the south park fandom and mischaracterisations of characters

south park is my all time favourite show, and was a hyperfixation (with its creators being a special interest) and i am a part of the fandom, and overall its nice, but a lot of the fandom does mischaracterise the characters. I am going to focus on Butters and Tweek for this essay(??).

Tweek Tweak is one of my favourite characters, and I do find myself relating to him a lot, but a lot of the fandom portrays him as obsessed with Craig in a way, like they can't be separated. don't get me wrong, I love creek and its one of my favourite ships but they can be separated once in a while. 

Tweek is a character who can fight for himself and even though he's emotional, it's emotional in a "will hit you" way and not a "needs protecting because someone said something mean" way. the episode "Tweek Vs. Craig" (season 3, episode 5) is probably the perfect example of this, this is ironic as this episode technically started this trend of Tweek needing protection. In this episode Tweek is shown as emotional and responding badly to Stans gang telling lies about what Craig had said about Tweek. Tweek was also shown to be able to handle himself in a fight in that same episode.

I believe that the "Tweek needs craig" narrative came from the episode "Tweek X Craig" (season 19 episode 6) when Tweek says that Craig "made him feel confident in a way he had never felt before" and being open with Craig, as this was a side of Tweek we hadn't seen before due to him being especially anxious and twitchy around Stans gang and in school.

Butters Stotch is another character who is shown as an "innocent soft boy" rather than the actual character he is. Butters is another character I heavily relate to but the fandom shows him as this Hello Kitty obsessed character, he is shown as obsessed with Hello Kitty due to one line in the episode "make love, not warcraft" (season 10, episode 8) this line being "I'm playing Hello Kitty Island Adventure" in response to Cartman asking him what he does on his computer. Butters is shown as one of the most childlike characters, mainly due to his nievity, and he is one of the few characters who rarely gets mad at Cartman.

A lot of the fandom headcanons Butters as transfem due to the episode "Marjorine" (season 9 episode 9) where he is forced to dress up like a girl (I do not care if you headcanon Butters as trans, I headcanon Kenny as trans so I cannot say what you can or can't headcanon) but a big part of why Butters headcanoned as trans is because he was happier as a girl, but I, personally, disagree to an extent. While I do agree he seemed happier I don't believe it was because he was a girl, I believe it was due to Butters finally being accepted for who he is, as he is not given this while hanging out with the boys.

All in all, I do not care what you headcanon, this is mainly about how I see the fandom sees the characters and I am happy to debate anyone who disagrees.