Application for damned - In Progress
Name/Handle: Brandi
Age: 27
Gender: female
Timezone: central
Personal LJ: muggles
E-Mail: kupocakes@yahoo
AIM/other: zombiebag
Is English your primary language?: yes
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Series: Supernatural
Series' Medium: TV Show
Character: Joanna Beth Harvelle, but she goes by Jo
Age: 25
Sex/Gender: Female
Canon Role: sidekick
"Real" Name: Kelly Cronin
How long have you roleplayed your character, if at all?:
A few months, interacting with others at a musebox and dressing room communities.
Where have you roleplayed in general and/or with this specific character?:
In general, Absolute Hold and City of Desai. This character? Only on dressing rooms and museboxes so far.
Are you personally familiar with your character's canon?:
I am familiar with Jo's canon, although I have admittedly not seen the entire series. I have, however, seen every episode Jo appears in, at least 5 times each and I have read the supplemental online material for Jo, a series of journal entries that were posted to the Supernatural website during the course of season 2. I'm still working my way through the last couple of seasons of the show, but with the canon points that the Sam and Dean are at currently in Damned, there won't be any issues in my knowing what's going on with them.
Please give us a personal history of your character's life and explain to us in detail how they grow and develop over the course of their canon:
Compared to the main characters of Supernatural, Jo has a pretty short history. Born on April 7, 1985, Joanna Beth Harvelle was raised by Ellen and William Anthony Harvelle. Despite the fact that her father was a hunter and he was gone a lot of the time, Jo holds faint but fond memories of her father, and she keeps his engraved knife as a keepsake. It's probably her most prized possession, and through holding and using his knife, she feels a strong connection to him. From a young age she knew about demons and things of a supernatural origin, and she was raised alongside the men who hunted such things. Sometime in the early to mid 1990's, a man named John Winchester came into Jo's life. A hunter who often worked alongside her father, Jo referred to John as Uncle John, and it is assumed that she became close to the man as he came into the Roadhouse. In Jo's journal, it is stated that her father is killed on May 16,1995; although conflicting canon sources also cite 1986 and 1993. In any case, Jo was a young girl when it happened, and she was devastated at his loss. She viewed her dad as the ultimate hero, almost like a rockstar and an idol. No matter how often he was gone, or how angry her mother was at him for being away and putting his life in danger, Jo idolized him and loved him dearly. And when he was gone, there was a long adjustment period for both Jo and her mother.
The older she got, the more interested she became in hunting and becoming a hunter, and the more protective her mother became. Although most of her free time was spent playing around and helping out at the Roadhouse, Ellen Harvelle tried her best to keep Jo innocent and safe, and away from being a hunter. Learning things was one thing, but when Jo became a teenager and tried to actually run off and go out on hunts, Ellen put her foot down and refused to let Jo even entertain the idea until she was eighteen. The only information known about Jo's teenager years comes from her diaries that were published online, and it is in them that we learn her first and probably only boyfriend's name was Rick, and that she lost her virginity to him and he went with her on quite a few hunts. Her first "hunt", however, was back in 2001, when a hunter and friend named Gordon took her along on a hunt to act as bait to lure out a Rawhead. Her second experience on a hunt was in 2003, when she went along with two hunters that were regulars at the Roadhouse to investigate a poltergeist. We also learn in her journal that Rick vanishes in late 2005, and Jo never hears from him again. The last entry in her journal is in 2006, right before she meets Sam and Dean.
First shown on screen early on in season two, Jo thinks Dean is an intruder as he enters the Roadhouse, and she attacks him. He tries to get the best of her, but she manages to win, and punches him square in the face. He's intrigued by her, and tries to hit on her, but Jo informs him that she's perfectly used to hunters hitting on her and that it takes more than the usual attempts of pizza and beer to win her over. Nothing more comes of their brief attempts at flirtation, however, because Dean feels that this isn't the right time or place, and he and Sam leave the Roadhouse after obtaining information. This is the first time Jo has met John's kids, and I believe that it strikes a huge sense of interest for Jo. She clearly recalls John and she very clearly has an interest in Dean, even if it is just a girlish crush on him. She wants to learn more about the brothers, but she doesn't get to see them for a little while longer.
