Fanfic / The Joys and Sorrows of Young Charles Finster

The Joys and Sorrows of Young Charles Finster is a fanfiction of Rugrats.

The story is in fact a series of vignettes, which take place when Chas Finster, father of Chuckie Finster, is between the ages of two and thirty-three. They explore Chas' life before the original setting of Rugrats, with chapters about his earliest memory, his childhood, his teenage years, and his relationship with Melinda Cavanaugh, who will eventually be Chuckie's mother.

The first edition of the fanfiction is slowly being revised and expanded into three seasons: Season 1 (Childhood Joys), Season 2, and Season 3.

The Joys and Sorrows of Young Charles Finster provides examples of:

• Accidental Misnaming:
  • In "Chicken Pox," preschool Stu accidentally calls Chas "Chick" when he thinks Chas is turning into a chicken.
  • Upon meeting Didi and Betty on Parents' Night of Chas' fourth-grade year, Shirley calls them "Mimi" and "Greta."
• Actually Pretty Funny: The fifth chapter opens with kindergarten Drew crashing his tricycle and falling into a mud puddle. Upon seeing this, Chas tries to hold back for a few seconds, but he bursts out laughing with all the other kindergartners.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents:
  • Shirley has a habit of embarrassing Chas in front of his classmates, which is why he is so reluctant to invite her to Parents' Night come fourth grade.
  • Drew's mother Trixie also embarrasses him from time to time. In one chapter, she reveals that he "just stopped wetting the bed this year." In another chapter, she has him dress like Little Lord Fauntleroy for his class Picture Day.
• Anime Hair: Didi has had her triforce haircut at least since she was six.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Chas' disappointing early-childhood Christmas presents include a ratty teddy bear whose stuffing falls out, a rusty tricycle that breaks on its maiden voyage, a toy gun that falls apart on its initial use, and five pounds of veal.
• Ascended Extra: Chas was a supporting character in Rugrats and All Grown Up!. Here, he's the main character. The first chapter even takes place when he's Chuckie’s age as of the former show.
• At the Opera Tonight: The Season 1 finale has a sixth-grade Chas see Puccini’s La Bohème with Lou at a multiplex opera house. The ending moves them both to tears, with Chas weeping his first Manly Tears.
• Awesome by Analysis: In "Ripped Pants," Miss Finster can tell from a piece of frayed cloth that someone has ripped their pants on the playground. She keeps finding the clues until she notices her nephew Chas wearing a kilt and being subject to a Marilyn Maneuver.
• Baby's First Words: Chas' was a Big "YES!" upon being successfully potty-trained. Drew's was "pop," calling for his father Lou after he has a Potty Failure.
• Baffled by Own Biology: Just like his son would in the future, a toddler version of Chas confesses in the first chapter that being toilet-trained isn't easy since it's hard to tell when he has to pee or doesn't.
• Believing Their Own Lies: When they are in kindergarten, Drew tells Chas that he could lose his library card if he tears the cover off a library book. Throughout the second half of the chapter, Chas is too scared to open the book he got from the library. Ironically, Drew himself accidentally tears the cover off his own book, Millions of Cats.
  Drew: (sobbing) It’th true! They’re gonna take away my library card forever!
• Big "NO!": The ending of "Germ Warfare" has Shirley scream, "NO!" when fourth grade Chas and his friends are playing in the mud.
• Big "YES!": Two-year-old Chas shouts, "YES!" upon being potty-trained. This also happens to be his first word.
• Birthday Episode: Chas celebrates his tenth birthday in "Charles' Tenth Birthday."
• Blind Without 'Em: True to canon, Chas is nearsighted and therefore can barely see a thing without his glasses. In one chapter, he loses his glasses and begins seeing harmless household objects as creepy monsters and clowns. Reversed when Stu wears the glasses and sees what Chas is currently seeing without his glasses.
• Broken Aesop: Subverted with "Germ Warfare." After Stu gets Chas out of his Terrified of Germs phase and convinces him there’s nothing wrong with playing in the mud, Chas, Stu, Melinda, and Betty all end up being made to take baths by their respective parents.
• Broken Tears: When three-year-old Stu tells four-year-old Chas about Miriam, his first cousin once removed, we are shown a nightmare Lou is having about his cousin Miriam, which mirrors Angelica's throwing Tommy's ball over into the next yard in "Barbecue Story," and Lou starts crying in his sleep. Notably, this is the first time Stu sees his father cry.
• Brutal Honesty: In "Drew's Last Stand," after Drew gets out of sharing his dimes with the other kids by claiming he's collecting for the poor, Stu, Chas, and Betty quickly get tired from making lemonade, and Didi exposes Drew's scam to her friends.
• Bull Seeing Red: Invoked by Stu and Drew in "The Tooth Hurts." One of Drew's efforts to extract one of Chas' teeth involves tying one end of a string to Chas’ tooth and the other end to the tail of a bull, while Stu waves his red blanket at the bull to goad him into running. It backfires when Stu waves the blanket—with Drew still holding onto the string!
• The Bully: Drew was a mean, obnoxious kid when he was a child, and not just to his little brother Stu.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Chas suffers a lot, and not all of it is Played for Laughs.
  • Still, Chas doesn't have it as bad as Drew, at least when they're kids. And unlike Chas, the torment Drew gets in each chapter happens after he has done something to torment Chas and/or Stu within the chapter.
• Call-Forward:
  • "How the Cavanaugh Saved Christmas" reveals that, up until he was nine years old, Chas' childhood Christmases were indeed miserable as far as his Christmas gifts were concerned.
  • "Recess is Cancelled" reveals that making chocolate pudding at four o'clock in the morning wasn't the first time Stu lost control of his life.
  • "Sixth Grade" reveals that Ben and Elaine first saw each other when they were in first grade, and that they were both shy about each other.
• Camping Episode: "Roughin' It" has Marvin taking his son camping in the mountains with Lou, Stu, and Drew due to his concern that Chas is becoming "unmanly" from his exposure to girls. Ironically, it is the skills Chas learned from said girls that save his and the others' lives.
• Censorship by Spelling: Lampshaded at the beginning of the first chapter:
  Shirley: Maybe we'll spend the weekend with [Lou Pickles], so he'll help us teach Charles to use his… P-O-T-T-Y.
  Marvin: I can spell, Shirley.
• Chekhov's Skill: In "Roughin' It," some of the girly advice Melinda, Charlotte, Didi, and Betty gave Chas ends up helping him, along with his father, survive in the wild.
• Childhood Friend Romance: The fanfic reveals that Chas and Melinda first met when they were in fourth grade.
• Childish Tooth Gap:
  • As a kindergartner, Drew acquires a tooth gap in "The Tooth Hurts."
  • Chas himself loses his two front teeth when he is in first grade.
  • As a second grader, Betty has her front teeth, but is missing a tooth on either end of them.
  • Didi also loses her first tooth at the age of seven, at the end of "Didi's Tooth Trouble."
• Chickenpox Episode: The chapter "Chicken Pox" involves the five-year-old Chas getting chicken pox. The visiting Drew lies that it will turn him into a chicken just like his daughter would eventually do years later in canon.
• Children Are Innocent: Played straight with most of the kids, especially with Chas and his friends, who are good-natured, fun-loving kids.
• Christmas Episode: "How the Cavanaugh Saved Christmas" is a Call-Forward to both the Rugrats episode "The Santa Experience" and the All Grown Up! episode "The Finster who Stole Christmas."

