Shannon (Taylor’s Version) 💙

-Two equally stubborn government employees on opposite sides of the budget crisis who won’t stop complaining about each other to everyone they know

-Co-heads of the harvest festival who become an unstoppable team the second they’re finally on the same team (they’re partners in crime with their own secret handshake that makes everyone around them gag but they both love it sm that it doesn’t matter)

-A secret couple who technically can’t be together bc of the rules that govern the jobs they both love so much (except they’re starting to love each other more and every time they try to talk about being more subtle they end up making out at work)

-Married couple who get to work together again and frequently annoy their coworkers with how disgustingly in love they can be (we see Ron get mad at them and Donna tell them to stop it and neither reaction seems to dissuade them in the slightest so we can only assume that this is a frequent occurrence)

Like there’s a version of a show like this where Leslie ends up alone (in the typical “strong independent women doesn’t need a man” fashion) bc she can’t find a partner that won’t slow her down or inhibit her individualism. There’s also a version where she ends up with a Dave type guy: someone kind and sweet but rather simple compared to her, who loves her and supports her dreams but never fully understand them, who can cheer her on from the sidelines but couldn’t ever really stand beside her, who admires her big ambitions but has none of his own

But parks didn’t do that. They knew they didn’t need to make Leslie permanently single in order for her to retain her power and individualism and they didn’t have her end up with some kind of simpleton in order to give her a husband who wasn’t intimidated by her ambition or success. They did something that shouldn’t be as rare or feel as revolutionary as it kind of is: in Ben they gave her a true partner, an equal

Ben is as strong willed and ambitious as she is. He loves Leslie as fiercely as she loves him, but they also *understand* each other just as well. He supports her and her goals as her bf/husband, but he’s also there beside her as her partner as she works for them and she does the same for him

In these two, parks gave us a couple who love each other fiercely, who come together to become even stronger, more sure versions of themselves, grounded by the partnership they build together. Neither one of them gives up their strength or individual ambitions or their complexity as a character when they’re together. In fact, they’re more powerful and ambitious as a team than they were apart, constantly encouraging each other and pushing the other towards the things they want