#‘why did they need to dig into his life if it wasnt relevant?’ all is in the hands of the lord 🙌

[maschotch]

If you could write a backstory episode for Hotch, what would it look like?

ah.. the age old question

truthfully im not much of a writer, so id have a hard time condensing everything id want out of his backstory into a 40 min episode (or a 2 part special). i think the simplest way would be something similar to profiler profiled where they take a case close to hotch’s home and he knows the people involved but doesnt want to admit it

tbh i think itd be difficult enough to set up a case like that. jj might have to bring it in—maybe she was surprised when hotch turned down her suggestion to consult and got passionate about it. (hotch can claim to be by-the-book, but when it comes to something he cares about, he caves pretty fast, so i think he’d be too concerned about avoiding reliving decades old trauma maintaining his composure around the team to let them dig around too deep). but jj goes behind his back (well intentioned, not well thought out) to assign the team this case anyway

ive given it a lot of thought and i think itd be funniest for hotch to just pretend not to recognize anyone. he likely hasnt been back since before boarding school, so he’s probably relying on no one recognizing him either. but some of the older folks at the precinct cant help but think of that hotchner fellow when they see the name. hotch does relatively well, but the team begins to notice he’s more tense than usual. theyre not really sure what to think until the sheriff (or someone idk) tells the story of the lawyer hotchner (spittin image of this fbi guy!) and his troublemaker son, and they start putting the pieces together

i think itd be fun to have the team forcibly dig around into hotch’s life. for one thing, it seems like the only way they’d get anything out of him about his past. and two, even if none of them are consciously aware of their own spiteful vindictiveness, it’s lowkey payback for all the times hotch has crossed their own personal boundaries “for the sake of the case.” anyway they find out about what went down in the hotchner household, and suddenly all the pieces come together: all the red flags theyve kinda just ignored until now form an ugly picture of abuse.

god forbid anyone gets closure on this fucking show. inevitably they dont really talk about it and after the case is over its basically never brought up again (unless morgan is mad about something or reid is losing an argument). itd probably end with hotch looking at a picture of his son or some cheesy shit like that. in true criminal minds fashion: hotch gets his trauma dragged up for no reason and then they never deal with or acknowledge it ever