let your colors blind their eyes

Quite often when I read how some fans portray Reid, they take the stereotypical ‘nerd’ route. They think that because he doesn’t work out a lot like Morgan or because he is a nerdy character then he doesn’t see much value in vanity so he mustn’t dabble in it. I’m here to explain why this is completely false

Reid is very aware of how looks are perceived by others. In the past we have seen him talk about the ‘golden ratio’ and facial symmetry which are both scientific theories behind why we find certain people attractive; as someone with a PHD in psychology he of course knows a lot about this and will probably also know about the halo effect. The halo effect is the theory that we make pre-determined assumptions about people based on the little facts we know about them, which is quite often their looks

Because Reid knows about these psychological theories and the importance of needing to be perceived in a positive light in his line of work in order to gain trust from others, it is not unreasonable to expect that he would take pride in his own looks

The first way in which he does this is through his hair. Someone who doesn’t care about how they look would not change their hair as much as Reid does. In season 1 we see him with very neat hair, like your classic young student who wants to make a good impression on those senior to him. He’s Gideon’s student and he keeps himself very straight-lace in order to live up to what he feels would be Gideon’s expectations of him.

In season 2, after he gets kidnapped, his hair is no longer kept neat but becomes more messy as he is no longer concerned with looking neat or impressing Gideon because he’s too busy battling his own demons.

Then from seasons 3-4 we see him experiment with a lot more hairstyles and growing his hair out. I feel like part of this he because Gideon is gone, he is no longer Gideon’s student but rather an established FBI agent who can afford to experiment to find what he likes. We see this all throughout the show, whether it’s his Jesus hair in season 5, his short hair in seasons 6 & 7, his messy mid-length hair in season 8 and his shorter hair, again, in season 9

Then in season 10 he finds a hairstyle that he seems comfortable with which is slightly shorter and parted; a style which he keeps until season 12 when he’s arrested and then we get post-prison Reid who carries into season 15 with long curly hair

Then if we look at his clothes, we will again see that his style changes a lot and a lot of thought is put into each outfit. Accessories such as watches, expensive cardigans, trench coats coats, bags, sweater vests, designer shoes, scarves and patterned ties all make an appearance and his clothes change with his maturity and confidence

To conclude, Reid cares a lot about his looks and a lot of effort is clearly put into looking nice, either because of his own preferences or his knowledge of how others perceive him

Also shoutout to his converse

Literally from the first episode, we see Spencer pairing like colors together in his outfits and it works.

He wears a red sweater with a warm orange-y toned button up shirt. This is a genuinely cute look in my opinion.

Even when he does wear "plain" neutral, stereotypical nerdy looks, they work because he understands warm vs cool tones of brown. He knows the dark, cool brown jacket's gonna look better with his sort of greige vest or a similar color and a darker gray tie, so that's what he pairs that with. He knows his warmer beige vest is going to look better with warmer accessories, so he pairs that with a warm brown tie that matches his bag nearly perfectly.

They gray of his sweater vest matches the gray of his (super cute!) patterned shirt here as well.

Bless him, he matched his little blue tie to his little blue cardigan that he wore with a darker blue button up.

He matched the color of his tie to the heart of his very expensive Comme des Garçons cardigans both times he wore the cardigans. (He is adorable and I love him.)

Also, OP mentioned that Spencer plays around with haircuts and styles a lot more after Gideon leaves and he absolutely does, frequently.

But you know who else has a lot of fun playing with hair styles and matching clothes to accessories all the time?

Yes! My precious angel, Penelope Garcia! They are fashionista besties who go shopping together and no one can take that headcanon away from me.

All of that to say that this mess from 7x05 was all a bunch of OOC BS. To rectify it in my mind, he was acting like the stereotype people thought of (book smarts, not fashion & self expression smarts) so the team wouldn't get weird about him knowing why fashionable women never have only four pairs of shoes and in the end, was trying to be nice to Derek who definitely wasn't absorbing the fashion talk happening around him, because saying lazy, un-researched writing would be too easy even though that's usually the case when weird contradictions happen with characters.

And it not being socially acceptable to talk about your own childhood is super alienating. Sometimes people want to know why, and any answer you can give them is going to be off putting.

One of them said something like, "it doesn't bother me that [Friend] was in residential mental health treatment, I just wish they wouldn't talk about it ALL the time".

The other replied, "Well, that was all of last year for them. So when they say 'when I was in treatment,' it's like when you say 'last year'."

Even if they have genuinely loving families that don't neglect them, which is rare, children are still put under constant abuse from every other aspect of their life. They're living on ultra-mega-hard-mode. Emotions are understandable.

I also completely understand people who can't be around loud children, or who hate it when a kid breaks down crying or screaming in a store or a restaurant. I hate it when a kid breaks down crying or screaming in a restaurant or store. Like, that's not an unreasonable feeling to have when someone is making an uncomfortable amount of noise. I get it. You don't want that kid to be crying or screaming any more than they want to be doing it.

Jason Gideon:

Spencer,

I knew it would be you who came to the cabin to check on me.

You must be frightened, I apologize for that. I never meant to cause you any pain. But then I also never envisioned writing this letter. I’ve searched for a satisfactory explanation for what I’m doing, all I’ve come up with is: a profiler needs to have solid footing. I- I don’t think I do anymore. The world confuses me. The cruelty, indifference, tragedy.

When my dear friend Sarah was murdered, it tore a hole in me, and I truly believed the way to handle the pain was to get back to our work as quickly as possible. Get on to helping somebody else. I thought I could handle Sarah’s murder, work through it.

On the very first case we had after, it was on a college campus.