• Connected All Along: Muriel Finster from Recess is shown to be Chas' aunt on his father's side, making her Chuckie's great-aunt.
• Continuity Nod: This series has a number of these to both Rugrats and All Grown Up!.
  • Later chapters also make continuity nods to previous chapters. For example, "Drew's Last Stand," set when Chas and Drew are nine years old, has Chas mention the events of "The Library" and "Chicken Pox."
  • In "Ripped Pants," fourth grade Chas describes having his pants sewed up by his Aunt Muriel as "the most embarrassing thing that could happen to me since my mom showed you [my friends] my baby photos", referencing "Parents' Night."
  • "How the Cavanaugh Saved Christmas" has Stu mention the dimes he saved up selling lemonade in "Drew's Last Stand."
  • "Didi's Tooth Trouble" makes a few references to "The Tooth Hurts."
• Covered in Mud:
  • In the beginning of "Charles' Glasses," Drew ends up getting covered in mud from head to toe when he gets overly competitive during a kindergartners' trike race and ends up crashing his trike into a rock and flying into a mud puddle. The other kindergartners, including Chas, find this Actually Pretty Funny, but Drew storms off in a huff.
  • Chas himself ends up on the receiving end of this trope. "From Trike to Bike" shows that when he was in first grade, he and a second grader rode down a hill in the park. The second grader stopped, but Chas stopped a lot later, and when he did, he fell face-down into the mud.
  • "The New Kid" takes place when Chas and Drew are in fourth grade. One of Drew’s attempts to humiliate Melinda, the titular new kid, is to have her slip into a mud puddle, thinking that this would humiliate any girl. Unfortunately for Drew, Melinda happens to be a tomboy Farm Girl who enjoyed playing in the mud with the pigs.
  • In "The Three-Legged Race," Charlotte and her partner fall into a mud puddle. Chas and Melinda help them out and clean their faces so they can leave the course.
  • In the episode where Chas' father takes him out camping, Stu and Drew's father, who along with Stu and Drew themselves joined in, carelessly loses his bug spray. Thankfully, Chas learned from Melinda that rolling around in mud protects the pigs against sunburn and insects, so he, Stu, and Drew cover themselves in mud. Even Lou and Marvin do this as well, and Marvin finds that the mud is also excellent for camouflage.
• Cowardly Lion: Chas shows his backbone a number of times including...
  • "Chicken Pox": After preschool Stu catches first grade Chas' chicken pox, first grade Drew tells his little brother that he, Stu, is going to make a delicious dinner for Lou and Trixie, upsetting Stu. Chas stands up to Drew, saying that Mr. and Mrs. Pickles would never eat him or his best friend, and they're going to enjoy their new lives as chickens.
  • "The New Kid": When fourth grade Chas sees Melinda, the title new kid, being picked on by fourth grade Drew. Chas is so angry upon seeing this that he pushes Drew down the slide and has a fight with him! Both boys are beaten to a pulp, although Chas clearly comes out on top.
  • "Germ Warfare": Second grade Stu invokes this trope by crying for help, screaming that he's stuck in the dumpster. Stu planned it all along, because he knew that fourth grade Chas would get over his Terrified of Germs phase to save him.
• Creepy Monotone: In "Recess is Cancelled," the kids start speaking this way as they get more and more standardized tests.
• Crocodile Tears: In "Drew's Last Stand," nine-year-old Drew tells Chas and his friends a sob story about helping the poor to get out of sharing his money with them. However, Didi, being the youngest, doesn't fall for it.
• Crossover: Sort of; Miss Finster from Recess makes her first appearance in "Aunt Muriel", and from "The Tooth Hurts" onward, Chas and Drew are shown attending Third Street Elementary School.
• Crossover Relatives: Muriel from Recess is revealed to be Chas Finster's aunt.
• Dangerous Drowsiness: The chapter "The Appendix" has Charles feeling tired. He initially thinks he's just worn out from the exercises his father Marvin is having him do, but then he gets a severe stomachache and his condition is revealed to be appendicitis.
• Darker and Edgier: Most of the chapters in this fic are very light-hearted, but in "The Appendix," Chas suffers a Ruptured Appendix, and both Shirley and Marvin fear that he'll die of it.
• A Day in the Limelight: When a chapter doesn't focus on Chas, it will focus on one or two of his friends:
  • Melinda: "Picture Day" and "How the Cavanaugh Saved Christmas"
  • Stu: "How the Cavanaugh Saved Christmas"
  • Didi: "Didi's Tooth Trouble"
• Delicate and Sickly: In "The Appendix," which takes place when Chas is eleven years old. He is suffering so badly from appendicitis that his father is actually afraid that the poor kid will die. Notably, this is the first time Chas sees his father showing any signs of fear.
• Didn't Think This Through: In one chapter, Phillium Benedict becomes principal of Third Street School. He theorizes that eliminating recess can bring test scores up. What follows soon gives lie to said theory, as the kids become so bored that they can't even focus in class, and their test scores go down, resulting in a parent-teacher strike calling for the return of recess.
• Disproportionate Retribution: In "Charles' Glasses," Drew deliberately chose Chas to be it and then stole his glasses as petty revenge for Chas' laughing at him getting Covered in Mud.
• DIY Dentistry: In "The Tooth Hurts," Drew tries many methods to pull one of Chas' teeth out, such as prying it out with Stu's screwdriver, tying one end of a string to Chas' tooth and the other end to the tail of a bull so the bull can pull it out when he runs, and finally, trying to pull it out with toy pliers.
• Don't Make Me Take My Belt Off!: Happens to kindergarten Drew in "The Tooth Hurts" when one of his attempts to take a tooth out of kindergarten Chas' mouth results in him ramming into Lou, who earlier told him to behave himself. Lou ends up spanking Drew.
• Doomed New Clothes: "Picture Day": After their second-grade class photo, Stu and Betty are eager to get their clothes messed up. After her first-grade photo, Didi also gets tea all over her dress during a tea party she's having with Charlotte. Eventually, right before their fourth-grade class photo, Melinda gets covered in cheese due to saving Chas from a wayward can of cheese dip.
• Dramatic Irony: "Charles' Glasses": It's quite obvious to the viewers that kindergarten Chas stepped on kindergarten Drew's glasses and not his own (since Stu currently has them), but poor Chas doesn't know this and breaks down crying until Stu and his parents bring him his own glasses.
• Drowning My Sorrows: In "Be My Valentine," Drew orders a strawberry shake at Kelso's due to suffering Valentine's-Day blues, because he's only gotten one Valentine each year.
• Early Personality Signs: Where to begin? Chas is shown crying upon reading about the Big Bad Wolf as a kindergartner, Stu and Drew have had a Sibling Rivalry since they were babies, Betty is shown to have been an elementary-school tomboy, Melinda (who will grow up to be a Caring Gardener) is shown to be fond of Filthy Fun as a fourth grader, and one chapter shows Howard as a third grader teaching himself how to knit.
• Embarrassing Old Photo: In "Parents' Night," Shirley shows fourth grade Chas' friends an old photo of him as a baby in a puff pastry cradle.
• Establishing Character Moment: In "The New Kid," set when Chas is in fourth grade, Melinda is introduced as an energetic tomboy to contrast Chas' Nervous Wreck persona. In the chapter's climactic fight between Chas and Drew, she also contrasts Drew's condescending put-downs (Drew called Chas a "scaredy-serf") by calling Chas "a big, brave knight" and thereby boosting his confidence.
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: "Charles' Tenth Birthday" ends with Chas, Melinda, Stu, Drew, Charlotte, Didi, and Betty laughing together while discussing what they want to be when they grow up.
• Fang Thpeak:
  • Kindergarten Drew speaks with a lisp after his first loose tooth falls out, and he continues to speak with one until the time of his and Chas' kindergarten graduation.
  • First-Grade Chas acquires a lisp once he loses his two front teeth in "From Trike to Bike."
• Farm Girl: Melinda turns out to have grown up in the countryside, her father having moved to the city when her mother died.
• Feud Episode: "The Three-Legged Race" has Chas and Stu split up because they each want to win the three-legged race.
• Filthy Fun:
  • Like her twins after her, Betty used to enjoy playing in the mud when she was in grade school. In "The New Kid," it's revealed that Melinda Used to Be a Tomboy who also liked to play in the mud with the pigs on her farm.
  • At the beginning of "Germ Warfare," Chas is shown throughout his early childhood playing in various dirty places: in the garbage can at the age of two, under his bed at the age of five, and in a mud puddle at the age of six. When Shirley gives him baths and tells him about germs, he becomes paranoid of them and, at the age of nine, tries to disinfect his school. When Stu, Melinda, and Betty manage to get him out of his anti-germ phase, they have fun playing in the mud together… at least until their parents make them take a bath afterwards.

