#jennifer jareau meta

[carnalish]

[jaspxr]

Putting aside my own thoughts about Hotch being a good father actually, I agree with you and I think you make a few good points. They are really similar, and that just feeds my idea of him being a great mentor in general, but to her, in particular. One of the greatest traits of good leaders is that they're capable of change and they listen to feedback, and that was one of the most impressive things about him - and I'm sure he taught it to her as well. When he realizes he is doing something wrong, he changes. He did it at his work, he did it with his family, he must have told her to do the same - to look at his example and make better choices. And he allows her and even encourages her to make those choices (by telling her to go home, even though they're not done with the work, by treating her differently in hit/run, by sharing parenting tips multiple times etc.)

let me organize my thoughts on this better, but jj was kind of the bau member who's the most similar to hotch and i genuinely believe that in seeing his failures as a husband and father she kind of ended up becoming the anti-hotch

[youbutstupid]

Ages of the Criminal Minds cast because PSA: life doesn’t stop at 40

Mandy Patinkin, 71. Thomas Gibson, 61

Lola Glaudini, 52. A.J. Cook, 45

Matthew Gray Gubler, 44. Kirsten Vangsness, 51

Shemar Moore, 54. Paget Brewster, 55

Joe Mantegna, 76. Meta Golding, 52

Rachel Nichols, 44. Jeanne Tripplehorn, 60

Jennifer Love Hewitt, 45. Aisha Tyler, 53

Adam Rodriguez, 49. Daniel Henney, 44

[blackbird-brewster]

Something I've been thinking about this week :

S17 has had such LIMITED locations and it's probably because of how many people they added to the cast for this season.

Even when we finally saw Emily out of the office, she was at Garcia's instead of her own house.

Will and the boys haven't been in this season because JJ has never been at home.

In two seasons, we still have yet to get a single scene of Luke outside of work (again, not at Garcia's).

Tara and Rebecca too. They apparently lived together last season... But we never saw that.

In the lead up to S16, all the interviews were like 'You're going to get to really see these characters outside of the job. You will get so much more personal with them' - - but that translated to Will being in every episode and Rossi.... Well, being The Main Character.

In S17, instead of following through on the aforementioned promise, they spent the budget on promoting (Voit) to main cast, while keeping Tyler around all season too.

WE DIDN'T NEED MORE CHARACTERS.

We already had an ensemble cast!! I felt like Tara barely had any screen time this season because that time went to Voit, Tyler, Jill, Damien and Jade, etc.

I would take some personal character growth (unrelated to the case!!!) of the profilers, over Elias Voit being a main character any day. I would much rather have complex character development of the six BAU members and less side characters, than having 12 completely underdeveloped characters vying for screen time.

[jenny-from-the-bau]

I think one of the most tragic things about Jemily in canon for me is that there’s always a sense that both women know. JJ and Emily are both aware that something almost happened between them. They know that there’s tension, that they love each other. JJ knows why Emily keeps leaving and Emily knows why JJ has to stay with Will. Every time they talk about how hard the past is, or how happy they are to be reunited, there’s such a sense that things could be different.

If they’d made a different choice somewhere along the line, then this reunion would be something else entirely. They may never have been separated at all. The sad look on Emily’s face when she pushes JJ toward Will. The little headshake JJ gives Emily when she tells them she’s leaving and Emily says “you’re too good”. JJ and Emily on the plane to Paris, JJ and Emily’s look at the wedding, the constant checking in later as they try to be close and keep their distance all at once. They know how great they could have been and they know they missed their chance.

