#thinking cm thoughts 🐝

[mariasont]

hey hey so don’t imagine hotch being obsessed with tugging your pony tail.

don’t think about how when you’re at work, he’d try to be professional but you’re being just a little too flirty, a little too cute, and he just can’t help himself. how he’d walk past your desk, hook a finger around it, and give it a gentle tug.

and how he’d get the tiniest smirk on his face when you turn around all wide-eyed and flustered.

and how he’d say something like, “eyes on your work.”

don’t think about how if you have a habit of puffing out your cheeks when you’re frustrated, especially when hotch is a little stern with you, he’d just walk past you, give your pony tail a yank and say, “quit pouting.”

and how you’d probably pout harder

definitely don't think about how you’d be out somewhere with the team, maybe at a bar, and some guy is talking to you a little too long. you’re not even interested but hotch is watching and waiting until he’s had enough. how he would step in close, fingers curling around the base of your ponytail and gently tug you back against him.

“i think she’s good,” he’d tell the guy. you’d be weak in the knees.

don’t think about how one day you’d be rushing into work, ponytail a little messy and he notices. it would be early, just the two of you and he wouldn’t say a word, just stands behind you, smooths a hand over your head and redoes your ponytail. and how when he’s done he’d let the ends of it slip through his fingers before pulling it.

“better.” and how he’d just walk off like it didn’t completely derail your morning.

AND FOR SURE DO NOT THINK about how he’d have you in his lap every evening, one hand gripping your ponytail to keep you from going anywhere, from looking anywhere but him.

[mariasont]

okay batman

[icysab]

Helloo!! <//3

I would like to request enhypen match up, if u are still taking it of course!! I just recently got back to Tumblr and just saw you come back and was hesitating to send this ask 😭 I hope you are doing well and back in good health love!! ❤️ School and life are stressful 😔 Also Welcome backkk!!

Myself: I'm a 16 yr old girlie and turning 17 soonn!! A taurus intp here and is 163 cm tall. I'm on the logic side but quite imaginative. Realistic and optimistic. I'm usually quite and just like to observe everything around me. If I'm with my friend group and I just lay back and listen to them chatter on. I love listening to them and honestly don't mind taking care of them since I'm the eldest one in the friend group by a yr older than them. I tend to take care of people around me unconsciously and I get flustered and taken back when someone mentions it. I deny it cause I'm bit on the grumpy side. If I'm alone with one of my friends i tend to chatter alot. I ramble alot on my favourite topics and theories i make up myself. I'm bit of a people pleaser, overthinker and tend to be a perfectionist. I isolate myself from others when I'm too stressed. I don't depend on people cause I'm scared of what if I'm being too much and do things by myself. I'm not really an emotional person. I don't cry much but if I wanted to cry the tears won't come and it makes me fustrated. I tend to pile up my negative feelings. But I do not let others negative words get to me. I rationalize people's words alot and ask myself questions if it's worth believing such words. If I fall down I get up on my feet quickly. I don't dwell on mistakes and think with a positive mindset that I'm gonna do better next time. I read lots of webcomics, read books, and listen to music. Also I love to draw, writing a little and play badminton. I don't watch movies and series much. I'm a huge fan of cycling. I like cycling around at night and it's peaceful. A coffee lover here. I love the smell of cofee beans. I am a quality time person. I'm not much of physical touch lover but I don't really mind them. I like the thought just being in the same room as them. I'm not really clingy and tries to understand everyone's pov. I don't really get jealous much and I'm rather chill-this-is-nothing kind of person. I hope this much will be enough 😂

Ideal type: Hmmm I'm not really sure what's my ideal type is. I'm a hopeless romantic. But I tend to like people who are opposite of me?? Quite the bright and puppy energy and lovable. Idk if that makes sense. PRETTY SMILESS!! I will be up in the moon when they flash their smile!! Communication is a need for me. I hope they can be open with me and it's alright for them to vulnerable with me. I wanna take care of someone and also be taken care but I'm quite unsure and shy when I'm being taken care of. 50-50 give and recieve. Also someone who listens me to ramble alot of my stupid theories. I also like us having silly secrets between us. I want to go on to amusement park, beach, star gazing and aracde dates!! Someone who can reassure me cause I really overthink quite a lot. A person who is mischievous but also mature?? Like they can be sweet and cute but also they have their serious moments?? I find it hot- But anyways what else... someone who understands me in general and respects me. Laughs alot with me for no reason. I also love a person who is such a gentleman!

I hope this wasn't too long. Take care of urself and be healthy!! Have a good time!! <//33 Also can I be 🐝 anon??

i am sososo sorry it took so long to get to your matchup i dont even know why it took like six months? im glad you sent this ask though because i had matching you, and hopefully it was worth the wait? also also thank you for the kind wishes !! please take care of yourself and stay healthy as well <33

anyway, i match you up with…

jake!!

who screams puppy love more than our very own jake sim?? no one, that’s who.

