Your post about South Park really does hit the nail right on the head for why the hell this show has a fandom that I've never seen anyone acknowledge, at least not on this fucking webbed site. Instead mosts stance is along the lines of "why are you shipping the racist children" which ignores. That they have INCREDIBLY strong characterization, to the point that even side characters personalities are able to be pinpointed with a lot of accuracy, enough for there to be subsets of fans for those guys even. The show is primarily about putting those fucking circle guys in situations and people who like to see them in situations are like. Man. I could totally come up with some situation for these guys to be in. And they don't even have to be weird and centrist about it like the creators. (Not to say plenty of fans don't still land there. If Cartman is included you really have to decide whether you declaw him and either answer gets dicey unless you get him. And some people really don't and it gets. Bad.) It feels a lot more generous seeing someone actually clock the appeal of the show for what it is rather than stopping at Matt and Treys wild ride of very very mixed messages and leaving it at that so thanks

no like literally i only started watching the show as a background noise type of deal after i finished family guy (in my "watching every adult cartoon" type of beat) and then just got. enthralled.

like i genuinely would not recommend the show to anyone who doesn't have the stomach for gross out humor, frustrating political takes, and even satire that often actually is progressive and even straight up anti-discrimination at times but can be packaged distastefully -- especially since i feel like the show can only be truly enjoyed if you watch the entire 26+ seasons and movies and play the games.

but like matt and trey are unfortunately VERY good writers so i totally understand why the show has a legit, functioning fandom with popular headcanons (shoutout to marjorine) and AUs. like oftentimes the fans are also just Putting The Circle Children Into Situations. or they're playing around with the Situations the Circle Children were already put into in the show, like expanding on tweek and craig's canonical relationship via fanart or exploring kenny's canonical trauma of being repeatedly killed and reincarnated as himself.

but yeah happy to provide my input on this when asked! glad you liked my take