ploopfer:

freakingdork:

latxcvi:

mayphoenix:

I think I am one of the few people in this fandom who is not happy with this development. It has nothing to do with who I “ship” — it has everything to do with how quickly Hotch rushed into it, especially after his past experiences. Hell, I was in a 20+ year relationship that ended badly and two years later I’m still cautious and not fully trusting, and there was nobody trying to kill me or my family. But Hotch? This woman stalked him. Why wasn’t he more cautious? Why hasn’t he done a full background check on her? I’m sorry, but I think it’s completely OOC and once again I want to kick the writers for being lazy. Yes, I want Hotch to be happy but for fuck’s sake, let’s take the past into consideration.

I’ve already said my peace about this, but what the hell, it’s something that makes me incredibly cranky, so I’ll say it again:

Beth did not stalk Hotch and characterizing her approach to him in that manner is not only a staggering misreading of the text, but is an affront to actual stalking victims. She saw an attractive man who went to the same pool and ran in the same park as her and after a time, worked up the nerve to approach him. Also, nice side of victim-blaming you’ve got going on there, with this idea that because Foyet was a narcissistic sociopath who fixated on him, Aaron should now view every new person in his life as a potential unsub and shame on him if he doesn’t. Please. Also? Run a full background check on her just because she asked him for training tips? That’s what sounds stalkery and like an egregious invasion of privacy to me and I would be incredibly disappointed if we ever found out that Hotch did something like that just because he might be attracted enough to her to want to date her. Instead of what he actually did, which was spend time with and talk to her to get to know her that way. You don’t have to like the development, but there are better ways to argue against it than grossly mischaracterizing what actually happened on the show.

Everything LaT said.

Just wanted to add…rushed? OMG really?

Generally, the show’s time line matches up with real world time. So Hotch has been training with her for at least two months before he even asked her out.

And HE asked her out, so obviously he’s comfortable with the pace they’re moving at.

As well, there is no way the Foyet arc could have had a happy ending or fulfilling resolution without Hotch getting involved with someone outside of the team. For one, it was his final promise to Haley, that he would show Jack the importance of love. More importantly, Foyet wanted to destroy Hotch, but he would have settled, I think, for destroying key parts of him. He tried, for example, to ruin his capacity to trust — to hurt him so that he would never be comfortable in his own home or be able to become intimately close with a stranger.

It was an especially nasty thing Foyet did because Hotch initially trusted that Foyet was a victim. He looked at him and didn’t see any danger, so aside from issues resulting from the assault and the murder of his family, post-assault!Hotch would be questioning whether he could trust his judgment when it came to anyone ever again. That Hotch could relax around the team and that he could open up to Rossi is great, but that’s not the same as being able to open his heart to a stranger and let her into his and his son’s life.

It’s his ultimate triumph over Foyet. Anything less would mean that Foyet has destroyed an important part of him. Yes, it’s great that he trusts the team, but that is not the same as learning to persevere and trust his own judgment once again.

Also, while a background check would have been invasive, why do people assume he didn’t have Garcia look into her just because we didn’t see it onscreen? I don’t think he did, but it would be one possible explanation for why Garcia figured out that Hotch was interested in a woman before any of the profilers did. Just because we didn’t see it onscreen, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. If it’s such a huge issue for you that there was no background check, if that one fact is actually preventing your enjoyment of the storyline, just pretend it did happen, offscreen.

Honestly, I thought that, in their first meeting, Beth was open and trusting and Hotch was the creepy one. While I didn’t expect them to exchange social security numbers, she gave him all her information including her name and phone number, and he gave her… nothing. Maybe he just forgot or was rusty, but if I were handing over my contact information to a guy and he didn’t at least reciprocate with his name, I’d think twice.

Also also, it’s already been said, but OMG, approaching people you find attractive =/= stalking. If so, the random guy at the CD store two years ago and the guy in church four years ago and the guy in the Walmart last year who walked up to me and struck up a conversation would be in jail. For that matter, so would I. So would half the country. Like, I get that a lot of people meet online these days, but for those who don’t, how do strangers meet each other if approaching someone is now considered stalking?

