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 8-10 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, as well as launching various hard objects toward the flame user... 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.

Loose Cannon! 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?

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.

PLF Member! Jo - "Self Ship" w/ Dabi

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she/her | adult, early 20s
CWs: Character stuck in a bad situation, characters getting manipulated, danger, conflicted ideals, obsession, paperwork. Slight implicit threat of death via burnmurder. MAJOR SPOILERS for BNHA Season 5/Meta Liberation Army arc.

This Jo is a member of the Paranormal Liberation Front, but unfortunately due to the lack of flashiness of her quirk as well as her relative lack of fight training (despite the PLF's values, she just hasn't had the time), she has found herself often in the role of errand girl and secretary, which is a self fulfilling prophecy because it leaves her with even less time to practice using her quirk for combat or anything else the Revolution needs.

While she does try to get stronger in her own time, she finds her current position in the organization, frankly, depressing, but she grits her teeth and works hard regardless- it's what everyone should do, work hard to improve their quirk and all, regardless of the hurdles ahead. For Liberation and Revolution.

She isn't too wild about the new leadership, mainly because of the fact that Re-Destro surrendered, she feels, based on fear of elimination rather than the Meta Liberation Army's purported values, and this new Tomura Shigaraki person- the new Grand Commander- …she doesn't trust him, or anyone around him.

(Why should she? The League of Villains murdered a good amount of the Liberation Army in Deika and nearly killed Re-Destro, not to mention completely trashing the place. The fact that it was Re-Destro who challenged them in the first place is just another sign of his lapse in judgment regarding the League, though even thinking about her former leader this way is… not really comfortable or safe in her position… so she tries not to dwell on it.)

Honestly, though? It's starting to make her question some of her more deeply-held beliefs about the whole thing. But she keeps her head down and does what she's told despite the doubt settling in. She isn't going to complain, or back out, or desert- she has no illusions about what would happen to her if she did.

Enter Dabi.

For some reason, this guy always wants her, and her specifically, to carry messages for him, despite her not even being part of his regiment. And he's one of the highest ranking members of the PLF, so how can she say no? Even if that message is (unbeknownst to the messenger) a glitter bomb for Skeptic, for… unknown and possibly perverse reasons, she still has to deliver it.

She's fairly certain Dabi is trying to get her killed.

But he held his own against Geten, so how the fuck can she complain about him? How the fuck can she defy him?

So she does her tasks and, again, tries to keep her head down. Despite her growing bitterness over her place in the organization and how the values of the former "League of Villains" don't seem entirely compatible with the ideas of freedom and revolution that she signed on for.

Everything going up in flames is not exactly how she expected to change society.

But maybe she's just being naive.

She tries to pay attention- she has a suspicion that Dabi is somehow trying to get her involved with Hawks, or Hawks involved with her, mainly to cause trouble for the hero; the "meeting" where Dabi asked Hawks to "encourage" her to "gain more confidence in the Liberation" because "of course, you're so gung-ho about the whole thing, maybe you can talk about it with her and cheer her up?" was, frankly, terrifying. Not because of Hawks, though it was pretty awkward being in the room with him under these circumstances, but because if Dabi suspects she's not fully on board with the Liberation, or whatever the fuck it is he wants…

Well, she doesn't want to be set on fire, for one thing.

Maybe Dabi thought she could help him catch Hawks out somehow, and this is another of his machinations. She vaguely remembers hearing he does that sort of thing, and she's certainly gotten the impression that he distrusts the hero, despite everything... Maybe she can use it as an excuse, that she was "just playing along"?

Maybe this won't all blow up in her face. Even so, she tries to avoid Hawks now.

She'd try to avoid Dabi, too, but it's almost like he's obsessed with getting her to do all these pointless little tasks.

At this point, she just wants to survive up to the final battle, before worrying about what comes after it.

Conflicted Villain! Jo - Self Ship w/ Hawks

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she/her | adult, mid-20s
CWs: Typical villain shit, conflicts of interest, risk of getting murdered, potential betrayal, keeping secrets, caring for someone too damn much even if it'll get you killed in the end, this character is not a good person and is perfectly happy to kill people as a villain... just, not Hawks.

This Jo is a villain, but she has a bit of a… history, with the Pro Hero Hawks. It's a history the likes of Shigaraki would never understand, and at times it confuses her, too- how she came to care so much about what happens to this damn bird.