• Forced Transformation: In "Chicken Pox," first grade Drew convinces preschool Stu that first grade Chas will turn into a chicken as a result of his chicken pox. The fact that the feathers from the pillow have stuck to the calamine lotion Shirley has applied to him doesn't help. However, this is subverted when a kind doctor points out that chicken pox doesn't actually turn you into a chicken.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Near the beginning of "The Tooth Hurts," Stu mentions that one of Drew's teeth has become loose. Guess what happens to him at the end of it...
  • Similarly, Chas mentions that his buckteeth have become loose at the beginning of "From Trike to Bike," and he loses them towards the end of the chapter.
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Downplayed with Drew; he wears glasses, but he acted more like a bully as a child and is more smug and standoffish as an adult, never a genuine villain.
• The Freelance Shame Squad:
  • Drew attempts to invoke this in "The New Kid," when he tries multiple times to humiliate her but fails miserably. It's revealed that the reason why he does this is because he's hostile to new kids.
  • In "Ripped Pants," fourth grade Chas rips his pants, and his friends try to save him from being faced with Miss Finster's needle and The Freelance Shame Squad, using various materials like newspaper, papier-mâché, an empty pickle barrel, Stu's blanket, and a kilt that Charlotte designs. Ultimately subverted when Stu and Drew decide to intentionally rip their own pants to share Chas' shame. Rather than jeering at the boys' ripped pants, all the other kids show respect for this brave act.
• Garbage Hideout: Utilized by Betty in "Parents' Night"; when Stu, Didi, Betty, and Melinda on Chas at his house to try to get an idea of what his mother is like, Chas is taking out the garbage for the evening, only to see Betty leap from the garbage can, much to his dismay.
• Generation Xerox: The series reveals that Chas acted just like Chuckie when he was a kid, child Stu acted and sounded like Tommy, child Drew was essentially a male version of Angelica, and child Betty was very much like Phil and Lil (mostly Phil since she also sounded like him). Strangely, however, child Melinda appears to have been a Composite Character of Kimi and Susie, neither of whom she is related to, unless her future husband's later marriage to Kimi's mother Kira counts.

