Characters / Bittersweet Candy Bowl

Main Characters

The group as a whole

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• Breaking the Fellowship: A slower process than usual, but still qualifies. The group's members had had problems with each other before, but the recent intensifying of said interpersonal conflicts combined with relationship drama is gradually tearing the group apart.
• Childhood Friends: The gang has been together since the 5th grade (with Mike and Lucy knowing each other since preschool), though Abbey doesn't join the crew until freshman year.
• Dysfunction Junction: Each and every one of the group has some kind of problem with them:
  • Mike, while a Nice Guy Chick Magnet, has still a bit of insecurities and was messed up good from his toxic, borderline-abusive friendship with Lucy and being the Butt-Monkey of the group for so long. Not to mention his issues stemming from his increasingly dysfunctional long-distance relationship with Sandy, which causes him to become something of a Love Martyr.
  • Lucy lacked any friends during early childhood (except for Mike), is rather abrasive both in terms of personality and friendships, and once attempted suicide. Also, she still has a lot of trauma from the events of "Confrontation", even after she came back from private school.
  • Paulo was a Casanova Wannabe who always loved to push Mike's buttons and very arrogant. He gradually gets better though. His family is also quite poor, and he later reveals suffering from trauma as a result of his mother's Parental Abandonment.
  • David is a kind of Cloud Cuckoo Lander with regards to how he views the world, though given the major drama that his friends deal with in later chapters, it seems to have a protective effect.
  • Daisy is mostly sane and sensible, though there have been times when even her buttons are pressed. She also has a host of body-image related insecurities, and often compares herself to girls who are considered more attractive than her (Lucy, Sandy, and Tess).
  • Abbey has a clear Dark and Troubled Past given the abuse he and his family suffered from his father and he is really scary when he's mad, as Paulo finds out the hard way (he's beginning to get past it though).
• Four-Temperament Ensemble:
  • Sanguine: Daisy and David
  • Melancholic: Mike
  • Choleric: Paulo and Lucy
  • Phlegmatic: The pets, especially Lily, who is more mature and grounded.
• Nice Mean And In Between: Daisy, Mike and David (Nice), Lucy (Mean), Paulo (In-Between). Although Mike progressively becomes one of the 'Mean' members following Lucy's Love Confession.
• True Companions: No matter how much grief the group gives each other on a regular basis, when the chips are down, they always have each others backs, even in the most perilous of times.
• Two Girls to a Team: Lucy and Daisy.
• Vitriolic Best Buds / With Friends Like These...: Even on a good day, the group seems to be this. Lampshaded by Augustus in Witch Hunt: "How are any of you friends?".

Lucy

Lucy

Our female protagonist. Sometimes sweet and sometimes mean, Lucy is wrought with insecurity and would rather punch you in the face than expose it. She has spent most of her childhood lonely, with Mike as her only friend until middle school. This gave her a streak of dependency, which, combined with her violent tendencies, has led to a split between her and Mike. She proceeded to desperately look for solace in Paulo, and later develop suicidal tendencies.

