if we're talking about elle's mom fancasts, my current pick (for a fic) is michelle forbes. i think from far away she looks like lola + her face is incredibly beautiful and stern.

the thing about elle is that i don't believe she really has 'daddy issues'. she misses him, deeply. she also feels guilty about how he died and she wants to make him proud, but ultimately her death dreams in 2.01 were a source of comfort as she was dying.

aaron and elle had easily one of the most interesting relationships of any two characters on the show. i'm especially thinking of season 1, episode 17: a real rain. this episode is actually so delicious because the unsub is a vigilante court reporter hunting people who got acquitted and there's a whole b plot about a past case where hotch talked an unsub down and he went on to get acquitted and kill another victim, right?

fuck it au where gideon and elle reconnected sometime before 10.13 and had been kinda investigating cold cases together. doing a little detective work. reluctantly, but they both know that they're not going to turn their backs on someone. they're sitting in a diner or a public library or a car and it's like old times, but it's really not. it's different. gideon has a lot of regrets and wants to open up, but he's not good at that even when he tries, and elle just doesn't even want to try. she won't let it be like last time, when she thought they were close and got burnt.