| The Charlie Arc | ||||
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| Fanfic Information | ||||
| Series | Threadbare South Park | |||
| Author | ThreadbareSP | |||
| Genre | Humor/Friendship | |||
| Rating | T | |||
| Written | December 20, 2011 | |||
| No. of Chapters | 5 | |||
| Status | Revamped in alternate format | |||
| Link | The Charlie Arc | |||
| Warnings | Language | |||
| Series Chronology | ||||
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| Fic Chronology | ||||
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The Charlie Arc is a now-defunct fanfiction written and published on FanFiction.Net by ThreadbareSP. Each chapter of the story is written in the form of a script and is approximately the length of a half-hour South Park episode. Five installments were released, with seven originally planned. The story is now being broken up into five different pieces: "Gender Confusion: The Trilogy", which is a compilation of the first three chapters of the Charlie Arc ("Charlie", "Brainwashing", and "Sisters Suck".), "Project B", "Post-Dramatic Stress Disorder", and the two previously unreleased chapters, each published as autonomous stories: "Fall of the House of Pierzynski" and "Mistletoe Immunity".
Synopsis[]
Charlie Pierzynski joins Mr. Garrison's third grade class. When her mother is arrested for child abuse, she and her siblings get tangled into the lives of Stan, Kyle, and Cartman. Whoops.
Plot[]
Part 1: "Charlie"[]
Charlie is introduced to the third grade class.
One morning in early November, Mr. Garrison (still using Mr. Hat, as the story takes place when the boys are in the third grade) announces that a new student will be joining the class. The student, Charlie Pierzynski, arrives that afternoon. Because she has a boy's name, boy's hair, and boy's clothes, there is briefly some confusion about her gender. Mr. Garrison gives Cartman's desk to Charlie (much to Cartman's annoyance).
At recess, Cartman is still irritated with Charlie for taking his desk, but Stan and Kyle feel sorry for her and decide to show her around. Wendy and Bebe, who were out of school when Charlie was introduced to the class as a girl, approach them. Believing that Charlie is a boy, Wendy asks Stan to help her hook up Charlie and Bebe. Stan tries to explain the situation to Wendy, but he vomits several times out of nervousness and is unable. By the time Charlie realizes what has happened, she is Bebe's "boyfriend" and the girls have left.
Feeling bad about the Bebe situation, Stan invites Charlie to hang out with the group at his house. Cartman, still suspicious about Charlie's true gender, attempts to pull down her pants to see if she's "hiding anything." Charlie kicks him in the nose and he starts bleeding. He goes home in tears. At four o'clock, Charlie realizes that she will be late getting home and runs from the house in a panic.
The next day, Charlie comes to school late with a black eye. After just a few minutes of class, she vomits blood onto her desk and passes out. She is taken to the nurse's office, where it is discovered that she has many more bruises on her arms and body. At around this point, Kenny gets the hiccups, which he has for the rest of the story until his death. Meanwhile, Stan finally tells Bebe that Charlie is actually a girl. Bebe is disgusted.
Mr. Mackey visits Charlie at the nurse's office. He tells her that her mother is unable to pick her up from school. Then he asks her about her home life, and Charlie explains that she lives with her mother, little sister, and baby brother. When asked if her father lived with them, she answers, "Not recently." Mr. Mackey then tries to ascertain whether or not she is being abused. Although Charlie's answers are shaky at best, he doesn't pry very much.
After school, Kyle invites Stan and Charlie over to his house. Sheila Broflovski expresses some concern about Charlie's "dirty and bruised" appearance. Later, Sheila asks Charlie to leave after she says "the J word" (Jesus) in front of Ike. At this point, Charlie realizes she is going to be late again and frets that her mother is going to "kill" her. This makes Kyle suspicious, so he and Stan decide to follow her home to see what happens.
Charlie is shown to live across the railroad tracks next to Kenny's house. The boys see Charlie's mother yell at her and yank her into the house. From Kenny's backyard, they (along with Cartman and Kenny, who were at the McCormick house) see Mrs. Pierzynski shove Charlie into their yard and go back inside. Charlie has a bloody nose. She is worried when she sees the boys and assures them that her mother is only upset because she was late again. Stan uncomfortably accepts this, but Kyle, realizing that Mrs. Pierzynski is responsible for all of Charlie's injuries, wants to tell someone. Charlie makes him promise to keep it a secret before Mrs. Pierzynski, suddenly acting apologetic, brings Charlie back into the house.
Charlie's black eye.
The next day, Charlie shows up at the bus stop. She has a swollen nose along with her black eye from the day before. Cartman categorizes Mrs. Pierzynski (along with Mrs. Broflovski) as a "bitchy mom." Kyle asks Charlie if she was sure he shouldn't tell anyone. Charlie is sure.