• Gilligan Cut: This exchange at the end of "Germ Warfare":
  Chas: (playing in the mud with Stu, Melinda, and Betty) I gotta admit, this is fun!
  Stu: See, Chas? I knew nothing bad would happen.
  Shirley: (seeing the kids play in the garbage) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
  (cut to Chas in the bathtub)
  Chas: (angrily talking to Stu via a walkie-talkie) And you said nothing bad was gonna happen!
• Growing Up Sucks:
  • "Charles Graduates" involves both Chas and Drew feeling anxious about graduating kindergarten and entering first grade. Chas eventually convinces Drew (and himself) that first grade will be great.
  • The crux of the chapter called "Charles' Tenth Birthday" is that fourth grade Chas fears responsibilities and attempts to revert to being a first grader. He soon regrets his decision when he realizes that first graders are too small to ride roller coasters.
  • The chapter called "Sixth Grade" makes a point of showing that a child emotionally comes of age when he has wept his first adult tears, which usually happens at age 11 or 12. As expected, Chas weeps his first Manly Tears towards the end of the chapter.
• Guilt-Induced Nightmare: In "The Three-Legged Race", Chas gets too mean, boastful, and obsessed with one-upping Stu in anticipation of the eponymous race, then that night, he has a nightmare where Drew (who, at the time, was a Bratty Half-Pint) says, "Why, I'm you" to him.
• Hate Sink: Rex Pester's Establishing Character Moment occurs in "Germ Warfare." When he is in fifth grade and Chas in fourth grade, he annoys Chas and goads him into disinfecting the school by claiming that Melinda is dying of pneumonia, when she really just has a cold.
• Hidden Depths: Like his daughter after him, child Drew seems like your typical schoolyard bully, but he has his limits. He's also fond of playing the harmonica, having got one from his father on his ninth birthday.
• I Ate WHAT?!: "Chicken Pox" has Chas develop chicken pox when he is a first grader. After Stu believes Chas is turning into a chicken as a result, he brings him a snack. Chas likes it at first, but spits it out when Stu tells him the snack is dried corn.
• Improvised Diaper: In "Charles vs. the Potty," when two-year-old Chas is getting potty-trained, Stu suggests to Chas that he should stuff napkins in his pants to use as a diaper. Chas tells him that he already tried that only to stop when his father saw that he was running out of napkins.
• In-Series Nickname: It is revealed that Charles was first called "Chas" by Stu when they were babies.
• Intentional Mess Making: In "Charles Vs. the Potty", this is discussed when a younger Stu suggests that young Chas should crap in his room and hide it in his toybox to avoid his toilet-training. Chas says that he's already tried that and that his mother was mad at him for doing so.
• It's All About Me: Drew had a major problem with this when he was a kid. For example, in the Valentine's Day Episode, he asks Mr. Kelso for advice, telling him that he's only gotten one Valentine every year, whereas Chas has gotten many. Kelso tells Drew that the world doesn't revolve around him, and that he needs to share the spotlight every once in a while. Upon hearing this, Drew leaves Kelso's in a huff, returns home, and calls Kelso a quack.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
  • Like his daughter Angelica, child Drew, despite his tendency to pick on Chas and his friends, has a lot of nice moments — such as when he joins Chas and Betty in playing lemonade when he learns that they are much more successful bosses than he ever was, and when he joins the other kids in protecting Melinda from getting dirty on their fourth-grade picture day.
  • Child Charlotte is a fashionista who refers to Chas as a fashion reject, but is likewise willing to help him when he rips his pants.
• Jerkass Ball: Both Chas and Stu handle it big time in "The Three-Legged Race" when they stop being friends in favor of trying to beat each other at the race. First Chas then Stu let go of it over the course of the chapter.
• Jerkass Realization: Fourth grade Charlotte has one in "Betty De Pest" after she calls fourth grade Howard a "wimp" and reduces him to tears.
• Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Marvin is shown to be much more conventionally manly than Chas.
• Karmic Jackpot: Throughout the three-legged race, Chas and Melinda help the smaller kids up when they are brought down by obstacles, including Stu and Betty when they slip in some oil slick. Not only do Chas and Melinda win the race, he and Stu kiss and make up after apologizing to each other for being a Competition Freak.
• "Kick Me" Prank: In the fourth grade, Drew attaches a "kick me" sign to Melinda's back in one of his attempts to make her an outcast. It fails when Chas replaces the "kick me" sign with a "say 'Hi, Melinda' to me" sign.
• Kick the Dog: Like his daughter after him, Drew would do this a lot as a child, but his making Chas cry by mocking him for not getting any Valentines (due to Drew's own petty revenge plan over getting only one Valentine every year since kindergarten) is especially malicious. Thankfully, he is met with Laser-Guided Karma within the chapter.
• Kiddie Kid: As part of his plan to act like a first grader to avoid responsibilities, Chas makes mud pies, snuggles with Stu's blanket, and brings a stuffed animal with him to school.
• Kids Are Cruel: Refreshingly averted. With the exception of Drew, hardly any pre-pubescent children are portrayed as bullies in their own right. In fact, in the episode where Chas is convinced that no one gave him a Valentine and Drew laughs at him for it, all their classmates Death Glare at Drew, with Melinda reprimanding him for reducing Chas to tears.
• Kissing In A Tree: At the end of "The New Kid," Chas begins to develop a crush on new kid Melinda. Stu and Drew proceed to tease him with: "Chas and Melinda sittin' in a tree! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!"
