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criminalxmindsRebecca, on the phone: "He's not Agent Gideon, is he?"
- "No Way Out II", Criminal Minds
"Intuition is always right in at least two important ways;
It is always in response to something.
it always has your best interest at heart"
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
Trigger Warning: for PTSD, mentions of sexual assault, and revictimization
I think Rebecca was not surprised that Frank wasn't who he claimed to be, she was afraid of him even as she invited him in, and Frank was taunting her fear all the way up to the reveal.
...but Rebecca ignored her fear of Frank, because, almost like the veteran in "Distress", she's a victim who could no longer distinguish a fear of present danger from the memory of danger. Rebecca ignored her fear of Frank and invited him in, the way she ignores her fears of being kidnapped again when she goes outside, every single day.
People who have already been victimized, are at a greater risk of being revictimized.
"PTSD could give the victim the appearance of vulnerability in dangerous situations and effect the ability of the victim to defend themselves." - Multiple Victimization
Knowledge of danger informs us, but traumatic memory colors and contaminate our judgement of present danger - when the feeling of fear is constant, we become numb to its presence.
Take the recent episode "Hope", a the woman in Garcia's victim support group, Monica Kingston, lost her daughter around the same time of the year as when the unsub asked her to get into his car - some people have remarked how stupid she was to do that, especially because 'shouldn't she have learnt from her daughter being kidnapped how NOT to get herself kidnapped'? No, she was too lost in the past trauma of losing her daughter to even register the NOW.
Elle shot a man without a gun in "Aftermath", he was a rapist scum and I approve of her actions, but I don't doubt that Elle herself was genuinely afraid of him when he was creeping on her, framing her in the same narrative as he framed his victims. She wasn't in the now, she was reliving her traumas, feeling the Fisher King's fingers moving inside her, and um, this, from the original character descriptions:
Agent Elle Greenaway, described as “Late 20s. All ethnicities. She is a young, sharp, resourceful and feisty FBI agent with a background in sex offender cases. Her specialty area stems from having been raped at age 19, and the assailant never having been caught. Elle impresses the hell out of the task force members, which is what she wants, as she is bucking for the opening in the BAU (Behavioral Analysis Unit) at Quantico. According to her “file,” Elle’s biggest character flaw is impatience.”
...because sometimes, you threat assessment corrodes down to what could be done to you and not what's probable.
Then there is Jason Gideon:
Patinkin will play Spec. Agent Jason Donovan, described in the casting notice as “35-45. Experienced and has been around the block, deceptively average-looking, articulate, with a commanding presence, he’s a seasoned FBI profiler who traded in field work for seminar instruction after witnessing a dozen cops die in a shrapnel bomb. He maintains a close relationship with his ex-wife, a psychiatrist, who has been helping him deal. When a serial murderer plagues the Seattle area, Donovan is asked to return as a full-time Unit Chief, but kept under close supervision.”
He was married to his psychiatrist, whether she was his psychiatrist officially or not. He's like the poster picture for PTSD shock - he's frequently zoning out, and thus, have a crap assessment of present danger when he's in the same room as it. Take the Footpath Killer for example, if that was Agent Prentiss, she would have smiled at him and then Acted Normally back outside where she would draw her firearm in readiness - not suspiciously put on the, "I Just Realise, You Sir, Are A Serial Killer" face while slowly snailing back to his car, god, I wanted to scream "Behind you!" the first time I was watching it.
Attempting to rush into a burning room when the screaming have already stopped
Then there is Spencer Reid, I might be voicing an unpopular opinion here, it's certainly smacks of a Family Unfriendly Aesop: Spencer was a stronger person in Season 1 than Season 7.
I'm a firm believer against the belief that there could be any redeeming point in tragedy, that there is any virtue to be found in suffering. I disagree with quips such as "What doesn't kill you only make you stronger", I dunno, maybe for some people, maybe for some things, like mountain climbing, but um, not being assaulted and/or kidnapped, it certainly didn't make Spencer stronger.
In "It Takes A Village", years after Tobias Hankel, Spencer confessed to JJ (or threw it at her face), that he considered taking drugs again when he thought Emily was dead. That drug addiction thing? That nothing else would work thing? It's going to always hang over him, always.
...and Spencer Reid's always rushing into danger was a part of him being always eager to please - because he was a victim of bullying by his peers and parental neglect (I don't blame Diane, but the end result was...).
It was only after Tobias Hankel though, that I started reading suicidal recklessness into Reid's eagerness to rush on scene (along with a personal desperation to save the day) - back in "Derailed" 109, 'Could one of you at least look like you're going to see me again', that was the slight hysteria of someone who did give a damn about not being killed. Him rushing on scene then was partly a youthful misconception in one's immortality. After that, we have:
316 Elephant's Memory: Reid purposely walk into sniper's shot to save the life of an unsub, this is after he was there when the Professor got shot in "Empty Planet"
612 Corazón: Reid goes off, ALONE, to confront the unsub ina haunted house an abandoned orphanage, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! No bb, no. Most of all though, was his reaction of Just Another Day Of Me Almost Being Killed at the end of it, and not in a cool "can't get to me" but an actual "I don't give a damn" kinda way.