At lunch that day, Kyle asks Chef for advice. Chef advises him to tell Mr. Mackey what he saw, so, without telling Charlie, Kyle explains the situation to the counselor.
After school that day, Kenny, who still has the hiccups and has grown increasingly sick throughout the episode, collapses at the bus stop. He appears to recover, but the bus returns and Ms. Crabtree informs Kenny that he "forgot his medieval armaments" on the bus again. She throws a heap of weapons onto Kenny, who is killed. Charlie is alarmed by this turn of events, but quickly recovers. Kyle invites her over again, but she decides that she should go straight home instead. She thanks him for keeping their secret, saying, "I know you just wanted to help, but telling would have probably just caused problems." She heads for home and Kyle appears to worry about what the consequences of his decision might be.
When Charlie arrives home, she is met by her mother, who is furious about receiving a call from the school guidance counselor. She pulls Charlie inside. Charlie screams for awhile, then suddenly stops. Mrs. Pierzynski asks her several times to wake up, then runs from the house in a panic.
Shortly after this, Kyle walks to the front door of the Pierzynski house. The door is ajar, so he enters. He calls for Charlie, and Becca, Charlie's little sister, tells him that Charlie is "sleeping." Kyle finds her unconscious in the bathroom.
Part 2: "Brainwashing"[]
Kyle sits outside of the Pierzynski house with ambulances and police cars. He is taken aside to be interviewed by Mr. Mackey, since he was the one who found Charlie.
The next day at school, in response to Charlie's brush with death, Mr. Garrison lectures the class on child abuse, using a series of unhelpful acronyms to explain ideas.
Meanwhile, at Hell's Gate Hospital, a Doctor starts to work on Charlie. She suffered several broken bones, blunt force trauma, and peroxide poisoning from ingesting bleach. Becca and Davy also wound up at the hospital, so the Doctor looks at Charlie's contacts list. The only name listed is Kyle Broflovksi.
When Kyle gets home from school, Sheila angrily informs him that their family is now responsible for looking after Davy, Charlie's baby brother. Soon after, Kyle gets a call from Stan, who informs him that Charlie's sister is staying at Cartman's house.
Meanwhile, Cartman is upset about his mother's decision to take in Becca. Still, he begrudgingly shows her around the house and lays down the law. He gets annoyed, however, when Becca asks him if he is her "new brother."
The next day at the hospital, Mindy, the nurse, grows impatient with the head Doctor's unintelligent decisions concerning Charlie's health. The Doctor becomes upset and leaves the room to read Us magazine. Mindy spends some time pumping Charlie's stomach before Charlie finally regains consciousness. She is awake only for a short while before she falls asleep again, but she is finally showing signs of recovery.
Kyle visits the Cartman house with Ike and Davy in a stroller. Davy has been crying at night, and he thinks that seeing his sister might help. Kyle finds Cartman and Becca playing with Cartman's stuffed animals (although Cartman acts as if he wasn't once he notices Kyle). Becca shows a strong affection for her little brother, becoming very angry and defensive when Kyle calls him "stupid" for spitting up. Kyle, who is irritable and sharp due to a lack of sleep, leaves with Davy on bad terms, and Becca starts to cry. Cartman, unsure of what to do, starts singing Harry Chapmin's "Cat's in the Cradle" to try to calm her down. Becca tells him that she doesn't want Davy to live in a home with mean people like Kyle. Cartman tells her that Davy is being fostered by Jews, and that, if he stayed with them for too long, he would become a monster. Four-year-old Becca is horrified, so Cartman calls up the Broflovskis and warns him not to try to "convert" Davy. Kyle becomes angry, accusing Cartman of leading Becca to become anti-Semitic.
Cartman then develops a scheme for himself and Becca to kidnap Davy from the Broflovskis and exorcise the Jewish "tapeworms of Hell" from his system. However, they never go through with this plan.
Sheila's high school rival, Bonnie Hunt, invites Kyle, Cartman, and Becca to appear on her talk show. Sheila has plans to embarrass Bonnie with slutty high school photos on national television, but Kyle intercedes and instead shows that the two were good friends before they had a falling out over a boy. Becca and Cartman had plans to rescue Davy from the Broflovskis by making an appeal on national television, but the plan fails when Kyle informs Becca that Judaism is, in fact, a religion, and that Davy is too young to be indoctrinated into a religion anyway.
At the end of the chapter, Charlie is on the road to recovery. The Marshes tell her that she will be staying at their house (much to Stan's chagrin). Charlie also forgives Kyle for telling Mr. Mackey about her abuse.
Part 3: "Sisters Suck"[]
Two weeks after Charlie gets out of the hospital, she and the Marshes get ready for the trial against her mother. Stan is upset that Charlie gets to stay in his room while he has to share Shelly's. He becomes angrier at Charlie when he discovers that she broke his G.I. Joe action figure and hid it in the closet.
