#sp reacts

[dear-wormwoods]

Some actual thoughts on Cupid Ye…

I love that it was Kyle and Tolkien making cringe TikToks because they never get to just be stupid kids, especially Kyle. And really, it tracks that he would be into Tiktok! He gets into social media! Really into it. Like, ‘comes crying to his best friend about his Facebook farm’ into it. Kyle has a great capacity for cringe and that’s partly why I love him.

And I think it says a lot about Stan that while he was really upset and jealous about their friendship, he wasn’t going to step in and demand that Kyle stop hanging out with Tolkien and come back to him! Because he could see that it was making Kyle happy! Did he want Kyle back? Of course he did, but he wasn’t going to force it. The second he found out what Cartman was doing he admitted his feelings and apologized because he never meant to get in the way of Kyle’s happiness, even indirectly.

That being said, Cartman, on the other hand, really went to great lengths to put Kyle in a dangerous position with the other kids. Yes he stopped Cupid Me eventually but this is what he does - he creates these dangerous scenarios for Kyle and then backtracks at the last second to play hero. He did the same thing in Post Covid when he killed Clyde, who was only acting on HIS orders. He’s responsible for Cupid Me, who is a manifestation of Cartman’s deepest thoughts and feelings. He represents Cartman’s repressed queerness, yeah, but he also represents his deep racism and even deeper antisemitism. Cartman isn’t a sympathetic character in this ep, full stop… even if Cupid Me ended up out of control due to Cartman not being medicated, it’s still Cartman.

Anyway I loved seeing Kyle happy even if it was unfortunately short lived.

[korumiis]

Differences; a quick sketch bc I think about these silly beings a lot

[cxtangerina]

k2 is such a funny ship to me, like it's just plausible enough to be kinda sorta realistic if you squint and pray and look at it sideways, not quite a crackship but not able to get off the ground as more than a particularly popular rarepair either. they had, like, one big episode together back in season 3, a handful of major moments over the years that people hold onto with an iron grip, and basically nothing else outside of a plethora of fantastic fancontent and dreams.

i think i like it for the exact opposite reasons that i like kyman, actually, they sorta stand as complementary ships in my mind. where k2 barely has any actual basis in canon & comes heavily from fanworks and speculation about how well the characters would match each other, kyman is practically canonical, at least when it comes to cartman's feelings, and is at least regularly joked about and referenced in-show. personally, i also tend to see k2 as a ship that is kinda miraculously requited, whereas kyman is usually stuck in unrequited hell, which...

...well, this gets into more specific character analysis, but a big part of this is that i tend to see cartman as having very fucked up views of both romance & sexuality that have especially interesting implications when you consider him to have a crush on kyle, specifically.

on the one hand, i think his cupid self is evidence enough that he has a very fairytale, idealized view of romance, based more out of the hollywood movie image of what love is supposed to be rather than anything in reality. south park adults being utter fucking idiots 99% of the time means that most, if not all, of the kids don't have a lot of good role models to base their actions off of. i'm not gonna talk out of my ass about childhood development more than i understand it, but i don't think it's too controversial (?) of a take to claim that kids understand & learn about the world through watching it just as much as interacting with it, particularly when it comes to their own parents.

cartman is a piece of shit, and while a lot of that comes from him and his own bigotry, he's still ultimately a kid in show and you can trace where some of his worst traits originate from in the people around him, even if he makes the personal decision to push it as much as humanly possible. i think the trend in recent seasons for many adults to try and at least appear more pc only makes this more obvious, actually (coughcoughrandy), though talking about that is maybe biting off a little more south park politics than i'm willing to chew for this particular post.

point is, cartman as a character in particular does not have a lot, if anything, to base his idea of what a healthy, happy romantic relationship looks like, which isn't only because liane is single though that may be a major contributing factor. love isn't work to cartman, it isn't about the maintenance of a relationship or communication or all the more realistic and slightly less pleasant parts of loving someone that hollywood doesn't find dramatic or interesting enough to show. rather it's a fantasy, something that happens to people that they have no real control over. i wouldn't be surprised if he believes in soulmates or love at first sight, even if the likelihood of him admitting that out loud isn't especially high.

on the other hand, i think his view of sexuality is greatly influenced by not just liane's sex work, but the way she is slut-shamed and treated like garbage by the rest of the town for it. i tend to view cartman as having a very transactional, cynical view of sex and sexuality, where sex is only used for personal gain (whether that be money or power, likely at the expense of someone else/the submissive party), and sexuality is an inherent character flaw, a weakness that must be overcome unless you are able to twist it and use it for your own (material?) benefit- see the streaming wars & cartman wanting his mom to seduce a rich man for money as a recent example of this.