(Source: awwunicorns, via freakingdork)

emotionalfriend:

i cannot wrap my head around the argument that people don’t like blake because “we don’t know anything about her yet.”

we know that blake was shunned from the bau when she got screwed over by strauss during a case. we know that they have a rocky relationship and amends are attempting to be made. we know that she’s a linguistics professor on the side and befriended reid through that before rejoining due to picking him to give guest lectures. we know that her return to the bau is a chance to restore her reputation. we know that her husband works with doctors without borders and has since returned home where they’re trying to manage a marriage where both of them are career-driven. we know she’s a master at linguistics who’s written a book on the subject and that she’s confident, smart, sassy, and always willing to help a friend in need.

there. i gave you all the stuff we know about her so far.

and i don’t know about you but from all that and how she’s behaved through this season? i like her. so the “we don’t know anything about her” excuse isn’t going to fly because surprise! you don’t need to know every single detail about a character before you can decided whether or not you like them. and we’re going to keep learning about her whether you like it or not and giving you episodes featuring her is a way for you to learn more about her so there’s no point in complaining about episodes about her not doing their job because we supposedly don’t know enough to empathize with her yet.

because while this may shock some of you, ssa dr. alex blake isn’t going away and you kinda have to deal with it.

justjasper:

In Defence of Jordan Todd (always)

• Jordan Todd is a smart, capable woman. She’s part of the FBI’s counter terrorism unit - that’s elite
• The struggles she is shown to have working within the BAU are deliberate, but IMO often misconstrued by fandom at large.
• I fully believe that JT was not written to be a disliked or hated character; the bumbler, liar, can’t cope, can’t hack it. 
• She was written to show that the nature of the BAU is so specialised, the things they see so damaging, that even people who deal with the horror of something as potentially distressing as terrorism struggle to deal with the intimacy of the BAU’s interaction with their subject matter.
• She was written for the audience to relate to! To show that the BAU is essentially a team of superheroes who deal with the very worst of mankind’s compulsions. For the audience to reflect on that they’d never be able to do that and to hammer home how hard a job it is.
• But the thing about this fandom is it’s full of people who think because they’ve watched 150 episodes of a moderately gruesome TV show and maybe seen a few torture-porn movies they would be able to cope no problem dealing with serial killers day in and day out. Yeah lol.
• It is somewhat problematic that the only time we’ve had another POC on the BAU team was a temporary character who was shown to be unable to “hack it”, coupled with CBS/CM’s checkered track record with female cast members; these are valid criticisms/concerns of JT’s arc on the show.
• Fandom’s reaction to JT also tend to use some of the team’s interactions with her to justify disliking her.
• Hotch giving her a dressing down for her lying to a witness in order to gain information. One should keep in mind that JT comes from counter-terrorism, where the drive to succeed is probably absolute, any means necessary (within the law). Also I imagine counter-terrorism utilises deception and undercover as a par for the course. JT was trying to use her skill set in order to do her job at the BAU - it’s hardly fair to expect her to know the ins and outs of how the BAU operates in just a few weeks. Prentiss also makes a case for Hotch getting on JT’s back about it being counter-productive, but a lot of fandom doesn’t think Hotch is fallible.
• Reid calling JT’s earrings ‘cheap’. Yeah, fandom somehow latches onto this meaning Reid doesn’t like Jordan because [insert ridic fandom opinion here often related to ships], and he showed that through having a sly dig and covering it with demonstrating a technique during a profile briefing. Because fandom prefers the reading of Reid to be a mean-spirited unprofessional man-baby than the one of him simply using the props to hand, e.g. the earrings of a colleague who he has no problem with. Go figure.
• JT was never set to usurp JJ’s position, she was always a temporary replacement. If fandom dislikes her for being a replacement they ought to also dislike JJ for daring to get pregnant. The team needed someone to fulfil JJ’s role, and they employed someone; to hate a character for taking that job and trying their hardest to work with an unfamiliar team with an unfamiliar task is wholly unfair.
• Jordan Todd is an interesting, delightful, necessary, surprisingly complex (for a short-term) character, who deserves to be respected,
• She’s better than you.

