parks & rec fic: next stop, the world (11/11)

[synecdoche]

next stop, the world [11/11]
Leslie/Ben, Chris/Ann, Andy/April
pg-13. 4419 words.

She steps out of the ballot box, grinning, and hopefully, as long as he lives, senile or not, he'll always remember how lit up she is at this moment, human sunlight. Leslie decides to run for office, antics ensue.

Note: Here it is -- the last chapter of next stop,

Comments

[saucydiva]

It was entirely cruel of you to post this so that I didn't discover it in my newsfeed until right before Road Trip was rerunning tonight and I just about died trying to decide what to do. I decided to wait till after the show on the basis that this needed my full attention.

I have been following this since the very beginning back when you posted the first part and I thought it was wild you planned out how many sections this would have, and the answer was eleven. I really enjoyed what you did with the characters, and how the story unfolded. It was dramatic and funny (I loved, loved Ann's line about the new search engine) (and also all her thoughts about raw spaghetti) (which can't possibly be a thing). I thought your characterizations were excellent. And while it breaks my heart that Leslie lost, and that Ben might be spending half the year elsewhere, I appreciate the realism.

I think my favorite part was really watching Ann take charge of her life. She has spent a lot of time over season three doing what other people want. First Chris, then Leslie. She even listened to Donna, and while I enjoyed her dating around it might not have been the best choice for Ann. Here, she started out kind of... letting Chris happen to her again. It was all very "oh look here we are in the closet ok then". By the end, though, she was making deliberate choices and standing up for herself and making decisions. I hope we see something similar on the show in season four.

And I am not sure I mentioned this nearly enough, but I thought your April was excellent as well. She is such a hard voice to get down, and I thought you did very well with her. It is nice to see her passionate about something, and being successful as well.

I hope you do more Parks and Rec stuff! This was awesome. I am going to reread the whole thing now that it is done.

And for the record, I was at work last week and I randomly thought about that lovely part from... I think section eight- where Leslie and Ben are on tv and the camera catches them just so and Pawnee wonders if they are dating. That has to be my favorite part that just comes into my head every so often.

Thank you for writing this!

[synecdoche]

I'm not going to lie, this actually brought tears to my eyes. Thank you so much for reading ♥
Weirdly enough, raw spaghetti is a real thing -- I honestly don't know if you can get it at a restaurant in Indiana, but I've seen recipes for it. (I was eating a lot of raw food earlier this year so that was generally the source of Chris' internal food monologue.)
I'm so glad you enjoyed April and Ann. I really enjoyed writing them both: April's voice is incredibly fun to write (apparently I love being snarky without ceasing), and Ann's story was a blast. Although Leslie has some definite emotional and career hurdles to conquer, I think Ann (of the two of them) has a need for personal growth. I'm so glad it worked for you, here.
I definitely want to be writing more Parks & Rec! I might need a little break, though. It feels really weird to be thinking of other plots for these characters right now, although I'm sure that will change come September ♥
Again, thank you so so much for always reading!!