Criminal Minds Headcanon - Tumblr Posts

something that i think is Very funny about the first scene with reid and ethan is that reid jumpscares ethan (and the audience) and to me it seems like it was intentional. like yes he's smiling because he has dumb gay feelings but hes also smiling like "haha i got you >:)"

do you think he did this regularly when they were friends (or together, depending on how you read their relationship). do you think ethan was scared every time he turned a corner because half the time reid would be standing there like 🧍‍♂️

i know canon suggests reid and ethan met as children but ive always pictured reid as a friendless child (sorry </3) and so to me they met in college and in my brain they Did Not Get Along at first. anyway here's my reid/ethan timeline:

reid graduates HS at twelve, takes a gap year because he's worried about leaving diana, then goes to college at fourteen

during reid's second year, ethan starts, having graduated HS at sixteen—also early, because anyone who reid can describe as someone he "competed with constantly" has to also be very intelligent

they meet one way or another, and reid fucking hates ethan. ethan likes reid at first, but when he picks up on reid's dislike of him, he responds in kind and they form a rivalry

the reason reid hates ethan at first is because he sees ethan as being him, but better in every way. growing up as a friendless, awkward child with a...complicated family, reid rationalised to himself that that was just the price he had to pay for being as intelligent as he was. so what if he's dodging cps? so what if he's facing relentless bullying? so what if he can't figure out how everyone navigates social situations so easily while he fumbles? he's a genius. it's fine, it's an exchange. it's one or the other and he's okay with that. and then...ethan. ethan is extroverted and personable and likable, has a close and largely uncomplicated relationship with his family, and is also a genius. and now reid has no choice to admit to himself that everything fucked up about his childhood wasn't the universe balancing itself, but just...fucked up. and he hates ethan for making him think about that.

i have three different ideas of how they eventually become friends: a happy one, where ethan, who, yes, responds to reid's obvious dislike of him by also being a shitty teenage boy, but who also is determined to kill him with kindness and annoy the shit out of him until reid gives in and stops also being a shitty teenage boy. then a darker one, where reid somehow discovers ethan's own demons (either his alcoholism or the issues that led to it) and is like "oh nvm i was right! we geniuses really are doomed to be unhappy people :) we can be friends now" although ethan would eventually knock some sense into him. and finally a silly one where they're mid-argument and then for reasons neither of them can name, they kiss. they argue to this day about who initiated

anyway. they decide to keep up a facade of dislike because their rivalry has become kind of infamous on campus and it would be so embarrassing if they had to admit they like eachother now. god can you imagine. so in public they have increasingly dramatic arguments and then laugh about in private. especially true if you, like me, believe there was something non-platonic going on between them, simply for safety reasons. one person sees them making out in a closet but nobody believes them when they try to spread that around because wtf are you talking about. they want eachother dead. if you're going to invent a rumour at least make it believable god.

finally settled on my hc for clooney. i think he's an akita!

i was very torn between akita and german shephard because i love the idea of k-9 dropout clooney and german shepherds are probably what most people think about when they think of k-9 dogs.

but i think clooney being an akita would make a lot of sense:

they're intelligent and trainable (to my understanding, they also NEED training or they're dangerous)

they need a lot of exercise and playtime

but they also have quite low separation anxiety which i think would be REALLY important just logistically. the guy works long hours and travels a lot—he wants a dog he can go on a run with but he needs a dog that can be apart from him, and the akita fulfills both

they make good watchdogs

and theyre slow to trust but very protective of those they do. remind you of anyone?

re one of ur last posts - what are ur nonbinary elle and spencer hcs?? :))