emotionalfriend:

I really hated the fact that JJ lied to Reid about Prentiss. I really wish she told him the truth.

okay so it’s been about two years and people are still upset about this; my question is why?

why are people upset about jj trying to keep reid safe? you do realize that she and hotch had to maintain the thought that she was dead to keep doyle from not only going after her again, but the rest of them too, right? i mean it sucks that they had to hide the secret that she was alive from their closest friends, but if they didn’t, they might’ve all been killed.

why is it just jj and reid that’s important? rossi, seaver, morgan, and garcia were also lied to and yet no one is nearly as mad about that are they are about her lying to ~poor little spence~. yes, reid had the strongest reaction in that waiting room but he wasn’t the only one who cared about prentiss; all of them did.

finally, why is no one ever upset with hotch too? he agreed to maintain this secret and honestly it was probably his idea. not only that, but he watched the rest of the team pour their heart out over the way they felt about the death ranging from morgan wanting to enact revenge on doyle to reid possibly wanting to leave the unit. jj simply maintaining a story is nothing compared to hotch remaining calm and secretive throughout the painful testimonies he was witness to while knowing that he could easily fix them in three seconds.

of course neither hotch and jj were in the wrong by not telling them because they were simply doing their jobs. sure, the rest of the team probably felt a multitude of things when they realized they were lied to, but deep down they were eventually able to understand why it happened and they’re not angry anymore. they knew hotch and jj had their reasons so they all tried to move on. so what’s the point of still being angry this long after?

avferreira:

mcgarrygirl78:

avferreira:

Yes, Garcia is sensitive and empathic. Yes, she doesn’t like the part of the job that forces  her to look at gore. No, we don’t need to have her act like a half-witted overly-sheltered 12 year-old for us to know that.

If the ‘eww’ you guys are discussing is from the Alchemy sneak peek I didnt find a thing wrong with it.  I expected a scream or something after reading this post but I just saw it as Garcia being Garcia.  If you’re talking about something else entirely, sorry.

It was the stuff from the sneak peek. I found it too much, tbh, almost charicatural. Especially when you go back, and see how Garcia has handled far worse things (going through all of Perotta’s kills, for instance). The disgust, and the horror are there, but there’s a subtleness and a depth to it. Even in the scenes, like in Exit Wounds, when she actually loses it. I’m not questioning that being horrified by the things she has to see is a part of who Garcia is; I’m questioning the way it’s been portrayed of late: all this shudering and ewing at every bit of gruesomeness feels like the writers took that one point of her characterization and are running it to exhaustion.

noellekain:

blue-sunflowers:

The next question should have been why he knowingly let a child molester continue to molest and kill, long after he became a well-adjusted and self-assured police officer, undercover cop, bomb squad expert, FBI agent, and BAU agent who works with victims.  A man who knows how devastating it is when one person doesn’t stand up and protect others, and is - and has been for a very long time - a character who could have withstood the emotions of putting Carl Buford in prison decades ago so that more people didn’t have to suffer and/or die.

A plothole problem that could easily have been solved BTW with a line in “Profiler, Profiled” about Morgan repressing the memories.  Or y’know, writing a Morgan who actually has the air of a tragic figure immersed in guilt in more than the four episodes over the last 8 years they’ve dealt with this particular storyline.

This bothered me, because the poster’s comments about Morgan not reporting earlier came off as an admonition at him for not doing so. But my thoughts on that are that it’s never the victim’s responsibility to stop an offender. Yes, we encourage them to come forward, because without them, there is no way to punish and prevent the offender from reoffending. When victims, or rather survivors, of sexual assault and abuse do come forward, it’s an incredible show of bravery and strength. If they are unable to do so, they should be given support and therapeutic assistance (if they desire) until they reach the point where they are able to report the crime. If they never get to that point, well, they’ve suffered enough, haven’t they? They should never be shamed, called out, or berated for not reporting.

