#will is so toby jed

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[joshdonnas]

the west wing ⇢ season 01

"I've never felt like this before." "It doesn't go away."

[hawkp]

“Political Drama”

[kay-bee-cee]

Me: Hey, look, a show about politics! Not my usual found family vice!

Jed Bartlet: What was Josh Lyman? A warning shot? That was my son!

Me: …well shit

[kaboomi]

1.10 In Excelsis Deo

“Toby, if we start pulling strings like this don’t you think every homeless veteran will come out of the woodwork?”

“I can only hope so, sir.”

[didsomebodysaypancakes]

Toby really triggered the President of the United States for no actual reason

[peaceliliesandtea]

the west wing might be liberal fodder but it's my liberal fodder

[midnight-els]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the West Wing would have been even better if they'd had a White House cat. Some headcanons bc I was thinking about it today:

Jed gave the cat a very grand, biblical name. Everyone else has shortened it to something very stupid.

Obviously all of the press and the public adore the cat. There's a minor upset in a polling themed episode when Joey confirms that once again the cat has higher approval ratings than the president. Josh is cross that they are polling on this at all.

There is one chair in the Oval Office that is The Cat's Chair. The staff know not to sit there as you'll get a. covered in fur and b. screamed at by an irate cat trying to force you off. They never warn any of their least favourite congresspeople about this.

The cat wanders around in the background of episodes, often being chased or petted by the extras.

The cat is not allowed in the situation room. The cat is always in the situation room. They had to come up with a special bug detecting protocol for the cat in case anyone tried to take advantage of this.

Ripped from the headlines plot about a congressional investigation into something related to the cat, based on the incident about Clinton's cat's postage.

The cat LOVES Air Force One. The Secret Service do not love having to get him on board or captured to get back off.

Leo and the cat are best friends. They're basically this meme. Leo's the grandma. Jed is the mom.

Aside from Leo, the cat loves the secretaries best. They always have lots of treats for him in their desks. Debbie is the only one he doesn't get on with; she has resorted to using a plant mister to spray him when he tries to get on her desk.

Josh thinks he and the cat are archenemies. The cat hasn't paid more than 2 seconds notice to Josh in his life.

CJ and the cat are archenemies. CJ was very pro-cat until she caught it fishing in Gail's bowl one day. Now she's at war to keep it out of her office. She's still trying to convince Danny to write a piece exposing the cat's dark side to its adoring public. Carol is very tired.

Sam wants so badly to be best friends with the cat. The cat thinks he's trying too hard. Will ends up exactly the same way.

Toby and the cat have never properly interacted and both are very happy to leave it that way.

The cat is supposed to stay in the residence during big events. Abbey stopped enforcing that after he got out and scratched Lord John Marbury when he picked him up against his will.

The cat has a secret service code name. One time, the code names are changed and an overenthusiatic reporter tries to break a story on the first lady's 'unusual activity' by following what he thinks is her code name. It's the cat's. CJ dines out on this for weeks.

The cat occasionally goes missing. The secretaries and Charlie have a recurring B-plot where they have to go and recover him. Somehow, the cat has always ended up somewhere relevant to the A-plot.

The cat properly goes missing after the incidents with the Thanksgiving turkeys and the goat in CJ's office (aka prime cat territory). Each time she claims she'll be nicer to the cat when it returns. Each time it lasts about two days.

Margaret thinks the cat has psychic powers and frequently provides warnings based on her interpretations of 'the signs'. Usually she's right.

The cat somehow makes off with the final edits for the state of the union one time (of course they were only handwritten on one piece of paper). Chaos ensues.

Jed tries to send the cat to Manchester partway through the series. After large-scale outcry from the staff, press and public he is returned to the White House. Unfortunately, after a couple of months as a barn cat he is even more badly behaved than before.

The cat is in both Jed and Abbey's official portraits.

[siriusly-sapphic]

CJ and the President have such a great dynamic throughout the whole show and I love seeing it shine on rewatches bc !! She gets him! And she can talk to him in a way that not all of the others can get away with? Like we see that one of the things that make people see Josh is not doing okay is that he dares raise his voice at the President (in the Oval Office), and it's a huge deal when Toby yells at him over the MS, but CJ gets away with that much more and !! I love it.

Starting in season 1 when she "gets in the President's face" and physically blocks him from leaving the Oval Office and very loudly tells him to back off and stay here and let her handle it. He accepts and takes it and listens to her bc she knows her shit and he knows that too. In season 3 in Manchester?? When she yells at him "don't you dare lecture me, Mr. President, don't you dare do it!" when he's already pissed with her, and instead of that making him more angry, he again just takes it and understands what she's saying and just?? Changes his approach?

She's always someone who can get through to the President in a way he understands, and she has the ability to yell at him and call him on his shit when it's called for without being reprimanded for talking to POTUS like that. And it's why she's the right choice to be his Chief of Staff and why she's so effective at it because she can tell him straight to his face "You're full of shit and need to get it together" and he respects and trusts her enough to know she's right. (Which especially when it comes to the MS and him not taking care of himself as well, and the overall stress of the rest of the administration leaving one by one, is exactly what he needs in a COS).

I just love them so much. They just understand each other and can level with each other very honestly and as much as I like the campaign stuff in season 6 and 7, I wish we'd have gotten more scenes of Jed and CJ running the White House.

[thebreakfastgenie]

If you don't mind sharing, I would love to know what you think people get wrong about Toby and Josh! (this is not a trap, I have no strong feelings and am genuinely just interested)

Yeah totally!! So I will say I think within The West Wing fandom on tumblr people get these characters more right than the general audience.

Toby is just an incredibly complex character. I go even farther than most (including, like, Richard Schiff) because I don't think Toby is cynical at all. Maybe by the end of the show, but certainly not when we meet him and not throughout the first four seasons. Cynicism isn't really allowed to exist in the Sorkin West Wing. Toby is the most idealistic character on the show and he is the way he is because he is constantly disappointed and frustrated. The world never lives up to his expectations but he never adjusts his expectations. It goes beyond hope, he really does expect better because he genuinely believes the world or in some cases a person, e.g. Jed Bartlet, has a potential it's not living up to. That's why we meet Toby as a professional political operative who has never won an election, who puts his job on the line and alienates all his coworkers because he's so committed to what he believes is right. Toby is an uncompromising idealist, which is an exhausting way to exist, and it makes him depressed, which is why Andi can't live with him even though I believe she still loves him. I hate that in season 7 Bartlet claims Toby thinks of himself as morally superior and that he always knew this would become a problem, because the dynamic we're given in season 1 is that Bartlet thinks of Toby as morally superior and relies on him for that perspective.

Josh is a wildly popular character and one of the more consistently written characters in the show so just about everybody gets the broad strokes of him right, but I think he's prone to flanderization and the complexities of him are frequently missed. Josh isn't someone who loves dirty politics. He isn't really someone who will do whatever it takes to win; he's willing to do a lot, but there are certain lines he only tries to cross when he's really desperate and each time it's framed as an unusual choice for him and he tends to reflect on it with some discomfort afterwards. Josh is the pragmatist who knows someone has to get their hands dirty, and he does it not because he wants to but to keep the president and Leo and anyone else he's working for clean. He's motivated primarily by loyalty, but that in and of itself is idealistic. He defends Hoynes because he does see a good side to Hoynes, a side the audience gets to see glimpses of later. Josh does leave Hoynes for Bartlet because he's tired of Hoynes not living up to the potential he sees in him and he's infected by Bartlet's idealism, but it's a decision he feels guilty about for years afterward. I think people have a tendency to exaggerate Josh's ego, too. He beats his chest (literally) in private but he doesn't want public credit; the reason he doesn't want to be "the guy" is he doesn't have the ego for it. Josh is not self-centered at all and I think that's a big thing people miss about him. And his tendency to screw up or shoot off at the mouth is real but also exaggerated and when it does happen it's just as much an expression of frustrated idealism as Toby's choices.

I think the really crucial part that's often missed is the dynamic between Toby and Josh and their respective roles in the Bartlet administration. The reason Bartlet for America and later Jed Bartlet's presidency is successful is a balance between Josh's pragmatism and Toby's uncompromising idealism. The campaign needs both and Bartlet needs both perspectives. Leo recognizes that and brings him both and Josh and Toby, for all they butt heads, recognize it too. That's why everyone on the show has such an underlying respect for each other. CJ and Sam are crucial to the team too of course they just don't have neat narrative foils the way Josh and Toby do in each other.

[mageiathea]

Fuck it, TWW headcanons that will probably never make it into my fic universe:

-Sam actually does go down to the California 47th to tell Will to drop the campaign, but Josh goes with him and refuses to let Sam run. (At this point Josh is secretly planning Sam's whole ascension to the WH, and running now is NOT part of the plan.)

-Hoynes doesn't get caught cheating, remains VP, and eventually becomes President. It all comes out during his second term, though.

-Let CJ have some fun with Simon Donovan before he gets killed off, FFS.

-Toby actually becomes CoS after Leo has a heart attack, and Sam gets promoted to Director of Communications. Sam brings in Will as his deputy, and is absolutely loving the fact he can just tell Will to deal with whatever he doesn't want to deal with. Jed and Toby have even more epic drama a la "17 People and "The Two Bartlets." Josh whines about not being promoted.

-Toby never leaks anything.

-The kidnapping of Zoe Bartlet fails because that's just too stupid.

...I have so much more.

[mihrsuri]

CJ and Donna as the fourth and fifth Bartlet daughters to both (and this is key) Jed and Abbey is so so important to me I want to hear everyones headcanons about this.

(Like yes Sam, Josh and Charlie are both Jed and Abbey’s sons but THE GIRLS)

(Toby is their deeply beloved brother fyi)

[svld99]

Toby Ziegler is so underrated as a character. Josh might’ve been Leo’s deputy, and Leo might’ve been Jed’s right hand man.  It was Toby, who really ran the White House. 

[kaboomi]

Emerging from a college-induced haze to say that while, obviously, we all in the fandom have different views on the post-Sorkin seasons, I personally cannot forgive the egregious crime against characterization that is Season 5 episode 4’s ‘Han.’ Like you are telling me that President Jed ‘allowed the Cuban refugees into the country to give them a chance at the American dream’ Bartlet wouldn’t move heaven and earth to help a North Korean defector? You’re telling me that CJ ‘if politics bring out the worst in people, maybe people bring out the best’ Cregg wouldn’t raise hell (well, even more hell than she did actually raise in the episode) until the guy was safe?? You’re telling me Toby ‘so moralistic he literally sacrifices his career to uphold his own beliefs’ Ziegler wouldn’t criticize Leo and the President until they changed their stances on the matter??? Please. They should’ve helped that pianist and I’m still salty about it.

[creeppostss]

holy shit guys … sorry for the wild fucking hiatus … but i’m back and i am stronger than ever with so much motivation to write 🙏

i’m going to work on a better format for writing so i look cooler, i just figured out how to do this so it’ll help in the long run i think

anyways on with the post :3

fanfiction galore i wanna write fanfucktion

Creepypasta;

jeff the killer

eyeless jack

brian thomas / hoody

tim wright / masky

ticci toby

i’m taking other suggestions for some reason i’m having name brain fart oops

Dead By Daylight;

danny johnson / jed olsen / the ghostface

frank morrison / the legion

other suggestions too cause it’s fun

yayayayaya send me asks i’ll do whatever (get weird and gross and gruesome i’ll literally write whatever. get freaky!!!) since it’s gay month i’ll be writing more bxb or ftm reader but i guess i’ll cater to ladies …