AH i actually dont have that many so a lot of these literally just came into my head. also i'm very sorry this mostly became "elle helping spencer realise he's nonbinary" headcanons, i'll have to think more about elle :((

this one is not my headcanon. i tried to find whose it is but for the life of me i cannot track it down, so if anyone knows please tell me so i can link them: they share a wardrobe. the only one who remembers which clothes initially belonged to which person is spencer, for obvious reasons. EDIT: got this from this post by @/spritehouse

elle has her shit figured out pre-canon but isn't doing anything about it because it's 2005. spencer does not have his shit figured out until after he gets with elle

well. he has it a little figured out. he knows there's something to figure out, he knows he isn't a cis man, but he's just like. i have way too much going on in my life already to think about that so i will ignore it <3 because that's worked out so well for him

pre-figuring his shit out, spencer is constantly (and largely unintentionally) mixing "menswear" and "womenswear". i really struggle to see a version of spencer where he and diana didn't experience serious financial issues after william left, and even as an adult, high-quality private psychiatric care like diana's is expensive. so, the majority of his clothes are thrifted (yes, i know about the $500 cardigans in later seasons. gifts from rossi <3) and he doesn't really care what section of goodwill he finds them in. so he's constantly wearing, like. a men's shirt under a women's cardigan over men's pants held up with a women's belt. post-figuring his shit out, this becomes intentional and he starts blatantly mixing styles. the kind of thing that gets him stopped in public by someone going "hey you know that's a women's...?" and he goes "yep! :D"

by contrast, elle, while she largely has things figured out, does not present the way she wants to for safety reasons. spencer helps her gradually feel more comfortable presenting the way she wants while she helps him figure out his gender stuff

as for reid's gender stuff, i think for a long time he's really overly fixated on labelling himself. the closest any label comes is bigender but that doesn't feel quite right and he has a lot of unnecessary angst about it. (not projecting at all shut up). eventually he's venting to elle one day about how he feels this and this and this about his gender and if he was to describe it he would describe it like this but he just can't figure it out. and then elle gets genuinely confused because it sounds to her like he very much has figured it out. it takes a long time for him to understand and accept that there isn't a magic word that will describe all parts of him, and he may never find one. and that's fine

elle does spencer's makeup. he looks in the mirror and cries.

penelope is the first person they come out to and she is DELIGHTED to have other trans people on the team. one more and they outnumber the cis people...

morgan is next. spencer says "we're nonbinary" and morgan says "is this like a 'we're pregnant' situation or are you actually talking about both of you" and elle hits him in the head. spencer immediately feels many times less anxious than he did before. i love u morgan

morgan asks spencer in private if he wants him to stop calling him pretty boy. spencer tells him to please never stop. calling him "pretty", an adjective usually used to describe women, paired with "boy" makes him very happy. with this in mind, morgan starts calling elle "handsome girl". elle pretends to be nonchalant about it, but it makes her really happy.

they never tell gideon. spencer can't handle the thought of him reacting badly. (gideon was under the impression that spencer was just closeted this whole time. oops!)

like i said, spencer REALLY likes being described as masculine and feminine in the same breath. when elle first introduces him to her friends, she says "this is spencer, she's my boyfriend" and spencer runs away to stim in private. elle's friends are very confused.

so u kinda mentioned this- how do u think spencer and ethan broke up? i rlly love ur insights into the characters :))

oh god now im realising i have way less thoughts on their breakup than i thought i did SORRY. also i totally forgot that @thereiddepartment also asked in the comments of the reid/ethan post i made so sorry!! hope it's okay to tag you

anyway so. we know from canon that ethan quit the academy after the first day. i like to headcanon that he left a letter apologising (because people like doing that to reid) but saying that they could try long distance. and they do.

and they can't.

ethan has his own stuff going on and reid is busy with the academy and then with work. maybe theyre even still together a couple months into reid being with the bau, but at some point, they break up. the distance is too much. reid doesn't feel like he can talk to ethan about the things he sees because ethan has his own demons to contend with. ethan feels like he can't talk to reid about his demons because of the things reid is seeing every day. they just drift.

i think it's ethan who rips off the bandaid. they have weekly phone calls to catch up and without even thinking, ethan picks up the phone one day and says "this isn't working." it ends quietly and anticlimactically—both of them find some small part of themselves wishing it had been more dramatic, more explosive. it was reid's first relationship and ethan's first serious relationship, and it just feels wrong that it just...fizzled out.

maybe they get back together after 2x18. maybe they don't, but rekindle their friendship. maybe there are occasionally benefits.

(also i love the reid/ethan headcanon you shared in the tags here and i can very much see that as well LMAO. just two guy best friends who live together and are planning to spend their lives together <3 my bestie is planning on following me into a dangerous career his heart isn't into just so he can be with me <33 why does he keep looking at me like that)