• La Résistance: In "Drew's Last Stand," after Didi exposes Drew's scheme to con her, Stu, Chas, and Betty out of their share of his dimes, they stage a revolution against Drew's tyranny.
• Laser-Guided Karma: As a child, Drew was in for it:
  • Throughout "Charles vs. the Potty," baby Drew taunts baby Chas for struggling with his potty training. Near the end, Drew ends up wetting his pants due to turning the kitchen sink on and off to trigger a Potty Emergency in Chas, not knowing that Chas has already successfully used the potty on his own.
  • In "The Tooth Hurts," kindergarten Drew's many unsuccessful attempts to extract one of kindergarten Chas' buckteeth end up resulting in him losing one of his own teeth, which is already loose anyway. What's more, instead of getting a large pile of coins like he was expecting, he only got a dime.
    Drew: All that work for one louthy dime!
  • In "The Library," Drew ridiculing Chas for being slow to write his full name, then giving him a fear of losing his library card after damaging a library book comes back to bite him when he accidentally drops his own library book, resulting in its cover being torn off and in him believing that his own library card will be permanently revoked.
  • In "Charles' Glasses," Drew steals Chas' glasses and runs around wearing them. After he stops wearing them, though, he finds out that his own glasses got broken. Chas doesn't dare tell him that he stepped on them by mistake.
  • In "Chicken Pox," after lying to preschool Stu about first grade Chas turning into a chicken, first grade Drew himself gets chicken pox and, upon seeing his spot-covered face in a mirror, he screams, "I'm turning into a chicken!"
  • "The New Kid" has fourth grade Drew repeatedly try to ostracize fourth grade Melinda through a variety of cruel pranks. Finally, he pushes her aside on top of the jungle gym, nearly making her cry. This enrages fourth grade Chas into having a fist fight with him, and winning!
  • In "Parents' Night," Drew repeatedly taunts Chas about his (Chas') mother and makes off with his money. Towards the end of Parents' Night, Drew's own mother embarrasses him by spilling out that he has only stopped wetting the bed this year, causing him to drop Chas' money and flee from the classroom.
  • Over the course of "Didi's Tooth Trouble," fourth grade Drew taunts first grade Didi about her having all her baby teeth and how painful having your loose tooth yanked will be. At the end, although Didi doesn't get her tooth yanked by the dentist as Drew predicted, Drew himself does and leaves the dentist's office crying for his mom.
  • Fourth-grade Drew is particularly nasty in "Be My Valentine," when he uses the fact that he got just one Valentine each year since kindergarten as an excuse to get even. He stays behind during recess, scratches out Chas' name from each of his classmates' Valentines, and replaces it with his own. Then, when Chas doesn't get any Valentines as a result, he mocks Chas, making the latter cry profusely. By the end of the day, he gets met with a major Humiliation Conga when the teacher discovers the penciled-out blots on Drew's ill-gotten Valentines, makes him dig for the only Valentine that is genuinely his, makes him share the Valentine, which turns out to be a joke card from the class clown (as usual), and punishes him with detention for a month.
• Last-Name Basis: As a child, Drew would often refer to Chas as "Finster," Didi as "Kropotkin," Betty as "Giselle," and Melinda as "Cavanaugh." One of the few exceptions to his rule is Charlotte McSell, whom he has referred to by her first name ever since he first met her at the age of nine. This means that it's all the more heartwarming when Drew calls Chas by his first name right near the end of the chapter "Sixth Grade".
• Literal-Minded:
  • In "Charles' Glasses," Lou tells Trixie it's raining cats and dogs. Preschool Stu thinks he means that cats and dogs are falling from the sky, and is disappointed to find out that it's just water.
  • In "Drew's Last Stand," Drew tells the other kids to "hold the ice," prompting Chas to ask Stu how long he, Stu, is supposed to hold the ice for.
• The Lost Lenore: Christopher Cavanaugh, Melinda's father, lost his wife before Melinda was nine years old, driving him to move with Melinda into the city. So far, though, he hasn't told her about it.
• Loving Bully: "Betty De Pest" reveals that what Betty said in the Rugrats episode "Angelica in Love" was true. Betty did poke Howard with her index finger. But among other things, she also stuck gum in his hair and pelted him with kickballs. Melinda is the first to guess that Betty is in love with Howard.
• Luminescent Blush: During the school episodes, Chas blushes visibly whenever Melinda kisses his cheek.
• Lying Finger Cross: Kindergarten Drew does this in "Charles' Glasses" when he promises Trixie that he'll play nicely with Stu and Chas.
• Machiavelli Was Wrong: Drew learns this in "Drew's Last Stand" when he refuses to share his dimes with Chas and his friends, whom he bosses around like a tyrant. Once they overthrow him, Chas and Betty take over for him and prove to be far more successful bosses than Drew ever was.
• Malaproper: In "Charles is Breathless," Drew’s attempt to bully Chas for having asthma backfires when he miscalls asthma "plasma."
• Malicious Misnaming: Second-grade biker Rocky calls Chas "Crash" in "From Trike to Bike."
• Manly Tears: The first season finale is notable because this is the first time Chas has seen a grown man actually shed tears; in this case, during a performance of Puccini's La Bohème, he sees Lou, who is acting as one of the chaperones, with tears running down his face during the “Addio di Mimi.” And with the opera's Downer Ending, Chas himself begins to weep for the first time in his life. When Chas tells Drew about this later on, Drew weeps in sympathy for him.

• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy:

• Chas and Melinda also fit this trope, Chas being In Touch with His Feminine Side and Melinda being a Genki Girl Tomboy.

• Men Are Uncultured: Charlotte certainly thought so when she was in third grade.
• Missing Mom: Melinda's mother isn't around because she's dead. Fourth grade Chas knows about this, but fourth grade Melinda doesn't.
• My Beloved Smother: Shirley shows shades of this toward Chas, particularly in "From Trike to Bike," where she dresses him up in, not only a bike helmet, but also elbow guards, knee guards, and a padded jacket! She's also overprotective in "Germ Warfare," where she gave Chas a bath each time he did something even remotely dirty. She meant well, but between the excessive baths and Chas’ worried nature, she ended up making her son Terrified of Germs by the time he was in fourth grade.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • n "Drew's Last Stand," nine-year-old Drew regrets acting like a tyrant and not sharing his dimes when he sees Chas and Betty running their own lemonade stand and laughing with Stu and Didi, realizing that Chas and Betty really do make better bosses than he ever has.
  • In "Parents' Night," Stu, Didi, Betty, and Melinda are visibly regretful when Chas's mom embarrasses him.
  • At the conclusion of "Sixth Grade," Drew, after learning that Chas has wept his first Manly Tears, becomes so remorseful over having wasted his whole childhood bullying younger children that he himself sheds Tears of Remorse.

• Nice Mean And In Between:
  • The main three boys are Chas (nice), Stu (in-between), and Drew (mean). Chas is afraid of causing harm and overall good-natured. Drew often bullies both Stu and Chas. Stu is out-going and adventurous, often having his own moments of mischief, but is still overall easy-going, and much nicer than his big brother Drew.
  • Among Chas' elementary-school classmates, we have Chas, Drew, and Melinda. Chas retains his position as the nice one for having something of a crush on Melinda, and Drew retains his position as the mean one for treating both Chas and Melinda with disdain, but the tomboyish Melinda is the in-between one for treating Chas with respect and being hardier than him when it comes to dealing with Drew.
• Nightmare Sequence:
  • Towards the end of "Charles vs. the Potty," Chas has a bad dream that is stated to take place in France during the 1700's and features two-year-old Chas being sent to the scaffold, which has a giant toilet on it, to the jeers of an adult crowd. This triggers a Potty Emergency in Chas.
  • Then, in "Aunt Muriel," four-year-old Chas, having been told by Stu that an "aunt" is the bane of a decent person's existence, dreams that a giant ant has trashed the city.
  • In "How the Cavanaugh Saved Christmas," second-grade Stu, after inadvertently stealing a toboggan from someone else's house, has a nightmare where a faceless Bad Santa tauntingly gifts him with a bag full of coal.
  • In "The Three-Legged Race," fourth-grade Chas dreams that he and Melinda run into a hall of mirrors, where Chas sees Drew as his reflection. This also serves as an Opinion-Changing Dream, as he was earlier a Competition Freak obsessed with beating Stu.
• Noodle Incident: It is revealed that Chas' overly cautious nature is due in part to his own childhood accidents, one of which involved him mistaking some finger paints at his nursery school for a fruit salad.
  • In "Chicken Pox," set when Chas is in first grade, his father Marvin mentions that when he was Chas' age, his mother would expose him and the rest of his family to diseases like mumps, measles, and the flu every week. In the same chapter, when the doctor pays a visit and hears about Chas' chicken pox, he mentions that half of Chas' classmates also have it.
  • In "Drew's Last Stand," when Drew asks Chas if he ever lied to him or his friends, Chas brings up the time he told Betty that her parents loved her big brother Freddie more than her. This also counts as a Generation Xerox considering that Drew's daughter Angelica would later convince Betty's twins Phil and Lil that she, Betty, favored one twin over the other.
  • In "The New Kid," one of Drew's failed attempts to subject Melinda to The Freelance Shame Squad is by having her ride a bucking horse that, in his own words, "humiliated [him] at last year's horseback-riding competition."
  • "The Three-Legged Race" has Chas say that on Halloween of his fourth-grade year, he broke his glasses, scraped his knee, and spilled all his Halloween candy while running from a fifth grader dressed as a robot. It also mentions that one of Chas' embarrassing incidents involved him wetting his pants on his second-grade talent show.
• Original Character: Most of the other students are not characters in the cartoon.
• Playing a Tree: In "Charles is Breathless," Chas plays a willow tree in the fourth-grade production of The Wind in the Willows. He's a good sport about it, though.