[wereoz]

how i feel about jeid is something i haven’t seen agreed upon by proponents or antis but i feel like i can’t be the only one so:

what’s crazy is that jj being in love with reid DID add an interesting spin to their friendship i feel.... it’s like. it fits?? for jj’s character: in s2 (?) she wanted to be with will but let other things get in the way and her fear of settling down/intimacy was revealed. and later in the show like s11? 12? she still struggled with it: after a difficult case she finds it hard to stick with will and let him see her, she needs to be moving and have space and be doing other things. in a way, she is doing the same ‘moving’, moving towards spencer.

and all along she's found it hard to talk to reid and it’s a thing fans have picked up on: some odd teasing, just generally not understanding why he continues to say things that stick out; one example is when she said about a case “god how weird”, and he explained it’s common and she looked at him so put off he backtracked and went “yeah weird...”

but none of that ever stops her from caring for him. small things like telling him the candles on his birthday cake are trick candles and bigger stuff like saying he doesn't need to hate himself for anything that happened in prison.

so to me it does make sense to me, on some level that she finds space, arguably refuge, from her love from will with spencer.

and it does add interest that who she loves is someone she’s devoted to but will never truly have closeness with because of many insurmountable reasons: she already passed him up, she’ll never understand him enough to build that intimacy, and she can’t get that close to anyone without feeling caged.

one final one, which matters to me most: the second she acts on it he loses all desirability. his appeal is that he’s a safety net. if she feels too overwhelmed by her marriage and life with will and all the secrets she can't tell him, she turns to reid because he’s safe as long as none if it is real.

on reid’s side of this: there’s something tragic about the fact jj finds it hard to understand him and reid hates not being understood yet puts up with it because he thinks if he holds out for a person who understands him to love him he will never be loved.

so all of this to say: fucked up dynamic of all time that seems normal at first until you pick beneath the surface <3

[threespacemonkeys]

Finished my rewatch of criminal minds and here’s my breakdown of the seasons:

Season 1-3: profiler and psychology cop show, interesting and new and I really liked it.

Season 4-7: kinda turned cop show basically, little boring at times but still good episodes. Too much focus on the murders. I skipped some scenes because just too gruesome.

Season 7-11: more profiling episode again, and few standout episodes with good villains that challenge the MCs. Started to like it again. Still skipped some gruesome stuff.

Seasons 12-13: the beginning of the end. Mainly a spy/political/terrorism show with episode long arc devoted to old villains who have big plans. Loved having more team focused episodes and intrigue but it’s a deviation from the normal format.

Season 14 and 15: greatest hits tour. Let’s go back over all our early episodes and have the villains come back! 🥱

Also who hacked AO3 for season 15:6? Date Night was totally a fanisode.

Personal opinion? Absolutely LOVE 1-3.

4-7 was still interesting because it was still new and interesting but I think they should have started the international arcs in season 7 with the loss/reveal of Emily/Doyle and finished them off with the believers arc and ended at season 10 or 11. I love Matt Simmons as an addition but the last few seasons changed the whole series in a huge direction. Maybe not bad but definitely very different from the beginning premise.

[wizardofahz]

Saw a Criminal Minds gifset and suddenly started thinking about canon vs. fanon JJ.

TL; DR: Fanon JJ is the facade canon JJ puts on to hide trauma.

(This discusses JJ's sister, so content warning for suicide)

The obvious starting point for understanding JJ's characterization is her sister's suicide. That's a traumatic event for anyone, and even more so for an eleven year old child. So it's quite understandable that JJ decides she will do whatever she can to avoid experiencing hurt like that again.

In episode 3.17, JJ tells Will about their relationship, "I didn't want to tell anyone because the minute I do it becomes real, and when it becomes real, people get hurt, and I've always run from getting hurt. Always."

But JJ didn't only lose her sister.

In episode 14.12, JJ's mom admits, "I got so caught up in all my troubles that I forgot there was another little girl under my roof who had just lost her sister. You needed me, and I wasn't there."

At eleven years old, JJ was a traumatized child without a support system. So she learned to rely on herself. Other people were just avenues for hurt, and she decided that wasn't worth it.

All of which leads to this confession from JJ in the season 14 finale: "There are only four people I trust in this world."

My three non-negotiables are Will, Hotch, and Emily. The fourth is between Reid and Garcia, but I lean towards the former given Garcia's penchant for invading people's privacy.

Even if anyone disagrees with that list, there's not a lot of room for choice. At any given time, the BAU usually has seven members, and given the amount of turnover they've had, JJ hasn't learned to trust most of them.