This Jo is a villain, a fact of which Hawks is aware. It's awkward, but they occasionally share information or swap intel, and for some reason they trust each other, despite their different worlds and the fact that they may be betraying their own by doing so…

What Hawks isn't aware of is that Jo recently became a member of the League of Villains. This is an obvious conflict of interest and Jo is still trying to figure out how to handle this.

Should she betray Hawks? If word gets out that she's helping him, Shigaraki would absolutely kill her. Dabi might burn her alive for the trouble. The others… wouldn't understand and would probably have similar reactions. Heck, Hawks probably wouldn't take it well either. So Jo has to balance this, manage this sort of double allegiance- note, she doesn't give a fuck about other heroes. They can die, burn, whatever- Jo just doesn't care. She has a job to do, and she does it. She wouldn't mind killing most heroes if it came to that.

But Hawks… he means something to her, and if it came to letting him die…

She isn't sure what she'd do.

And it's strange. Why does she care about him so much? Is she softer than the callous exterior she tries to project? She isn't weak, she just… doesn't want to see him die.

She has a better sense than the average population of what forces he's up against, and from her point of view, he and the other Pro Heroes are going to, ultimately, lose. She sees this as a given- she's seen glimpses of what Shigaraki is bringing together, this force of wills that will overcome Hero Society and leave it in ashes.

She doesn't feel the need to protect Hawks, not strongly. She knows someday she'll have to distance herself from him, for their own good. But if she saw him wounded, that might be a different story. If it was up to her, if his life were in her own hands (or braids)...

She doesn't know what decision she would make… (she thinks she doesn't; she knows exactly what she would do in such a situation, and that scares her.)

Betray the League? Upend the life she's built for herself and the future they're all fighting for? For a bird?

Fuck, they're all going to kill her. Fucking shit.

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?

Obsessive!Jo - Self Ship with Dabi

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she/her | adult, early 20s
CWs: Obsessive behavior, stalking, putting oneself in danger, typical villain shit, lack of self-preservation, actual burn wound mentioned with the unspoken possibility of more, permanent injury, playing with fire, possibility of death if things go wrong.

At some point a thrill-seeker witnessed a villain in a fight, and wanted to see more.

At some point this thrill-seeker decided to join the League of Villains.

Of course, she will do her job, of course she will back them up in a fight and all with a kind of ferocity that makes up for her relatively weak quirk. She is fully willing to support whatever needs to be done for the League.

That's not why she joined, though.

At some point there was a young woman who decided that, after witnessing a villain in a fight, that she wanted to be the type of person he would be intrigued by, just as he was to her. Difficult, that- but if she can she will make herself someone interesting, someone useful to him, someone who is just intriguing enough not to kill. Someone who can get close to him, without being burned away.

Oh, little burns she can handle, she has the scarring on her hand from grabbing his arm that one time to prove it.

He was surprised when she didn't let go, but that made her interesting. So in a way it was a success for her, even if her fingers are a lot stiffer on that hand now- she mainly uses her braids to grab stuff anyway. So it's not much of a loss.

This Jo rides the razor's edge of being just close enough to Dabi to have that connection to danger she craves so badly, without getting burned, at least not too badly.

This Jo is playing with fire.

Villain Rehab AU!Jo - Self Ship with Hawks

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she/her | adult, early 20s
Canon divergent, no major spoilers. No big CWs, but this character is a former villain who is not liked by most of society. Also this is basically an AU where Pro Heroes are bascically given the role of therapists to former villains, so that might not always go very well.

After the Liberation War, with most of the villains captured and no looming disaster on the horizon, the Japanese government decides to implement a Villain Rehabilitation program to turn those who have committed relatively minor crimes into assets to Hero Society.

This means Pro Hero agencies are requested to take these former villains and train them to be heroes, under careful watch of course.

This decision is not popular with a lot of civilians, however, sparking protests to end the program and keep the villains locked up in prison "where they belong".

Enter Jo, a petty criminal who caused trouble with her snarky attitude and long prehensile braids. She isn't wild about this program either, but hey, she wants to see the sky again. And she figures in the worst case, she escapes from the program and lays low for a while before going back to her villainous ways. But for now, she's giving the rehab program a chance, mostly because she doesn't want to actually put in the effort towards evading the notice of all those heroes and law enforcement types who would absolutely just lock her back up again. So this rehab thing is worth a try, maybe…

When she finds out that she's been assigned to the purview of Hawks Agency, though, she isn't too happy about working with the hero who is well known (at least, by people in her kind of situation, but she's seen him in the media, and she figures most people feel the same, right?) to be an asshole… and annoying.