Sam and Dean drop in to get information from Ash a short while after they first meet, and Jo is seen kicking ass at Duck Hunt. Seriously, she's awesome at it. We also learn during this time period that she adores REO Speedwagon, because "Kevin Cronin sings it from the heart." She tries to get Dean to share this viewpoint with her, but he just scoffs and laughs it off, which causes her to scowl and pass him off for the time being. She comes into contact with the Winchesters shortly after this, however, when Sam and Dean are given a case by Ellen. Jo sneaks off to join the brothers, and gets Ash to help cover her tracks so Ellen won't know she ran off again. It's revealed in this episode that she kicks ass at poker, as she pulls out a huge wad of cash and informs Dean that she won it by beating hunters at poker at the Roadhouse. She also shows off her amazing people skills in this episode, by getting the owner of an apartment building to just let them have an apartment for cash, no questions asked.
An important part of this time is also when Jo talks to Dean about her dad. After Dean insults her knife, Jo becomes defensive and decides to inform Dean about why her small knife is so important to her. We find out that she was still in pigtails when he died, and that Jo is so desperate to become a hunter in order to feel close to her father. She wants to follow in his footsteps, and she feels that there isn't anything wrong with that. Dean agrees with her, which further confirms her belief that her mom needs to see her as being grown up and capable of doing what she wants to do with her life. During this hunt with Sam and Dean, Jo shows off more of her competitive nature by having to go against Dean's orders to stay put. Instead of doing things his way, she squeezes past him and into the ducts in the wall, and ends up getting herself captured by the spirit they are trying to catch. Despite being freaked out during her capture, she manages to maintain her cool, and keeps herself and another girl alive and well until Dean and Sam are able to find them. She is saved by them, but she turns around and helps them capture and seal the spirit, proving to herself that she's capable of being pretty damn useful. Her mother, however, doesn't exactly feel the same way. She quickly catches on where Jo is, and by the time Jo gets back to the Roadhouse, Ellen is downright fuming. It is because of her anger and her concern for her daughter that Ellen reveals to Jo that John Winchester was on a hunt with her father when he died. Upset at hearing the news, Jo takes it out on Dean and Sam, and tells them to go away and not come back. She also tells the boys that their father was the cause of her father's death. Shocked and saddened by this news, Dean and Sam do as asked, and Jo is last seen watching them drive away.
She doesn't see them again for many months, and once she does see the boys again, Jo's left the Roadhouse and is living on her own. She's working in a bar in Duluth, when Sam mysteriously shows up one night. Or at least it looks like Sam. Possessed by the Meg Demon, evil!Sam makes fun of the fact that Jo has feelings for Dean, and he knocks her out and ties her to a pole in the bar. It's when Jo wakes up that she's told how her father died, a twisted and cruel version where John Winchester kills her father by shooting him in the head. Dean arrives shortly after, however, and evil!Sam and Dean have a mini conflict. Jo watches as evil!Sam runs off, and seems content with the fact that Dean is there to help free her, despite what she had just heard. Even after being told by Dean to stay put, Jo runs off after him, and finds him half-drowned and shot in the harbor. She pulls Dean out and fixes him up as best as she can, and she tries to come along with Dean to help find and stop evil!Sam. Dean refuses to let her get further involved, and tells her that he'll call her. She whispers "No you won't." and seems accepting of this fact, and just goes along with her life. She never waits around for Dean to call her, and she doesn't hold her breath that he'll be back.
Which is good, because several seasons go by before we see Jo again. The next time we see her is in early season 5, when she and her mom have closed down the Roadhouse and are helping fight demons in Rivers Pass. Jo and a man named Rufus have been separated from Ellen and the others, and because of the horseman War being in town, they are seeing everyone as demons, and others are seeing them as being demons. It's because of this that they kidnap Sam once he arrives in town, and they treat him as they would a demon. Ellen and Dean eventually find Jo, Rufus, and Sam; and Jo believes her mother is a demon and they fight. When War's ring is cut off, however, the effect is ended and Jo reunites with her mother and the Winchesters. After so much time apart, a simple "hey" is given as a greeting, and they briefly interact before they go their own ways once again.
