#and fem tweek of any kind is so hard for me to swallow

[basketballandtextbooks]

how does fandom ruin tweek????

eh, my wording may have been a bit strong

I don’t mean to say that fandom has destroyed him. There are... remnants of his actual personality that appear in popular fanon and frankly, even if someone rewrites his personality entirely, that doesn’t ‘destroy’ his character. It’s just someone enjoying themselves.

What I meant is that the popular fanon depiction of Tweek nearly destroyed his character for me. Upon watching the show, I loved Tweek and he became one of my favorite side characters. I enjoyed his disinterest in getting into a death match for the boys entertainment, his annoyance at making a million fucking hats, his frustration over no one believing him about the goddamn underpants gnomes, his ability to point a fucking grenade launcher at someone who took his friends (and cartman) hostage.

He’s honestly a great character and he’s always been hugely likeable.

But when I went to the fandom and looked up Tweek... I was so disappointed with what I found. I tried to enjoy the overly feminine troped Tweek, I really did. I tried to find his hairclips cute (despite the fact that most boys would use hair gel to get their hair out of their face and bad hair gel use honestly EXPLAINS Tweek’s super saiyan hair). I really tried to enjoy pictures that made him tiny and weak and cutely hiding behind Craig. Shaking in fear because the world is so scary and he’s so anxious.

I tried. And I think trying is why it nearly ruined him for me.

Because the more I tried to enjoy that character, the more I found him boring. Stupid. Vapid. Idiotic. Tropey. Cliche. I began to associate the fanon version of Tweek with the canon version of Tweek and it made me actually roll my eyes when he’d appear in episodes. “here’s the little bitch baby again, gonna cry and hide? ugh...”

To be fair, I have liked and enjoyed cowardly and/or anxious characters before and since (like Courage the cowardly dog lol), but the way all of his traits had been simplified into just being... so 2-dimensional and worthless. It really made him annoying to me. Like Courage at least saves the day despite being scared, the fanon Tweek I’d become familiar with just shakes and screams and stutters until his Big Strong Boyfriend saves the day.

Stealing Tweek’s personality, justifying dressing him like a girl because he’s SO CUTE (after all, he dressed like a girl in the metrosexual ep... you know... like every other character in sp... and yet.... we don’t see craig in a skirt that often...), and turning him into a stereotypical trope of a damsel in distress.

It was insulting. It was insulting to myself as a person who suffers from an anxiety disorder. That the entire fandom had equated anxiety to ‘weakness’ and ‘cowardice’ despite the fact that Tweek had never been weak or cowardly, only freaked out. It was insulting that parts of his personality that I really loved had to be ignored and changed to make room for noncanon character traits that only served to make him a ‘cute little twink for Craig’.

I constantly reference his connection to Craig as well because Tweek also didn’t seem to exist outside of Creek. He was THERE to be Craig’s cute bottom. No personality. No ideology. He ONLY existed to be the object of Craig’s affections. Or to be head over heels in love with Craig. His entire personality was being scared and in love with Craig. Even when people would ship him with other characters, it was normally an extension to Creek (oh, craig used to have a crush on thomas... what if tweek and thomas get together! oh wow, crenny is really popular, lets make twenny instead!). And even moreso, this hyper feminized ooc cowardly little bitch version of a character I love would go on to be that same bitch in every ship connected to Creek.

AND THE MOST FRUSTRATING PART of his character being boiled down to ‘weak’, ‘fem’, and ‘in love with Craig’ is that Craig has only RECENTLY become a huge part of his life. Yes, he was an on-again off-again member of CATG but so was Jimmy and Jason, yet neither of them are defined solely by their connection to Craig. He had multiple episodes focusing on him, only ONE of them that even related to Craig (which was against his will) and yet he was defined entirely by his connection to a character he’s hardly had interactions with. Yes, NOW Creek are hardly ever seen apart in canon. But Tweek x Craig happened in like season 18 or someshit. There were SEVENTEEN SEASONS of Craig and Tweek NOT interacting much AT ALL. And yet, even prior to the Creek episode, Tweek was defined ENTIRELY by his love to Craig.

I love a good crack ship, for example I’ve recently gotten into clymien, but I wouldn’t define Damien or Clyde’s ENTIRE personality by their feelings for one another. That’s just... ick. I like them together BECAUSE I think their personalities would clash in interesting ways. Creek was an interesting crackship that became canon but god has the fandom for it always been so freaking ooc that its actually painful.

I also bring up Creek bc im ngl, the fandom has practically ruined that ship for me. I’ve been able to regain my love of Tweek but my love of Creek has become... shaky. The constant nonstop seme/uke trope dynamics super-imposed onto what would otherwise be extremely interesting characters within an adorable ship has just poisoned the well for me. I’m still working on regaining my love for Creek, but it’s been very slow.

It’s not fair to say the fandom ruined Tweek. They didn’t. Plenty of people love him, enjoy him, and there’s plenty of fandom that doesn’t completely bastardize his personality... but for me? Every time I see a remnant of that strange fanon Tweek that I’ve grown to hate, I just cringe.