it's a running gag in TFBW that cartman uses douchebag catching their dad fucking their mom as a tragic backstory, and doesn't seem to understand how reproduction actually works even when kyle basically says it straight to his fucking face. even as a joke, there's still a lot of underlying truth behind why he would believe this. cartman is aware of his mom's sex work, even if he may not want to fully admit/believe it, largely because of situations where he's specifically getting shit for it. he knows he has a father, and that he is (in)directly responsible for said father's horrible death & consumption, but he only really cares about that insofar as it means he's half ginger. sex has only ever been presented through its most vicious power dynamics to him- why would he see it as a good thing, as something that could ever be loving, especially when contrasted against such an idealized, purified view of romance?

(you could also extrapolate from this how cartman associates sexuality & romance with femininity & his brand of sexism to get some particularly delectable transfem cartman ideas, but i digress.)

ANYWAYS. this is all to say that cartman having a crush on kyle (or anyone, really, but kyle is obviously the most emotionally volatile example) instantly pits those two conflicting views against one another, like he wants something that he doesn't even think could ever exist: a happy, healthy romantic relationship, where sex is just a normal thing that they can choose to do or not. this is where a lot of kyman angst comes from for me, with cartman either trying to stuff that round desire back into the square hole of how he views the world, or having his ideals fall ever further apart when the feelings are unrequited. and, on top of that, none of this being actually said out loud because communication is impossible.

this is why i always see kyman as making each other worse, especially if they actually manage to make it into a romantic relationship. i simply Do Not see kyle being a patient enough person to help cartman work through the intricacies of all of his expectations and idealized fantasies and internalized fears surrounding such mutually screwed views of romance & sexuality- on the rare occasions that kyle does show some interest in romantic relationships it's usually pretty centered around himself, and to be frank i only see his interest in romance going down as he gets older.

i've heard some people talk about kyle before like he's the "moral compass" of south park or whatever and while that may be true by the end of the episode, one of the things i like most about him is the fact that he struggles so much to get to the best conclusions. this is kind of getting back into the k2 side of this analysis, but where kenny manages a much more effortless selflessness, even pushing it to the point of being both a strength and a flaw when kenny stops caring about himself for the sake of others, kyle is a lot more self-centered than he cares to admit and it influences a lot of his attempts at being a good person.

this is both my favorite aspect of kyle, that he really has to put in the work to be the good person that he wants to be, and also the primary bad trait that i think cartman brings out of kyle. by being such a notoriously horrible shithead, he gives kyle the perfect target to unleash his annoyance on, getting him so caught up in arguing and proving himself to be the better person that kyle forgets to actually listen to the people that he's supposed to be standing up for. cartman is a fantastic troll and, at least in show, kyle definitely has not learned to stop feeding him argument fodder yet.

sidenote: about kyman entering a romantic relationship... wasn't sure where to add this, but it's for this exact reason that i also see kyman (or this version of kyman where cartman gets worse with age, rather than better) only actually happening in the universes where kyle has lost all other meaningful connections, to the point that feeding a troll to get off on an argument is the best possible option, even if he's old enough to know better. especially if he's old enough to know better.

again, k2 is the opposite of this for me in that i see kyle & kenny as having a lot of potential to bring out the best in each other.

if kyle's worst trait is that he gets too caught up in his own feelings & desires to truly be the good, selfless, thoughtful person that he wants to be to actually do genuine good for the sake of others, kenny's problem is that he skews too far in the opposite direction. i kinda already said this, but to state it outright: kenny's biggest strength and his biggest flaw are the exact same, that he is selfless to a fault, to the point of consistently putting other people's safety and happiness above his own when he thinks it would be of help the majority/the people he loves. this was the key kenny trait that was established by the end of BL&U, and it has only gotten more prominent in the years since with his mysterion persona.

it is in this way that kenny both stands as someone that kyle can look up to & admire for how effortlessly he dedicates himself to the people he cares about the most, but also, simultaneously, as someone that kyle can take care of himself and offer the same help back to. and i don't even think kenny needs to say very much out loud to push kyle towards a lot of these conclusions, he kinda just has to exist and be noticed and kyle has the intelligence to figure it out himself, to recognize the shit that kenny puts himself through and his (usually) quite noble reasons for doing so, and want to offer him the same love and care and dedication that kenny never allows himself to have.

really, the difficult part of this is being noticed at all in the first place. again, i said earlier that k2 is kinda "miraculously requited," in my mind, specifically because the aspect that's missing in the show and almost always must be provided by fan content for k2 is that spark/push forward that gets them close enough to start talking and for kyle to notice kenny in the first place. it's just lucky that's one of my favorite things to figure out and write for those two, hehehe.

