#oc: catherine willoughby

[splinteredmercies]

SPRING CLEANING ‘24 ␥ Catherine Willoughby (1/?)

fandom: the west wing

pairing: eventual josh lyman/catherine willoughby (oc)

author's note: this will eventually be a one-shot published on ao3, but for now, I'll post this scene. the following scene takes place during the '98 election cycle. at this point, bartlet and hoynes are on the ticket together. (want to imagine catherine with a face claim? kristin davis in sex and the city!)

word count: 239

Catherine resisted the urge to twiddle her thumbs. Her mother had taught her better. But Dr. Bartlet was not making anything easy.

“I do not need anyone to tell me how to dress! I know how to dress myself! Where’s Leo—?”

Catherine took her chance. She squared her shoulders and said, “Dr. Bartlet, I wasn’t hired to dress you. Quite frankly, you’re not the problem. It’s your husband.”

“My husband?”

“Governor Bartlet could speak all day about economics and theology and whether or not Notre Dame is doing well during the football season. He’s a smart man, but he cannot dress himself!”

Catherine paused to take a breath. She wondered if she would jinx the election with the words she wanted to say… She continued anyway.

“You’re doing well in the polls. The Bartlet-Hoynes ticket has a chance of winning. Your schedule isn’t going to allow you to be able to pick the Governor’s suit and tie for every event, Doctor.”

There was a begrudging acceptance in Dr. Bartlet’s eyes. The older woman assessed Catherine with a keen gaze. “You always address me as ‘Doctor,’ never ‘Mrs.’”

“You’re more than just a wife and mother, Doctor Bartlet. Pardon my French, but you’re a kickass thoracic surgeon. Anyone who calls you ‘Mrs. Bartlet’ should correct themselves.”

Dr. Bartlet stared for a moment before she said, “Catherine, you can call me Abbey. Do you go by Cate?”

Catherine smiled and laughed. “Oh, no, I’m Catherine—just Catherine.”

[fideidefenswhore]

Over time, Katherine finally sees the obvious: Henry isn’t going to change his misogynistic ways anytime soon. He does things such as openly flirt with would-be mistresses right in front of Katherine and other people seated at the royal dining table. In this dinner flirtation, Katherine is hostile to the giggling younger woman named Agnes Howard (played by Anna Mawn), who flirts back with Henry, even though Henry (not Agnes) is more at fault.

This is a bizarre choice, considering Agnes Howard would have been 67 years old at the time (or, depending on the year on the film timeline this is supposed to have taken place...deceased? o_O )

[bethanydelleman]

Giggling at your and anon wishing instead for OPTIONS for Fanny. I was thinking it's odd that Ms. Austen decided that her crush on Edmund was reciprocated at the end when she could've been given justice of some sort with how she's been looked and talked over.

It feels like she's out of choices but then I suppose she is out of choices in the end. This is a woman who is shy in an era where you gotta put yourself out there to be seen by the society and she's not even on a level in a society for her to be out and noticed by the gentlemen even if she does, rank-wise

Which is why my friend and I (who has no talent whatsoever in writing) been talking about this writing idea; a boarding school AU where all the Austen ladies is in it,

Mind you we were just going by vibe and not accurate research, so we put Elinor Dashwood, and Maria Bertram, Mary Crawford and Lucy Steele, Caroline Bingley are in the same year, being the oldest

Eleanor Tilney, Jane Bennet, Emma, and Jane Fairfax are in the same year below the others already mentioned

Elizabeth and Marianne are in the year below them

Mary Bennet and Harriet

Catherine Morland and Lydia Bennet

(the ages are 13-18)

Anne Elliot is one of the matrons

This is kind of controversial, for me and I'm not really a fan of this concept myself tbh, but it'll be kind of a fanfictiony story like the Bridgerton with the society being a little more lenient (lol?); because it's a mixed boarding school

The plot is basically all the stuff in the Austen og universe but they're not all the same, the ages can be tweaked a bit lol, with some plot tangled with the other stories but they're leading to the same endings like, so.....

Catherine doesn't marry while studying, but she keeps talking about the Tilneys because she has a penpal whom she met in Bath before school started, she didn't realize that said penpal has a sister who studies in the same school

Catherine's really that student that just spent most of her time in the library, not studying per se, reading novels, she often has to be told to focus in class for daydreaming

and then one summer vacation spends the entire break at Northanger Abbey,

Later, after new semester starts, Lydia tells her sister in an offhand remark that Catherine seemed really down and her visit to Northanger seemed to be the reason.

Her studies decline even more when she was upset about the whole Gen Tilney situation and one evening she goes to their dorm matron to ask for advice; that's Anne, and there Catherine finds a crying Lucy Steele who had just been visited by Fanny Dashwood and basically well, verbally harassed by a visiting older sister of Edward Ferrars

My friend was adamant we either pair up Fanny Price with an oc (original character) or with~~ Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, in this AU of ours is an exchange student, same with Mr. Willoughby

Willoughby is an exchange student for a year who got attached to Marianne, and then gradually stops replying to her letters after he left their school. Colonel Brandon is one of the school beneficiaries

One of the classes go for a trip to Lyme with Captain Wentworth as one of the guides and that's where Louisa smacks her head and later fellow poetry club member Benwick falls for her (or not! I'm also not comfortable with this pairing tbh.Louisa had a one-sided crush on Capt Wentworth)

I'm sorry this is sooooo long. My friend and O kept going at it from the side of the female characters only tbh and we didn't quite know where to put Darcy and Bingley. Are they students? Or older students visiting from Oxford? Horse riding enthusiasts and club members, sharing a hobby with Elizabeth? We don't know 😂

Hope you like it! It's not going anywhere because we are both not writers, but it's a good giggling source! :D

You should write this! The only thing that makes a "writer" is writing. Go for it. It sounds fun!

[vonlipvig]

i saw this meme and i KNEW i had to call out my ocs with it. i love all my lovely dumbasses so much.

bonus, cause i couldn’t fit everyone on the og meme, but i wasn’t about to leave my boys out of it:

[splinteredmercies]

okay, it is official: spring cleaning has commenced!

i've published scenes from some of my favorite characters: catherine willoughby and phoebe huynh!

catherine is a more recent oc, being created in the fall of 2023 while i was having some downtime in the library between classes. phoebe was created in the summer of 2022, following the full release of stranger things season four.

i enjoyed revisiting their docs and choosing my favorite scene to publish, and i'm hoping this will motivate me to finish their respective one-shots!

i’m feeling like doing some spring cleaning so i might begin posting snippets from my various original characters that have been bouncing about my google drive for the last year or so!