• Potty Emergency: See Potty Failure below.
  • Also invoked in "Parents' Night." Betty, Didi, and Melinda make Stu drink lots of water from a hose in order to get into Chas' house. Chas lets them in, but doesn't want the girls to know about his mom. At least, Stu gets to use the bathroom.
• Potty Failure: In “Charles vs. the Potty,” this happens to Chas when he gets off the potty after sitting on it for a long time, and later to Drew when he attempts to trigger a Potty Emergency in Chas, little knowing that Chas has already used the potty by himself. Justified in that both these characters are two years old, around the normal potty-training age, at the time this chapter takes place.

• "Reading Is Cool" Aesop: "The Library" has five-year-old Chas learning how to read—and to face his fears of opening a library book.
• Real Men Wear Pink: Who knew that Lou Pickles, Tommy's grandfather and a World War II combat veteran, is also an opera fan? In one chapter, he even states that opera music calms his nerves whenever he's stressed.
• Rule of Three: Near the beginning of "How the Cavanaugh Saved Christmas," Fourth-Grade!Chas, Fourth-Grade!Melinda, and Second-Grade!Stu watch a montage of three of Chas' Christmas presents falling apart, causing baby Chas to cry his eyes out and his mother to rush in to comfort him.
• Ruptured Appendix: Chas had his appendix taken out at the age of eleven.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Turns out Chas and Melinda were like this when they were kids. In elementary school, Melinda was something of a tomboy who engaged in high-energy sports and Filthy Fun, whereas Chas was a Nervous Wreck and a bit of a Sickly Neurotic Geek.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man:
  • Chas and Howard are the Sensitive Guys to Stu and Drew's Manly Men.
  • Chas' father Marvin is also the Manly Man to Lou, Boris, and Christopher's Sensitive Guys. The chapter "Roughin' It" is particularly clear on this kind of relationship between Lou and Marvin.
• Ship Tease: Happens all the time regarding Chas and Melinda:
  • "Parents' Night": Shirley mentions that Melinda is the one Chas has "the crush on."
  • "How The Cavanaugh Saved Christmas": Melinda kisses Chas Under the Mistletoe.
  • "Be My Valentine": After Melinda, Stu, Didi, Betty, and Charlotte make Chas a Valentine out of some of their own, Chas is grateful, and he and Melinda embrace affectionately.
  • "Sixth Grade": Melinda drawing a heart on Chas' cast after he breaks his arm.
• Shout-Out: The title of the fanfic is based on The Sorrows of Young Werther.
  • The third chapter, set when Chas and Drew are in kindergarten, has Kindergarten!Chas and Preschool!Stu watch The Barber of Seville starring Robert Merrill on TV.
  • Not long thereafter, Kindergarten!Chas does an oral book report on The Cat in the Hat.
  • In "Charles' Glasses," the music playing during Chas' blind search for his glasses comes from Puccini's Turandot, with Birgit Nilsson singing the "In questa reggia" aria to underscore the monsters Chas sees through his nearsighted eyes.
  • Melinda's maiden name, Cavanaugh, is an homage to Christine Cavanaugh, Chuckie's first voice actress.
  • "How the Cavanaugh Saved Christmas" has a number of Shout Outs to Christmas movies:
    • The montage of Chas' early-childhood Christmas presents falling apart mirrors the beginning of "Christmas Comes But Once a Year."
    • Among the other bad Christmas presents he got, Chas mentions that he got five pounds of veal when he was four years old.
    • In addition, Shirley tries to get Chas a pink bunny pajama suit.
  • In "Roughin' It," when Marvin explodes over his and Chas' hunting rifles being busted, Lou is listening to Franco Corelli singing "Vesti la giubba" from Pagliacci to calm his nerves. Marvin calls it an "infernal racket."
  • "Recess is Cancelled" is a Whole-Plot Reference to the flashback scene from Recess: School's Out. Also...
    • This line of dialogue mirrors Scar and Sarabi's confrontation from The Lion King:
      Miss Lemon: If you were half the principal Mr. Solomon was...
      Benedict: I AM TEN TIMES THE PRINCIPAL SOLOMON WAS!
    • Then Stu's mom asks him why he's studying for a test instead of watching Saturday morning cartoons. Stu's reply: "Because I've lost control of my life."
• Sick Episode: "Chicken Pox" has Chas suffer the titular disease when he is in first grade. He eventually spreads it to Preschool!Stu and First-Grade!Drew.
  • Then there’s "The Appendix," where Chas has appendicitis, worrying his father into sending him to the hospital.
• The Stakeout: Happens in "Parents' Night" when Stu, Betty, Didi, and Melinda stake out Chas' house in order to see why he's so embarrassed about his mother, but unfortunately for them he catches on when he finds Betty inside a trash can.
• Stating the Simple Solution: When Fourth-Grade!Chas rips his pants, Melinda suggests that he could call his parents, and ask for them to bring him a new set of pants. Chas says they're out of town for the day and won't be home until after school. Also, his Aunt Muriel is the only one who has the other answer on how to fix ripped pants... sew them up. With her machine, she'll be done in no time.
