Application for Scorched
Out of Character Information
player name: Robin Terrae
player livejournal: robinterrae
playing here: Maes Hughes [popparazzi] and Ishida Uryuu [sewing_prince]
where did you find us? Here. There. Everywhere. (I still blame Ri)
are you 16 years of age or older?: Unfortunately, I'm not getting any younger. Although that'd be nice.
In Character Information
character name: Supervisory Special Agent Dr. Spencer Reid
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Timeline: Following the end of season 4
character's age: 27
powers, skills, pets and equipment:
To put it mildly, Reid is a genius. He has an IQ of an 187; has an eidetic memory and can read over 20,000 words a minute. Has been, more then once, called the team's living computer.
By his own admission, he does his best work while under stress (usually at the threat of his own or someone else's life) and while he tends to have trouble passing his firearms qualification, he's a damn good shot when lives are in danger (he's killed two UnSubs). It also doesn't seem like his memory always extends to what he hears, as he did have trouble remembering Penelope Garcia's name when Morgan asked for it. He's damn good at reciting all the random things he's ever read and then some, though.
It's implied that he knows different languages (in season 5, JJ asks him if he reads anything other then technical manuals, he answers 'not in English'), isn't up-to-date on pop culture (or, at the very least, popular tween/teen culture, he didn't know what 'Twilight' was and he's not well versed in net lingo: "What's BFF?"), he's usually the one that colors in the maps and work out a geographical profile, he's also a linguistic profiler, as he also looks through communications left by the killers for any clues or hints and pieces them together to further develop the profile as he has a way with words.
With Mod approval, the Mist decides to aid him in his abilities as a profiler. Profilers are valued based on how well they can connect with the various UnSubs they pursue, how well they can get into their minds, think how they think, feel how they feel. And now, he's finding it easier to get into people's heads, much easier then it used to be. He's developing a low level form of telepathy/empathy. It's not strong, he mostly can feel just surface thoughts/emotions or very very strong ones, depending on how close he is. He won't be able to sense anyone from across the city or heck, even the next building, but someone in his general vicinity, yes. Of course, he's going to think he's going crazy, but that's neither here nor there.
Equipment: His ID/Badge, his gun, the clothes on his back and his messenger bag/briefcase that he's never without. In his messenger bag is a deck of cards and several books that he had taken with him on the plane to their last case, just in case he needed something to unwind with on his way home.
canon history:
First, have some wiki articles: Article the first, Article the second and Article the third
The only child of William and Diana Reid, Spencer was born in Las Vegas, Nevada in the early Eighties. While he was still young, his father left the family, claiming he could no longer deal with Diana's paranoid schizophrenia. In turn, this left Spencer to deal with it instead, by looking after and taking care of his mother when she needed it (such as reminding her to take her medication). As such, he grows up learning much of his vast knowledge from books, some ones that his mother often reads to him, as she was once a professor of 15th century literature. Spencer graduated from high school at the age of 12 and would go on to college at Cal Tech. He ultimately earns three doctorates in Engineering, Chemistry and Mathematics and two bachelor degrees in Psychology and Sociology (and is working on a third, in Philosophy).
When he turns eighteen, he has his mother committed, recognizing that he is unable to help her as she is. While at Cal Tech, he is recruited by one Jason Gideon for the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. Spencer becomes an agent by the age of twenty-one, and the BAU is his first, and so far only, assignment.
For the most part, the role of the BAU is give their input on crimes that they've been invited in on, to see if they can profile the perpetrator (Unsub in FBI lingo, which is short for unknown subject), by looking at his crimes, his victims, his methodology to see what common grounds there are and to piece together an idea of the Unsub's psyche, which, in turn, gives the local law enforcement something to work with and give them an idea of the type of person that they would be looking for. This includes: visiting the crime scenes, investigating the victim (if it's recent) and viewing crime scene photos, interviewing friends/family and pretty much getting down and dirty with the details of the case.
Of course, not all cases go smoothly for any of those involved and Reid is, by no means, without exception. Such as one case in Georgia, where the team is called in to investigate a case where it seems that two UnSubs are killing people in the name of Religious Righteousness. It turns out that what they thought was two UnSubs, ends up being one, with multiple personalities: Tobias Hankel, his father and the archangel, Raphael.