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• The Ace: Lucy is stunningly beautiful, intelligent (one chapter reveals that she's part of an advanced math class), witty, athletic, adept at self-defense, skilled at severalgames, comes from a well-off family, and is an extremely talented singer. She’s also really popular at school and has countless people trying to be her friend, as shown in this strip. However, considering her attitude issues and emotional baggage, she may be more of a Broken Ace.
• Action Girl: She can definitely hold her own in a fight as a few of her friends and even Alejandro can attest to.
• Anchored Ship: With Mike, and heartbreakingly so.
• Beautiful Singing Voice: She's often described to have this. It's enough for entire crowds to stop and stare at Lucy when she sings, much to her embarrassment.
• Berserk Button: She has many. Flirting with Mike near Lucy is a very bad idea. Flirting with Lucy doesn't end so well either...
  • Hitting on her, objectifying her or commenting on her attractiveness pisses Lucy off, as many of the boys who approached her can attest to.
  • She dislikes it when people try to help her and pity her because of her situation.
  • "You all think you know what's best for me, but you DON'T!"
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Michael. And how!
  • Also with Paulo.
    • Well, considering they're the only two guys she's ever been interested in, and that this is Lucy...
  • Lucy in Disaster Dominoes. After Mike finally got her to smile, he got run down.
• Betty and Veronica: She is the beautiful, aloof, unfriendly Veronica to Daisy's Betty.
  • However, she's also the Betty (Mike's familiar childhood friend since preschool) to Sandy's Veronica (a successful, worldly child model who moves from one place to another due to her job).
• Blessed with Suck: Too much of a good thing is bad, and Lucy's beauty is no exception. See So Beautiful, It's a Curse below.
• Break the Cutie: Lucy got this in preschool, hence her lack of interest in socializing.
• Break the Haughty: AND HOW.
• Broken Bird: Lucy is hella unbalanced, mostly stemming from the fact that she had trouble making friends in preschool, then suddenly everyone wanted her when she became attractive in middle school. She's not completely insane, but she regularly beats and belittles her closest friend, Mike, all while clinging to and depending on him. When they're paired together for a history essay after months of him avoiding her due to her past abusive treatment of him and he explodes at her for trying to get him back into their friendship, what does she do? She tries to kill herself. Mike was definitely harsher than he needed to be considering her behavior had been improving, but still.
• Brutal Honesty: Sometimes.
• Bungled Suicide: Implied in "Breaking Up". Later confirmed—she had jumped from a tall building but survived long enough for Augustus, who'd happened upon her, to call an ambulance.
• I Can't Hear You: A non-gag example. Lucy is completely deaf in her left ear, rendering her completely unable to hear someone or something that's on her left side. There have even been a few times where a character tries to talk to her or try to get her attention, only for Lucy to not hear them at all until they move to her right side because of her partial deafness.
• Cannot Spit It Out: "Maybe I should just dance around the subject and give everyone headaches. There, problem solved, the Lucy way."
  • And then she did. It didn't help.
• Catchphrase: "Jerkface". She loses it as time goes on. In recent chapters however, she uses "idiot" as her Catchphrase Insult now.
• Cats Are Mean: While Lucy is definitely abrasive, rude, and often violent, her behavior had been improving a bit in more recent chapters.
• Cats Are Snarkers: And how!
• Cats Hate Water: Lucy became hydrophobic after Mike almost drowned when they were younger. Oh, and she also almost drowned trying to save him, since she didn't know how to swim; Paulo had to rescue the both of them. That most likely contributed to the phobia...
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Though she tries not to appear that way.
• Color Motifs: Pink. Lucy's trademark accessory is her pink bow. In "Pillow Talk", she wears a short pink nightgown, and in an intermission page she wears a pink shirt under a lavender jacket and pants. Her pink motif is also a contrast to Mike's blue.
• Cute Bruiser/Badass Adorable: Lucy can kick a whole lot more ass than is apparent. She's also one of the shortest characters.
• Cute Ghost Girl: In "Grave Concern", where she actually died after her suicide attempt. She follows Mike around to haunt him, commenting on everything that happens to him from then on and trying to get him to properly deal with his very broken relationship with Sandy.
• Dandere: Most notably when alone with her pets.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Don't You Dare Pity Me!: She hates being pitied for what she is going through and brutallySNAPS at Paulo in "Double Down", saying that she doesn't need his or any of her friends' help.
• Dude Magnet: Despite her grumpiness, Lucy gets tons of male attention for her beauty, much to Daisy's jealousy.
  • Paulo, David, Alejandro, many random kids in her middle school, and several background characters have all fancied her or tried to hit on her at some point (As has Mike, though that has been tumultuous, to say the least).
  • She was also described to be popular withboys several times, and is hit ona lot throughout the comic.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: Has these when going through her bouts of angst.
• Even the Girls Want Her: Jessica's crush on Lucy was revealed in the relationship chart after being hinted at a couple times in the comic proper, eventually comes up in "Golden Hour", after she's over it and started dating Madison.
