willing to put up with her shit at this point. He keeps his distance, which means Jo spends more time with Dabi, and even Dabi is getting a bit impatient with her neediness. Still, he knows how to get under her skin, and has already managed to make her cry a few times… he might as well just burn her at this point, it'd be just as entertaining for him... but he's still curious to see how this thing going on with her and Hawks will end.

He is a villain, after all, and hurting heroes is something he particularly enjoys. If he can use Jo against Hawks, he might as well keep her around for a bit, yeah?

It's still entertaining for him, at least for now, and hey, she's still cute even when she cries. Dabi likes living rent free in people's heads, and he seems to be a permanent tenant in Jo's these days, for what that's worth.

Possibly even moreso than Hawks, at this point.

Civillain! Jo - Self Ship w/ Dabi

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she/her | mid-20s
CWs: Threats of violence, typical villain shit, pigheaded character insists the world should be a certain way and refuses to believe otherwise even if it puts her in danger. This character is tailor-made for being put into bad situations, and is therefore rather self-indulgent.

This Jo does not like feeling helpless, and tries to wrest order back from a chaotic world by being incredibly stubborn about how things are supposed to be. With no patience for time wasters, she already is predisposed to make enemies or run into trouble, but she just wants to go through her life without too many things going sideways, thank you very much. Heroes can deal with all the villainous nonsense, and she can just live her life her own way. Or so she would prefer.

Of course, this is not a good philosophy to have when the world is full of villains, and one run-in with a dangerous figure can shatter her sense of calm to the point even her braids start to shake. And then of course she will insist that she is not afraid, and become even more pigheaded as a result despite the evidence of her very own quirk betraying her emotions. While she is able, in some situations, to back off and reassess, if she catches on that she is really in danger and can't just talk her way out of it...

Honestly, it's surprising she's lived long enough to have a run-in with Dabi in the first place.

• Her braids fluff up like an angry kitten when she is annoyed. When she is afraid they tremble, and when she is pissed off they go rigid. They respond to her emotions and make her emotions obvious, to her chagrin if she notices. Often she doesn't, because she's too busy feeling those emotions.
• Kind of bossy and superior, when she thinks she is in the right
• Stubborn as hell and stands up for herself to the point of getting in more trouble just to hide that she's scared
• Has Opinions on how others should act.
• It's not fair, in her eyes, that you could just run into a villain at an unexpected time. You can tell her "life isn't fair" and she will get a little prissy. She expects there to be a certain order to things and gets annoyed when the real world isn't consistent with this.
• She is kind of naive about when she is actually in danger. Thinks she can talk back when she really shouldn't, and it gets her into shit situations deeper than she might if she didn't assume certain things were common sense and therefore absolutely correct and immutable...
• If she feels responsible for a person, people, area, she will stubbornly get involved in things she shouldn't to protect them. Even when she should really be calling police or a hero, she tends to try to handle things herself because she has an instinctual belief that people just need to be reasonable.
• Really doesn't like showing her fear. Even so, she is often easily scared... this just makes her more stubborn.
• She is really scared of dying painfully and hates feeling helpless.

Innocent child!Jo - NO SHIP, mainly for funsies and silly lil interactions

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she/her | 5-6 yrs, but will often claim (boldly lie) she is around eight or nine, to seem more worldly.
CWs: Child endangerment, but otherwise SFW

A cute, innocent yet precocious little girl who finds people interesting and likes meeting new faces, despite her parents' warnings to never talk to strangers. She is learning about quirks in school, and finds it interesting to see what varieties of quirks people have, even if sometimes she can be rather forward in asking. She's the type to notice that snow melts near a disguised Dabi, and come up to him and ask something along the lines of "Why are you so hot?" without any preamble or untoward implications whatsoever- she just talks like little kids do.

So far, as of yet, her curiosity has not gotten her into much trouble, though there are certainly dangers out there that she might run into sometime. For now she's focused on learning, and while her own quirk, prehensile braids, is not fancy enough to get into a hero school on scholarship (and tuition, unfortunately, is expensive), she maintains a dream of possibly becoming a hero, or just learning a lot about quirks instead. She is fairly skilled at using her quirk to move the tendrils of her braids independently or as a whole, and mainly uses them to grab things from high shelves (to help others reach them, of course! she likes being helpful) or just wave them around in gestures when she is excited about whatever it is she is talking about.