- "No Way Out II", Criminal Minds
"Intuition is always right in at least two important ways;
It is always in response to something.
it always has your best interest at heart"
― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
Trigger Warning: for PTSD, mentions of sexual assault, and revictimization
I think Rebecca was not surprised that Frank wasn't who he claimed to be, she was afraid of him even as she invited him in, and Frank was taunting her fear all the way up to the reveal.
...but Rebecca ignored her fear of Frank, because, almost like the veteran in "Distress", she's a victim who could no longer distinguish a fear of present danger from the memory of danger. Rebecca ignored her fear of Frank and invited him in, the way she ignores her fears of being kidnapped again when she goes outside, every single day.
People who have already been victimized, are at a greater risk of being revictimized.
"PTSD could give the victim the appearance of vulnerability in dangerous situations and effect the ability of the victim to defend themselves." - Multiple Victimization
Knowledge of danger informs us, but traumatic memory colors and contaminate our judgement of present danger - when the feeling of fear is constant, we become numb to its presence.
Take the recent episode "Hope", a the woman in Garcia's victim support group, Monica Kingston, lost her daughter around the same time of the year as when the unsub asked her to get into his car - some people have remarked how stupid she was to do that, especially because 'shouldn't she have learnt from her daughter being kidnapped how NOT to get herself kidnapped'? No, she was too lost in the past trauma of losing her daughter to even register the NOW.
Elle shot a man without a gun in "Aftermath", he was a rapist scum and I approve of her actions, but I don't doubt that Elle herself was genuinely afraid of him when he was creeping on her, framing her in the same narrative as he framed his victims. She wasn't in the now, she was reliving her traumas, feeling the Fisher King's fingers moving inside her, and um, this, from the original character descriptions:
Agent Elle Greenaway, described as “Late 20s. All ethnicities. She is a young, sharp, resourceful and feisty FBI agent with a background in sex offender cases. Her specialty area stems from having been raped at age 19, and the assailant never having been caught. Elle impresses the hell out of the task force members, which is what she wants, as she is bucking for the opening in the BAU (Behavioral Analysis Unit) at Quantico. According to her “file,” Elle’s biggest character flaw is impatience.”
...because sometimes, you threat assessment corrodes down to what could be done to you and not what's probable.
Then there is Jason Gideon:
Patinkin will play Spec. Agent Jason Donovan, described in the casting notice as “35-45. Experienced and has been around the block, deceptively average-looking, articulate, with a commanding presence, he’s a seasoned FBI profiler who traded in field work for seminar instruction after witnessing a dozen cops die in a shrapnel bomb. He maintains a close relationship with his ex-wife, a psychiatrist, who has been helping him deal. When a serial murderer plagues the Seattle area, Donovan is asked to return as a full-time Unit Chief, but kept under close supervision.”
He was married to his psychiatrist, whether she was his psychiatrist officially or not. He's like the poster picture for PTSD shock - he's frequently zoning out, and thus, have a crap assessment of present danger when he's in the same room as it. Take the Footpath Killer for example, if that was Agent Prentiss, she would have smiled at him and then Acted Normally back outside where she would draw her firearm in readiness - not suspiciously put on the, "I Just Realise, You Sir, Are A Serial Killer" face while slowly snailing back to his car, god, I wanted to scream "Behind you!" the first time I was watching it.
Attempting to rush into a burning room when the screaming have already stopped
Then there is Spencer Reid, I might be voicing an unpopular opinion here, it's certainly smacks of a Family Unfriendly Aesop: Spencer was a stronger person in Season 1 than Season 7.
I'm a firm believer against the belief that there could be any redeeming point in tragedy, that there is any virtue to be found in suffering. I disagree with quips such as "What doesn't kill you only make you stronger", I dunno, maybe for some people, maybe for some things, like mountain climbing, but um, not being assaulted and/or kidnapped, it certainly didn't make Spencer stronger.
In "It Takes A Village", years after Tobias Hankel, Spencer confessed to JJ (or threw it at her face), that he considered taking drugs again when he thought Emily was dead. That drug addiction thing? That nothing else would work thing? It's going to always hang over him, always.
...and Spencer Reid's always rushing into danger was a part of him being always eager to please - because he was a victim of bullying by his peers and parental neglect (I don't blame Diane, but the end result was...).
