#from 7x21 institutional memory

[smallblueandloud]

okay i’m back again— SO i was rereading your tww sense8 au posts, as one does, and there’s so many THINGS IM DYING TO EXPLORE. but. um. i forgot some. i’m the worst sorry! BUT: this. “if marriage equality existed at the time, they’d have probably gotten married and toby would’ve had a Crisis about it” WHAT WOULD THIS HAVE BEEN LIKE I WANT MORE OF THIS. i love them so much. i wrote my first cjandy fic and THEY KISSED it was euphoric. ALSO 4x20 IN THIS VERSE. pls talk about any of this, whenever!!

HI BRO IT’S BEEN LIKE THREE MONTHS SINCE YOU SENT ME THIS BUT I’M STILL RIDE-OR-DIE FOR THIS OT3 SO I’M ANSWERING IT NOW!!

look. not to be that person, but toby is an insecure kind of guy. i love him but he is. he’s sad, and he’s quiet, and you know the reason why andy’s breakup conversation to him (in her dream house, right before she went into labor) broke her heart so much was because she knew how much she was hurting him. he’s used to being alone and he doesn’t LIKE it but i think he’s at the point where he wouldn’t be SURPRISED, you know?

this is all to say that he doesn’t do so great, when everything is tense and cj refuses to even be in the same room as him but will kiss andy in the psycellium for some reason. He Doesn’t Cope So Well, understandably. this is worse in an au where marriage equality exists.

presumably we’re working with an au where marriage equality is at about the same level as it is today -- so couples of varying genders can be legally married, but no polycules. in this case, we have cj less concerned about being seen with andy in public and more concerned with being seen with toby and andy in public. i’m guessing she’s still cagey and therefore the disintegration still happens (honestly, i want to say toby and andy would’ve fallen apart no matter if cj had stayed or not, but that’s a whole other discussion), which means andy is therefore available when cj finds herself living in DC with two (2) acquaintances she doesn’t work with (and the other one is her brother’s college roommate, so the choice is easy).

see i just think andy and cj get along in a way that andy and toby just DON’T. they’re both pragmatic, although cj will get caught up in her emotions if she’s not careful and andy is always ready to drop everything to start a fight. toby isn’t either of those -- toby will just stand his ground for what he believes in, no matter how people try to convince him otherwise, and this is why toby works very well as a second in command and would make a very bad leader in anything besides speechwriting. (i finally talked myself into cj being chief of staff, as you might be able to tell.) (this, btw, still means andy could’ve been the shuttle leaker -- ready to start a fight with the bartlet administration about the pointlessness of military secrets if they can’t use them to save people -- but that’s a whole different issue. the main reason why it makes sense for it to be andy and not toby is that toby is, above all, someone who’s thrown in his lot with josiah bartlet, and that means he will STAND WITH HIM in public no matter how MUCH he disagrees in private. okay seriously i’m trying not to discuss the shuttle leak here. ahem. GAYNESS.)

what this means is that toby gets into arguments with both cj and andy very easily, because he’ll dig in his heels and ignore them throwing every argument they’ve got at him and god can you imagine how frustrating that is. but cj and andy make a very good team, good at compromising, good at showing affection (toby tends to lock up when he’s in a mood), and really good at choosing movies for movie night. (they DO burn things whenever they try to cook together -- toby and cj are the family cooks when they’re all living together -- and andy, like toby, doesn’t speak the language of the press the way cj does, but for the most part they work very well together.)

this is a really long description to say that, yeah, i think if we were in an ideal world, andy and cj would make the best married couple. it wouldn’t be a good IDEA for them to get married, because toby would NOT take it well and obviously you don’t want to get married if it’s going to hurt your other partner in the way it would hurt toby.

