Terrance's mother once told him that you should be able to sense when people were bad for you. Terrance never could. He used to be too trusting, now he was completely unable to fully trust anyone. He didn't know if he should be wary of Eric or not. He had no sense, no internal gauge, nothing but a bruised, misshapen lump of a frozen heart.
The Ballad of Stoot and Argyle
is a South Park High School AU fanfiction written by Satine 89, focusing on an alternate universe where Terrance Stoot and Phillip Argyle are teenaged students at South Park High preparing for their senior year of schooling. Jump-starting the story is a giant party being thrown by the most popular girl in school, Bebe Stevens, which ends with Terrance confessing to Phillip that he's gay after Cartman plays a rather nasty prank on him.
As it turns out, Eric is just very bad at expressing his true feelings - he's attracted to Terrance. Terrance, though he might stare at Cartman all the time in Bio lab, isn't sure he returns those feelings, so the two of them consent to a "trial dating period" with each other. They have the summer to determine whether or not they might like each other enough to date... and to keep their arrangements a secret from South Park at large.
This fic is on permanent hiatus.
The Ballad of Stoot and Argyle provides examples of:
- Above the Influence: Pretty much the only reason Cartman is able to pull off his prank at Bebe's party. Also the only reason Terrance is so hurt by it - neither of them are drunk enough to laugh it off, like everyone else.
- Alternate Character Interpretation: Invoked. The page quote is Terrance weighing an alternate character interpretation of Cartman in the aftermath of agreeing to a "trial dating period" with him.
- Berserk Button: Cartman's very good at pissing off Kyle.
- Big Brother Instinct: Kenny is still very protective of Karen, even as she prepares to enter high school. She suggests this instinct becomes even stronger when dating comes into play.Karen: My brother says the older boys are off-limits. They're not… he says none of them will be interested in relationships, per se.
- Cannot Talk to Women: Terrance, at the party. This is more because Terrance finds their inebriation awkward, and less because they're women. Later on, he's shown to be close to, among others, Wendy.
- Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: Terrance made this, essentially, one of the three rules for his trial relationship with Cartman.
- Child Prodigy: As in the show, Ike Broflovski: twelve years old and already about to finish his tenth-grade year.
- Cloudcuckoolander: Most of the school thinks Terrance lives in his own universe. Lexus is also the resident Cloudcuckoolander of the Raisins girls.
- Clueless Chick-Magnet: Terrance and Phillip, to the point where they think they have only one female fan.
- Cluster F-Bomb: Jenny Simons' and Georgie's speech. On occasion, Terrance, Phillip, Kyle, and Cartman veer into this.
- Contemplate Our Navels: It happens a few times in the fic. Terrance does it the most; the page quote comes from one particular navel-gazing session.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Terrance keeps alluding to one, but not explaining it; Eric flat-out tells Terrance he killed a guy, which is certainly enough to qualify him.
- Distracted by the Sexy: The girls while watching The Terrance and Phillip Show.
- Double EntendrePhillip: Don't swallow.Terrance: Do I ever?
- Door Stopper: The first eighteen chapters cover a month in time. Nineteen starts off a new month, thankfully...
- Face Palm: In its famous South Park counterpart form, the nose pinch.
- Flat "What": Phillip's reaction to Terrance's retelling of his first outside-Terrance's-house confrontation/non-sequitir-filled existential conversation with Cartman.
- Formerly Fat: Cartman, by virtue of taking up lacrosse. Everyone still calls him a fatass anyways.
- Funny Foreigner: True in a technical sense, as Terrance and Phillip are aspiring foreign comedians. As far as the trope definition goes, averted.
- Gay Best Friend: Terrance is technically this to Phillip. It doesn't get brought up much.
- Gayngst: Terrance gets hit with this hard. None of the other gay characters (Phillip, Cartman) are even remotely close to his level of Gayngst.
- Good is Not Nice: The Goths embody this in differing ways. And as Terrance finds out, Cartman has a bad reputation because of his past, and is still extremely rough around the edges because of it.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Terrance can tell Cartman is jealous of Phillip, and doesn't quite get why. Apparently he's immune to Phillip's looks.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Terrance and Phillip. Except they're both gay. And Phillip is unsure if he wants more from the relationship or not.
- He Who Fights Monsters / Knight Templar: Stan is pretty sure Kyle is getting to this level of insanity regarding Cartman.
- Hormone-Addled Teenager: A few characters, most notably Ferrari of the Raisins Girls and Bebe.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Terrance definitely was in Canada, judging from his thoughts; judging from the page quote and his burgeoning relationship with Cartman, he might still be.
- Incompatible Orientation: Poor Karen has no idea...
- In Touch with His Feminine Side: Butters, who just wants to tell people about his new cat.
- It Runs in the Family: Terrance got his love of comedy from his father, and his looks from his mother. According to Ondine, the smarts got lost somewhere along the way.