• Everyone Loves Blondes: She has white fur (blonde in human form, as shown in the author's draw stream art) and is seen as THE most attractive and desirable girl among her friends (despite her abrasive and violent personality).
  • The only person who truly dislikes her in the comic is Madison.
  • Lucy is the subject of unwanted attention and lust from guys (she doesn't like it one bit) and the subject of envy from other girls (Madison and Daisy). This all leads her to develop fears that people only want her for her looks.
• Fanservice Pack: Lucy has always been rather shapely, but her figure became even more voluptuous in recent chapters.
• Foil: To Daisy.
  • Lucy is an Action Girl while Daisy is usually a Damsel in Distress.
  • Lucy is very attractive and popular with boys, but she is seen as a sexual object against her will. Daisy is seen as less attractive than Lucy, wants attention and desires to be beautiful, but is often ignored by boys in favor of Lucy, no matter how hard she tries.
  • Even their character designs contrast: Lucy has straight, silky fur and a slender hourglass figure, while Daisy has frizzy, curly fur and is (said to be) rather chubby and fluffy.
• She's also one to Sandy:
  • They are both beautiful girls who Mike has loved at some point and eventually drifted apart from.
  • Both Lucy and Sandy are associated with the color blue: Lucy is well known for her bright blue eyes, while Sandy wears a blue bow in her hair.
• And to Mike as well:
  • Lucy's pink Color Motif serves as a contrast to Mike's blue.
  • Lucy and Mike both have trademark accessories worn around the neck (bow and scarf respectively).
  • Lucy and Mike are both extremely attractive and popular with the opposite sex. However, Mike is mostly indifferent to his looks, while Lucy's appearance has contributed to many of her self-esteem issues.
  • Their Character Development goes opposite ways: while Lucy becomes ever so slightly nicer over time, Mike becomes more of a jerk.
  • Lucy's violence towards Mike is almost never called out by the main friend group, who continue to support her wholeheartedly. However, Mike's rejection of Lucy's Love Confession, as well as his later treatment towards Lucy, leads to all his friends gradually siding with Lucy once she comes back and distancing themselves from him.
• First Love: Surprisingly, she admits in "Flirting with Disaster" that Paulo was hers. He Used to Be a Sweet Kid and she found him cute, but then he became the flirt we know now and she got over it.
• Freudian Excuse: See main page.
• Friendless Background: In preschool, she couldn't make any friends. This, in turn, led to her developing major trust and dependence issues.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: A typical trait of a Tsundere. It's ridiculously easy to make Lucy angry. She often lashes out at people with rude comments and painful kicks.
• Hates Being Touched
• Head-Turning Beauty: Lucy's attractiveness is constantly pointed out by other characters. Paulo finds her extremely hot and hits on her constantly, and her looks have captured the attention of several boys (see Dude Magnet above) and many random people in her middle school. She doesn't always like the unwanted attention she gets for her looks though.
• Heartfelt Apology: Is a recipient of this from Mike in "Link Play". She just stares at him blankly and walks away as a response.
• Hidden Depths: How nice she can be is pretty much "pets only" overall. Her pets mentioning that niceness astounds everyone.
• Hidden Eyes: She does this whenever she snaps at others or is under emotional distress, such as in "It's All in the Mind" and "Double Down".
• Hope Spot: About halfway through "Eternal Flame", she ends up encountering Mike after he had a fight with Sandy. After talking, they seem to have rekindled their relationship. Sadly, it doesn't last long, as the following day, Mike and Sandy repair their relationship and Lucy is even more upset and now really doesn't want anything to do with him.
• Informed Ability: She apparently practices karate, according to Sue, which may explain her preference for kicks inside and outside of combat.
• Informed Attractiveness: She is drawn similarly to the other girls, with the only differences being her bust size and pure white fur. However, she is constantly described as "hot" in-universe and shown to be irresistible to guys.
• I Owe You My Life: Augustus was the one who ended up calling the ambulance after he found her suffering from her Bungled Suicide, so she's incredibly grateful to him and ends up taking him into her home.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Regularly hits, slaps, and insults people for various offenses, but is also willing to take a beating defending her friends. She's also sweet and motherly to her pets.
• Kick Chick: Her favorite method of dealing with people is a very painful kick to the face, usually accompanied by a "PUNT!" sound effect. As usual, she often gets away with her violent behavior.
• Lacerating Love Language: Lucy is very violent towards Mike, who she's actually in love with.
• Lonely Among People: She has a loving family, is the favorite in her friend group, is popular and beloved at school despite her violent attitude, everyone pities her due to what she is going through, and is coveted by boys for her looks. However, she still feels lonely and misunderstood, pushing people away, refusing to open up about her problems, snapping and violently hurting those who try to help her.
• Loners Are Freaks: She was forced to play alone in pre-school. Because she didn't want dolls, but cars, and was a girl. Girls decided she was too boyish. Boys were afraid of her.