After being kidnapped by Hankel, Reid is tortured over the course of two days (part of this is streamed over the internet to Hankel's computers back at his home, where the BAU is camped out, trying to figure out where Tobias took Reid). The personality of Tobias' father, Charles, is the one that tortures Reid (at one point, he suffers a seizure and 'dies', and Tobias ends up arguing with the other personalities in order to save him and does, giving Reid CPR (this is all, watched, of course, by the BAU back at Hankel's), attempting to extract a confession; the personality of Raphael is the one that continuously forces Reid to choose who will live and who will die (usually while playing Russian roulette, even forcing him to choose a member of his team to die. Reid ended up choosing his unit chef, Aaron Hotchner, calling him a 'classic narcissist' and misquoting a Bible verse (which is what tipped Hotch off to the clue). This is what ultimately led to the team figuring that he was being held in a graveyard on an abandoned plantation); and Tobias decides to show Reid how he dealt with his father, by injecting him with Dilaudid (which, in turn, caused hallucination of his past). Towards the end of his captivity, Reid is forced outside to dig his own grave. During this is when the team and the local law enforcement arrive, and during the distraction, Reid manages to take Hankel's gun and shoots, killing him.
After wards, Reid has some difficulties coping with what happened, telling fellow teammate Derek Morgan that he can't look at crime scene photos without identifying with the victims and knowing what it's like to know that you're about to die. It also seems as if he's suffering from PTSD, as he has issues with loud noises of construction and becomes short and hostile with Emily Prentiss, the newbie to the team who ended up replacing Elle Greenaway when she left due to burnout (and the questionable shooting of an UnSub due to her own issues with PTSD).
He also suffers from an addiction to Dilaudid, which he doesn't come to terms with until a case down the line in New Orleans, a missed plane and a talk with a friend of his named Ethan and later, with Gideon.
At some point after this, he's seen at a meeting of Beltway Clean Cops, pretty much NA for law enforcement, implying that he's getting help for his addiction. In fact, he's so serious about not even giving into the temptation that he refuses drugs when infected with anthrax. It's also understood that a good portion of the team (or, at the very least, Gideon and Hotch) either knew of his addiction, or, at the very least, knew something was wrong. It was, however, one of those things that was left unspoken about. By the time he's taken from, he's been clean for over a year.
Somewhere in between the getting help and the anthrax case, Gideon ends up leaving the team, leaving only a note for Spencer to find as a way of saying goodbye. The team ends up getting a returning agent, BAU legend and best selling author, David Rossi, assigned to the team as his replacement.
Not long after the anthrax episode, the team ends up investigating a grueling case in Canada involving numerous missing homeless people and a pig farm, wherein Reid makes the comment that pigs will eat anything, "and by anything, I mean, anything." Following the case is when he ends up in a place he doesn't recognize, when he knows he's supposed to be in his own apartment, having a few days off.
personality:
Reid is awkward and shy, which probably stems from his childhood experiences not only with his mother, but with the fact he was bullied in school as well (one instance he tells Morgan about was when he was in high school, he was lured to the football field by one of the prettiest girls in school, only to be stripped naked and tied to the goalpost, while several others watched. He was left there for hours, until he managed to free himself and make it home. His mother never noticed him missing, because she was going through one of her episodes at the time). While his mind tends to function on a level that most do not understand, his social skills have been described as being something like a middle schooler, while he dresses if he's attending prep school.
There are times when the others have to quiet him when he starts off on something that he fixated on. He's also been known to unintentionally and unknowingly change the subject of the conversation. It has been speculated by the actor that portrays Reid that he has shades of schizophrenia or a minor form of autism, such as Asperger's Syndrome. It's also almost seems like he has a knack for having a statistic for any given situation.
And while he tends to short some sort of ineptness when it comes to the ladies, as he gets nervous and starts sprouting off facts and statistics, there have been a couple that he's managed to have a conversation with; Lila Archer, an actress that he had been assigned to protect and had to pull him into the pool and start making out with in order for him to see that she liked him and a bartender that he was talking to during another case, in which he wooed her with Magic (that he used on the advice on Morgan) while talking to her and showing her a sketch of a potential UnSub. Then again, most of the time when he does get hit on, it tends to go WAY OVER his head.
Reid's good at reading maps, and as such, he's usually the one working on a geological profile. He's also a linguist, looking for the meaning behind words to find the clues held within.
Reid suffers from a guilt complex, seen in the fact that while he knows he had to commit his mother, he still feels bad about it and as such, writes her a letter every day and also seen when it comes to a case involving an UnSub named Adam Jackson, who, it turned out, had another personality, Amanda, who ended up taking over in the end. Reid kicked himself for not seeing it, as he had experience with this sort of thing before, ie, Tobias Hankel in Georgia. As a matter of fact, he still regularly visits Amanda, hoping to still find Adam somewhere locked inside.
