i will think of something clever for here later

A short PG13 S/K fic, nothing to see here.

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This is a glossary of some Polari terms that appear in You Only Live Twice, itself a prequel to 'Go to the Mirror!' and The Rectum is a Tomb. Throughout the fic, Stan, Kyle, and many men they interact with lace their speech with bits of Polari, a vocabulary used by gay men in Britain primarily in the early 20th century until the 1960s. A good dictionary of Polari is Paul Baker's Fantabulosa: A Dictionary of Polari and Gay Slang. The best reference work is his Polari: The Lost Language of Gay Men, which gives Polari excellent social and cultural context.

Despite the title of Baker's book, Polari is not really a language; it is more useful to think of it as a vocabulary set, as it follows English grammar and syntax, usually only replacing sexually charged words with Polari alternatives. It was not spoken by all gay men and not all gay men had the same exact knowledge of Polari; it depended very much on social circles. By the time Kyle and Stan pick some up in the mid-1960s Polari is on its last legs; in the 1970s it almost vanished. There are three main uses for Polari:

• Identity construction, i.e. marking oneself as a user of Polari


• Identification, i.e. determining if other men are users of Polari


• Camouflage, i.e. making it possible to discuss men, sex, and sex with men in the presence of those who might be hostile to men who have sex with men

As homosexuality became increasingly mainstream, Polari was no longer useful. Moreover, its highly gendered, sexist, and racist character was considered unproductive for the burgeoning gay rights movement. Beyond that, Polari represented a kind of hiding, and as coming out became more possible and more practiced, Polari was seen as too antiquated.

For Kyle and Stan, the use of Polari is mostly about wanting to fit in. They only know bits of it and couldn't carry on a conversation with more than what's used in the story. They are using it because they want to use it. By the time the 1980s roll around they are no longer using it because it's no longer relevant for them.

If you find a word in the fic and want to know what it means, please let me know and I'll add it here.

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If anything my fic has gotten much worse over the years!

Earlier in the week, maybe last week (I don't remember anything anymore -- wait, it was two weeks ago, because it was before I came down here, right?), the infamous bookshop posted this Daily Dot thing about how no one noticed or cared about the LJ site redesign. Typically I don't pay heed to what gets published at the Daily Dot, but it happened that a few weeks prior to that I had been at a fail_fandomanon meetup in which all six other people were very anti-LJ. I was seriously puzzled; why does everyone hate LJ so much? I think part of why this makes me sad is because I have had a LiveJournal (not this one, but my personal one, which I still use) for the entire duration of my young adult life and my fandom life. It has been my primary point of contact with numerous people, my point of introduction to numerous people I now consider friends, and serves as a record for experiences I had in high school and college and beyond, in three different countries and in three different US cities. So the idea that the site is falling out of favor generally and with fandom specifically is, yes, troubling to me.

But it's also disturbing because the functionality of this site, in fan space, is really not that bad. Especially not when you compare it to that of Tumblr, which is not a platform for the kind of fan experience I want to have. This entry really has nothing to do with anything, except that I just made a rather nice fic rec on Tumblr that was eaten as soon as I published it, leaving only the link and none of the text. The thing is, the text is the important part. Yet on Tumblr the primary focus of fannish activity is the shareable object: a link, an image, a soundbite. These things have value, and I love fan art more than I have any right to as someone who is actually a professional working on the arts. But I don't know how I can exist in a framework where objects become the focus of fan activity, tumbling from blog to blog amassing quantifiable "notes" that correspond to "likes." To "like" something is the most meaningless, softcore valuation of anything. It's akin to how I call people I don't really want to spend time with but can't describe as objectionable "nice."

Tumblr is perfectly nice. It is easy on the eyes (well, the main page is; go on someone's personal site, and beware); it doesn't put up much resistance when you want to upload something; it limits communications, including flames and crits, drastically by character; even private messaging is "fan mail." But it doesn't privilege text or discourse by design, and when it fucks up, it preserves only the least essential aspect of your data: the shareable object.

It's not really a big deal that the 200-ish words (or whatever) I wrote about a fan fic are gone forever. I write 200 words without incident. I am full of fucking words.

I just want somewhere to put them where they will be read. I don't care if they are passed around. I just want to have the opportunity to get a response.

This is a scrap from a fic that was supposed to be about Kyle babysitting, and having Stan sneak over to hook up. Not going to finish it, so, posting the little bit I have. Enjoy!