Do they know that? They probably know her facade masks trauma, but I doubt they know the extent of it. There's a reason that episode starts with the team playing poker, and JJ showing Reid he doesn't know her as well as he thinks he does.

So let's talk about that facade. In contrast to Reid, who wears his trauma on his sleeve, JJ buries hers as deeply as she can. She takes care of the people around her, and while it's not disingenuous, it's part of a prettily painted reinforced fortress wall that says, "hey, look at me, such a put-together person that doesn't have problems of my own, so I can help with yours."

And it does the job because it has fandom fooled too.

[dr-george-ordell]

This is like a 4am post but anyways, am I tripping or has little to no one thought of a Criminal Minds and Yellowjacket's crossover? Because our beloved BAU team has a private jet they always use for travel for cases, which is a perfect recipie for then to also crash into the Canadian wildernesses unintentionally. To top it all off JJ likely remember's the Yellowjackets' disappearance due to being fifteen and also being in a football team around that time. Tbh just imagining how especially Spencer, Aaron or JJ would cope in the Wilderness with no rigid rules or hierarchy would be genuinely interesting.

[carnalish]

thinking about how JJ buries her trauma the most she can. she's someone so deeply afraid of vulnerability. and i think that we sometimes forget that JJ, at a very young age, didn't only lose her sister (which is already hard enough), but lost her support system entirely.

i don't remember the exact episode, but JJ's mother says "I got so caught up in all my troubles that I forgot there was another little girl under my roof who had just lost her sister. You needed me, and I wasn't there." Jennifer lost her family, all she had when she was only eleven years old. and since then, she's been caught up in running away from being hurt in any way, and hurting others just the same. because the moment people know, it becomes real, as she herself stated.

Jennifer Jareau is a woman who trusts very few people, even though she's someone so reliable herself. and why she's so reliable is because she had to learn to be since she was a CHILD. it breaks my heart.

[blackbird-brewster]

Meta: Jemily Queerbaiting

With the huge influx of posts saying 'Jemily is gonna be canon', I really appreciated seeing this post because OP was completely correct. I didn't want to write an entire dissertation as a reply, so I'm making my own post with my personal opinion on this. (All sources are noted in footnotes)

Before I began this rant, for anyone who thinks this is anti-Jemily. It is not. I have shipped Jemily for 18 friggin years and that's never going to change. This post is specifically my thoughts about queer baiting.

First off, I need to note that the showrunners (and the cast members who use social media) KNOW what a huge queer following this show has and that's why we got pansexual Tara Lewis in S16 [1]. Which, in itself, was SOOOOOOO important!!! Our first canonically queer main in SIXTEEN seasons was a middle-aged Black woman!!! That's phenomenal. (The fact it was horrible rep, because they instantly ruined her relationships once her queerness served it's plot point is a whole other post entirely)

In my opinion, the 'big Jemily moment' Paget posted about on Twitter [2] (and AJ hinted at during a recent IG live) is simply queerbaiting to get people to watch S17. I know a lot of you are newer to the fandom and I love your enthusiasm, I really do, ship and let ship, but listen, let's be real, Jemily is not going to be made canon. The showrunners aren't going to suddenly say (after 17 seasons) 'Surprise, Jemily is endgame'. This show has never cared about queer rep and now that CBS/Paramount have already ticked their queer rep box with Tara, they won't be in any rush to add any other characters to it.

Please buckle in, I've got a lot of thoughts on this matter --

What is Queerbaiting?

If you aren't aware of what queerbaiting is, here's a good definition:

Historically, queerbaiting has carried two meanings: the first is an act of aggressive heterosexuality to shut down queer subtext on screen while still teasing and catering to the queer audience in advertising, public relations, and fan engagement strategies; the second is an existing homoerotic tension between two characters played up on screen while met with derision by the professionals behind the scenes. [3]

The Medium article quoted here is from 2017, a time when parasocial relationships were really starting to take over social media. In 2024, actors are now only a mention or tag away online, they have direct conversations with fans, and this process has allowed for an even deeper form of queerbaiting.

