#also this made me remember how much i dont like women of qumar's actual plot :/

[palukoo]

this is really super niche but the "amy is dcos and josh is the lobbyist role reversal" au

ooh see this is right up my alley, but also very hard for me specifically bc i do think their paths make a lot of sense for each character and that juxtaposition works really well for them but! i like the idea!!

amy's floating from job to job, as she does, when jed's really starting to think about running and starting to campaign, and she maybe offhandedly comes up in conversation about hiring since she's an old friend of the bartlets' or at least abbey. abbey reaches out to her, and amy's hesitant to take on a campaign, to work for one man instead of with a bunch of women, but it's jed, and she agrees to do some consulting, and then falls in love with the campaign and the work they're doing, and accidentally just... stays (there’s probably some grand speech from jed that convinces her and it’s a really beautiful scene)

amy and leo are not two people i think about interacting with each other a lot so this is fun but! i think they’re both a little iffy on each other at first. like, leo gets that amy’s an old bartlet family friend and really good at politics and legislative stuff and debate prep and whatever, but i don’t really think he gets her... humor, i guess? and he does sort of recognize that she’s a little volatile, and doesn’t have that insane loyalty, and that makes him really hesitant about her. and amy can sort of feel that distrust, and also probably gets into a big argument about something political with him early on (and like, with jed too, and jed takes leo’s side-- jed taking amy’s side at some point would also make a really good scene) but like. she ends up being really right about something, or makes a sort of sacrifice for the campaign, or does something really... idealistic, or pushes jed to, and leo is kind of like, oh, i get it, we do need her. and starts being better about like listening to her, and pushing her ideas with jed and that sort of thing. it’s probably more stilted than josh and leo in a lot of ways, but also i really like this conceptually now. i have a lot of thoughts

josh is working for hoynes and super disillusioned by it, and instead of getting approached by leo to work for the campaign, some old friend with a lobbying firm or some like. sort of activism group offers him a job. he doesn’t want to take it at first but ends up listening to their points on some bill, bringing it up with hoynes and being shut down, and leaving. (he argues with hoynes over social security in canon which is like. important obviously in real world politics but doesn’t quite have the pathos i’m looking for. im not sure what i want him to be doing. gay rights would be really self indulgent but hey! i could also see some type of economic reform stuff or like reforms to the political process, which would be fun.) he’s glad that hoynes doesn’t win the primaries, really, and he’s even more glad that bartlet wins the general, but he’s not super involved

honestly inserting amy into any early josh plot rotates between hilarious, interesting in what changes, and super sad! like amy arguing with the religious right in the pilot? iconic. amy getting shot? painful. also just generally amy being there with the rest of them makes me very happy bc y’all know i love amy&cj and amy&toby and amy&jed (she will absolutely keep poking him with a stick in this!!). but also why change any of the romance subplots? let amy and mandy be exes! (i’m mostly joking because i think they would get along better, usually, than josh gets along with either of them and would make really good friends, but they would argue about politics and publicity sometimes. amy would probably be much kinder to her than anyone else about the memo). let her be absolutely terrible at hitting on joey lucas! (again, joking-- amy is still a mess abut relationships and feelings but she can actually flirt). i also really like the dynamics you’d see with amy in the ms plot, because i think she’d also be more upset with abbey than most of the rest of them are

how you get josh into the plot depends a lot on what issue i’m having him on, but instead of amy reaching out to abbey, josh probably reaches out to his old family friend leo, and leo sends amy to talk to him, and there you go! idk, with who they are and the structure this lends itself to, i kind of feel like amy may be more of josh’s side of whatever than josh was with her. the other thing is, i don’t see the reversed plot playing out where amy makes josh lose his job (less because i think she wouldn’t for a good reason, more because i don’t see him taking the same risks she does) but idk, whatever, eventually you have amy do something volatile and yk sorta fuck some things up, and leo brings josh in for legislative affairs (kind of like with angela blake but i promise somehow she would be here in this au, too, and also probably much less successfully since josh is also a mess), which naturally freaks amy the fuck out. amy’s had at least 20 “i’m going to be fired” crises before this, but like this is one of them! she kind of hates josh for it and argues with him (and leo) a lot, but they do end up making some progress