[canary-song]

thinking about peni again

Thinking about her getting fearfully attached to an idealized version of her younger self that was happier. Playing up her energy and wit because she thinks its what she has to be, and she misses not having to worry so much and press on through responsibility.

But never really feeling like she's known by anyone. People think they get her, but they don't. She's a young star, a brilliant student of the program, the lead Pilot - We know in canon that people look up to her. But then she sheds first the SP//DR mech, next her suit, finally the face she puts on, and she's alone in her room with only herself

[cringelordofchaos]

everytime someone makes one of those creek angst short skits where craig is like "I HATE YOU!" and decides to physically and mentally abuse tweek or neglect him an angel goes "he would not fucking say that" and dies

[orviposition]

if (side story) 41yjh ever reads orv i hope he's baffled when he realizes that every single version of him that has come into contact with kdj has been to some degree obsessed with the guy

[nerdy-hyperfixations]

I find it a little annoying when it’s obvious that creators can’t make jokes without fanbases claiming it as “canon” immediately and forever.

Like if I were to make a story about some guy name Greg who works at a desk job or something, and then I make a joke on social media that’s like “oh yeah, haha, Greg also religiously worships Danny Gonzales” and then every time someone doesn’t draw Greg with a shine for Danny on is desk in fanart, they get flooded with comments saying “um actually 🤓☝️…” and everyone goes around saying it’s canon that Greg worships Danny as his lord and savior and goes to Danny church every Monday. Like. No. That was obviously a joke.

[ihatethiswebsite77]

So in defense of Ginger Cow.

I know people's big grip with this episode is Cartman's behavior, and I get it... To an extent.

We know Cartman likes fighting with Kyle because Kyle is usually the only person who is going to give Cartman the kind of reaction he seeks to be given.

But I think it's also important to remember that Cartman is a little sadistic bastard. Cartman doesn't enjoy ripping on Butters instead of Kyle because Butters just happily agrees with him. Cartman doesn't enjoy ripping on Kyle about basketball once the coach rejects him because Kyle genuinely agrees with what the coach has told him.

But in Passion of the Jew Cartman does enjoy hearing Kyle agree with him after watching the movie. Because in that moment Cartman feels as tho he won a round of their little game. He beat Kyle and he gets to enjoy the fact that he is the cause of his beat down attitude.

Because what Cartman really enjoys the most about his interactions with Kyle, is that Kyle puts up a fight. So the only time Cartman can enjoy a lack of "resistance" from Kyle is when he feels like he has personally beaten Kyle in a round of the game that is their rivalry.

He doesn't want Kyle to happily agree with him (Like Butters does) . But he also doesn't want Kyle to give up (like he does when the coach tells him he can't play basketball). Because that would mean that he hasn't won, because what is winning if Kyle isn't acting like he lost?

He wants to fight with Kyle, and he wants to beat Kyle in those fights of theirs. The same way Kyle wants to beat him. So it's not crazy to think that he would act this way after finally having "beaten Kyle". As long as he beat a Kyle who put up a fight and not one that didn't, and as long as that Kyle is actually acting like he lost. I think it's safe to say that he would get pretty bored of this farts thing relatively quickly and they would go back to "playing another round" of their game/rivalry.

Viewing their entire dynamic like a game where Player 1 and Player 2 compete in an endless amount of rounds feels pretty accurate to me. Because as much as either of them like that moment of triumph that comes with having won a round, they still want to go back to playing the next one.

I think the only place where this episode does mess up a bit is in the way it's plot requires Kyle to not say anything in protest to Cartman. So it's not unreasonable for people to see this as mischaracterization of Cartman, and his dynamic with Kyle at first. Because you can't tell immediately that the thing Cartman is relishing in is the fact that his "victory" is immensely pissing Kyle off. But If you look deeper into, and reframe your view it really does make sense for Cartman to act his way.