As for the plothole business, I respectfully disagree. I don’t think Morgan is as secure as you believe him to be. I think “Profiler, Profiled” is the perfect example of that. He was accused of murder, and he still fought like hell to keep them from finding out about Buford and that he’d been abused. The rage he showed when Hotch mentioned Buford, that is not the reaction of someone who has dealt with his victimization.

Further, while they may not have harped on his guilt in many episodes, I’d argue that overall, they’ve incorporated his sexual abuse into his character. Think about who he’s closest to on the team: two women (Garcia and Prentiss) and Reid, the only non-alpha male on the team. He feels more comfortable with women and non-threatening men, because they’ve never betrayed him, like an adult, powerful male did. The only team members that he’s ever allowed to comfort him were Garcia and Prentiss, again women. He claims to be a player and a ladiesman, but he actually leads a rather solitary existence, possibly because he’s afraid to trust a woman enough to be both emotionally and physically intimate with her. He’s afraid to be that vulnerable, to let someone have that much power over him.

Lastly, I’d argue that his guilt is visible in his extreme protectiveness. He said himself that he became a cop to put people like Buford away. His career, while it can be attributed in part to his father, is also about him protecting people from predators. Perhaps the victims in their cases are surrogates for the boys that Buford has molested since Morgan left? He doesn’t have the courage to face Buford or admit what Buford did to him, so he fights back in a different way.

The truth is, a lot of people don’t report their assaults, and I appreciate that CM elected to show us someone who didn’t. There is a lot of  judgement attached to sex crimes, and when you report, you expose yourself to all that judgement. Survivors already judge themselves, they don’t need anyone else adding too it. And, I am tired of sexual assault/abuse victims being judged for their behavior before and after the crime.

(Source: maributerfly)

freakingdork:

kuriadalmatia:

freakingdork:

kuriadalmatia:

mcgarrygirl78:

iloveeverythingwaytoomuch:

0laura0:

Criminal Minds 8x18 Promo “Restoration”

OK BUT WHY DOES EVERY DEREK-CENTRIC EPISODE HAVE TO BE ABOUT HIS MOLESTATION?!

^ ^THIS!!!  There is so much more to him, like how he overcame it to get all the way to the FBI.

What about when he was “deep undercover”? What if someone from those days were to turn back up?

I’m of two minds about this:

1) Sexual abuse is a fucking important topic that really needs to be talked about more often and, as Shemar himself has said, this is even more true of the sexual abuse that happens in minority communities. Episodes like 2x12, 7x18, and tonight’s episode are extremely important for survivors, especially those who have not experienced support from their family and/or friends. And I often wish they’d acknowledge his history more because they often deal with children who have been sexually abused.

2) At the same time, I’d still like to see them giving Morgan more depth and remember not only his deep undercover work, but his specialization in obsessive crimes and his time with the bomb squad.

*

I guess that #2 might be what everyone else is saying, but I am extremely sensitive to even the slightest notion that Morgan-centric episodes shouldn’t be about his abuse.

And that said, he thankfully has had episodes about him that weren’t about his abuse. He did get the arc with his aunt and his cousin. It’s not much and again, I’d love to see more of Morgan getting character depth (beyond what we see when he comforts everyone on the team jfc), but just…I don’t know.

I guess, no, just…my point is that he needs more arcs in general and complaining about how “all” his episodes are about his sexual abuse seems really problematic to me.

I agree that abuse should be addressed, but I’m disappointed that they’re going back to Carl Buford. Maybe it’s because I’ve read a lot of fanfic that has already dealt with this (while I’m not a huge Morgan fan nor really a Morgan-shipper, I appreciate a well-written story and, boy howdy, have there been some good ones dealing with Morgan’s trauma).

Morgan’s connection with Angel (sorry, can’t remember the ep but it’s probably 7.18 that you mentioned) was very well done. Wasn’t that the one where Rossi had to stop Morgan from beating the unholy hell out of the Unsub?

