SPECIAL: Highlight Reel
featuring HPDrummerman and Linus Van Pelt
INTRODUCTION
HPDrummerman
Welcome to this PEANUTS: The Next Chapter special. This is my personal thank you to those who follow my series based off of the PEANUTS characters created by Charles M. Schulz. First off I want to acknowledge fellow FanFiction member LivingOnLaughs for letting me use her OC Claudia Grandin for the series. If you're not familiar with Claudia, she is an autistic girl with two older sisters, Kayla and Krissy, the latter charged with taking care of her. And LivingOnLaughs has made her own Next Chapter fan stories which I am flattered that she did in the same style as I would do it. Also look for her own series PEANUTS HIGH coming soon, which depicts the gang in high school. In short I want to thank her for being a great collaborator and letting me use her OC's for my series.
When I first did my fanfic "It's New Love, Charlie Brown", I was wanting to give Charlie Brown a steady girlfriend who cared about him and accepted his flaws and all. I looked at other fanfics for inspiration. I saw a ton of Charlie Brown X Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown X Marcie shipping, and I even saw a few others with Heather, the little red-haired girl. One I particularly liked was "Unrequited Love" by Orange Ratchet. I also like the material from Ballz Mahoney. I even got into the stories that were being done by screak where Charlie Brown and Violet hooked up as adults. That one in particular I drew inspiration from for my mini-series Lucy Van Pelt: A Lost Cause which, again, was based off of "A Waste of Time and Space" posed by David Crap-Writer. (Look for the follow-up prequel The Lost Cause Diaries soon) But my biggest inspiration for "New Love" came when I saw two fanfics. The first "A New Crush" by TheCartoonKid was the first time I saw a Charlie Brown X Frieda ship. Now in the strip, Frieda was one of the nicer girls to Charlie Brown outside of Peppermint Patty and Marcie. So to me it made perfect sense. The other that I drew inspiration from was "A Different Red-Haired Girl" written by sarabell. In that one, Frieda loves to sing and show off her talent, and also falls in love with Charlie Brown. A third one, while not really romantic but showcases how Charlie Brown cares about Frieda, called "Simple Motions" by Poisoned-Quinn shows Charlie Brown comforting Frieda after learning about her parents' divorce.
So I drew inspiration from these fanfics and even looked at different ideas. So I decided to make my first full-length fanfic a Valentine's-themed story where Frieda gives Charlie Brown a valentine and offers to treat him to a date at the movies and some ice cream. I also decided to give her a bit of a personality and yes, give her a talent of singing. Schulz, himself, admitted that he pretty much made Freida a one-trick pony by only bragging about her naturally curly hair. So I fleshed her out more and even made it so she wasn't just a girly girl, either, but not tomboyish like Peppermint Patty, either. When first developing the story, I even thought about doing a CB X Marcie ship, and even pondered doing a CB X Eudora ship, as well, but I…
Linus
Did somebody mention Eudora?
HPDrummerman
Oh, hey, Linus. I was just talking about how PEANUTS: The Next Chapter came to be. Care to join me in this special?
Linus
Sure, Mr. Drummerman.
HPDrummerman
You can just call me "HP", Linus.
Linus
Okay, HP.
HPDrummerman
Okay, where was I? Oh yeah! I pondered many different relationships for Charlie Brown, but kept going back to those two fanfics by sarabell and TheCartoonKid. So it was decided for The Next Chapter, Charlie Brown would have Frieda for his steady girlfriend. I mean, before Peppermint Patty and Marcie came along, they hung out quite a bit in the strip.
Linus
Don't forget it was I that introduced them originally. So I am the one that was partially responsible for getting them together.
HPDrummerman
Quite so, Linus. Well as I did these episodes, I also introduced my own OC's into the mix from Oxford "Ox" Warren, Charlie Brown and Sally's singing celebrity cousin Trevor B., Franklin's new girlfriend Melanie, The Serpent Sisters Cobra, Rattler, Anaconda, and the tragic Python, rival gang The Spiders with leader Black Widow and the shifty, psychotic Tarantula, Sally's new boyfriend Michael, Python's friend from Detroit Joslyn, and in addition resurrected some PEANUTS characters from either the strip or various specials like Freddy Fabulous, who you may remember from You're the Greatest, Charlie Brown, Dolores, who appeared in PEANUTS-themed educational film strips, Snoopy's brothers Spike, Olaf, and Andy (Belle and Marbles will show up too in the future), and most recently, Charlie Brown's ex Peggy Jean. And of all the episodes I did for the series, ten of them stand out as my personal favorites and are some that changed the game for PEANUTS in my opinion. So without further ado, Linus and I, HPDrummerman, present to you the Highlight Reel with my Top 10 episodes of The Next Chapter.
UP NEXT: NUMBER 10