However, she is very much not good at minding her own business, feeling secure in the awareness that there are heroes out there to fight villains, and she will probably never be in any real danger. Her difficulty in pronouncing the name of her own quirk notwithstanding, she is confident that all is right and as it should be in the world. The idea that in some places villains run rampant would shock her, as would the idea that there are some people that Pro heroes just can't manage to save. But in her sheltered bubble, she explores her world as she knows best...

...by talking, investigating, and occasionally scolding when things don't behave as expected. But kindly, because anyone can do better, right?

Intern!Jo - "Self Ship" with Hawks & Dabi

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she/her | 16-17
CWs: Feelings of inadequacy/comparison to others, obsessive loyalty, stalking(sort of), blackmail and potential for violence towards a 16-17 y/o near the end there (It's because of Dabi, because of course).
Spoilers for BNHA Season 5.

This Jo is a student of U.A. who was never really that social, even towards her classmates, but one Fumikage Tokoyami has managed to get her to come out of her shell… at least in some circumstances. She still tends to keep her own counsel, but is clearly ambitious and strives to be a strong hero like the rest of her class, finding uses of her prehensile braids quirk that help her keep up with the others, even though she started attending the hero academy slightly late.

She feels like she should have nothing to prove- she believes she is as good as anyone else in this school, even if her quirk isn't as flashy or dramatic. She mainly uses it for mobility, having trained her scalp during the Summer Training Camp to be able to handle holding herself up with her quirk, as she swings around an area using her own hair as an anchor. Yet she is self conscious when people seem to look down on her abilities, retreating into herself with a sullen glare. She doesn't expect others to think highly of her and wants to earn her own way regardless, but it annoys her that she isn't seen for her own ability, rather than the fact that she didn't get into U.A. immediately at the start of the term. She's still self conscious about her poor performance at the Sports Festival as well, and sour about it. Finding out Izuku Midoriya seems to have a quirk that works similarly to hers is another emotional blow…

She has to catch up.

When Hawks's agency requests her for an internship, Jo doesn't believe that the hero actually wants anything to do with her, but accepts anyway due to her own ambition- the Hawks Agency is the most prestigious one that had any interest in her, and Jo wants to learn what she can even though she can't stand Hawks's attitude in the media. She isn't aware of Tokoyami's suggestion that the hero bring her in- Tokoyami knows of her pride but also knows this will be a good opportunity for her, both in the hero training sense and the opening up to more social interaction sense, not to mention getting her to loosen up a little- once she gets used to Hawks's way of doing things. He also believes Hawks will be impressed by her resolve, even though the hero had his doubts when Jo was first brought up.

To make a long story short, Hawks managed to impress Jo, and Jo managed to make an impression on Hawks as well, though both of these things took a little while to finally happen. Jo is still her own reserved, frankly stubborn self, but both Hawks and Tokoyami now know how to "get" her, how to interpret the emotion in what might otherwise be a monotone response.

Finally feeling like she is understood, Jo thrives under Hawks's tutelage. Tokoyami is impressed with how Jo has fully come into her own, and things are going well for the moment. Even though she can't fly, she can swing from building to building and keep up with the hero, for the most part. She practices tailing Hawks in her free time, still interested in training herself to be stronger.

Hawks doesn't entirely know she does this, though… so things get a bit awkward when Jo observes Hawks breaking routine to meet up with the known villain, Dabi. Jo is not aware of the undercover nature of Hawks's mission.

To say she is devastated would be an understatement. Stuck between the idea of confronting Hawks, or keeping it to herself for the moment to avoid ruining the hero's career… surely he must have a reason, but Dabi is a mass murderer…

Jo's formerly grudging, and then more intense, loyalty to Hawks is being tested and she legitimately doesn't know what to do. It doesn't occur to her that this could be Hawks trying to deceive Dabi, she's too caught up in her emotions for that.

So she stays and watches, and then things get a lot worse when Dabi notices her.

Suddenly Dabi has a new way of getting leverage over Hawks. Putting the hero's protégé at risk is a good way to blackmail the hero... whether or not Jo gets any say in this is moot, because she really is in over her own head here.

And it's all Hawks's fault.