- Jerk Jock: Cartman. Terrance comes to view it more as Jerk Jock with a Heart of Gold.
- Jews Love to Argue: Illustrated fairly well in Chapter 20, after being heavily implied for most of the fic.
- Last-Name Basis: Cartman. Which is why Terrance calling him Eric is a huge deal.
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: It's the Cartman/Terrance fanfic!
- Loony Friends Improve Your Personality: Terrance and Phillip.
- Love Dodecahedron: With the two title characters alone, Karen is in love with Terrance, who is currently pseudo-dating Cartman, who is jealous of Phillip. Phillip has a large fan contingent with the females at the school, and is himself in love with Bebe Stevens and Terrance, stuck in his own mental Love Triangle. In addition, Wendy thinks she might be stuck in one involving her and the Goth Kids, though Stan and Adam assure her that's just her own paranoia.
- Love Hurts: Everyone's a teenager. It happens. Terrance gets this dumped on him a lot.
- Love Redeems: Lampshaded and discussed a few times.Terrance: You can’t become a better person with one kiss.
- Master of the Mixed Message: Terrance. Justified; this is Cartman he's dealing with, in addition to working through his past being abused in Canada.
- Mr. Fanservice: Everyone, from Cartman to Bebe, thinks Phillip is this.
- Mysterious Past: Terrance. Eric's hiding a few things of his own, and the reasons Ondine left Terrance's father are pretty vague as well.
- New Media Are Evil: Terrance apparently only owns a cell phone. Cartman's extremely bothered by his lack of a Facebook, among other social media.
- No Antagonist: Once you realize Cartman is just really bad at making himself appealing to Terrance, and is not actually trying to kill/exploit him, the idea of what might happen if the two of them actually come to care about each other, in addition to what might happen if anyone they couldn't trust was to find out about them trying to care for each other, becomes the main antagonistic force.
- Noodle Incident: Terrance and Phillip are banned from TGI Friday's for something they broadcast on television.
- Only Sane Man: Wendy thinks that Dylan might be this for the Goths.
- Open-Minded Parent: Ondine. She knew Terrance was gay for a long time before basically handling his coming out for him. It's the possibility of sex, though, that she's less okay with.
- Opposites Attract: Introverted, nerdy, mysterious Terrance... with loud, open, creepy Eric Cartman.
- Phrase Catcher: Any time Terrance tries out a new expletive-laden insult, the recipient (usually Phillip or Eric) will invariably say "That's a new one" or something similar.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: A pretty dark variation of it, at the library.
- Security Cling: Phillip's attempts to comfort Terrance after the party.
- Show Within a Show: The Terrance and Phillip Show, now on South Park Public Access!
- Shout-Out: A mistake on Terrance's part about Beavis And Butthead leads him to believe the duo is from Newfoundland. Fleetwood Mac is also extensively discussed during a pivotal scene, and Cartman apparently mastered Firebending at some point in the past.
- In addition, each chapter title is a song lyric.
- Eric came to a pretty significant conclusion about himself while reading Oedipus the King in junior high.
- Son of a Whore: As in canon, Cartman.
- Sorkin Relationship Moment: Terrance pulls one out after Eric suggests the two of them date, plainly outlining why this is a bad idea. They end up agreeing to a trial relationship anyway, because Cartman is a good kisser.
- Sympathetic Murderer: Cartman admits to Terrance that he killed Scott Tenorman's parents without much prodding. He also admits that it was a fucked-up thing to do, and he's been trying to atone for those things since middle school.
- Take That!: Terrance apparently hates Skrillex, and both he and Cartman have a hard time watching Adventure Time.
- Taking the Kids: Ondine did this with Terrance, to escape her husband for unknown reasons.
- Teen Pregnancy: How Ondine gave birth to Terrance AND ended up married to her ex-husband for more than a decade.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Spin the Bottle at Bebe's party, as presented by Drunk Bebe.Cartman: Kiss me.
- Those Two Guys: Terrance and Phillip. Cartman thinks they're dating. He hates that.
- Troubled, but Cute: Basically the entire male cast, excepting Stan. Exaggerated with Cartman, Terrance, and Kenny.
- Volleying Insults: Kyle and Cartman, in addition to Wendy and Georgie the Kindergoth.
- Vulgar Humor / Toilet Humor: It's heavily implied that Terrance and Phillip's cable access show is fueled by this, the two of them playing the role of Mr. Fanservice, and
Squick. The show is likened in-text to Jackass. - Wham Line:
- "Well, you are a fag. Like me."
- Terrance's "...I think I'm falling for you" counts as one for Cartman.
- What Does She See in Him?: In an inversion of what everyone on earth would assume, Kenny thinks Terrance is too crazy for Cartman.
- Where Did We Go Wrong?: Phillip's parents, regarding Phillip. Considering the entire family besides him is made up of Rich Bitch snobs, it's probably good Phillip rebelled against them.
- Wild Teen Party: Bebe's party that kicks off the entire plot.