also?? i just want to say you’re a genius because i had never considered the angst potential of 3x21 (edit: completely misjudged the season whoops) in the sense8 au but oh MAN it’s painful. i’m torn between my love of that shot of cj sitting alone in her gown while times square streams past her -- versus a similar shot, except toby and andy are psychically sitting on either side of her, with toby’s hand on her back and andy’s hand on her leg. LIKE?? THE ANGST POTENTIAL IS OUT OF THE PARK HERE Y’ALL, I NEED EVERYONE TO GET WITH ME ON THIS.

the image that won’t leave my head is toby, pale and shocked next to sam celebrating the motorcade maneuver, and at some point sam turns to him and asks “are you okay?” and toby, feeling cj’s pain and feeling pain for her, says “yeah” because what ELSE can he say??? pain. pain is good. thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[smallblueandloud]

hi essbie!! you seem super awesome❤️❤️ if you would like to talk to me about the west wing i would love that! i’m watching for the first time now and i’m in LOVE with it- tell me all your thoughts! otps, favorite episodes, arcs, characters... anything!

oh my god, this is my FAVORITE ASK THAT I HAVE EVER RECEIVED EVER. i’m so happy to talk about the west wing because the fandom that’s still alive today seems to be TINY (although high-spirited!!). thank you for asking!! i will endeavor to talk a lot.... which isn’t hard for me, lol.

(psst, before we begin, can i recommend you check out @donnajosh, who posts gorgeous new gifsets of tww pretty regularly [and also has gifs tagged by episode so you can find the right post to reblog when you’re liveblogging, shh], @etraytin, who’s written some AMAZING multichaps that have gotten me through this very stressful week, and @cassiesinsanity, who’s just plain genuinely amazing?? okay. now that that’s out of the way.)

i tried to figure out from your blog where you are in the show, but i can’t find anything more detailed than “probably has finished in the shadow of two gunmen”, so i’m just gonna keep things anti-spoilers. there are some really, really cool plot developments in tww, and i don’t recommend you spoil yourself for things on purpose! but also like. i DEFINITELY spoil things for myself all the time. so what the hell, don’t listen to me lol.

(i tried to put this under a cut, but tumblr glitched. sorry, peeps who don’t care about the west wing. also, WATCH THE WEST WING.)

my ALL TIME, dearest headcanon is adhd josh. i just. i love my boy so much. i love my impulsive, ridiculously-sensitive-to-perceived-rejection, loud, hyperfixated boy so much. i don’t know everything about adhd, but from what i know josh is TEXTBOOK. or at least he’s a lot like me! and i’m reasonably sure i have adhd. so. i’m REALLY, REALLY into that headcanon and everything about it. (i actually wrote a fic in which i wrote him the way i see his adhd presenting, because i love him so much. hmm, i should write a fic about josh being adhd. what kind of stims would josh like??)

i love and adore josh/donna, like many many other people. i like zoey/charlie, just because i think they make each other happy and both of them deserve that. i... like cj/danny? sorta? i think they’re adorable, and they have some REALLY good moments (no spoilers but. oh my god. danny really out here chugging his respect women juice and i love him for it). but also i am EXTREMELY ATTACHED to cj/toby and more specifically cj/toby/andy.

HEAR ME OUT. cj has EXTREME wlw energy and cj and toby have A LOT of married energy but then toby and andy... love each other so much, it’s so clear, in literally everything they do, i don’t know if you’ve gotten to the end of s5 yet but i cry. so like?? obviously, because i am who i am, polyamory is the answer! basically the rundown is: andy and toby are a typical couple except that they fight a lot. cj is kinda in the middle. if gay marriage had been legal / socially acceptable in the 80s (because god knows this ot3 has been thinking about optics since they graduated college), cj and andy would’ve gotten married and toby would’ve come and gone depending on who he’d pissed off recently, and everything would’ve been perfect. instead, andy and toby got married and it didn’t work because they really just couldn’t function as a unit, especially since their getting married meant that cj isolated herself a bit more. definitely cj and toby have a couple of SCREAMING arguments about the whole relationship. idk.

but just like. imagine with me, if you will, cj and toby... not dating, while working in the white house, but being exes. friendly exes. friendly exes who are still in love with each other and know it. please imagine that and then think about “i love you desperately / i know” and “you wanna make out with me right now, don’t you? / well, when don’t i?” and “we had it good there for a while / yeah, we did” and then join me in the pit of sadness.

