#hotchgan

1. High school AU or College AU

2. Mutual pining

3. Undercover

4. There is only one bed

5. Power dynamic

Please!

D-, not my thing. It narrowly avoids being an F just because very rarely I will read one. But it depends on the pairing, the author, and the fact that I only like my HS AUs seriously fucked up. Like, they need to be covering up murders and having hormone-driven sex they don't understand with people who aren't good for them and falling in love despite all that. I hate fluffy OOC AUs of any sort, and school-age ones more than most. (I have one Hotchgan AU that lives in my daydreams where Hotch is in law school in DC and Morgan is in undergrad and comes by for a football game and they're in love, but it can't go anywhere, they can't be anything to each other, and they fall apart - they lose each other for years, until Morgan joins the BAU.)

A+, delicious. I'm (hopefully) guaranteed my happy ending because they're both pining, but there's all this glorious internal angst to wade through first. This works for me with any pairing.

C? B-? I don't mind it, and I like "undercover as a couple combined with mutual pining," but I can't say I seek it out. Also works with hurt/comfort, if one is undercover and the other is on the comms.

Definitely C. I'm sure it can be good, but frequently it feels forced and most of my favorite pairings are grown-ass men who hopefully can manage to share a bed with someone they're attracted to and admire without jumping their bones. It works better for me if they used to date and so there's a nice helping of angst for what once was and might never be again.

B or C, I guess. I'm assuming this means like Dom/Sub and not like teacher/student or boss/employee (F, nope, thank you on that one, really not big on workplace power dynamics even reversed). I enjoy a good BDSMverse, but I'm very picky about who I see as in character for which role, and for how it's handled.

Couldn't fit ficlets in here without making this too long, but there's some beautiful options there with one or both of them undercover (I wrote a tiny thing with them undercover and dancing once) and I think they're always pining for each other in every universe.

A+! Listen, I love a happy ending, but I want it to feel earned, like a hot chocolate after hours out in the wintry cold. Putting the character in situations (external or internal hurt) and then having someone hold them through it is probably one out of the two tropes I go hunting for most. (It also combines very well with other tropes. With everything.)

It's also so very Hotchgan, frequently Morgan comforting Hotch (through the arson case, divorce, getting blown up in NY, Foyet, Haley's death, etc.). Since we don't see it in the other direction as often and I just rewatched "The Perfect Storm" (2x3), here's a brief moment in the other direction: