#creggler

[virtualdespairr]

CJToby fancy date night! A gift for @quartforshort from a while back!

[quartforshort]

Recently discovered this picture and I am going insane about it...the way he is looking at her...the sheer amount of love and longing in his eyes...bro is incurably down bad

[jiminysjournal]

Let me make one thing clear:

I am a Creggler truther, and more people should use that ship name.

[quartforshort]

Ship bingo! CJ and Toby my beloveds!

Featuring my cjtoby sticker!

[quartforshort]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: The West Wing Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: C. J. Cregg/Toby Ziegler Characters: C. J. Cregg, Toby Ziegler Additional Tags: marriage pact, Romance, Yearning, Angst, Fluff, Smut, Friends With Benefits, Banter, Pre-Canon, Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s07e21 Institutional Memory, Fix-It Summary:

Toby was looking at her like he was already drafting the future in his mind. It was just like a speechwriter, she thought, to be writing and rewriting, crossing things out and revising them.

She watched him scratch the invisible pen across the paper in his mind until finally he spoke.

“Tell you what, Claudia Jean,” he said, squeezing her hand before letting it go. “If neither of us is married in, say, fifteen years, then I’ll marry you.”

*** It occurred to me that I never promoted the fanfic I wrote for the West Wing Romcom Fest back in February, and since I was quite proud of it I thought I'd do a little self-promo!

[quartforshort]

1, 5, and 6 for CJ/Toby, please!

…my absolute favorite of their scenes and why I love it so much.

Oh my goodness this is nearly impossible. There are so many I love, so I’m also going to include some honorable mentions, but I think my favorite has to be the “CJ, you fell into the pool there” scene. This scene truly has it all.

CJ has just gotten fired from her cushy job and has lost her glasses. Pulls up to her house and sees a car that isn’t hers. Walks into the yard, squints and sees a figure in the chair. “Who’s there?” She asks. “Me,” he replies. Very helpful. Gotta be Toby. This mf is just sitting in her pool chair and who knows how long since they’ve seen each other? He does not get up, but he does do a weird little wave. She correctly guesses who it is (because WHO ELSE would act like that?) and falls into the pool. “CJ, you fell into the pool there,” he tells her. Thanks Toby, very observant. He then suggests she “try to feel her way to dry land”. Again, very helpful. Then she is about to get out and tells him “avert your eyes. My clothes will be clingy” and he looks COMPLETELY BAFFLED. “Avert your eyes.” “CJ, I really didn’t come here to-“ COME HERE TO WHAT, TOBY? WHAT DO YOU MEAN? She has to repeat the request three times. Like genuinely he SO OBVIOUSLY plays it as like “why would I need to avert my eyes I have seen you naked before.” Absolutely crazy

And then, when they start talking about the campaign, I love the way he lies to her that Bartlet wants her but then admits that the candidate has never heard of her, looks away from her but then looks back into her eyes. And I love the way she asks him if Bartlet is a good man and that’s when he tells her the truth, that’s when he puts away the humor for a moment, because that’s when it really matters.

So yeah. It’s hilarious and moving and there’s so much subtext. Such a great scene.

A few honorable mentions:

“Sand in my shooooess” BONK BONK BONK BONK “Sand from Havana” — so funny and really encapsulates their dynamic

“Do you want me to go?” “No.” — The way he can cry in front of her! Their silent understanding!

“Can this be one of those nights where we get sloshed and forget we work together?” — !!!

“Faith in what?” “In us.” “In the people in this room?” “And many, many others.” — YOU MEAN EACH OTHER?!?

That entire scene in Institutional Memory, but that’s both the best and the worst scene ever for them (long post coming one day!)

5. …the three most perfect OTP tags that I can come up with for them.

Okay, I’m not actually sure quite what this means. At first I assumed it was just like ao3 tags that fit them perfectly, but then I realized it might be that “otp: __ quote from the show” tumblr tag thing. To be totally honest I’m not 100% sure I know exactly what those are, but to cover all possibilities I’ll do three of each!

AO3 tags:

Second-chance romance (Anything about them being old flames and coming back to each other in middle age…DELICIOUS)

Not romantic not platonic but a secret third thing (If this isn’t them then I don’t know what is)

Secret relationship (I LOVE CJ/Toby secret relationship fics! So juicy so delicious)

Tumblr tags:

OTP: we had it good there for a while (I’ve definitely seen this before and like…yeah. one of their most iconic lines ever)

OTP: You want to make out with me right now (Or alternatively, well when don’t I?)

OTP: I love you desperately! (AHHH!)

6. …what kind of AU fics I'm obsessed with reading about them (or would be if I could find one).

My favorite AUs in general are historical AUs, but sadly there are very few West Wing historical AUs (except for the one I wrote!) so I would definitely love to see more of those. In general, though, I would say I just love a good, like, canon-adjacent CJ/Toby fic. As previously noted, I enjoy any secret relationship fic, and I especially love any established relationship fic that doesn’t bother explaining how they got together. Also of course canon-divergent fics in which they get together during Institutional Memory AS IT SHOULD BE!

Thank you for the asks!

[quartforshort]

happy valentine’s day to all my otps and yours

[quartforshort]

I don't know if you're currently excepting asks for the fandom/ship/character asks, but this is for that!

Fandom: The West Wing + 17 and 3

Ship: C. J./Toby + 3 and 11

Character: Toby + 5

Hi! Sorry this took a week to reply but I am always accepting asks and I ALWAYS love to yap!

17. ...the world-building aspect of the story I have the greatest admiration for. (For The West Wing)

Oh gosh, this is probably a cop-out, but just...all of the thought and detail put into the politics and everything that's going on? It's kind of staggering, especially to someone who doesn't know much about government. And just like, the rate of information that we get. The constant attention to detail in almost every aspect of the show. The walk and talks! Also the way that subtext functions as text and the writers draw broad emotional arcs without having to spell everything out. Also also also! This is rambley and incoherent and it sounds dumb to say, like, essentially everything, but it is so much!

3...which scene I would like to erase from the universe and why. (For The West Wing)

Maybe my least favorite scene is the one in season 7 when President Bartlet fires Toby. It feels so mean and vindictive and out of character for Bartlet. I hate how far it feels he's fallen from admiring Toby's sense of morality to telling him that he's always felt like he was better than everyone else. Like I've seen this pointed out elsewhere, but early-season Bartlet WOULD think that Toby was morally superior! He was kind of the moral backbone of the group, or at least one of them; that was the point! It's just really painful and, unlike maybe every other argument two main characters have, never really gets any strong emotional resolution (there's the pardon, and of course the implication that post-canon they eventually rebuild some kind of relationship since Toby is at the opening of the Bartlet presidential library, but that is all sort of off-screen.) Ouch.

3. if there's a scene involving them that makes me uncomfortable (For CJ/Toby)

Probably? I mostly instinctively think about all the scenes I love, and I wasn't on alert for CJ and Toby scenes from the very beginning since I didn't get into them right away, so something from the early seasons may have flown under my radar. I can't think of something that really makes me uncomfortable, but maybe some of the early-seasons stuff with Toby not trusting CJ not to leak information to the press because of her relationship with Danny. Not Toby's best moment.

11. ...how quickly I started shipping them when I got into the fandom. (For CJ/Toby)

I wrote about this at some point in another ask, but basically I knew of the CJ/Toby ship from pretty early on but didn't think about them much until when I was on season 4 of the show, when I started becoming tempted by curiosity and felt the siren song of ao3. I gave in to curiosity and read some fics, and the ship basically chose me. I them spent several weeks to months battling with the complicated feelings that come with feeling drawn to a ship that is almost-but-not-quite canon, not wanting to be sad that they aren't together in canon but also really wanting them together but also really loving the nebulous friendship they have and so on and so on. So I wrote a fic about that nebulous thing, and then I wrote a long historical AU because I NEEDED to write something in which they were together but didn't want to disrupt canon, and then I wrote some things set in canon because I NEEDED to see them together in this universe, and that's where I am now! Crazy and unwell about them.

5. ...if I feel like the writers mistreat them or if the story would be better if they were taken down a peg. (For Toby)

This question very obviously compels me to think about the leak storyline, which is...a lot. Everyone has thoughts about it. I would say I feel pretty middle ground about it: I don't feel like it was slander to Toby's character to have him commit a felony of this type, because we've seen before that he is willing to break the rules when he considers something to be a moral imperative, and this is something I truly love about him. See my thoughts above...Do I think Toby is mistreated by the writers? Maybe a little bit in season 7, considering his last scene in the White House is him getting fired and his last scene in general is...I WILL WRITE MY MASTERPOST ON INSTITUTIONAL MEMORY EVENTUALLY! But generally not, because I think everyone is pretty well-written, and Toby is given angst but not in like a punching-bag way. Do I think he needs to be taken down a peg? I guess everything does at some point, when they get insistent and argumentative and hostile at various points, but if Toby occasionally needs to be taken down a peg in the White House, he definitely doesn't in his personal life. JOSH is the one who needs to be taken down a peg (and it is so much fun to witness!)