But a few months down the road, Jo's help is needed by the Winchesters. Called upon to dress up in a nice dress, Jo acts like a helpless girl with a broken down car in order to get into Crowley's house. Once the Colt is obtained from Crowley, they head back to Bobby's, where everyone is drinking and conversing. Dean approaches Jo during this and hits on her, giving her his last night on Earth speech. Jo laughs in his face and informs him that even if it is her last night on Earth, she values her self-respect, and that she's not going to sleep with him. She walks away then, and leaves Dean to eat his words. It's a little ironic that interaction should happen, because as it is, that was Jo's last night on Earth. The next day they head to where Lucifer is believed to be located in Carthage, and it is there that the group is attacked by Meg demon and hellhounds. In an attempt to protect Dean, Jo shoots one of the hounds and ends up being attacked herself. Although Dean scoops her up and gets her inside a hardware store and to safety, her wounds are too deep and it is quickly apparent to everyone that she's not going to make it. Because of this, Jo decides to make her death be something meaningful, and in her final moments she decides to have the boys create a bomb that she could detonate and use to kill the hellhounds. After tearful but quiet goodbyes, Jo accepts her fate and her job, and her mother also accepts Jo's decision and insists on staying with her until the end. Jo's last breaths are taken while her mother is reassuring her with soft words and gestures, and it is actually Ellen that has to let in the hellhounds and set off the bomb that gives Sam and Dean enough time to escape from the area.
The last we see of Jo is in the final moments of the episode, when Dean and Sam give Ellen and Jo a proper hunter's funeral. A group picture that was taken at Bobby's the night before is stared at by Dean before being tossed into a fire, acting as something to be burned in place of their absent bodies. As the image quickly begins to burn, it zooms in upon Jo standing next to Dean and Bobby, a final reminder of her brave sacrifice that allowed Sam and Dean to continue fighting.
What point in time are you taking your character from when he/she appears at Landel's and why?:
I will be pulling Jo in right after her death, in episode 5.10, Abandon All Hope. I am interested in exploring Jo's acceptance of her death, only to wake up somewhere where Sam and Dean both exist. Her sacrifice for their lives is really the key defining moment of her character, in my opinion, and it will be interesting to see how she adapts to the reality that her mother died alongside her and that perhaps their sacrifice was all for nothing.
Please give us a detailed description of your character's personality:
Introduced as a bartender with spunk and determination, Jo is a female hunter who is set in following in her father's footsteps. Growing up at the Roadhouse, Jo was introduced to hunters right and left, most of which taught her little bits and pieces of how to get the job done. From the time she was a young girl, she wanted to train and actually be allowed to help, but her mother refused to let her. Starting from the time she was a teenager, Jo has been trying to get her mother to see her as an adult, so that she can go out and help others. She's helped Sam and Dean Winchester on several occasions, generally as bait, much to her mother's dismay.
Reckless and headstrong, Jo rushes into most every situation without a solid plan. She's the kind of girl who prefers to act and think on her toes, but unfortunately, this leads her to getting into trouble more often than not. She thinks she's a great deal more durable than she actually is, but her own personal safety is often forgotten when it comes to helping others, especially those that she cares for. She is able to use a variety of weapons, although she seems to favor knives and shotguns. She can both take and throw a punch, and she's able to hold up her courage even while in a great deal of pain. She's very skilled at gathering and organizing information, and she's able to piece together clues pretty quickly. She's most definitely a southern tomboy, but she doesn't really care what others think of her and the way she acts. She's likely to just shrug off being made fun of by strangers, but tease and taunt back someone she knows or thinks she can get the upper hand on. And on that note, Jo likes to win. She's fiercely competitive, especially with males, because I think she feels that she has something to prove. Jo wants to be a hunter, and she wants to run and fight alongside the men. So she feels that she constantly has to prove herself, and that she has to be stronger and tougher, and constantly upstaging them. She doesn't really get the fact that this can be annoying until it's pointed out to her, but the fact that she's constantly trying to prove her worth has made her stronger and more resilient than other women her age.
She's generally upbeat and quirky, but she doesn't tolerate people messing with her. If you piss her off, expect to be confronted and hear about it. She's social enough and befriends those she sees eye to eye with, but her entire focus in life is hunting and becoming like her father. Through that, she feels connected and closer to him, and nothing is going to stand in her way of achieving her goal.