[mariasont]

who do you like more if you had to choose, spencer or hotch 🤔

OMG SUCH A DANGEROUS QUESTION

(pls everyone hold your fire)

ive always been more of a hotch girly 🤭 simply because i have daddy issues and i am a sucker for a man in power LOL. i was always the girl with a crush on teachers/professors/bosses etc

BUT BUT BUT i love spencer

like loooooveeeee him & my love for hotch does not diminish that i swear!!!!!

😌😌😌😌

[mariasont]

oh i love this, ki you are so right!!!!! parentification 100% is the foundation of hotch's entire identity, it makes so much sense!!!! and i totally think that it's so interesting how that parentified child mindset follows him into adulthood in ways that he doesn't consciously register. yap session below the cut

one thing that really stands out to me is how hotch is constantly trying to sort of earn his role as a protector, even when no one is asking him to. it's not just that he feels responsible for others, it's that he believes his worth is directly tied to how well he upholds that responsibility. because parentified kids are conditioned to believe that their values come from how much they can provide & how much they can take on. and for hotch, that definitely manifests in how he never sees his job as something he's simply qualified, it's something he has to prove that he deserves.

that's why he pushes himself so hard and why he physically cannot delegate even when it's in his best interest. and the wildest part??? it's not even just at work. he does it in his personal life too. he's always trying to prove he's a good husband, a good father, a good brother (im literally ab to start tearing up rn) as if he needs to justify his own place in those relationships.

and that brings me to something else you talked about which is his people pleasing because it's so true that parentified kids learn to suppress their own needs in favor of keeping the peace, and we see this in hotch constantly. but what's interesting is how selective he is about who he lets himself be vulnerable around. he hides his struggles from people who depend on him, but he's like weirdly receptive to authority figures showing concern for him.

like the way he completely shuts down when his team worries about him but then lets rossi call him out and actually listens? or how gideon was one of the only people he'd ever vent to in the early seasons? i feel like that's definitely a sign that parentified kids don't see their own struggles as valid unless someone above them acknowledges it. it's almost like he needs permission to admit he's struggling. if it's his team? he's fine. if it's someone he sees as an authority figure? then maybe he'll admit something is wrong.

anyway i just really appreciated your whole breakdown because its so deeply accurate and it has me feeling way too many things and i could also talk about the background of hotch's character forever, but thank you for putting this into words you're amazing and i need to lay down now!

please write about the parentification of aaron hotchner im on my knees begging

HAPPILY. GLADLY. Apologies in ADVANCE for this wild breakdown!!

According to the NIH, Parentification—also known as adultification, spousification, child carers, or role reversal—occurs when youth are forced to assume developmentally inappropriate parent- or adult-like roles and responsibilities.

Background on Hotch that we know or can assume from his very vague explanations of his upbringing: 

His father was abusive (source: “…some grow up to catch them…”)

His father had affairs that everyone knew about, even his Mother, but nobody said anything. Hotch confronted his father about the affairs and followed him. (source: “...lust can be lethal….”)

Hotch’s father died when he was a teenager from lung cancer or a heart attack (source: …s1 vs s2)

Hotch started fighting his father back (source: “...did he start fighting back…”) 

Hotch felt pressured to follow in his father’s footsteps despite clearly not liking the man (source: …s1 convo with Sean)

Hotch felt pressured, even subconsciously, to always guide Sean in the right direction and pushed him more than a sibling should (source: s1 convo with Sean)

Hotch married his high school sweetheart (even though the timeline on this is a little wonky) 

Hotch has a son whom he very much pressures himself to be different from and carries an immense amount of verbalized and insinuated guilt with

Things that, in my mind, point to parentification being the base of Hotch’s caretaking skills and central personality (without trying to come off as too word vomit-y because as someone who has been treated for parentification and studied this deeply…IT MEANS SO MUCH TO ME TO SEE HOTCH): 

Despite knowing he can’t catch them all…he still has the mentality going into each case like he will, and we’ve seen him get overwhelmed by that when he fails. Oftentimes, a parentified person will feel the extreme need to be a peacekeeper. In Hotch’s case, we see him get extremely involved, oftentimes emotionally, when children or father/child scenarios are at the basis of a case. He feels the weight of this responsibility without maybe realizing it consciously. 

Parentified children are given responsibilities that are not age-appropriate. Hotch knowing his father, who he probably already had distaste for, was cheating on his mother, is not a weight he should have had to carry. His father was not only careless enough to have an affair and disrespect Hotch’s mother, but to go about it in a way that everyone knew about it and likely caused a young Hotch shame, embarrassment, and the need to figure out the truth--which he did. 

Piecing the puzzle together, Hotch’s father died when he was a teenager. Given that maybe he was away at boarding school when this happened, he likely felt responsibility for not being there or the need to step up. Being his father was sick, and unclear of how long he was sick, Hotch may have also had to step up in different ways for his family, like financial support before or after his death. 

Hotch and Sean did not have much of a relationship growing up, according to Hotch, but I don’t truly trust him as a narrator based on Sean’s interactions with him. It’s likely they never had much of a brotherly relationship from the beginning, given the family dynamics and age-gap, but I could see Hotch feeling the immense need to guide Sean post-his father’s death. 

