I Think There Are A Few Reasons Reid Is So Particularly Hostile Towards Emily Post-2x15:

i think there are a few reasons reid is so particularly hostile towards emily post-2x15:

most simply, she was the newest member of the team, and therefore the one he knew the least and could most easily project onto. he doesn't know her well, so it's easiest to construe her actions as whatever he wants them to be in order to have someone to direct his anger at. he'd also feel less bad about attacking her over the other members of the team, who he knows far better (this is not calculated. im saying he needs someone to be angry at and he latches onto the closest person who he knows the least)

she replaced elle. i do ship spencelle (as a tragedy) but even if you take shipping goggles off, i do think they were quite close platonically. and even if you don't think he was close with elle, he definitely feels particularly guilty about her leaving. (he says so out loud with his mouth at the end of 2x6, when he's talking to morgan about the conversation he had with elle shortly before the case took a turn, and starts to obsess over what-ifs until morgan shuts that down). so not only is emily the newest member of the team, she's also replacing someone whose departure he explicitly feels particularly guilty about

she's calling him out on his obvious issues when none of the rest of the team are. ironically, i think its her newness that makes her feel like she can, and her newness that makes him respond so irately. i think the rest of the team feels uncomfortable and unsure of how to act—they know they need to confront him, but they worry about how to go about that without the friendship imploding. i'm not saying "well emily is new and doesn't gaf about him, so she doesn't care if confronting him makes him hate her." she wouldnt confront him if she didn't care about him, but she has less to lose. tying back to the first point, i also think emily being the one to confront him while also being so new to the team lets reid project whatever motivation he wants to onto her in a way he couldn't with the rest of the team. he can pretend she has an ulterior motive and therefor disregard her concern, while that would be a lot harder to do if someone he knew very well did the same. (again—this is not calculated).

i hope this makes sense 😭 i have a Lot of feelings on their friendship (as you can probably tell from my fics about them) and its rocky start. final thing: step 8 and 9 of NA concern making amends with the people you've hurt as a result of your addiction, and i think sometimes about the conversation he probably had with emily when he got to those.

this is the cutest interaction ever i love them

even if you don’t ship spencelle romantically and u think they were platonic. im so obsessed with the idea of them just like…. Hanging out. cause they would so be the ones finding themselves always together for some reason. like elle would stop by his apartment to drop something off and end up coming in and they’d accidentally spend 7 hours together doing nothing. they’d so just lay on the floor and have random meandering conversations. spencer would literally talk with her abt anything. he’d entertain conversation topics w her he never would with anyone else just because he likes talking to elle and she similarly would genuinely engage with him in conversations abt physics or philosophy for hours. like they would just have such a good reciprocal relationship they could talk forever and they do. they go get food and stay in the corner booth until the place closes. they go on drives until they’re like oh shit we’re two hours out of town. I. LOVE. THEM. THEY. ARE. BEST. FRIENDS. WHETHER. YOU. THINK. THEY. ARE. IN. LOVE. OR. NOT. !!!!!!!!

DYING ON THIS HILL!!!!!!

shoutout to offputting autistic people

i have all the feelings about the hugs at the end of revelations as everyone else does but i have especially big feelings about the fact that. yeah theyre hugs. but theyre also physically holding him upright. if you watch while him and jj are hugging, jj even seems to buckle a little. i need to lay down for several hours

reid's face when he sees himself in the mirror is going to make me sob. the things that must be going through his head. (am i really about to do this? who am i looking at?)