an open love letter to the Parks fandom
The Parks fandom is hands-down the most inclusive, supportive, straight up happiest fandom I’ve ever had the privilege to be a part of, and I love it as much as Leslie loves waffles and Ben’s butt.
I love how casual and spontaneous the fandom is. There are no unspoken rules that you have to follow. Contribute what you please, start conversations about bacon in the comments of fic, discuss Jane Austen or The Babysitter’s Club in the Thursday watch posts.
The fandom is fun. There’s always something going on, someone running an activity on their own time because they want to. There was the Exquisite Camel, where over a dozen people contributed to one long fic that ended up including Champion POV, of all things. There was the Behind the Doors challenge, where people waxed philosophical about the sex lives of Ben and Leslie. More recently, there was the Galentine's fanwork exchange, because what’s better than ladies celebrating ladies? And the upcoming March Madness, where you get to relieve the awesomeness of all the best Ben/Leslie episodes and campaign for your favorite to win.
I love the creativity of the fandom and the sheer diversity of fanwork. There's body-switching fic, and presidential AUs, and fanart of Orin, and lovely fanmixes. TraegerBot exists.
The fandom is a community. People who you’ve never met want to know how your week went, and what you had for dinner, and what crazy thing did you have to deal with at work. People are endlessly helpful and supportive. People will offer advice and encouragement on any issue you need help with. Sometimes you ask someone to beta a fic for you, and they mention that they’d also be happy to help you edit your resume, because they’re trained in that. Even though they don’t know you in real life, or outside of the fandom, and they have nothing to gain from you landing a job. They just want to help.
Essentially, Parks is a show about found families and the support and love you can draw from them, and I love that the fandom reflects that.
Dear Parks fandom, I love you and I like you.
P.S. There are roughly a million other things that are amazing about this fandom that I’ve missed, but I slept five hours last night and took a midterm this morning, so I’ll stop here. What do you love about the fandom? Share in the comments, you guys.