(sidenote i have a sense8 au for the west wing and the second story is just me being emotional about their cluster for 5k. i have another story vaguely planned that i’ll probably never write about the development of the ot3 and about their cluster and how it functions. but don’t read that story until you finish... the first half of s7? or thereabouts? actually probably you should finish the show before you read the sense8 au in general if you’re avoiding spoilers.)

(when i say “i’ll probably never write”, i mean “until the next time i get obsessed with the west wing”. which will probably be years from now. oh, well, we can all hope the muse actually does something efficient for once.)

so yeah. those are my ships. i know a lot of people shipped josh/sam, but i don’t really see it? sam always seemed Way Too Straight for that to work lol, although i DO like the idea of sam pining tragically for josh for years just like donna does. (can you tell i read such a winter’s day a few days ago? it’s amazing. i haven’t left a review yet because i have not been a human being recently, but go read it!! it’s awesome!!)

also, i love the idea of bartlet/abbey/leo, although i can’t really visualize it lol. but there’s some amazing fic for them out there. maybe one day my stupid brain will realize the angst potential and actually let me write something for them, hopefully within the sense8 au. (sam also has a cluster! and i would love to write about them! .....but my brain doesn’t do what i tell it to. ever.)

my favorite arc.... i don’t know. i really loved the early seasons, which were a little more episodic, but ALSO i actually really liked the tone after aaron sorkin left after s4? it takes some getting used to, but it’s WAY more emotional, and i am ALL HERE FOR THAT. i definitely have a least favoite arc, or at least a least-favorite way-that-they-handled-a-storyline (spoiler alert: i hated how they handled the end of bartlet’s presidency in the white house. like. SHE’S ALL ALONE IN THERE- anyways. trying not to give detailed spoilers!)

favorite episodes: hmm. i love the thanksgiving episodes. i loved any episode with the ainsley-and-sam dynamic. noel is a phenomenal episode. 26 could make anyone weep. the flashbacks are the best. the fucking- the fucking what’s next motif.

honestly, probably i’d have to say my favorite episode is either 4x20 (evidence of things not seen, for “stupidly noble cluster” reasons and cj/toby reasons and bartlet & charlie reasons. also i feel like there’s some good josh/donna there too but i can’t remember exactly?) or 7x21 (institutional memory, because i’m pretty sure the writers reached into my id and pulled out EXACTLY what i needed from them to be okay with the show ending. jesus CHRIST i have never felt so satisfied after an episode. literally everything i ever could have wanted happened in that episode. i’m STILL reeling. it’s a perfect episode.)

my favorite characters are... literally everyone? i know that’s cheating but i love them all SO MUCH (except mandy and amy, of course). josh is my favorite, always and forever, but i love cj more than words and sometimes i can’t breathe for love of toby. leo and bartlet and charlie and sam and donna- here i was thinking i was gonna resent will forever but i LOVE will. ainsley is an amazing woman. abbey is such a good character, god, talk about a flawed woman who’s allowed to be a good person.

AND THEN THEY MADE ME ROOT FOR A REPUBLICAN. again, i doubt you’ve gotten to s7, but the republican nominee in the last election... jesus christ. i love that man so much. arguably, i’m very biased, but also how D A R E they expect me to root against him. how DARE.

(i swear this will make more sense once you meet him. i just love the actor a lot, okay?)

anyways. this got ridiculously long. i would LOVE to talk about the west wing with you, feel free to reblog this with your own thoughts or tag me in your own post or message me or something. i would love to hear your reactions!! it’s such a good show, and such a smart show, and every character is so mcfreaking good at what they do and i adore it. enjoy the ride because there’s nothing as perfect and as quality as the west wing. if you’ll please excuse me, i’m going to go cry about 7x21 again.