An area that I wanted to touch base on, since it seems to make up a large part of the fandom, is shipping Jo with one of the Winchesters. This is merely a precautionary basis for myself, but I feel that a large and very essential part of Jo's character is the fact that she's a sidekick. She wants to be more than that, she wants to be a hero that fights alongside the brothers, but as she's gotten older, she's realized that her place is to support them. When she was younger, she forced her way into being involved multiple times and endangered herself, and now that she's older she understands where she falls and what her role needs to be. And while she did die protecting Dean and Sam, her role with the brothers is as their sidekick. Canon made it more than clear that she had a crush on Dean for a while, but Jo gets that it's a crush and she doesn't confuse it for being love or anything romantic. When presented with an opportunity to have sex with Dean, she turns him down, in favor of keeping her self-respect. Even faced with the prospect of it being the last night of her life, she laughs in Dean's face and tells him straight up that she values herself too much to just be a one night stand with him. I think that moment is Jo's finest, simply because of the fact that so many other women have fallen for Dean and have given in; and Jo, while interested, flat out rejects him. This self-respect and sense of self worth is one of Jo's greatest assets, ad I think it's a very defining characteristic that sets her apart from every other female that has appeared on the show. The kiss that Jo and Dean share right before she dies wasn't necessarily romantic. I viewed it as being simply a sign of acceptance, a silent way for both to show that they cared for one another, and that they both appreciated what they both had done for the other. It was something simple and almost painfully innocent, one of the only gestures of its kind that Dean is shown giving to a woman that isn't his mother.
I feel that another defining characteristic is the fact that in this dark world of hunters and demons, Jo is still very much an innocent person. She's supported her fair share of hunters, and she's acted as a friend and younger sister figure to many fo them. Her mother sheltered and protected her, despite the fact she raised her in a bar and let her daughter work in the bar at a young age. Jo's known hunters her entire life, and has been curious to learn more about their job and to help them, but because of the fact she was seen as a cute little girl well into her adult years, the people that she did help acted as a buffer between Jo and the harsh realities of the supernatural. Even her first boyfriend let her go along on hunts, but stood in between Jo and a demon when harm came her way. Her father was killed when she was just a small girl, still in pigtails, so Jo doesn't remember him. And because of this, there's a degree of separation between Jo and the cruel realities of being a hunter, and she doesn't always see hunting in a realistic view. As she became older, she did get to see more realities and more harsh sides of hunting, and she does understand that sacrifices will have to be made and that there aren't always going to be happy endings. But as she'll be coming in post-death, she'll remember everything, and will have a much more cynical and realistic view of not only being a hunter, but being a hunter that fell in order to protect the Winchesters. Her father died alongside their father, and I believe a lot of old wounds will be reopened when she stops to realize that her and her mother's death was alongside Sam and Dean.
The fact that she smiles through her tears and her acceptance of not only her death, but her mother's choice to stay and die alongside her, really speaks a lot about Jo. In her final scenes on the show, she's finally shown as having realized the casualties of being a hunter, and the short lifespan her mother always had warned her about. And while Jo has died along with almost every other female that's appeared on the show, the key distinction in Jo's death is that she chose to go down fighting. Her death wasn't in passing or meaningless, she chose to let her death be the key to Sam and Dean's escape from Meg and hellhounds. She wasn't going to just lay there and watch everyone die, she wanted to make a difference. And so she volunteered to stay behind and create an explosion. Despite her injuries and her very clear upset at dying, she was strong enough to stand up and say that she had to be sacrificed and she wasn't going to be saved. This is really Jo's shining moment, in her final hour of life. She's really grown up here, and she's able to clearly show it to her mother, who finally is able to accept Jo's adulthood and let her go. In turn, however, Jo is going to have to wake up in Landel's without any resolution to that key moment. Ellen's not going to be around, and it's not going to be easy for Jo to just move on with her life feeling that she was the cause of her mother's death.