Official banner for The Charlie Arc
At the trial, the judge is clearly biased against Mrs. Pierzynski, calling her a liar and a shrew. Gerald Broflovski serves as Charlie's lawyer pro-bono. Kyle, Carol McCormick, Charlie's doctor, and Charlie are all called to testify. When Charlie testifies, she reveals that she has been abused since she was five, and that the family had to move several times because of suspicion about Charlie's injuries. She also explains that she cut her hair short herself so that her mother couldn't pull it, and that her father doesn't know that they moved to South Park. After her testimony, Charlie begins to wonder if she made the right decision by sharing so many details.
The jury quickly finds Mrs. Pierzynski guilty of child abuse and attempted murder. She is given the maximum sentence of forty-four years in prison with the possibility of parole.
After the trial, a number of people congratulate Charlie on helping to incarcerate her mom. On several occasions, she is told, "Your mom is gone forever, and it's all thanks to you!" She breaks down at dinner that night and goes off to her (Stan's) room, where she writes (but doesn't send) a letter to her dad. Mrs. Marsh comes in to check on her, and Charlie confides that she feels conflicted about testifying against her mom. She wishes that she could live with her parents and siblings again. Sharon comforts her, saying that she did the right thing for herself and her siblings. Stan walks in just as Sharon and Charlie hug. He yells at them both, saying that Charlie was stealing his room and his family. Sharon tells Stan to apologize to Charlie, and when he doesn't, she grounds him. Sharon leaves, and Stan peeks back into the room. He accuses her of being selfish and under-appreciative of his family's generosity, and that she is making the whole family miserable. When he leaves, Charlie packs up a duffle bag and sneaks out the window. She begins to go door to door, looking for a new place to stay.
After being lectured by his parents, Stan goes to apologize to Charlie. He discovers that she's gone. Afraid of being punished further, he covers up the fact that she's missing.
Charlie finally reaches Butters' house. She tells Linda Stotch that she is a boy, and that she and Butters had planned a sleepover. Butters is grounded for not telling his parents about the sleepover, and the two go to Butters' room. They briefly play Power Rangers before they go to sleep.
The next day, Stan continues to pretend that Charlie is still at the house. He is surprised to see Charlie on the bus that morning, and he asks her to come back home. Charlie decides she doesn't want to speak to him, and instead talks to him through Kyle.
At school, Stan continues his attempts to get Charlie to talk to him. Finally, at recess, Charlie approaches Stan and explains her side of the situation to him. She misses her siblings and father, and she had wanted to hitch-hike to Nashville to try to find him. She really just wants to live with a "normal" family of her own.
On the bus ride home, Charlie says that she plans to go back to the Marsh house. At home, Stan and Charlie explain what happened to Sharon and Randy, who add another week to Stan's grounding. Charlie says that this is unfair, since she had run away of her own free will, and asks that Stan's punishment be lifted. Sharon and Randy do not lift Stan's grounding, but they do give him his room back. Now Charlie is the one who has to share with Shelly.
Part 4: "Project B"[]
Around two weeks after the events of "Sisters Suck," Randy and Sharon sit down with Charlie to tell her that the police are having trouble locating her father. It is likely that she will be staying with the Marshes for at least a few more weeks.
Ms. Cartman tells Eric the same thing about Becca. Cartman acts furious, but internally, he isn't very upset at all. This confuses him, and he comes to the conclusion that he must be under a form of mind control or emotional manipulation.
Things are going quite differently at the Broflovski house. Kyle overhears his mother telling someone over the telephone that she would like to place Davy in a different home. Kyle calls Stan and tells him what he heard. Stan hands the phone over to Charlie. Instead of telling her what happened, Kyle asks if she and Stan could come to his house. Charlie goes up to Stan's room to tell him. She enters without knocking and sees that he is naked. The awkwardness of this situation becomes a minor subplot through most of the chapter.
At Kyle's house, Kyle tells Stan that Davy will go to a new foster home the next day. They plan to tell Charlie, but when Davy crawls into the room and Charlie begins to play with him, Kyle doesn't have the heart to go through with it, so they don't say anything.
Meanwhile, at the Cartman house, Cartman stands in front of a dry erase board labelled "Project B" (B stands for Becca). Craig knocks at his bedroom door, and Cartman ushers him in. According to Cartman, Craig is selected to help him with Project B because he is so apathetic. Cartman explains the situation, then introduces Craig to his list of suspects, the most significant of whom are Charlie, Kyle, Child Protective Services, and Becca herself. Craig is skeptical about the whole thing, but Cartman insists that his caring and protective feelings towards Becca are completely unnatural.