• Loving Bully: Deconstructed. Mike, after being tormented by her one too many times, scornfully turns her down when she finally does her Love Confession.
• Meaningful Appearance: Her trademark pink ribbon may count as this. Her icy blue eyes and snow-like white fur may also reference her cold, aloof personality.
• Mouthy Kid: Definitely.
• Ms. Fanservice: Lucy's said to be so hot that plenty of guys would kill for a chance to have their way with her, and the comic makes sure we know it. She's often put in eye-catching situations and many panels focus on her petite but shapely figure.
  • It's even more noticeable in the draw stream art, which often feature her in flattering outfits that highlight her assets.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Lucy is petite, but she's much stronger than her size would suggest.
• Perpetual Frowner: She's almost always seen with an angry or apathetic expression.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Lucy is the Pink Girl to Mike's Blue Boy. She wears a pink ribbon and Mike often wears a blue scarf.
• Put on a Bus: After attempting suicide, she's transferred to a private school, though it's suggested later that the transfer is more what prompted the suicide attempt than the other way around.
  • The Bus Came Back: In chapter 95.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Mike's Blue.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Beautiful!: Due to her good looks and sad past, Lucy often gets away with her violence without much consequences until "December", that is. Her abrasive attitude doesn't stop boys from chasing her.
• Sex for Solace: She has a tendency to seek out someone else for comfort in order to get over traumatic emotional experiences, such as with Paulio in "Another Shoulder" and Augustus in "Burnt Bridges". In both cases, the guys actively have to stop it from going all the way.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: A couple of the reasons why she fell for Mike were because of his kindness, bravery, and willingness to defend her feelings.
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Lucy is often the subject of unwantedattention and is constantly objectified for her looks, which she dislikes.
  • Boys constantly hit on her and make sexual advances towards her, worsening her fears that people only want her for her looks.
  • Other people, such as Daisy,envy hernatural attractiveness and the attention she gets for it.
• Sore Loser: Among her many reasons for punching Mike has been losing races and getting beat playing Pokémon.
  • Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Lucy only regularly acts sweet to her pets. Everyone else is amazed to see it. But it's there. To even her brother's shock. "Cracks In The Ice" indeed.
• Sliding Scale of Beauty: In universe, Lucy treads the line between a Divine-level and a World Class-level beauty.
• Sour Outside, Sad Inside
• Strong Family Resemblance: Lucy looks nearly identical to her mother. Both of them also happen to be deaf in one of their ears.
• Tender Tears: She was scared.
• Took a Level in Kindness: While she's definitely still rude, violent, and moody, Lucy shows her considerate side more often in the later chapters.
  • In "Eternal Flame", she acknowledges her past mistakes and previous treatment of Mike during their conversation under the tree. In "Double Down", she tells Augustus that she doesn't want to stop him from making friends and reminding him not to let her get into the way of things.
• Trauma Conga Line: Her whole life is this. First, she became hydrophobic after she nearly drowned while trying to save Mike. Then, she had difficulty making friends in preschool, but everyone wanted her once she became beautiful in middle school. Starting from when she hit puberty, Lucy was often objectified and sexually harassed for her looks by both her male friends and random boys. She developed a tough facade to try to get rid of this unwanted male attention, which did NOT help at all. Aside from that, the boy she loved the most rejected her Love Confession and gave her a painful "The Reason You Suck" Speech, which led to her attempting to kill herself, and she would've died if not for Augustus' help.
  • All this led her to develop dependence and trust issues, insecurity, and suicidal tendencies.
• Troubled, but Cute: She has a LOT of emotional baggage from her past and is considered a beautiful girl who no guy can take their eyes off of.
• Tsundere: "Why would I be best friends with such a jerk face?"
  • Slap-Slap-Kiss is her style. Interestingly, as she continues to grow up, she moves closer to becoming a Kiss-Kiss-Slap tsundere.
  • This is also deconstructed after the first volume of the comic— her years of abuse and longtime refusal to admit her positive feelings towards Mike leads to him both bitterly resenting her and becoming convinced she's only around him because of her dependency, not because she really cares. Eventually he explodes when she tries to mend things between them after a falling out.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Minus the girlfriend part (obviously), she doesn't take kindly to others (other than herself) hurting Mike, as the muggers in Confrontation learned the hard way.
• We Used to Be Friends: After returning from private school, she makes it clear she has absolutely no desire to revisit her toxic friendship with Mike. If this means cutting her other old friends out of her life then so be it. As we see in "Escape Route", she feels bad about it more than she let's on nowadays. And then there's the events of "Eternal Flame", where there's a brief Hope Spot for her friendship with Mike, if not their romance, which is of course cruelly dashed merely a few pages later.
• When She Smiles: Lucy is almost always angry, so when she smiles, it's a sight to behold.