It was only after Tobias Hankel though, that I started reading suicidal recklessness into Reid's eagerness to rush on scene (along with a personal desperation to save the day) - back in "Derailed" 109, 'Could one of you at least look like you're going to see me again', that was the slight hysteria of someone who did give a damn about not being killed. Him rushing on scene then was partly a youthful misconception in one's immortality. After that, we have:
316 Elephant's Memory: Reid purposely walk into sniper's shot to save the life of an unsub, this is after he was there when the Professor got shot in "Empty Planet"
612 Corazón: Reid goes off, ALONE, to confront the unsub in
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no subject
Date: Dec. 21st, 2011 01:03 am (UTC)Although the above statement, never having been expressly confirmed in the narrative, remains Word of God, that would've put Elle in the right age range for it to have happened at college--which explains the circumstances under which she went Cowboy Cop.
I totally count it as canon
Date: Dec. 21st, 2011 01:17 am (UTC)It's just, I have been physically assaulted in the past (fortunately, it was not sexual assault though I was really terrified of it at the time), and I know people who have suffered abuse and/or were assaulted or grew up marginalized* , and I wish I remember the article, but there was one which specifically talk about how often society further marginalize victims while condoning and accepting their predators - because the victims were acting crazy while the predators were normal.
But umm....if serial predators like Ted Bundy wasn't so normal, they wouldn't be so successful.
...and, are scars not the consequences of injury? ...and how fair is it that those that are scarred are shunned more than the ones who have cut them?
It's just, personal trigger button of mine I guess.
* I think fearing the authority figures doesn't make you a bad kid when said authority figures zoom in on you because they think you are a bad kid, I know this guy who was black when everyone else was white or asian, and teachers do this to him, I don't know if were conscious of it, but they do it, act like he's a scary black guy when he's like, a completely harmless weetabo (except black) straight out of megatokyo. He was at times a jerk in a dudebro sort of way, but I have never felt intimidated by him, his wrist fits between my fingers! He did this half scream once when he was surprised. Yet some authority figures zoom in on him as if he's ghetto, when he probably don't know where the ghettos are. I didn't know why he was so skittish about authority figures until I saw the vice principal doing it. Maybe he'll draw on his desk, but he's hardly the only one, and they didn't have to zoom in on him like he was dangerous.
no subject
Date: Dec. 22nd, 2011 11:30 pm (UTC)My definition of woobie
Date: Dec. 21st, 2011 02:30 am (UTC)Fantastic Four: Reeds Richards (especially zombieverse, I can't believe that fandom remembered Richards as the jerk for turning everyone into zombies - when great General Nick Fury was the one who had Richards autopsy the zombies alone RIGHT AFTER Richards's children were eaten)
The Avengers: Tony Stark Suicide Bingo (http://tsukinofaerii.livejournal.com/209409.html)
...and then,
Criminal Minds: Jason Gideon and Spencer Reid.
I don't count Penelope Garcia as a woobie, though she was at times (or every time she has to view the violent footages) a victim of a "Break the Cutie" attempt. That Garcia is as well adjusted as she is in spite of the things she have seen, that Garcia and Rossi are the molasse that holds the cracker team together, is a testament to what a strong girl she is.
Morgan was a woobie in "Profiler, Profile", that's it, his mother raised a very strong son - he's not inherently broken.
Hotch and Emily, maybe, but they don't risk their lives as willy nelly as Gideon and Reid does. They don't do self-neglect (a staple of woobieness).
Elle is like, ???? she left too quickly.
JJ is most definitely, definitely, NOT a woobie, she's like female Hotch, but I actually read her as even stronger.
While a slight built has a factor in how fandom likes their woobie (plus physical fight does factor in), that ain't it. Hell, in Stargates SG-1, Daniel is frequently written as a woobie (I thik they were the fandom who came up with whump!), and fannish perceptions of what a woobie should look like created a warped memory of Daniel Jackson as a waif, when in actuality he's like this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Doctor_Daniel_Jackson_(Michael_Shanks)2.jpg
About TWICE as bluff as Colonel O'Neil (so I'm also ???? over the fics where O'Neil easily overpowers Jackson or can carry him with ease).
Reid has about the same built as Hotch really. It's the increasingly level of self-neglect, the give all to others but /resistance/ towards accepting help (except when he was crying at JJ's house), that make me class Reid as a woobie.
Another thing about woobies is The Guilt, I think to this date, Spencer still blames himself for not taking better care of his mother.
Re: My definition of woobie
Date: Dec. 21st, 2011 03:08 am (UTC)Hotch is someone heading towards woobieness, but with the help of Rossi, nad Jack being back his life, he didn't actually become one.
I don't count Spencer as a woobie prior to Tobias Hankel actually.
It's not the recklessness in itself, it's the feeling that the character feels that it's better him harmed than anyone else. Derailed, which happened before Tobias Hankel, did require Spencer to go in there, and he went nervously. Later on, he was much more careless with his own life.