The next morning, Stan goes over to Kyle's house. When Charlie asks if she can come, Stan says, "No girls allowed." (In reality, Stan and Kyle plan to try to prevent CPS from taking Davy, and they don't want Charlie to know what's going on.) Charlie goes to Cartman's house instead, where Cartman interrogates her about mind control. He believes that Charlie, probably with the help of Kyle, is programming him to like Becca. Charlie is confused, and eventually, Craig comes down the stairs, having heard everything, to say that he doesn't think Charlie is guilty (or that Cartman is under mind control at all). Frustrated, Cartman kicks them both out of his house.
At the Broflovski house, Stan and Kyle try to change Mrs. Broflovski's mind, but to no avail. When a CPS agent arrives to take Davy, Kyle picks him up and refuses to let her take him. After the agent explains that Davy will be going to a home where he will be wanted and loved, Kyle reluctantly gives him up. Cartman, having watched these events from the bushes in Kyle's front yard, decides that Kyle and CPS are unlikely suspects.
Pictured: criminal mastermind.
That night, Cartman stands before his list of suspects. He has finally come to the conclusion that Becca is the guilty party. Becca enters the room, and after chastising her for a few minutes, Cartman realizes that Becca is not intentionally manipulating his emotions; rather, her "adorable physical and behavioral characteristics exert an effect on [his] emotions." Cartman decides to solve this problem by training Becca to look and act as annoying and gross as possible. After a montage of this, Ms. Cartman comes to give Becca a bath, effectively undoing a large part of the process.
Stan has a nightmare that night. In school, Charlie tells him that she knows about what happened to Davy. She and the others are angry with him for not telling her. Stan then realizes he is naked, and the entire class laughs at him.
The next day at school, the dialogue at the beginning of Stan's dream sequence is repeated. Stan panics and blurts out that CPS moved Davy to a new foster home. Charlie is depressed for the rest of the school day.
After school, Charlie goes out for a walk by herself. Kyle finds her and apologizes for letting CPS take Davy. She is still upset, but she tells Kyle that it was not his fault.
Suddenly, Mrs. Marsh drives up and tells Charlie that she has some exciting news. They drive to the Marsh house, where Cartman and Becca are waiting in the yard. They all enter the house, and Charlie's father is inside. The girls are thrilled to see him, but after a few minutes of hugging, Mr. Pierzynski tells Charlie that he is not really her biological father.
The next day at the bus stop, Charlie is again depressed. Kyle cheers her up by telling her that Cartman is a bastard too. Stan promises to talk to his parents to see if they can continue to foster her.
Part 5: "Post-Dramatic Stress Disorder"[]
Charlie begins to have night-terrors where she screams in her sleep, waking up the entire Marsh family. Randy and Sharon decide to take her to visit a psychologist, Dr. Ingram. After only one session with Charlie, Dr. Ingram diagnoses her with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and borderline personality disorder. He also tells the Marshes that she is highly dangerous, and could become violent—even homicidal—at any time. Mr. and Mrs. Marsh become extremely nervous around Charlie, even going downstairs in the middle of the night to lock up the knives in the kitchen.
The Marshes bring Stan to Charlie's next appointment with Dr. Ingram. After Ingram frightens Charlie by demanding to know what the "voices in her head" told her to do, Stan loses his patience and yells at him. This prompts Dr. Ingram to diagnose Stan with oppositional defiant disorder. He warns the Marshes that Stan is just as dangerous as Charlie.
That night, the Marshes have dinner with the Stotches and Broflovskis. They sing Dr. Ingram's praises and convince both sets of parents to have their children visit him.
The next day, Stan and Charlie attend a group therapy session at Dr. Ingram's office. Also present are Butters, who was just diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, Caleb, a boy with Asperger's Syndrome, and Julia, a little girl with severe social anxiety. Dr. Ingram insists that all five children are dangerous.
When Kyle is diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, his parents begin to treat him the same way that the Marshes and Stotches treat their children. The situation gets even worse when the six parents invite Dr. Ingram to South Park Elementary, where he proceeds to diagnose every third grade student with a mental illness except for Cartman (which Dr. Ingram later explains by saying he didn't want to have to deal with Cartman as a patient).
At the next therapy session, all of the third graders are there. Again, Dr. Ingram insists that the kids are violent and sick.
Finally, at the third session, Charlie has enough and confronts Dr. Ingram with his numerous unfounded diagnoses. She insists that none of the kids are dangerous, and the other kids join her in rebellion. The parents, who have been watching the session from outside, panic because they think the kids will become violent. They call the police, who send gunmen into the therapy room to subdue the children. Only then does an officer recognize Dr. Ingram as a notorious con-man, and not really a doctor at all.
In the end, a real psychologist overturns all of Ingram's false diagnoses except for Charlie's diagnosis of PTSD.
Part 6: "Fall of the House of Pierzynski"[]
Part 7: "Mistletoe Immunity"[]
- See: Mistletoe Immunity