Mike

Michael "Mike" Scott

Our male protagonist. A star athlete and regular “nice guy”, Mike often finds that the girls who vie for his attention are the source of most of his problems.

Much of the early days of the comic were spent attempting to deal with his long-distance True Love, Sandy, and his rocky relationship with Lucy and Daisy. This lasted for years, until a love confession by Lucy prompted him to show what's Beneath the Mask, changing the status quo of the comic forever.

Mike is the only character so far to have had his full name revealed, after Taeshi mentioned his full name in a livestream in 2014.

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• Academic Athlete: He's the most athletic of the main group of characters and it's implied that he does very well in terms of school grades.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Began in the author's sketches as a yellow cat, before becoming grey.
• Affectionate Nickname: Daisy calls him "Mikey" while Sandy calls him "Maishul" (the latter being because Sandy couldn't pronounce "Michael" when they were kids, but she continues to refer to him as such).
• Ambiguously Bi:
  • He played as a girl in a video game and didn't mind the attention of men.
  • When James kissed him, he was certainly surprised, but wasn't disgusted at all.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: While talking with Sandy about what he did to Lucy at the chapter "December" he states “Maybe it’ll be fixed if she just died”. Well he (almost) got his wish. When he believed she was dead, he was mortified and fell to his knees in despair
• Berserk Button: Criticizing Sandy or his relationship with her is a surefire way to set him off, especially when their relationship starts going downhill and he Takes A Level in Jerkass. It's made particularly clear in "High Expectations", where he slams Paulo's face into a table for implying that Sandy ignores him, before viciously screaming at Sue for just asking if he's upset over his relationship.
• Berserker Tears: In December, Follow the sequence and notice that, while Lucy was hurt worse, he cried more.
  • And in "Eternal Flame", After Sandy breaks up with him, he trashes his room in a crying fit.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Mike can be a nice guy, but when something pushes him to a point, like Lucy's abuse over the years and his friends taking her side during "Unrequited", he can lash out at times. And when Paulo took his phone in an attempt to make Mike talk about his issues, Mike ended up slamming Paulo's face onto the table, breaking his nose.
• Blessed with Suck: Mike has hypersensitive hearing, allowing him to hear what people are saying when they're whispering, even when he's standing a short distance away. However, this makes loud noises even louder for him, such as a school bell or a whistle.
• Breaking Speech: Once to Daisy, concerning her inabilty to be rejected, and once to Lucy, concerning their relationship. It helped Daisy. It didn't help Lucy.
  • He's been overreacting lately and Lucy is all-but broken at this point.
• Break the Cutie: His relationship with Lucy chipped away at his Nice Guy persona.
• Break the Haughty: Sandy's increasingly distant relationship with him and everyone gradually taking Lucy's side when she comes back reduces him to being a bitter, paranoid loner.
• Broken Pedestal:
  • Ever since the guy started Taking Levels In Jerkass, Mike's newfound toxic behavior gradually turns more and more of his friends against him. Some prominent examples include Lucy, Sue and Daisy, all of whom not only were Mike's best female friends but even looked up to him. Mike himself lampshades it in Chapter 105.
  • Mike himself finally has his moment when he learns Sandy was wavering in "Eternal Flame". After that incident, he's still reluctant to truly think ill of her, but he does admit she didn't make enough time for their relationship or treat Daisy fairly.
• Broken Tears: When Mike learns of her attempted suicide, believing she may be dead, Mike breaks down in tears, remorseful of his actions and words.
• Butt-Monkey: Originally a lot. Like so many things from early in the comic, this ends up being deconstructed later. Him constantly being the butt of jokes and slapstick at the hands of his friends (and his "good guy" nature leading to him quietly taking it instead of standing up for himself when he's hurt) has left him bitter and resentful, leading to him feeling he has no emotional support and then cruelly lashing out when he reaches his boiling point. This most notably happened with Lucy, but he also hits this with Paulo and Sue later on after that.
• Byronic Hero: He's brave and loyal on the surface, but he's so desperate for True Love that he's willing to destroy all other relationships to hold on to one girl who's usually very distant from him.
• Cant Hold Their Liquor: It takes very little alcohol to make Mike hilariously drunk. Which ends up directly leading to Alejandro attempting to mug the group in Confrontation. Oh God...
  • This comes up again during Rachel's party, where he gets drunk and cries over Lucy leaving, and their shattered relationship.
• Catchphrase: "Guh!"
• Characterization Marches On: His recent treatment of Lucy overwrites some of their more positive earlier interactions, specifically that early in the comic he seemed well aware of her hidden heart of gold and showed no resentment whatsoever for her treatment towards him (though this might count somewhat as a Cerebus Retcon, as all her abuse earlier was painted as slapstick comedy rather than taken seriously).
• Chick Magnet: Mike has had at least three girls (Lucy, Daisy, and Sandy) crush on him and it is implied that he's very popular with the other girls at school (more than likely because he is such a Nice Guy).
• Color Motifs: Blue. He wears a blue scarf for the majority of the comic, something that is often alluded to in-universe. His blue also serves as a contrast to Lucy's pink.
• Did You Think I Can't Feel?: His Fatal Flaw. Mike almost never makes his real feelings known because he's too meek and it resulted in him bottling up a lot of resentment that he's been unleashing after he Took a Level in Jerkass.
• Disappointing Older Sibling: While Chris is fond of him, Haley doesn't respect Mike at all, considering him a dorky loser but even then, these pages hints that deep down, she does care about him.
• Dogged Nice Guy: At first.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Paulo has recurring thoughts of finding Mike attractive, and James seems to have a crush on him.
• Extreme Doormat: A primary reason why he ended up becoming resentful is because he's too much of a Nice Guy to stand up for himself. And it's not just in his relationship with Lucy either. Sandy developed a habit of saying that he's too nice out of guilt because she was undergoing Absence Makes Your Heart Go Yonder with her hairdresser. It got to the point where calling him nice is enough to make him remember Sandy bitterly, as Daisy found out. Shen then lampshades this trait of his in the following pages.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Despite being on the outs with Lucy he's clearly angry and jealous over her spending so much time with Augustus.
• He Who Fights Monsters: His grudge against Lucy.
• Informed Ability: He apparently practices karate with Lucy, although it barely shows in the few times he fights.