• Strike Episode: "Drew's Last Stand" has Betty convince Chas, Stu, and Didi to go on strike with her when Drew refuses to share his money with them.
• Survival Mantra: Time and time again, Chas will say "I'm a big, brave knight," over and over during stressful situations.
• Tears of Fear:
  • Kindergarten Chas does this in "The Library" when he reads The Three Little Pigs and ends up scared of the Big, Bad Wolf.
  • In "Chicken Pox," preschool Stu cries when he catches first grade Chas' chicken pox, fearing that he might turn into a chicken and get eaten for dinner.
• Tears of Remorse: Sixth-grade Drew sheds this kind of tears as his first Manly Tears. Upon learning that sixth grade Chas has already wept like a man, Drew thinks about all the times he picked on Chas and, realizing that he's wasted his whole childhood bullying younger and weaker kids, lets his tears stream down his cheeks.
• Tempting Fate: In the beginning of "From Trike to Bike," first grade Chas tells preschool Stu how much he enjoys his trike and comments that he wouldn't know where he'd go without it. A second later, it's shown that he's about to find out.
• Terrified of Germs: Chas develops this phobia in fourth grade and eventually attempts to have the whole playground sanitized.
• Thanksgiving Episode: "Aunt Muriel" is explicitly set in Thanksgiving 1961.
• Thieving Magpie: During the Camping Episode, a crow steals Drew's compass, causing Drew to accuse Stu of doing it.
• Tin-Can Telephone: Nine-year-old Drew turns his lemonade stand into a drive-thru, or rather bike-thru, service by using one of these as an intercom system.
• Toilet Humor: It should come as no surprise, considering "Charles vs. the Potty" is set when Chas is two years old, but special mention goes to Stu’s suggestions on what Chas should do instead of using the potty, which include holding in his poop, stuffing napkins in his pants to use like a diaper, and pooping in his room and hiding it in his toy box.
• Toilet Training Plot: Chas' very first memory was getting potty-trained at the age of two.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl:
  • In their elementary-school years, Didi and Betty already share this dynamic. When nine-year-old Drew claims that making lemonade is fun, Betty asks "More fun that playing in the mud?" while Didi asks "Or having tea parties?"
  • Later, Melinda and Betty are the Tomboys to Didi and Charlotte's Girly Girls, Melinda being a Farm Girl who, like Betty, engages in Filthy Fun.
• Tomboyish Voice: Not surprisingly, Betty sounded exactly like Phil when she was a kid.
• Too Dumb to Fool: Apparently, Didi was like this when she was six-and-a-half. Drew convinces Stu, Chas, and Betty that he would love to share his dimes with them, but he's planning to send them all to charity. Only Didi is young and simple enough to realize that Drew doesn't want to share his money with them at all.
• The Tooth Hurts: Throughout the chapter of the same name, Drew tries to extract one of Chas' teeth for Tooth Fairy money (both boys are in kindergarten at this time).
• The Unapologetic: First-grade Chas tells second grader Rocky to apologize to him for squirting him at the water fountain, which Rocky refuses to do, though he eventually does after First-grade Chas falls into a mud puddle.
• Under the Mistletoe: Towards the end of "How the Cavanaugh Saved Christmas," Melinda kisses Chas' cheek while under the mistletoe.

• Vocal Dissonance: Although Muriel is young and attractive during Chas' childhood, she has a strong, raspy voice that she will maintain in old age.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: In one chapter, eleven-year-old Chas throw up onto his father’s shoes due to him suffering from appendicitis, although the actual vomiting is not described.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: When Chas, Stu, Didi, and Betty overthrow Drew in "Drew's Last Stand," Drew claims that he's the only one who can keep little kids like Chas' friends in line, apparently because he saw a TV show where some workers overthrow their Mean Boss, elect one of their own as the new head honcho, and quickly take advantage of their new boss. The next day, Drew finds out, to his dismay, that by running a lemonade stand democratically, Chas, Betty, Stu, and Didi get the job done much better than Drew ever did as a dictator-like boss.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Both Chas and the dentist remind Didi that having all your baby teeth doesn't make a kid a baby.
• You Must Be This Tall to Ride: In "Charles' Tenth Birthday," the reason why Chas decides to act his age is because first and second graders aren't allowed on roller coasters, which have a minimum height requirement so that only people from third grade upward can ride.

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