Please give us a physical description of your character:
Jo is a Caucasian female with blonde hair and brown eyes, is about 5'4", and she isn't particularly curvy or well endowed. She has some muscle, but is pretty petite and looks a lot more delicate than she actually is. She is in her mid twenties, but she has the body and facial features of someone younger. Her face makes her seem younger than she actually is, simply because it is very youthful and she doesn't wear makeup. Her hair is long and naturally curly, when worn down, it usually falls right below her shoulder blades. When it comes to her personal style, she's simple and wears things that are easy to move around in. She prefers jeans and a tank top over skirts and dresses, and she never goes out of her way to dress up to impress others. She's pretty much a stereotypical tomboy, when it comes to her appearance, but she doesn't really care what others think of her or what she looks like. When she walks, she has a tendency to strut, and she always holds her head up high. When she talks, it's with a southern drawl, and she makes no apologies for having one. She's usually found with an amused grin or a smirk on her face, and she's even managed to hold a smile when facing her death. She's very much so the stereotypical plucky sidekick figure, but she has a saucy twist to her mannerisms that sets her apart from other females that fall into her trope.
What kinds of otherwordly abilities does your character have, if any?:
Jo was raised around hunters, and her father was a hunter. She knows about hunting the supernatural, and is excellent at research and tracking. She's well trained in using knives and daggers, and the way she is shown twirling a knife in canon displays that she is well above average in her usage of them. The weapon she's shown using multiple times in canon, however, is a shotgun. And while she's not the best, she's most certainly skilled, especially for a woman who has a mother who is bound and determined to keep her away from being a hunter. It's never clearly shown in the show, but in Jo's journal that was on the Supernatural website, it is revealed that Jo knows some Latin incantations to dispel spirits and she is also well aware how to take care of supernatural things that attack her. Also, she's the world's best Duck Hunt player. Really.
If present, how do you plan to tweak these powers to make your character appropriately hindered in the setting of Landel's?:
Jo doesn't really have any superpowers that need tweaking, and I think her knowledge of the supernatural will aide her during the night shifts, but not necessarily make her so she has an unfair advantage over everyone else. The things she sees will be new to her, and she won't exactly have her resources available to her to do research.
Does your character have any non-otherworldly abilities/training that surpass the norm?:
Jo is definitely excellent at researching demonology and supernatural related things, and she is wonderful at applying this knowledge to use in tracking and hunts. Although they surpass the norm, they really aren't going to be of much use to her in Landel's, although she will be trying to research where she is and will be trying to gather information.
What do you see your character doing in the scope of the game and how do you plan to use the setting of Landel's Institute to develop them and affect their psychology in a unique, interesting way?:
I want Jo to branch out from being the token sidekick/sister figure to being a central figure in her own right. She'll be able to develop new bonds at Landel's that aren't hunters, although she'll still be around Sam and Dean. But she is going to have a few issues with Sam and Dean at first, just because they won't know that she died to save them, and she won't want to let them in on her secret. So her being able to get over her death and the fact that they were involved will play a central role in her development. Mostly, I just want to flesh out Jo's character and show others that she can be more than just a minor sidekick that's a potential love interest to Dean Winchester. So many fans see her as being an annoying love interest, and I don't think that's an accurate description of her at all. She can kick ass all by herself, and this is the perfect setting for her to show that to everyone. I want her to also realize that she is a fully grown adult, and her mother isn't going to be here to support her. So often in canon she ran away from her mother in order to acheive a sense of freedom and an identity, and now that her mother isn't present because she's dead, Jo is going to have to cope with that on top of the fact that she doesn't have anywhere to run away to. She's stuck somewhere, and she's going to have to form a new identity outside of being just a bartender or just a hunter, she's going to have to become more well rounded and really dig into herself to find a place in Landel's. She's not just going to be able to slide into this kind of lifestyle easily, and in all honesty, she'll probably prefer the night shift to the calmness of the day shift. At least she'll know how to fight and go into survival mode at night, it's during the day she's going to be unsure of herself and what she's doing.
Given that this RP takes place in an unsettling and outright horrific environment, how do you justify your character as being appropriate in both body and mind for this kind of setting?:
Jo has grown up being aware of the darker side of life, and she is a grown woman that's a skilled hunter. She understands how to take care of herself, and although some things still creep her out, she knows how to bury her fear and keep on fighting. She's strong willed and determined, and isn't going to just curl up and wither away in a corner of Landel's.