• Insecure Love Interest: Oh boy howdy. Especially in regards to Sandy; as we see in "Everyday Life", he's unwilling to go enjoy himself because he remembers her saying he needs to "grow up" (after he challenged her to a race), and thinks avoiding his more competitive hobbies like video games will make him more mature. Of course, following Sandy's admission in "Eternal Flame" that she had been cheating on him, his insecurity is made somewhat more reasonable.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Despite being smushed together in an angry rant over everyone not taking his attitude, Mike did have a point about Daisy's unnatural fixation on Lucy (even if he's still nursing a grudge on her himself).
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Even after he Took a Level in Jerkass, he still has his moments of clarity and his genuine love of Sandy shows it's more his temper and troubles within their relationship that make him this way more than anything else.
• Jerk Justifications: Lucy's toxic friendship in the early parts of the comic led to Mike becoming irritable and downright cruel to her come the Cerebus Retcon, to the point where his climactic confrontation in "December" turned into less a list of grievances and more a venom-fueled Breaking Speech. He even spreads a little meanness his friend group's way for enabling her. Of course, he has a Heel Realization later on, but he still struggles with his temper.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Him yelling at Zach about Lucy not caring about him sure makes it seem like he's forgotten about Confrontation.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Mike cruelly told Lucy that he was going to isolate her, which contributed to her breakdown. When Lucy returns to school, Mike gets exactly what he said he wanted — she's at peace putting up boundaries with her old friends, while he's stuck lying about his misdeeds to an increasingly toxic and unpleasant group.
  • Even more so later, when his increasingly unstable and rotten attitude basically leads to the isolation from the group he predicted will happen to Lucy after he cut ties with her happening to him.
• Limited Wardrobe: Enough so that him changing the color scarf he wears (or wearing no scarf at all) is a major thing.
• Living Emotional Crutch: To Lucy. He's aware of this, and resents it.
• Long-Distance Relationship: With Sandy. Which definitely has its ups and downs, considering that Sandy's always busy but well-meaning when she can't meet Mike halfway, while Mike doesn't want to bother her with his problems while still craving some intimacy with her. In "Eternal Flame" Mike finally calls Sandy and insists on talking about the lack of communication from her. This prompts Sandy to reveal that she has been developing feelings for her hairdresser, and ultimately she breaks up her relationship with Mike due to the lack of communication between them.
• Love Martyr: Downplayed in his relationship with Sandy. She's not a bad person by any means, and does genuinely love Mike. However, her job as a model keeps her so busy that her and Mike's relationship increasingly develops into an All Take and No Give situation, where she shows little interest in putting any effort into it, while Mike insists that his only job is to love and support her, regardless of how distant she becomes, or how lonely and insecure that makes him feel. When Paulo points out the imbalance in their relationship in "Witch Hunt", Mike even calls his own feelings "dumb" and claims that he's selfish and unreasonable for even having them.
• Mistaken for Gay: Paulo loves teasing him about this.
• My God, What Have I Done?: As of the end of "Breaking Up", he seems to be genuinely guilty about his behavior towards Lucy. Also, as seen in "Burnt Bridges", he feels extremely guilty for kissing Lucy after Sandy broke up with him, and then getting back together with Sandy immediately after.
• Must Make Amends: He tries to do this with Lucy (mostly out of guilt for causing Lucy's attempted suicide and to get everyone off his back), but his nervousness over it, his relationship with Sandy, and each other's stubbornness all get in the way of reconciliation. They almost seem to make up when they talk after Sandy admits to developing feelings for someone else and breaks up with him in "Eternal Flame", but their relationship suffers yet another massive setback when Mike kisses Lucy before almost immediately getting back together with Sandy.
• Never My Fault: He never asked to be responsible for other people's mental wellbeing, so he doesn't see it as his fault when he leaves others to their own devices for his own mental health.
• Nice Guy: One of his most defining traits early on in the comic. It's gone down quite a bit as his emotional issues skyrocket, however, with most of his time in the most recent comics either anxious and withdrawn or angry and unpleasant.
• One Head Shorter: Sandy is noticeably taller than him, which he points out in "Just Beautiful".
• Only Friend: He was this to Lucy from when they first met up to the 5th grade which makes their friendship breakup all the more tragic.
• Only Sane Man: Compared to the other main characters, he is the most level-headed of them all.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Mike is the Blue Boy to Lucy's Pink Girl. He often wears a blue scarf and Lucy wears a pink ribbon.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: He's one of the shortest members of the cast, but he's also the most athletic member of the group, easily beating Lucy at sports. He was also the only member of the group besides Lucy to deal any successful hits on Alejandro...and that was before he graduated from junior high school. He's also capable of holding his own on brief confrontations with Paulo and Abbey, the former being an athlete that's nearly on par with him and the latter being a very intimidating Bully Hunter when he gets angry.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Harsh.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to both Lucy's and Paulo's Red.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The sensitive guy to Paulo's manly man.
• Stepford Smiler: Hm...
• Super-Hearing: Michael has excellent hearing, to the point that sudden yelling and pep rallies really mess him up. He can even hear a low whisper despite being a short distance away. Ace hearing indeed. The trap in Confrontation took advantage of this to get the group in an alley for mugging.
• Took a Level in Badass: His rescue of Lucy in Confrontation.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Lucy is considerably nicer to him and others than she used to be. He's, on the other hand, become less friendly to her since her Love Confession. Granted, he does get better, but by the time he does so, it's unfortunately 'too late' since Lucy was transferring schools and attempted suicide on top of it. He also becomes very irritable due to his making him bitter.
  • Eventually, the combination of the breakdown of his friendship with Lucy and the latent tension in his relationship with Sandy starts making him downright unpleasant, and he starts pushing away the rest of his friends as a result.
• We Used to Be Friends: Though he feels very guilty about his role in Lucy's suicide attempt and tries to apologize for it, he still doesn't seem too keen on (at least fully) reforming their friendship, given that he still holds her (rightfully) responsible for the bullying and abuse he suffered during its course and how he still has flashbacks of it as shown during dodgeball in Chapter 96.
• With Friends Like These...: He calls his friends out on never taking his side, as he's set a precedent for handling all the shit Lucy and Paulo give him, and how everybody treated him as a bad guy when Lucy got all the sympathy.