There was the one ep where the brother and sister were kidnapped when they were camping. The UnSub took the brother off-screen and we all knew just what had been done to him. The whole ‘young boy is just as good as dollars’ was chilling as well. It’s late, my memory is worthless really, so I can’t remember if it was Morgan who rescued the boy or not. But moments like that, where Morgan can make a connection by the sheer fact that he *knows* what it’s like to be terrified to tell someone… I want more moments like that.

I’m of the opinion that the Writer’s Strike really crippled the last half of S2, so we didn’t get to see how the revelation of Morgan’s past affected his relationships with the team. 

I wasn’t a fan of the “cousin missing” arc because of the advice Morgan gave: “go into hiding. Don’t tell anyone where you are, even me”. Again, my memory is faulty about the timelines (and, hey, it’s CM where “canon timeline” are just a theory not a fact). But that was terrible advice because he’s FBI (or even an LEO) and… yeah… just awful advice. Although “The Company” made up for it.

For me, the non-Buford/abuse Morgan-centric arcs have been weak (the whole ‘Ellie’ thing makes me want to bang my head against something) because there is so much more to him.

I wouldn’t mind seeing more arcs involving Morgan or Garcia or Rossi. I much as I ship/write Hotch and Reid (and Hotch/Reid), I want the other characters developed as well. I want them developed *well*, not just a throwaway either or the WTF stuff they give Garcia (and please, please, please don’t let her current potential BF be the bad guy… please).

Well, for me, while there’s fic I’ve read that I think has dealt really well with Morgan’s trauma, there’s also a large portion of the fandom who forgets or brushes it off (and some probably will continue on doing so, regardless of how many times we’re reminded). Because Morgan is my favorite character and is half of my otp, I can tell you that I click out of far more stories that deal with his abuse poorly (or “merely” have him doing things like getting the other character drunk so that character will sleep with him) than stay with the ones that are well-written. On top of that, fic isn’t canon and not everyone reads fic.

And I definitely agree, that 1) they completely underutilize Morgan and his past when it comes to showing him connecting to kids like he did with Angel (though imho, Shemar’s acting often conveys this connection) and 2) his non-abuse related arcs have been weak (yeah, don’t even get me started on Ellie).

But.

I believed whole-heartedly that this episode was totally warranted before watching it and after watching it (I assure you no spoilers), I still believe that and having Carl Buford there…was necessary.

I think this quote from Shemar (from this mildly spoilery article) puts it better than I can:

“What I like about it is that they took a sensitive topic, but they didn’t retell it; they took it to the next place,” Moore says. “Sexual abuse and molestation are huge issues that are happening every day, everywhere. This happens. And it’s not over when you catch the guy. There are scars. Morgan reiterates something he said in the first one: If he really thought he was the only one, he’s wrong. There’s never just one. Before, you saw the ‘good’ outcome, I guess, you can say in Morgan, who became an FBI agent. Now you see the other outcome.”

Yeah.

It’s…like I said, I do (desperately) want Morgan to have more well thought out arcs (hell, anyone except Hotch and Reid could stand to have a few), but this episode is easily in my top ten and I really hope you (and others) won’t be disappointed after you see it.

avferreira:

I find it interesting that, in this episode, Elle and Hotch are the ones to express their frustration with the system and a certain understanding of the unsub’s motives, considering what would happen later in their character arcs. I have no idea if Lola Glaudini’s exit was already being planned at this point, and if Elle’s reference to the number of rapists she had to see walk free is just a good piece of characterization or a set-up that’s meant to help us understand where she’s coming from when she kills William Lee. I’m pretty sure the Foyer arc wasn’t being set-up here, but it’s hard to ignore the parallel between Hotch talking that man in Idaho from killing himself only to have him kill again later on, and what happened with the Reaper.

freakingdork:

blue-sunflowers:

barbryellen:

freakingdork:

mountaindrifter replied to your post: Reid’s the ultimate woobie! No, no he’s not. I…

damn straight — reid’s not an ‘alpha male’ by his own admission, and he knows just how to use that to his advantage with suspects and victims…

Reid’s the very definition of a woobie.  He even has his own section on the TV Tropes page.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheWoobie

BTW, Criminal Minds constantly shows Reid needs extra help from his teammates “getting over” things, including in season one.  So yes, very much a woobie.  Not to mention how he can’t jump a wall, can’t pass his gun qualifications, gets tricked into falling into a pool, needs Morgan to knock him down during LDSK, etc.