Has abandonment issues when it comes to father figures: first his own, who left when he was a child (it was commonly believed, especially by Spencer, that he left because he couldn't deal with Diana's illness. In fact, it was because he couldn't deal with the stress that came about when Diana witnessed a neighbor of theirs kill a man, because the man had raped and killed the neighbor's son, and had gotten blood on her clothes when she had gone to see what had happened. William burned the clothes and Reid discovers later that said man who had been murdered might have been eying his four year old self as a potential victim) and then Jason Gideon, who left the BAU without notice following a rather bad case involving the death of Sarah (a woman who was important to him), seemingly disappearing and leaving a note at his cabin, addressed to Spencer, that was found when Reid went to the cabin to check on his mentor.
Reid also has his share of quarks:
- tends to be introduced as Dr. Spencer Reid. When he asks why, Hotch tells him it's because Gideon didn't want people to see him as just a kid, but to be treated with respect
- wears mismatched socks
- sometimes tends to wear his watch over his shirt sleeve
- drinks coffee like it's water. It's a safe bet that half the cup is just sugar.
- cannot use chopsticks. The team makes fun of him for this
- is named the godfather of JJ's baby. JJ (the BAU's liaison agent with both the media and the local law enforcement) is also the only person who calls him "Spence"
- is afraid of the dark (it's the 'inherent absence of light')
- likes sci-fi, like Star Trek
- while he does know how to use a computer, he tends to stick with the old fashion ways of doing things
- is afraid of inheriting his mother's illness and has told one of his teammates that he "knows what it's like to be afraid of your own mind," and that he "knows what the voices are like."
- loves Halloween
- knows that his team members tell him their secrets because they know he has no one to betray them to
- has admitted to suffering from nightmares
why do you feel this character would be appropriate to the setting?
As both an FBI agent and a profiler, Reid is no stranger to the dark side of man and the horrible atrocities that they can inflict upon each other. He's seen horrific crime scenes, seen how unforgiving a person going through a psychotic break can be. He's an expert at getting into UnSub's minds and figuring them out, and isn't above extending his help to whomever needs it. Horror and the unknown are no stranger to him, although the bestiary might thrown him for a loop. Then again, he'll probably just end up giving statistics about their existance, so who knows?
Writing Samples
Network Post Sample:
[The forge clicks on to an uncomfortable clearing of the throat.]
Um, yes, hi. Uh... my name is Doctor Spencer Reid. I'm an Agent for the FBI, assigned to the Behavioral Analysis Unit.
Can, uh... can anyone tell me where I am...?
[A pause]
And, um... I don't suppose anyone else from my team's here, are they?
Morgan? Emily? JJ? Rossi? Garcia? Hotch?
[Each name he says, his voice gets slightly faster, as if he's starting to get panicked.]
[After the last name, there's another pause, lengthier this time, as if he's steadying himself, before a voice says softly:]
Morgan is so going to kill me. [A beat] If Garcia doesn't get to me first.
Third Person Sample:
The first thing he had thought when he had woken up was that it had finally happened, that one of his worst fears had come true, that this was the onset of the schizophrenia that he had inherited from his mother. Because why else would he have woken up in completely different surroundings, ones that was distinctly NOT his apartment, when he had finally breathed and let himself think without being clouded by panic.
As far as he could tell, he was still in control of all his thought processes, he didn't think that the government planted any chips in him and he was suffering from schizophrenia, would he be able to think as rationally as he was at the moment? He knew what an episode was like, but that was from an observational point of view. After all, he'd been through several with his mother growing up.
Although coming to in a place completely foreign wasn't a new experience for him, it was something he has been rather hoping to not repeat.
Of course, it wasn't like he would be able to call his mother and ask her what her mental processes were when she was having an episode, so he'd have to go through what he could infer from interacting with her and some of the others that he had come across during the course of his work.
He tucked a wayward piece of hair behind his ears, his eyes traveling from person to person to person without recognizing anyone that he saw, his mind already attempting to draw up preliminary profiles just on their body language alone.
Dropping his hand, his long fingers clutched at the strap of his messenger bag, as if reassuring himself it was there, before they started tapping an unknown tune. Reid was starting to get the sinking feeling that not one of his team had been taken here with him, wherever here was. The back of his mind commented to him that he wasn't going to be able to send his mother her daily letter and hoped that she didn't think something bad had happened to him again.
And also, why the hell couldn't he find a coffee shop? Even in a place like this, one would think that they would have a cafe or something. He needed his daily dose of three-quarter cup of sugar and one fourth cup of coffee in order to get his brain to function properly.
Surely, someone here had coffee...
Right?
Anything else?