You see, I met Sarah at college, on a campus just like that one 31 years ago. Campuses are supposed to be places of life and excitement. They’re supposed to be about the future. Figuring out who you are, who you’re gonna be. It’s supposed to be about dreams, not nightmares. About hope. I really don’t understand the world anymore.

All homicide scenes are tragic, but when the victim’s someone young, their life ripped away before they’ve even had a chance to live, it’s devastating.

In this line of work, I was afraid I would lose the ability to trust, but I’ve realized I can’t really look at anyone without seeing their death. And as bad as losing faith in humanity seems, losing your faith in happy endings is much worse.

How many victims have we seen? How many crime scenes? Hundreds? Thousand? Pictures of families, victims– both alive and dead. I was always able to stay objective, to stay at arm’s length, but now.. all I see is Sarah in them. Nathan Tubbs was easy, but there was a time in my career when I would have asked the question I should have asked– was he too easy?

Biggest trap for a profiler to fall into is pride. Forgetting that for all your skills, profiling is just a tool.

It was like you could physically feel the mood change on the campus. Kids.. they’re so resilient. They trust and believe in a way I remember, but can’t reach anymore. Like a very old picture. You remember the circumstances, but the feelings, the emotions, they’re just out of your grasp. They believed in us. Believed in me. The way Sarah believed in me. And, as with Sarah, I feel that I led them right to the slaughter.

What was I even doing there? How many times have I told you that a profiler cannot do the job if the mind is unfocused? If anything is going on in your personal life, it would cloud your judgement. My mind has never been more unfocused than it was on that campus.

Did I let a lion loose amongst babies? Was my judgement clouded by a need to make someone pay for Sarah’s death?

Two more dead. Was it a price that needed to be paid? Is death ever worth it? Was the world always this gray? Is it only in the movies that it’s black and white? Was that just an illusion? I used to know. I used to understand my place, my direction, where I was headed.

Profiling requires belief. Belief in the profile, belief in yourself. After Sarah, I no longer trust myself at home. After Tubbs, I no longer trust myself in the field. And without that, I have nothing.

And that was the last domino. The death of that girl. Hotch being suspended over something that was my fault. I said at the beginning of this letter, that I knew it would be you to come up here. I’m so sorry the explanation couldn’t be better, Spencer. And I am so sorry that it doesn’t make more sense, but I’ve already told you, I just don’t understand any of it anymore.

I’m sorry.

I feel like I could write an entire paper on this. Especially with everyone who shits on Morgan for being skeptical of JJ or Emily or whoever as if he wasn’t questioning Hotch and Gideon and Reid in the fucking pilot and every second since then. And like of course he’s a fucking skeptic. He was racially profiled as a child and into his adult life by cops that got one story in their heads about him and ran with it. For years! And he was abused by another man in power. So of course he isn’t going to just agree with everything people first pitch out. That is one of the main things he brings to the team! His skepticism and forcing people to flesh out and prove their theories, not letting people see what they want to see or find what they want to find. I mean, god, I’m not saying the man is perfect but with how everyone comes after all the time I feel like I can only ever defend him.

Or like people will call him sexist because he’ll joke with his female colleagues. Who call him out on his bullshit but clearly know he’s not being serious. Like media literacy is so fucking low if people can’t tell that. I just rewatched the pilot today and got to the scene where he says to Elle “next time show a little leg.” And out of context, sure it sounds bad. But in context he’s clearly being like “hey, you’re coming off a little strong and over eager.” Elle volleys it right back to him. And then he says “I’m still teaching hand to hand at Quantico, if you need practice.” Which kinda implies that they’ve run into each other before (from the use of still) and also the conversation goes to Elle asking him for tips on how to get the job.

Gideon and Rossi say way worse shit than he does (Gideon constantly forgetting who Garcia is (even if that might just be a feigned nonchalance, he doesn’t do it to any guys)). Rossi committed a literal hate crime in his youth.

I don’t think Morgan is any worse than any of the other guys on the team. (Matt is perfect and has never done anything wrong so he is at the top of the pyramid). And it honestly is at best a microagression, and at worst just blatant racism that Morgan is the only man who gets treated like this.

Jordan Todd was covering JJ’s maternity leave, she came from Terrorism. Terrorism obviously is going to have a different protocol than the BAU would have, but people get all mad that she wasn’t immediately perfect at this job. She gets criticized for everything she does or doesn’t do. Is she a little headstrong and defensive? Sure. But she’s a black woman working her way up in the federal government. She’s probably very used to being outright dismissed or talk down to by her peers, especially her male colleagues. She is not given proper support in this transition. As someone who has worked in managerial roles before, it’s honestly really shitty the lack of support Hotch gives her. It takes Emily going to bat for her for Hotch to really give her a chance. And yeah, she made mistakes. But she’s literally had like one or two days of training before thrust into this role. Anyway, she also gets a lot of undue hate from the fandom.

As for my angel Dr. Tara Lewis, I have seen some of the most dog awful shit takes in the world around her. I have seen multiple people critize her for being a “know it all” while praising Reid in the same post for being a genius. Because god forbid a black woman be accomplished and intelligent. I’ve seen people hate on her for her jokes because it’s “forcing gen z slang on her” as if almost all of a generations “slang” wasn’t first co-opted from black queer women.

I have seen so many people rank both Jordan and Tara at the bottom of “sexiest BAU women” lists which like people can have their preferences but it just feels weird how literally two of the prettiest people in the world are ranked so low and they also happen to be the only two black women on the show.

Also just everyone swooning over Jemily but not giving any love to the actual wlw couple on the show. Because if it’s not two white women they don’t want it. It’s just so exhausting to see all of this time and time again but for people to act like racism and unconscious bias aren’t huge problems in this fandom (and all fandoms).