TL;DR: Kyle doesn't verbally push back on the things Cartman does and says in this episode. But it's not really out of Cartman's character to enjoy the type of dynamic him and Kyle have in this episode, because Kyle is very clearly not ok or happy with what is happening. And that in itself is another part of their dynamic that Cartman, as evident in many episodes (see tags for another reference too), finds amusement in. Cartman does want Kyle to talk back to him, fight him on his statements, but Cartman also wants to beat Kyle, and have Kyle be humiliated by that loss. Cartman is one sadistic person. And I have seen a lot of people say that him enjoying Kyle's "submissive attitude" in this episode is out of character for him. And I say that's wrong, because what he is finding amusement in isn't that attitude. Because the kind of "submissive attitude" Kyle presents in this episode is not the one Cartman hates and has shown to hate. He hates Butters' submissive attitude in Smug Alert. The one with a cadence of facing ridicule and insults with acceptance and positive attitude and little to no negative reaction or emotion. What Cartman finds amusement in here is that he knows Kyle hates what is happening. Even tho Kyle has to behave as tho he is happy with eating his farts. Cartman knows that's not really the case. They're fundamentally different.

[zinogre]

i've talked about this on twitter and no one seemed to have any answers so maybe people here will know more. what is UP with the influx of like lgbtq teens being into south park. how and why did people start making icons of like kenny or whoever (that's the only one whose name i know. sorry.) with trans/bisexual flag ribbons like WHERE did this come from. i dont like it

[chaotic-guinea-pig]

CONSIDER: Tweek and Craig have merch of themselves and its been selling like hotcakes (they do so Tweek doesn't have to work at his parents shop. and Craig wants to build a new playground for Stripe)

Cartman tries to become a business partner but gets rejected. Out of spite, he decides to make his own merch business to get Creek merch out of business but alas, he needs a ship... a ship that could possibly rival Creek...

...and who else would be better than STAN AND KYLE, his two childhood friends who, in his eyes, have been "homo" for each other from the beginning

Ofc, Creek doesn't take kindly to this and so a war begins as they fight for the market share

[dear-wormwoods]

Okay, thoughts on The Worldwide Privacy Tour:

This was a solid episode for Kyle’s character development and I really found myself being reminded of You’re Getting Old/Assburgers in the sense that Kyle, rather than Stan this time, is alienating his friends by being a downer. He’s not moping or feeling depressed, but he IS constantly bitching about stuff the other kids don’t want to hear about, and then when they tell him they don’t want to hear it, he promises to stop but immediately starts up again. I do feel bad for him, though, because Kyle has a long history of trying really hard to reach people only to have no one listen to him, especially in recent seasons when other characters have actively shut his speeches down. But at the same time, I know what it’s like to be that annoying friend and also to have that annoying friend… sometimes you just have to know when to shut up about stuff!

But whereas Stan just kind of accepts that people don’t want to be around him anymore and isolates even further, Kyle desperately tries to change himself to fit in again. This is very consistent with Kyle’s character, because historically he often goes out of his way to fit in and really lets other people’s perception of him impact his own sense of self. Butters, I think, stumbles upon this aspect of Kyle’s character accidentally and that’s why it was so easy for him to give the ol’ ‘Vic Chaos sales pitch’ about rebranding. I don’t think Butters intentionally manipulated Kyle, at least not with nefarious intentions, but I think he did see Kyle as an easy target, which he absolutely was.

The fact that Kyle so desperately wants people to like him but not really knowing how to go about it is so relatable. I loved his explanation of wanting his friends to think he’s more thick-skinned and “stronger mentally than I probably am”. He knows himself but he perceives his sensitivity as a flaw because he gets hung up on stuff and takes things too personally. His black t-shirt transformation was so cringey but that’s to be expected - like I said last week, Kyle has a large capacity for cringe! That locker leaning pose though…

Absolutely loved his final speech! “Look, we all have our faults - God knows I do” was a particularly good bit of voice acting. And the ending was super sweet, first with Kyle catching himself still caring what others think and then accepting Ike for who he is, and then with the other boys basically telling Kyle to go touch some grass in the nicest way possible. They were finally able to understand that there was something actually going on with Kyle that they could help with, but the best part is that Kyle had already solved his own problem! Sure he needs his friends too, but he was able to come to terms with himself on his own, which was great to see.

Stray observations:

Kyle saying “I’m not that outdoorsy” instead of denying being sensitive or a victim.

He WOULD call the police to file a noise complaint at 10:30pm.

“I’m carefree and unflappable!” says the LEAST carefree and unflappable person ever. But that’s the point.

Bebe continues to be my favorite girl. Butters has honestly had it coming for a while now.