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PairingL S/K
Rating: PG
Summary: Literally 1384 words about Kyle needing to have an abortion

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I started writing this last fall and after re-reading it I am still so into this idea, which is supposed to be kind of tongue-in-cheek and cracked out. Unfortunately I have way too many fics to write so I am abandoning this one.

Rating: R/NC17ish
Pairings: Butters/Kenny, Craig/Clyde, Craig/Butters/Kenny, Stan/Kyle
Summary: In this unfinished genderbend AU, all the boys are adult lesbian separatists and South Park is their lesbian separatist commune.
Note: This was supposed to be very, um, pulpy.

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Taking a break from playing SOT to have an anxiety attack, so I'm taking a break from that by writing some brief meta.

For a while I've had the idea that "What Would Brian Boitano Do?" is the keenest articulation of South Park's view of its main characters. I think there are shades of this in the game and I think it's pretty consistent. The thing that initially got me on about it was the first verse. It's so painfully indicative of how I think the show would like you to view these characters. To wit:

( some minor SOT content/spoilers -- nothing plot-related )

I am not sure if I should post this link or not, because on one hand it is anger-inducing and will probably piss someone off. On the other hand, it is also very WTF and I have no idea what is going on, like, are these just the top 50 stories on FFN in some dimension, like, pageviews? Or ... just what the journal owner feels? Or what? So confusing. What's with the little rising/falling arrows? What, are SP fanfics stocks now? Anyway, I'm erring on the side of someone finding this fascinating, like I do, or maybe just wanting to get some convo going.

http://southparkfanfictiononehundred.tumblr.com/

A response to this post! I tried reblogging and responding that way, but I'm sorry, reblogging an ask is just too ugly to organize my thoughts. Please accept my apologies, formerdinosaur. The thing is, I mostly agree with what's already in that post, to the extent that I just scrapped the longer post I was writing. Here are some disjointed thoughts of less import:

- I think the show implies at a couple of points that Kyle is into rap music. He's probably not that into it, or a huge fan of music in general. He probably doesn't, say, go to shows. He probably just listens to top-40 radio.

- I love the idea that Stan writes non-complex vaguely political songs that are musically catchy but lyrically feckless.

- The idea that Cartman is into Sublime came from the idea that he could easily grow up and become some douchey bro frat-boy, or the Cartman approximation thereof. He's also clearly into anything self-aggrandizing and over-the-top.

- I actually have songs that remind me of all of the characters and/or various pairings, and many of the fics I've written. I would be more than willing to discuss it if people care, though my assumption has always been that people didn't.

- In terms of hobbies, they are all clearly into video games. Stan would follow the NFL and be into the Broncos, whereas I think Kyle would maintain a shallow interest in basketball that he gradually grows away from. For some reason I get the idea that the older he gets the less he'll be into mainstream things and the more he'll kind of retreat inside of himself and spend a lot of time studying/reading. You'd think maybe Stan would get into some kind of animal-rights activism habit, or at least volunteer at a shelter. In high school Kyle would probably get very involved in a bunch of high-achievement clubs like Model UN or editing the yearbook -- that kind of thing. Maybe he'd be like student government secretary. He's not popular to actually be president, and he's not as legitimately invested as Wendy would be, but it would be important to him to do the right thing and get involved in some capacity that makes him look good/accomplished. He'd probably be involved in his synagogue youth group, too, which isn't so much a religious thing as just the kind of thing kids get swept into doing because it's a safe social environment. His mom's already got him in Jew Scouts, after all. Probably when they grow up I think Stan's hobbies would remain fairly consistent, while Kyle would probably spend too much time working and not know what to do with himself when he wasn't. Almost certainly Stan would want to have a nice garden and raise chickens. Kyle would want a nice garden but not want to work in it himself and would be very anti-chickens.

I have this idea that Butters probably draws really tame hetero fan art of like, comic characters like Brenda Starr. Not even as part of some internet fandom thing, that's just a natural setting for him. Probably it's like him kissing different women. Butters making out with Lois Flagston, there you go.

- My basic conviction about Stan and Kyle is that they are enormous nerds. I mean, all of the kids are huge nerds. They are all into LARPing and WOW and gaming and quote Star Trek prodigiously and so on. And they are in the Terrance and Phillip fan club, which is a geeky thing in its own way, like, on par with old-school nerds who are obsessed with Monty Python. They can quote all the lines to old episodes!

Why did I write this?