Daisy

Daisy "Daze"

Smart and hardworking, this bubbly cheerleader spends her time immersed in books. She longs to be more than everybody’s “little sister”.

After a long time of playing second fiddle to Lucy, then third fiddle to Sandy, she spent some time exploring her wild side in middle school, culminating into strong-arming Mike into a date with her. It took a long time to realize that her efforts were meaningless, and settled into a steady relationship with Abbey in the summer of sophomore year.

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• Academic Athlete: Daisy is a smart bookworm who is also a cheerleader.
• Appearance Angst: Daisy envies Lucy for her beauty and the attention the other girl receives for her looks.
• Beta Couple: With Abbey. But not anymore.
• Betty and Veronica: The Betty to Lucy and Sandy's Veronica.
• Bi-Wildered: As revealed in "Track Meet", Paulo admitting his struggle with coming to terms with his bisexuality caused Daisy to question her own sexuality. She explains that this made her realize that part of the reason she resented Mike as much as she did for stealing Sandy's attention away from her when they were young was because she may have had some romantic feelings for Sandy.
• Bookworm
• Broken Pedestal: As of Chapter 90, Paulo is this to her.
  Daisy: You're terrible.
• Beware the Nice Ones: While Daisy is normally a Nice Girl, she does not pull her punches when angered, as evidenced by her stinging "The Reason You Suck" Speeches to Paolo and Mike at different times.
• Cant Hold Their Liquor: She gets hammered during "Happy Hour."
• Childhood Friends: Was childhood friends with Sandy back when she lived in Roseville, but drifted apart when Sandy started becoming friends with Mike. Sadly, Sandy doesn't remember her friendship with Daisy at all.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: For a few chapters. She gets better.
• Covert Pervert: She hides it well, but her discussion with Paulo at her birthday party in "Moments Apart" has her bringing up how she always wanted to hug him because he seemed strong and soft and his scent was something she really liked.
• Dude Magnet: While obviously not as much of a dude magnet as Lucy or Sandy, Daisy still does well enough for herself since both Abbey and Augustus are in love with her.
• Gave Up Too Soon: Inverted with her crush on Mike. She waited so long for him that she didn't even notice Abbey liked her.
• Generic Cuteness: While still seen as pretty (Augustus has called her 'gorgeous' and Carter at one point even mistook her for Lucy), Daisy is regarded as being much less attractive and slightly fatter than most of the other main girls. However, Daisy is part Ragamuffin, which develop later than most cat breeds, so her lack of attention probably stems from her poor self-confidence and the fact she isn't as developed as the other females.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Daisy is jealous of Lucy's beauty, popularity with guys (Mike, Paulo, David, Carter, Augustus), and the attention the latter receives for her looks, which is worsened by the fact that Lucy blows all her suitors off and said guys all ignore Daisy in favor of Lucy. It's not like Lucy enjoys all that attention anyway.
• Hypocrite: Calls out Abbey for attacking Paulo and states that she's not fine with violence, yet Daisy was shown to have violently hit people in the past, especially towards Abbey.
• I Just Want to Be Beautiful: Specifically, she wants to be seen as desirable instead of just cute. It's the source of her conflicted feelings towards Augustus (scared of him but also liking the attention) and some of her friction with Lucy (who she envies for her beauty). Lucy ends up having to explain to her that it's not actually fun to be the subject of unwanted attention for your looks.
• I'm Standing Right Here: In "Confrontation", Daisy and Paulo make hurtful comments regarding Daisy's jealousy of Lucy's closeness with Mike. She also questions why Paulo and Mike even bother with Lucy. It doesn't help that Lucy was right there and heard everything.
• Innocently Insensitive: She can be quite oblivious to the feelings of others, despite usually being very kind. She also finds euthanasia "fascinating," which creeps Sue out. This becomes more apparent as Daisy does not take Abbey's feelings into consideration when she helps Paulo guilt-trip him into getting back together again.
  • While she blows off her jealousy of Lucy's natural attractiveness to the girl, Daisy accidentally touches on Lucy's memories of Alejandro, making the girl think Daisy was indirectly victim blaming her for it.
• In with the In Crowd: She spends some of Freshman year away from her standard clique, and instead with Dumb Blonde Katie and pseudo-bullies Jess and Rachel.

• With Daisy in the middle between Abbey and Mike. As it turns out, she never really let go of her feelings for Mike, even while she was dating Abbey. As a result, Abbey dumps her for it.

• Morality Pet: For Augustus, truth be told. Her mere presence keeps him from committing theft.
• Nice Girl: Daisy, despite being very occasionally immature or jealous, is very kind-hearted and supportive of her friends, often going to huge lengths to help them out.
• Perpetual Smiler: Daisy often has a happy, cheerful expression, except during her more petty moments.
• The Nicknamer: Often refers to other characters by nicknames that are essentially their name, but with a "y" sound at the end. Examples include Mikie (for Michael), Suzy (for Sue), Tessie (for Tess) and Davy (for David). When the characters point out how she doesn't have a similar nickname for Paulo, she struggles to come up with one.

• Pintsized Powerhouse: She may be one of the shorter characters, but her Cheerleading has given her strength that rivals even David's and carry Lucy with one hand!
• Running Gag: "Hi, I'm Daisy!". But she no longer says this.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: When she makes an effort to dress up for events, such as on her birthday and her date with Mike, Daisy looks absolutely stunning.
• Sliding Scale of Beauty: In-universe, Daisy is a Cool/Special Average. While Lucy, Sandy, and Tess are considered much more attractive than her by most, Daisy's friendliness sets her apart. It helps that Daisy also becomes absolutely stunning when she makes an effort to dress up.
• Teen Genius: So much so that she regularly finds herself tutoring all of her friends in various subjects.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Her response to Paulo admitting he might be attracted to guys is 2 panels of glittery happiness and Squee.
  Daisy: That is so cool!