Things don't start off too well, with a protest outside the Hawks Agency building… seriously, has she really managed to piss off that many people?

…Huh. She kind of likes that idea.

With a mocking grin and a "sweet, thanks!" when a protestor throws a piece of garbage- which she catches with her braids, of course- Jo's "hero career" is off to a rocky start what with Hawks's disapproval and all.

Hey, that lady threw stuff at her! Attitude problems or no attitude problems, it's easier to catch than dodge and Jo didn't do anything wrong, really.

But Hawks points out that the rehab program is at risk of closure due to protests, and fueling more won't help her case.

Fuckin' spoilsport.

So yeah, the rehabilitation of the former villain known as Spiral is off to a rocky start. It's unclear if the public will ever accept her as a hero anyway, and she's already at the lowest of the pecking order when it comes to interesting tasks. Especially with goddamn Hawks being too fast for his own good and all. It's taking a lot of restraint not to just start wreaking havoc again, but that's a fast track to the slammer once more, especially with Hawks watching over her.

So she behaves. For now.

But she's still on the fence about this rehab thing, so if an opportunity arises to go back to her old ways, free as a bird… she'd take it, right?

Or is some of this therapeutic "bettering yourself" jargon actually getting to her head?

Dammit, maybe things are more complicated than she thought.

Hawks is still an asshole, though. Even if some of the crap he spews about "coping" is actually, maybe, starting to make sense…

Reluctant Villain!Jo - Self Ship with Hawks

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she/her | adult, 18-early 20s
CWs: Typical villain shit, civilian in over her head, isolation/avoidance, talking yourself into more trouble when you tried to talk your way out of it but it backfires badly, differences in perspective, deals with bad people, the problem of whether a person is too far gone to be saved and whether it matters, in the end, that they were once better than this, if only slightly.

A delinquent newly-minted adult with a bone to pick with society, this Jo's favorite toy is an illegal device called a "comms disruptor". She uses it to mess with radio waves and cell phone signals, having been recruited for this job and given the device by persons unknown… but she does her duty, so to speak, often hanging out on the balcony of her tiny apartment and twiddling the knobs of the device as instructed… or sometimes just out of boredom.

She doesn't typically draw attention to herself, choosing to isolate from most people by staying in her apartment… and do shady jobs to get by, which is what set her up with this situation in the first place. She does in fact seem fairly unremarkable, but if you did get to know her you'd find that she has a snarky sense of humor and a bitterness toward "the system", though it's not clear what exactly that means. In all honestly, she's just waiting for something to change… her day to day life has been rather boring, and if working for villains can improve that, well, at least it's something to do.

So when Hawks notices her, well… suddenly a hero is involved, and Jo finds herself having to appear like a reasonable, non-villainous, normal person when she doesn't have the faintest idea what that entails. Cue a rather ridiculous amount of BS-ing and bluffing, and now she's made it worse because she somehow made herself seem like a confident, competent villain when she is very much not, she has a hero keeping tabs on her when she's supposed to finish this job, and the actual villains who hired her are still expecting their due. Suddenly it matters what, exactly, their plans are, in a way she'd never considered necessary to her survival until now...

Should she ask the hero for help, and accept the consequences of her behavior, even if it means arrest, imprisonment, or worst of all, swallowing her pride?

Or should she enter the world of villains more seriously, and try to find refuge while pretending to be someone who knows what she's doing?

And of course, the villains out there aren't necessarily the most accepting people. If Jo truly immerses herself in that world, she risks running into worse than a few petty criminals.

And there are plenty who would absolutely take advantage of a civilian in over her own head.

So that's a thing.

Or: Hawks discovers a civilian in too deep and plans to help her without drawing the attention of villains that could kill her, but she disappears before he can get her to spill the details of her situation… and she later reemerges as the villain that's what's left of the civilian he couldn't save from her own mistakes, and he has to face the fact that he failed and now he has to bring her to justice along with everything else… but something about her is still reminiscent of that young woman who bluffed so hard to hide her sheer terror. Sheer terror that may still be hiding under the surface, cocky and abrasive nature aside.

Can she still be saved?

FUTURE CHARACTERS TBA

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TBA
CWs: TBA

TBA

Rub my belly hiss swipe at owner's legs sniff catnip and act crazy growl at dogs in my sleep sit on the laptop for hiss at vacuum cleaner i like to spend my days sleeping and eating fishes that my human fished for me.