[some-pers0n]

Sometimes I get like an abnormal amount of kudos on a random fic of mine in one day and I go "Oh cool so people shared the fic in a a Discord group somewhere" and I always like thinking about that. I'm really thankful and happy to hear my fics are good enough for people to share them around and read. I'm just happy about it, that's all

[plugnuts]

The thing that really got to me in the new ep was how Randy reacted to himself getting shot- like okay when you get shot it’s all hands on deck, but when it’s your own son that gets shot (in a school SHOOTING) you get your wife to think it’s not a huge deal and to let it go and see it as “Not the end of the world.”

[mstudi0s]

Don't React ☕️

☕️ REMINDER

This is a reminder that you can turn any situation around with your just thoughts. You are here to manifest what you want and not react to the things you don't want because they do not deserve your attention. Go about your day focusing on the things you do want instead of the things you don't want. You do not need to fight your negative thoughts. All you have to do is shift to new and positive thoughts that are more favorable. ☕️

[piningpercussionist]

*Kim stares at the photo for a long moment, expression unreadable.*

... Thanks...?

[whatudottu]

Given how the original Season 4 pitch document detailed an episode exploring an alternate universe where Optimus became techno-organic and Elita-1 leads Team Prime, part of me wonders what BETC!Blitzwing’s dynamic would be like with a Techno-Organic!Optimus or a hypothetical Techo-Organic!Sentinel.

On one hand, all three of them would still share the whole “one-of-a-kind model changed against their will” and “lost the two ‘bots closest to them” aspects that Blitzwing would definitely sympathize with, but on the other hand, Optimus and Sentinel have different personalities than Elita and would most likely make different choices than her, with that most likely extending to their potential dynamic with Blitz.

It seems I've written a bit, so I'll just shove this ask under a readmore for ease of scrolling by-

Given what we do see of canon Optimus and Sentinel, even though shoving either of them into the 'become techno-organic' situation is hyperspecific, there's like a little snippet of how they might hypothetically act like. Something something, the way that Optimus to the modern day is afraid of spiders, yada yada how he's got both a hero complex and kind of self-sacrificing, TO!Optimus would probably be so horrified of his own body but would hide it under layers and layers of 'well, i got my friends out' and potentially even 'they wouldn't come rescue me if they knew what i became'. He might only become a Decepticon by obligation because surely being the leader of their little recruit team, Optimus would not be judged kindly for being even partially organic and that may have an impact on whether or not BETC!Blitz can even begin to get friendly with the ex-Autobot. Again this is a hypothetical I could be wrong about this, but TO!OP would be perhaps a smidge bit pitiful, a dash of mournful for what had been, and probably already either catastrophised or legitmised his abandonment/assumed death as 'being 100% necessary' for removing a faulty cog from the machine.

But looking at Sentinel's reaction to organic lifeforms, especially generalised to ANY organic lifeform, if he had found himself getting techno-organic he would probably be immensely self-loathing to the point of being as physically sick a bot can get... which might be a little bit more than a purely biomechanical cybertonian can ever be. Blackarachnia may self-loath, but she had the spurring of revenge to do something about it and perhaps as part of her Autobot studies as Elita-1 might've put more effort into the sciences to 'reverse the irreversible'. Sentinel doesn't much have that, all he had was the Autobot dream, the approval of the Autobot Elite and the Magnus himself, and indeed the very friends that failed to save him (those that failed to understand that Sentinel had indeed lived). I think in comparison to other bots TO!Sentinel would maybe be at the lowest scale of acceptance and would probably be generally just overwhelmed by anything and everything to do with his new body and perhaps the Decepticons he had to rely on, and BETC!Blitz may indeed relate to the foreign sensation (and the ensuing sickness and dyphoria associated) of a new significantly changed body, but perhaps it's the Autobot propaganda that seems to have really attached itself to Sentinel more so than either of his old, scarred memories of his fellows.

So I guess in summation, TO!Optimus would probably be just a little miserable but mask it under 'being a hero' for sacrificing a moldy cog to save significantly more well off Autobots, which Blitzwing may not much interact with until Optimus slips and the fear of himself is truly revealed, and TO!Sentinel would kinda be both an open book on how much trauma his body causes but also equally as loud as an Autobot propaganda holovid, which is generally hard for Blitzwing to approach at ALL because damn BETC!Blitz was an Autobot experiment and highly hates them for what they had done to the body and how it affected the body's mind. Elita-1 would've met in the middle of the to potentially, and Blackarachnia didn't speak much about who she was beyond a in quotes that don't exist until now 'genetic disaster', which is the kind of insight clue that may have originally connected BETC!Blitzwing to the techno-organic Blackarachnia-