Third-Person Sample:
She always had figured that Heaven would be something a little different than waking up in some kind of crazy place with not a scratch on her. She had supposed that there'd be more clouds, or maybe her Dad and Mom would be waiting for her. Hell, maybe even the head guy himself would be there welcoming her for giving up everything to help the Winchesters. But maybe God was used to that happening, since it seemed to be a big trend in the world of hunting. Good people went out to fight alongside those boys, and hardly any of them came back to talk about it. She couldn't really blame them, though, they just inherited the trait from their old man. So really, she wasn't all that pissy when she woke up in a strange place, some place that was out of some kind of movie or something. She was confused more than anything, and on high alert due to the fact she had just been slashed through by hellhounds.
Nothing was going to convince her that she had ended up in the right place, however, because whatever in the hell was going on, she knew for an absolute fact that she was Joanna Beth Harvelle, and not some space princess or whatever it was her Heaven was trying to pass her off as. As much as she appreciated the throwback to a childhood favorite film, it just wasn't going to happen. Over her dead body was she going to just up and abandon everything her parents meant to her, and give up her identity along with her life.
"It could just be some kinda test." She murmured to herself, pressing her back up against the cool concrete wall of the room she was in. The drab pajamas she was in were too big on her, and the only thing that made them fit relatively well was tying them off in the back with the hairtie she had woken up with. She stared down at her new clothes with blank interest, as the gears in her head began to turn and she attempted to work out some kind of plan.
She needed to find out where she was before anything else, determine if this was a jaded version of Heaven or possibly some kind of lite version of Hell. Whatever it was, she had to figure the person in charge had some kind of sense of humor, aside from trying to force a new identity upon her. Whoever was trying to pass that one off as being normal was going to get a fist to the face and a size eight shoe up their ass, assuming she ever managed to come across a pair of shoes in this place.
... maybe one of those little robots could get her a pair. They looked relatively useful.
She laughed at the thought of that, at not being able to acquire something as simple as a pair of shoes. It came out sounding dry and hollow, a shell of her former laugh. Even when she had been sitting there in the hardware shop, dying, she had managed a more genuine and light sound. Now that everything had been stripped away from her and she was left with nothing she understood, she wasn't sure if she could manage anything more than a half attempt at a smile. She knew it wasn't always going to be like this, though. No, she'd sort things out and then make a plan, and then she'd be able to laugh again. But she couldn't very well just sit around and pretend nothing was wrong with the picture, not when she needed to find out where her mother was, and especially not when she needed to find out if Sam and Dean had managed to make it out of that building at all. If they had been caught up by the hounds, or worse...
"Probably shouldn't think that. It's not gonna get me back home." She thumped her head back against the wall, and was surprised when she felt a slight pang of pain strike through her skull and down her spine. But instead of being annoyed that she had hurt herself, she was glad that she had felt it at all. Maybe there was still a chance she was alive, if she had felt something like that. The feeling of pain was what put a confident smirk on her face. Whatever was going on here, she was going to find her way out of. It wasn't a matter of if, it was only a matter of when.
And then, once she and her Mom were safe and back together, they were going to find Dean and Sam. And once those boys were located? Oh, the oldest Winchester better run and hide. 'Cause there wasn't anything out there that was going to stop her from giving him a big 'told you I could, you idiot', in reference to his opinion that she couldn't take care of herself.
First-Person Sample:
Don't get why I haven't heard from him yet, either of them. Mom said she heard from Bobby that he's back, but I guess old friends don't mean much when you come back to life and have a second chance. I've got half a mind to call him up and yell at him to visit, but that'd probably seem like I was too attached. And every girl knows how fast Dean Winchester can run if he thinks he's gotten a girl stuck on to him. Maybe Sam would be up for a visit, not that it matters all that much.
We're going on the road in a few days, headed to someplace in Colorado. River Pass, I think Mom said. She's all sour and pissed that I'm coming along, but I didn't give her much of a choice this time. I love her more than anything, but she needs to realize I'm in this for the long haul.
We both are, which is why hearing from those damn Winchesters would mean a lot more than either Mom or I want to admit. We need to know what's going on out there, what more we can do. Going in blind isn't going to help any of us, but guess it's all we can do.
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