Ditto with Gideon, series opened with the episode where Gideon got the unsub to shoot at him so Elle would have a clear shot - and he didn't know her at the time.
That Morgan have trust issues is very very understandable, but he doesn't do self-destruct, his relationship with women, on the amorous front, might be fleeing, but I don't see it as anything more unhealthy than a lot of single professionals trying to figure themselves out (relationship vs career).
Relative to the rest, Gideon and Spencer self-neglects more and take more risk than others, both thinking less of it and to a greater degree that what it might be worth.
Everyone else on the team tends to take a more measured approach to risk. The burning building you referenced in regards to Hotch, that was "Ashes and Dust" right? In that case, Hotch had felt a very personal connection with the man who was inside that building, it's different than throwing your life in for a stranger (and less assessment in regards to worth - like, the teacher being already dead in Compulsion, or the fact that Reid could have been killed by the voodoo Prof - he shouldn't have gone in alone.
Re: My definition of woobie
Date: Dec. 21st, 2011 03:58 am (UTC)to Normal People, a head at the cabin might not be THAT terrifying, but well, it's different for PTSD cases, survivors of violence, usually violence upon their person...it's not the head at the cabin, it's what memories were triggered by it.
Like...you know how many fandoms make a practice of using "trigger warning", because some words or discussion of stuff might trigger somebody's memory of being assaulted? It's like that with Gideon's head at the cabin, except instead of words, it was a head at the cabin.
...though to me, what's most shocking to Gideon wasn't that it was a severed head, it was because he could be 'gotten to' even in his cabin. The note minus the head would have been enough. There was no wild place Gideon could run off to where the unsubs can't find him (so yeah, his road trip doesn't have a good pronosis)
Could you please use // or italtics when quoting?
...and spacing?
Reid didn't go into the train with the idea it was better him harmed than anyone else. He went in because he was the best person for that particular job, despite the seeming lack of experience (although he had to learn sometime)
Exactly, I hope I don't sound mean when I ask you to please read over what I've said again, but I've cited Derail as PRE-Tobias Hankel sample contrast to how Reid was after that.
Context
Date: Dec. 21st, 2011 04:02 am (UTC)....which was, the "soon" note was from a depraved serial sex killing vampire that used to be Buffy's boyfriend (looong story), the box of roses, it could be nice roses, but the point if it being at the door is this: he knows where she lives, and he can get there.
no subject
Date: Dec. 23rd, 2011 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 21st, 2011 05:54 pm (UTC)Garcia was originally characterized as a very overweight Hispanic man - obvious change there. Mandy himself said (about Gideon) in an interview: "We don't know if he's divorced, if he's ever been married, if the rings [he wears] are wish rings, who this 'son' is that's been mentioned..." So nothing in those original descriptions can be regarded as canon.
That being said, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Elle is a rape survivor. However, I really didn't see her action in "Aftermath" as a response to her fear. I think that when the rapist (speaking of her mistake in arresting him too soon and spoiling the case) said "You've made a lot of women very happy", the full magnitude of her fuck-up flashed into her mind and she realized that she had let a monster loose. And I think she made atonement (in her own mind, anyway) by killing the rapist and her career with a volley of pistol shots.
ALL our heroes are damaged, in one way or another. One of the themes this show constantly circles back to is how people deal with trauma, how "Some people grow up to be killers. And some people grow up to catch them." The same life experiences that shape a monster can also shape a hero. What makes the difference? And what makes one person bend where another breaks? Are we all at the mercy of our bollixed up endocrine systems? Where do choice and personal responsibility come in? IMO one of the neat things about this show is that it doesn't try to give us definitive answers to these questions; it's more of a discussion than a lecture, if that makes sense.
no subject
Date: Dec. 22nd, 2011 11:20 pm (UTC)For whatever it might be worth, there's no reason that Version 1.0 (his name and description perhaps homage to the late Grateful Dead guitarist?) couldn't have been her stepdad.
no subject
Date: Dec. 23rd, 2011 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: Dec. 23rd, 2011 01:21 am (UTC)It's just, the way she said it, it sounded like she was reminding herself too.
Plus the way she said she could remember the Fisher King's fingers moving inside her.
People who resort to a life of crime are failures at life, but sometimes it's hard to remember that when you are a victim of violence.
I tend to take additional material like prelims, as canon until disproved otherwise.
It's my pet canon that Gideon didn't become estranged from his son until after his son was older, like, when his son was in his teens. ...and whether it happened in the same time or not, he cut off from everyone (except Reid) after Boston.
no subject
Date: Dec. 23rd, 2011 09:39 pm (UTC)I do think there's some basis to what you're saying about her and I have no issues if someone wants to consider it canon based on the evidence, but for me, who hadn't heard about it, that whole Elle fiasco was sudden and odd.