Sorry, but Reid’s not some hardcore badass who likes to hide it and act like a dork instead.  He’s a character with moments of badass-ness and dorkiness, which makes him pretty much like most humans on the planet, In Reid’s case, his natural default is clearly more dork than badass.

oh you are just too funny

so you agree that Hotch is a woobie? Gideon? because they have their own sections too. having your own section on tv tropes doesn’t make it true; anyone can edit those pages and that includes people who have no understanding of the character they’re writing about.

not to mention, needing help from others to get over things is not woobie behaviors; it’s called being a human being.

perhaps he can’t jump a wall (I can’t and I’m not a woobie), but he can and DOES pass his gun qualifications. not because Hotch helped train him, but because his confrontation with the LDSK unsub showed him that he’s more capable than he’d previously thought. it’s almost like Reid had been woobifying himself and then realized, oh, no, wait, I’m a very capable young man when I stop overthinking things! and I don’t know how getting tricked into a pool makes you a woobie as I’ve done that to friends more times than I can count. and just because Morgan is protective of Reid and tackles him because he’s too busy in his head or whatever to hear the order to duck does not make him a woobie.

no one is saying Reid’s not a dork or that he’s a badass all the time either. he’s a human being who has faults and strengths and one of his strengths (that he likely started using in high school) is using other people’s perceptions of him. people perceive him as weak (lol people perceive him as a woobie basically) and he uses it directly in that episode to his advantage, specifically that scene we discussed and the next. even Hotch uses it to their advantage in LDSK; he doesn’t mean what he says when he tells the unsub to look at how useless Reid is.

oh, and don’t forget about Revelations, in which Reid is drugged out of his mind and beaten, so that’s like his ULITIMATE woobie moment, yeah? NO. he gives his teammates clues through the haze, ones they will understand, and one of them (they’re in a graveyard) that he doesn’t even have confirmation for until later. but, oh, he can’t even dig his own grave, he’s so woobie! NO. I dare you to attempt to dig a grave in that physical state, on feet that throbbing from the beating he got. and you know what? it’s not just that Reid’s tired and hurt, but that he knows if the team doesn’t come, he’s going to have to save himself. having Tobias down in that grave gives him the high ground and it also means Tobias has to put the gun down. have you ever noticed that before the flashlights and his teammates voices appear, Reid has Tobias’ gun pointed at Tobias? because he does. so even if his teammates hadn’t made it, he would have saved his own fucking skin.

also all your really weak examples are from season one and hey, did you know there’s this thing called character growth? and that it happens? yep.

so basically, if you think Reid is a woobie….

Reid is not a poor little baby who can’t take care of himself and needs the fandom to coddle him; he’s a grown ass man, a complex character that regularly gets whittled down by the fandom to one or two very flat character traits and it’s fucking ridiculous that when someone makes a post about one of his traits that’s rarely discussed but very canon, all of a sudden the op is saying that he ‘s only that trait all the time? no, that’s fucking insulting and again, ridiculous.

freakingdork:

trappe:

I’m so glad people have begun to point out that Criminal Minds has started becoming the Reid show?

And it’s not even that there are arcs just on Reid each season—there are things like that with other characters too, and the show has (generally) done a good job keeping it level like that giving characters major plot points (Hotch with Hayley, Prentiss with Doyle, Gideon with Joey the Clown) a season… the difference here being that Reid having such large arcs each season to himself. And in recent episodes he has definitely had a longer arc but it’s not a particularly larger change—lengthier by a bit, perhaps, but not much.

Fans are most likely taking note of it because of that little extra, and the fact that Maeve’s effects are still on Reid—and how much of a center he really is of the show. (I do believe Morgan is getting a reprise with his personal nightmare soon though.) 