Despite not caring for his father, he still wanted to be like him. Following in his footsteps to be a lawyer and wanted Sean to as well. He wanted nothing more than to be accepted by his father at the end of the day, something parentified children have to learn will never happen. 

Parentified children often feel like their families will not make it without them, an immense weight on their shoulders. We see this both through his relationship fighting to guide Sean, but somewhat at times with his relationship with Haley/Jack. 

Seeing and experiencing abuse from his father and witnessing it to his mother, when Hotch meets Haley, he likely (not saying love was not there!!) at a young age, saw the opportunity to re-write and have the perfect family. This notion of perfection and wanting things to be perfect with Haley always kind of corners him and sets him up for extreme failure. Parentified children oftentimes become perfectionists and suffer from things like OCD (not saying Hotch does), but we do see his attention to detail and how stressed he can get about these things. 

This is the kicker, too; I think oftentimes, there was a polarizing force of having this “perfect” family he never got and being the “best/better” dad than he had, and his need to still PLEASE his father or live up to those dreams of being a hard worker and following in “justice” footsteps. So much so that it leads to his divorcefromh Haley, which KILLS him. It reads all over his face the failure he feels as a husband and as a father. We even hear him with Rossi get defensive, saying how much he tried. He tried too hard, and unfortunately, you can’t be both--the best agent and the best father. You shouldn’t have to be both!

Most parentified children have trouble taking care of themselves and often neglect their own needs. The man is internally bleeding for who knows how long (which having witnessed first-hand the effects of someone who was internally bleeding…there are SIGNS). He ignored symptoms and likely did not get regular testing to follow up and be sure he was okay. He wasn’t cleared to fly after his ear incident, yet did so anyways. So many things. He puts himself below the last priority on his list. 

And lastly, parentified children are oftentimes chronic people pleasers. He takes on so much at work, absorbing so many other responsibilities to make things happen and not disrupt the peace of his team, that he works himself into the ground day in and day out.

ANYWAYS. This topic, I could go on forever and bring up legit case-by-case where his wounded child comes into play because for all 12 seasons he’s involved in, it comes up. Whether that was conscious or not, I don’t know…but from one parentified child to another--I FEEL SEEN BY THAT MAN.  

[mariasont]

doyou have a favorite cm episode ?

mmm great question, had to think about this for a hot second, but as a hotch-girly my favorite cm episode is probably s4e16

so i love this episode for several reasons, but first and foremost is just hotch. that's it. that's the tweet.

so this might be a very long rant because i have many thoughts

but surface level obviously megan kane and aaron hotchner are diametrically opposed, but what i find so compelling about the dynamic is there's like this weird subtle mirroring between them, like the way they are both deeply tied to concepts of control, power, and duty, but they excerise them in different ways.

megan weaponizes her femininity, her intelligence and her ability to read and manipulate men, she is acutely aware of how men see her and she uses that same perception against them. while hotch has spent his entire life trying to separate himself from emotion and vulnerability and anything that makes him seem less in control

and like when she calls him a whore (probably my favorite moment in cm) it's her kind of trying to flip the script on him, it's this weird power move and one that words, because hotch has spent his life being used in different ways if you think about it. by his job, by the system, by people who expect too much from him (including his self). she's not even trying to insult him in my opinion, she's just trying to make him see himself in the same way she sees herself, as a person who is exploited by others and whose value is determine by what they provide.

it is so freaking brilliant idk i spent a lot of time thinking about it

ALSOOO maybe im just crazy but i feel like the whole episode is a visual metaphor around mirrors and reflections, which come on is so on the nose for an unsub projecting her pain onto her victims

so megan's entire life is based on reconstructing the past, trying to rewrite her fucked up history and take revenge for her father's sins by killing men like him, but she literally becomes him in the process. the men she kills are reflections of her father, but she fails to see that's shes just recreating the trauma

hotch, again, in many ways is also a reflection of the men she kills. he's powerful, well-dressed (mhm honey), well-respected, and seemingly untouchable, just like her clients. except he's also fundamentally nothing like them. and megan wants him to be like them, she wants to see him as another powerful man who gets away with everything, because if he's just like them, than her twisted worldview remains intact, but hotch isn't like that, and that's what rattles her so much

and then the ending ugh, the ending i could talk about it forever. it's literally one of the most understated but fucking gut wrenching moments in the entire series.

by the time hotch gets to her, she's made her choice, she's taken the poison. she could have run she could have tried to negotiate, but instead she chooses control. because that's what her entire life has been about, having power over situations that once took power away from her. she's been playing this long game type thing, manipulating men they way her father manipulated woman, killing them before they could ever do the same to her.

in her mind, she is both justice and executioner, righting the wrongs of her past in the only way she knows how.

and hotch... i meant the way he doesn't rush to call for help, he doesn't try to shake her or force her to stay conscious or try to lecture her in any way. he literally just sits with her.

and hotch making sure that list wasn't covered up?????? yeah. that's my man