#now THIS is a fucking prompt akjsdhlgaksjd

[maschotch]

If hotch's mom is still alive, what do you think she's like & their relationship is like?

WHAT an interesting question. i think i’ve always just assumed his mom was dead bc there is literally no mention of her at all. not from hotch or from sean. his dad was already complicated enough…

this answer got longer than intended kasjhdlg so it’s going under a read more

ok lemme get into the general characterization i’ve had in my head this whole time just so i can figure out how to work this out. obviously his father was abusive, and it’s likely something his mother has had to deal with for much longer. just for the sake of keeping her firmly under his thumb (fist), i’ve imagined her marrying when she’s pretty young? like 18/19… i dont wanna get too caught up in the ages bc that’s a whole other fucking rabbit hole, but whats important is the mentality: someone who’s been stuck in an abusive relationship for years, someone who feels like they have nowhere else to go. based on the interactions hotch has had w abusive fathers and their wives.. i’ve sorta just come to the conclusion that she wasn’t the type to stand up for herself. and after years of prolonged physical and undoubtedly psychological abuse, i doubt she would qualify as mentally stable. conjuring fantastical classically gothic images of what the hotchner household looked like, i imagine by the time hotch became a teenager, his mom was kind of like an empty shell. drifting around the house with a ghastly presence; yellow wallpaper, wide sargasso sea kinda vibes

the intention with all this was to have her set the house on fire, killing herself inside it, in all its melodramatic glory. but hey if they didnt want me to be As Extra As Possible with it then they shouldve just give hotch a backstory and i wouldnt have to. but the ultimate goal here was to leave hotch without a stable figure in his life by the time his dad passes (however we choose to believe THAT happened..) it seemed like the easiest way to set up the scene for hotch’s behavioral problems as a teenager and sean’s attachment issues. no matter how wattpad-y we get with it, i just assumed his mother was dead

so if she wasn’t… whew. that rocks the boat a bit. because it makes her more than a survivor: it makes her a witness. hotch has no one in his life currently who was there for the brunt of his father’s abuse. sean was likely too little, and haley hadn’t quite entered the scene yet (and even if she was, i doubt it’s something he would be upfront about). he has no one to tie him back to that period of his life, and honestly i think that even if it hadn’t worked out that way, hotch would try very hard to distance himself from that time entirely. preferring to sweep it under the rug and pretend he had that happy normal household he’d always been taught to say. if his mother was alive, i doubt that would change. for someone who holds the idea of family in such high esteem, he was quick to estrange his brother even before sean committed to the #badboylyfestyle. i imagine it would be just as easy for him to cut off his mother.

to what extent… that depends on how they grew up. we can keep with the original idea of a weaker woman in the shadow of an abusive husband. if we continued along that journey.. well… @t4thotchniss thought it would be fun if, once hotchner sr died, she thought that hotch was his father. even though she’s free from the abuse, the mental wounds were past hope of recovery. she may still be breathing, but the warm mother of his childhood is still long dead, replaced by a demented husk. either institutionalized or sent with sean to the grandparents to be cared for and looked after. hotch may visit occasionally, but he grows weary of facing his mother’s cowering eyes as she waits for the blow to come. the constant reminder that he looks like his father, that he is his father’s son, is unpleasant for both of them and hotch may just stop coming all together. something sean, not knowing the nature of the situation, doesn’t understand. he just views it as another rejection from his older brother.

if we eased up on the severity a little bit and just had her be a shell-shocked survivor now charged with raising two kids, it’d be different for sure. i’m not sure what state their finances are in, but for the sake of simplicity lets just say she can get by with the inheritance and meager earnings from some small job in town. i think at that point, her biggest issue would be herself. her husbands dead and gone now. and without that malicious air saturating the household, she starts questioning her own hand in that environment. why didn’t she do something about it? why did she spend so long living like that? why didn’t she protect her son? this would hit especially hard if we decided to be sexy and have hotch kill his father. her fear has been replaced by an overwhelming sense of guilt. to the point where she can’t even look at her son anymore. she focuses all her energy on sean and tries to create a home so different from the kind hotch was raised in: one where he could feel safe and loved. something sorely lacking throughout hotch’s childhood. hotch may be upset at first (hence the behavioral issues) and this is where she sends him off to boarding school. she won’t admit it, but it’s two birds with one stone. she wouldn’t have to deal with an unstable teenager and she doesn’t have to live with the constant reminder of her failure as a mother. over time i think hotch would understand why being around him was so difficult for his mother. especially years later—when she realizes she’d made the wrong decision by ostracizing her son, being ashamed to see him all over again. hotch respects that and keeps his distance. truthfully it’s easier for him too: if there’s no one in his life from that time, he can go on pretending everything was fine.

now we could get real crazy with it and have his mom be abusive too. there are varying levels here, but i’ll take inspiration from the conversation with perotta. “why didn’t you hate her?” things would be drastically different if he was the only one who suffered at the hands of his father. the man didn’t touch his wife, choosing to take his anger out solely on his son. in that case, it would make more sense if it was something that got worse with age. he wasn’t necessarily violent before, until his wife gave birth to the perfect outlet for his aggression. as the drinking worsened and the decrepitness of middle age began to settle in, his temper only got worse—as did the beatings. without compassion, without solidarity, without any sort of companionship… that would be a very different environment for a child indeed. there’s no expectation for reprieve. no hope that it would stop. his mother, aloof and unmoved by his cries, offers no chance of momentary escape. forsaken by his mother and battered by his father, hotch grows up entirely alone with a growing resentment for the world that has dealt him only cruelty. i think that would only be heightened if, when little sean was born, both parents doted on the blond haired blue eyed baby, their perfect child. once his father dies, his mother sends him off to boarding school, not wanting to deal with her sorry excuse for a son. while hotch sorts himself out through high school to college, sean is left with high expectations and a very rigid kind of love. conditional. which is when he starts acting out. as an adult, hotch wouldn’t visit his mother much. when he does, he would be cordial and polite, his jaw aching from clenching his teeth the whole time. nevertheless he acts a perfect gentlemen, knowing full well that it will never be enough for her.

among those options i kinda like the last one honestly aksjhdlakjd i think it fits best with the resulting characters at the point we see them in the show. sean shifting erratically from trying to please their mom to acting out and rebelling… hotch becoming a lawyer in the hopes of gaining his mother’s favor, shifting to pursue his own ambitions when that last strand of hope snaps… brothers envying and resenting the other, and neither sure what to do about it… hotch ultimately being the bigger man and reaching out to rekindle their relationship… sean, irritated and indignant of his older brother seemingly flaunting his maturity in the face of sean’s failures, recoiling and shutting him out completely… the regret seeping any aspirations out of him and keeping the door stubbornly closed, refusing to turn back and insisting on continuing on the path he’s chosen, no matter where it leads… idk its just fun that way

but no matter how hotch’s childhood went, i think the end result would be the same. i don’t think he’d see his mother often, if at all. if he did, it wouldn’t be a happy occasion.

#now THIS is a fucking prompt akjsdhlgaksjd #idk if i explained these well enough?? i could definitely go more in depth into all of these #but for the sake of my sanity and anyone who actually decides to read all this... i'll hope this is enough and keep my mouth shut aksjhdgla #asks #aaron hotchner #cm writings #very interesting to me that hotch went to boarding school. like.. of all the things they couldve talked about.. #they talked about something that would complicate his background even MORE?? fuck off aksjdhlasjg #but i do like it #😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