Oftentimes online, actors are asked directly about certain ships and while some ignore these questions (usually to avoid breaking their contracts or other repercussions), others (looking at you, Paget) choose to instead tease fans about queer ships. She's done this for years upon years and if I've learned anything in the past twenty-years of existing in fandom spaces it's this -- don't hold your breath. In it's original meaning, for something to be deemed as queerbaiting there had to be malicious, or at least, purposeful intent to string queer fans along by teasing them with suggestive content about the ship in question, while knowing this ship will never come to fruition in canon.

The thing to remember is, Paget and AJ aren't the only ones who know about Jemily shippers -- the network and showrunners are well aware of this ship too. When networks/showrunners figure out they have a strong sapphic fanbase, they love to use that to their advantage to get more viewers and higher ratings. Queerbaiting is a goldmine to keep fans watching long running shows, look at Rizzoli and Isles, Supergirl, and OUAT for examples of this.

Jemily and Queerbaiting:

Ever since Emily joined the BAU in S2 (2006), there have always been fans who ship JJ/Emily (shoutout to the old LJ forums!). Way before celebs were just a tweet away from fans, back when all our fics began with disclaimers so we wouldn't get sued by networks, we went to great lengths to keep our fanworks far removed from actors/showrunners attention.

As far as Jemily goes, this reply from Paget in a 2009 interview with TVGuide.com [4] (which has now been deleted from their site unfortunately, but there are quotes on Tumblr still [4.a]) confirmed some fans' worst fear -- the actors had found our fanworks online.

TVGuide.com: Of course, a band of fans want her to hook up with Hotch.

Brewster: I know! I didn't realize that fans make these videos on YouTube? A.J. Cook sent me a hilarious one that made it look like Prentiss and J.J. were having a secret lesbian affair. You know, when Hotch was blown up in the SUV, we shot this scene where he's in the hospital and I'm standing next to him, looking at his bleeding ear. Our director came in and said, "Paget, you're looking at Hotch like you're in love with him. It looks really weird." So now, every day, Thomas [Gibson] and I flutter our eyelids at each other.

This was the first time I recall anyone acknowledging Jemily shippers publicly and at the time (Jan 2009), the show was still in Season Four (just before CBS fired both AJ and Paget [5]). Paget genuinely said it's 'hilarious' that fans shipped JJ/Emily. Even now, I'll see people say 'We know Paget and AJ have seen Jemily fanvids, so they obviously ship it too' -- but those same people rarely acknowledge the full context of the original answer. Paget not only thought JJ/Emily were 'hilarious', but then she doubled down and turned her reply back to how she and Thomas liked to play up the chemistry between Emily/Hotch.

While no one can say for sure which video it was that AJ sent Paget, just knowing they were watching JJ/Emily fanvids sent a bit of a shockwave through the femslash side of the fandom. To some it felt like an invasion of privacy, fanworks are by fans for fans -- knowing the cast were poking around in fandom spaces added an extra layer of worry around what we fans were posting online. Fifteen years ago, it used to be quite taboo for actors to outwardly discuss shipping or other fanon for whatever show they were in, and we fans were usually comfortably removed from the actors altogether.

Of course, now it's the norm for fans and actors/showrunners to co-exist online and interact with one another. This connection has opened new ways for shows to queerbait their fans. Pretty much every show has some form of social media account now and there is no doubt that the people running those accounts keep up with the most popular ships and hashtags. Not to mention that actors are constantly barraged with questions about whether they ship their character with x,y,z, or whether they think a ship should be made canon, etc. These interactions only serve to benefit the shows themselves, because whether the conversation is for or against a certain ship, it's all just free publicity (Why do you think CM now has a TikTok account?)

Every time AJ or Paget say anything about Jemily, the queer side of the fandom loses their minds. But this has been going on for YEARS now and every single time, it turns out to be nothing but social media hype and queerbaiting. Remember this AJ post? [6] Or what about the notorious reply by Paget to a fan, where she talks about how she and AJ held hands under the table 'for the shippers' [7] I've seen this cycle over and over again, so perhaps I am cynical, but I'm not getting my hopes up that Jemily will ever seriously be canon.

It's widely known now, after both Kirsten [8] and Paget [9] have talked about it, that there was an early idea where Prentiss was supposed to be queer, but that was ultimately scraped before it ever made it on screen. For context, please remember, this show has been airing for nearly twenty years. It began in 2005, during the highly conservative Bush administration. Queer people didn't have rights in the US, we couldn't get married, we were rarely protected under discrimination laws, and we could even be fired for simply being queer (in some states). Diverse queer representation on screen was extremely limited to things like 'The L Word' and 'Queer as Folk' (both aired on Showtime, so they were behind a paywall. And as far as tLw goes, that show was extremely male-gaze focused and is horrible in nearly all regards if you try to rewatch it now). As far as prime time shows went, queer rep was even more rare. Which is why Emily wasn't queer from the get-go.

Yes, things have changed since 2006 in terms of queer rep on TV. We have a myriad of queer identities represented in TV and film nowadays, which is why I think it's so easy for newer fans to say 'lf she was supposed to be gay anyway, they should just make Emily queer in canon!' I know this is what fuels most fans' demands for Emily being confirmed queer, and I get it, I DO. I would be all for it! However, I do not, in one hundred years, actually believe that is going to happen after they already canonically queer confirmed Tara in S16. The fact we even got ONE queer character is ground-breaking for this show.

It's also worth noting, that in the time between Paget's departure in 2012 and her return in 2016, she became very active on Twitter. This was when more and more fans began asking her about Jemily and after Kirsten's AfterEllen interview, fans also pushed for Paget to address the possibility of Emily being gay. 'Pushed' is actually an understatement for some of the outright harassment she would receive. (AJ received some of this harassment too, but less so because she doesn't use social media ass often) Back then, neither of them replied to these things directly. Yet, no matter what either woman posted, the replies were full of Jemily stans begging for her acknowledgement. (Did you know 'stan' is literally a term coined for stalker fans?) I remember one time AJ's friend was missing and she posted info on her IG about it, you know what the replies were? People asking her about Jemily. It was genuinely sickening.

Within this context, it was no surprise to fans when Emily came back in S12 , she and JJ's friendship was seemingly erased. The two women were rarely on screen together in the late seasons, plus the writers saw fit to even give Emily not only one (Mark in London, but two, on-screen boyfriends for the first time in the entire series. I personally do not think these changes to Emily's character were coincidence, I saw the hellscape of what people would say to AJ and Paget online and I fully believe that upon Paget's return to the show, the showrunners purposely tried to distance JJ and Emily to dissuade the more abusive side of the fanbase.

Can I prove that, no. But it is the only reason I can think of as to why Emily S12+ seemingly didn't care about JJ anymore, despite their deep and meaningful friendship. I mean, they both CROSSED THE WORLD to go rescue each other in prior canon -- but when Emily comes back, they acted like they barely knew each other. This was even more prevalent in S16, when JJ's main storylines all revolved around Will, and Emily barely looked at JJ in the entirety of ten episodes. (Remember how Prentiss didn't even hug JJ after bomb, but she did go hug Luke?)

So, do Paget and AJ earnestly ship Jemily, or are they continuing the long tradition of queerbaiting us? Who fucking knows, not me. But based on the history of this fandom, I think I can make a safe bet. (Interestingly, if you search all of Paget's twitter for the word 'Jemily' [10] she only has 3 direct tweets mentioning the ship. I don't think it's a coincidence that two are within the past few months since they started filming S17 (the other one was a RT of Kirsten (who tagged something Jemily)

This is all to say --

Just because Paget and AJ have publicly talked about Jemily,, this doesn't mean it's ever going to happen on screen. And you know what, THAT'S OKAY!! There has been this constant outcry (after Tara became queer confirmed) of 'Do Emily next' or 'Why wasn't it Emily with a girlfriend!?' and 'Jemily needs to be canon in S17!' -- as if people believe their ships aren't worth anything unless they are canon.

That couldn't be further from the truth! Fandom is built on headcanons and fan interpretations and rare pairs and all types of shippers. Your ship does NOT need to be canon for you to enjoy it. I will ship Jemily forever, no matter what. I don't think there will be some magical queer plot in S17, at best, we might actually get to see Emily/JJ on screen together again and after the train wreck that was S16 -- I'll take whatever I can get.