Part of Reid’s heavy appearance in the show is most likely because of his directing in Criminal Minds that may have had an effect on the writers developmentally, which is not to undermine Moore’s or Gibson’s long-lasting career with CM, but is to point out that Gubler has been at all angles of the show and has a substantial fanbase due to it (let’s not forget the people who are obsessed with him).

I don’t think the entire idea of The Reid Show is concrete, even, but I’m sure they’ll get their feet back on the ground—what I’m more concerned about is CM finally branching off of that and leaving that entire idea behind, moreso enforcing that Reid can, in fact, take care of himself. (Despite this, a lot of Criminal Minds’s message is learning how to accept help from other people, so maybe it never WILL be resolved…) I believe Reid is competent and he’s able to do his job, and that more time off is what he needs—not trying to force himself back into the field. Or maybe a good hash-out with Hotch, because he’s been there too.

so, ok, a few thoughts because this caught my eye and just…this might be a bit all over the place, so sorry ahead of time for that anyway.

because i’m generally bothered by the notion that people are “just now” talking about this issue. people have been talking about how heavily reid is featured in criminal minds (in general) since i joined the fandom midway through season 6 (and likely before then too) and while they shoved reid into the background in 7 (and were better for it), having this resurgence in 8 is unnerving for some people.

don’t get me wrong, i loved maeve and while i’m displeased by how some of the storyline turned out, i’m glad they’re at least showing him grieving (side-eyeing the fuck out of the writers forever for just dropping that with hotch).

here’s the thing though: reid has ALWAYS had big arcs, long before mgg started directing on cm in season 5. there’s a post that i’m too tired to find that lists out all the reid-centric episodes, as well as the ones that heavily feature him….it’s far longer than everyone else’s (even hotch’s whose list is probably second in line).

the fact that it took them from 2x12 until 7x18 to even MENTION morgan’s abuse again (which is clearly a big part of his characterization, given what little they’ve shown us) is really fucking distressing, especially considering that he didn’t even have any other arcs between then. thankfully, it’s coming back, but the fact still remains that there’s a huge lack of arcs with him. and i mean, yeah he got the aunt at the end of season 6 and thankfully, they didn’t just randomly drop that bc i was very worried they would.

the same can be said regarding arcs for jj or garcia for the most part as well - jj got will and henry, but that’s mostly bc the actress got preggers and garcia got a two-parter in season 3. like. whooooa, better hold back and give reid another arc, look at all those arcs jj and garcia are getting.

say, when was that blake-centric episode again? oh, i forgot, she doesn’t get one until 8x22.

so this isn’t a new thing to the show where it’s just a random spike of ~extra reid~ that will “calm down” or whatever. it’s a trend over the entire series that’s gotten to be something of an annoyance for me, even though my favorite character was originally reid.

and here’s the other thing (that actually really bothers me in general regarding some recent posts): saying “this is not the spencer reid show” has never really been about the writers (tho it’s occasionally been directed at them in addition to the actual complaint); “this is not the spencer reid show” is about the general fandom’s reaction to the presence, or lack thereof, of reid within an episode (or a season overall).

i don’t know if you were around for season 7 when it aired live, but i spent the entire year hearing about “where is reid? why isn’t there more reid? REID REID REID I NEED REID WHERE IS REID?” all the fuck over the tracked tags. all. season. long.

…but it took them TWELVE episodes to address the whole prentiss “dying” situation from prentiss’ point of view and how she felt about what went down (stuff from jj and reid? episode 2, but you know, nothing from the person it actually happened to) …and there were very few people discussing how fucked up that was. instead, the majority of the fandom was so completely focused on reid for no fucking reason (esp bc mgg’s acting was so completely and consistently terrible in 6, like thank goodness they put him in the background in 7, because the only good reid was in “true genius” jfc i am still so fucking ANGRY at mgg for pissing all over his character) that her major plotline came secondary in their minds AND THEY SAW NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.

just because mgg has a substantial fanbase doesn’t mean that his character’s storylines should dominate the show. this show is an ensemble show; if people can’t handle the fact that reid isn’t the center of everything all the goddamn time, they should stop watching ffs.

because criminal minds was not, and should never be, the spencer reid show.