And hey -- if I am completely wrong, if Erica Messer pulls a Korrasami out of her hat, I will be ecstatic. I will be happy to be proved wrong, but at the same time, I'm not going to lose sleep over it and I'm DEFINITELY not going to go hound the actors about it on social media.

Sources:

[1] 2022 Digital Spy article about the importance of Tara's coming out

[2] 04/18/24 Paget Tweet

[3] 2017 Queerbaiting article from medium.com

[4] 2009 Broken TVGuide link

[4.a] Tumblr quote from the above TVGuide Interview

[5] 2010 Kirsten interview screenrant.com

[6] 2019 AJ Instagram Post

[7] 2020 Paget video on Twitter (via @karasluthqr)

[8] 2015 Kirsten interview AfterEllen.com

[9] 2016 Paget Interview CriminalMindsFans.com

[10] @PagetPaget search 'Jemily'

[jenny-from-the-bau]

I think Emily and JJ both have an interesting struggle of like…. How do you complain about your personal struggles when you come from places of such privilege? Like Emily could complain about child neglect and being made to grow up too fast and like no emotional support, but those things happened because she was filthy rich, lived in a million countries, and her mother paid for her to do whatever the fuck she wanted. JJ could complain about childhood trauma and constant misperception and no coping skills for emotions, but that happened because she grew up in a white, protestant middle class town and she’s a very pretty white, blonde girl and she wants more. Does that make sense?

Like they have (in fanon, I guess) some minority struggles. Emily grew up a lesbian and JJ grew up closeted/repressed and now they work for a government that hates gays and DADT is still in effect and there’s no gay marriage in sight, etc etc. But they’re still white and wealthy and all of that. So, how much can they complain, really? Just some thoughts.

[blackbird-brewster]

Original post, October 2015 vs Now, July 2024

Will/JJ fic total increase: +586

JJ/Emily fic total increase: +2346

[spencer-reids-adventures]

For real though, the endgame jj/reid was such a disservice to both characters. Maybe we shouldn't revive storylines that were buried 14 seasins ago. Like jj married will despite being in love with someone else, and reid never got over his "pretty lady is nice to me 🥺"-puppy crush? Okay great.

Yes! I I'm going to copy a thing I wrote somewhere else because it encapsulates my feelings about this storyline:

I do think JJ is a mean girl even if she won't admit it, and I think she believes she "loves" reid because she's always seen him as her backup.

she was reluctant to share her relationship with will with the team, it took her ages to actually marry him. She's afraid of commitment. But I think she's also afraid of being alone.

And I think subconsciously, ever since the "Red Skins" game, she's seen spencer that way - she knows he had a crush on her, and she's always thought, well, no matter what happens, spence is always there. like her "if we're not married by 40" friend, only she IS married by 40, but she still keeps him in mind as her "just in case".

and I don't think she realizes she's doing it and I don't think she realizes what a dick move it is to tell spencer, even if what she's feeling isn't actually Love, but more like...idk, security?

because for spencer it's completely different. it didn't work out with JJ. it (in my opinion) didn't work out with stephen or ethan, lila or austin. maeve died. spencer is perpetually alone, and i don't believe he loves JJ - i think he idealizes her in a similar way, like a nostalgia thing - he loved her before hankel, before maeve, before prison - and that's why he gets sort of confused after her confession.

but it's not fair of her to say those things to him because he has no one and she has everyone. she has a FAMILY. and he wants a famliy, and he's alone, and she's basically flaunting that in his face. "oh, i always loved you, but i actually have everything i want and you don't, so."

it's just so messed up but it's also totally in character for the JJ they've created who is selfish and not very nice to spencer and doesn't want to end up alone.

[jaspxr]

I know we’re mostly here to thirst in a group setting, but does anyone know any CM blogs that post meta and write character vivisections analysis?

If you do know someone or have a blog like this, please like or reblog this post so I can find you and follow you! I’d love to chat and obsess over fictional cases and characters with you!

[carnalish]