Paulo

Paulo

Paulo spends more time hitting on girls than paying attention to class. Despite his talent for timewasting, he is fiercely loyal and will always stand up for his friends.

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• Above the Influence: Paulo manages to put his feelings (and hormones) aside when Lucy comes on to him in the midst of her Heroic BSoD over Mike rejecting her, and refuses to take advantage of her emotional fragility.
• Abusive Parents: Paulo's mother didn't even want him, and made no secret telling him that. His dad at least tries, though.
• Amicable Exes: With Tess, and later, Jazz.
• Beneath the Mask: It's shown multiple times in the comic (even as far back as volume 1) that much of Paulo's bravado, bullying, and Casanova Wannabe tendencies are a result of massive insecurities on his part, both in school and his reputation as a lady's man. This even extends to his sleeping around—Daisy tries to get him to open up about losing his virginity when she's thinking about it herself, and it's heavily implied by his (tight-lipped) response that he seriously regrets it.
• Beta Couple: He and Jasmine were at first considered this, but then Pillow Talk subverted this, and as of "Ten Seconds to Midnight", it's completely averted.
• Bi-Wildered: As the story goes on, we learn more and more about Paulo's bicurious exploration and how he and the narrative come to acknowledge it:
  • In the chapter "Boy Toy", Paulo's attempt at Gay Bravado backfired and he was worried he might actually start liking guys. At the end of it, he states that he's still not quite figured it out.
  • in a poster series that depicts certain characters and their prospective romantic choices, Paulo's poster features Lucy, Rachel, Jazz, and Mike.
  • Becomes less ambiguous and more textual later on, when he blushes at Matt and actually considers dating Lucy's brother, on top of fantasizing about Mike. The chapter ends with him crying in Matt's arms about both of their fates, finally acknowledging his bisexuality.
  • "Track Meet" shows Paulo's struggle with what seems to be a developing crush on James. Meanwhile, Daisy comforts Paulo by telling him that she once had feelings for Sandy when they were younger.
  • By New Year's 2009, he's officially, openly admitted to liking Mike the same way he does James, in the middle of a teary breakdown.
• Burger Fool: He actually enjoys working far more than school.
• Brutal Honesty: Paulo in "Another Path" failed at tact. A few times. And Lucy thanked him a few times.
• Butt-Monkey: Paulo had some butt monkey time randomly if Lucy (and sometimes Yashy) was nearby until high school. And then...
• Can't Act Perverted Toward a Love Interest: Paulo is particularly protective of Daisy, and immediately shapes up when she's watching.
  • In the "Intervention" chapter, David muses that Paulo may have a crush on Daisy, due to how he shapes up around her and tries to behave himself when she's nearby.
  • In the chapter "Return", it's revealed that Paulo now thinks of Daisy as more of a sister anyway, and doesn't mind her going out with another guy. Paulo realizes how disgusted he was at the idea of having a crush on Daisy.
    • However, it is hinted at in "Back and Forth" that he still doesn't want to be seen as a sexual deviant in her eyes, as he immediately notices her and seems worried about her opinion of him when Tess and Lucy start some drama because of his sleeping around and being a man-whore in general.
    • At one point, Daisy wonders if Paulo hates her, just because she's the only girl he's never hit on.
• Catchphrase: Paulo's abuse of the word "AWESOME" and common usage of kid, wimp, wuss, etc. when referring to Mike.
• Character Development: Started the series as the "cool guy" with jerkass and perverted tendencies. Now, Paulo has become a more level-headed and responsible person, getting a job he's genuinely happy with and acting something akin to a mature older brother within the group.
• Chick Magnet: While he occasionally displays jealousy at Mike's Chick Magnet status, he actually does all right for himself, attracting romantic attention from Tess, Jasmine, Rachel, and even Lucy every now and again.
• Chivalrous Pervert: When the well-being of Daisy or Lucy is in danger, Paulo tends to forget his perversion in favor of helping them or, at least, trying to. He also reacted this way when Sue got hurt in Confrontation.
  • Also, he absolutely refuses to make use of Lucy's fragile state when she almost imposes herself on him.
• Desperately Craves Affection: In the deepest part of his heart, he's still angry about his mother walking out on the family, which fuels his need to be loved. Mike has to ask him what kind of love Paulo is actually seeking, but he's unable to give a straight answer.
• Deuteragonist: He takes center spotlight when Lucy's departure causes both main characters to drop from center stage.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: The fluff around his cheeks gets cut short in the late stages, and he keeps it short.
• Fag Hag: When he goes on vacation with Jessica and finds himself surrounded by gay people.
• Fiery Redhead: He has vibrant orange fur and a very feisty, outgoing personality.
• Friends with Benefits: With Rachel. He's still hoping Lucy will come back to him, and Rachel's wanting a family of her own in the future, and so he's feeling guilty about her struggling feelings for him in turn.
• Handsome Lech: He enjoys hitting on and fooling around with as many girls as possible, and can be quite a perv, while several girls comment (usually begrudgingly) that he is quite handsome.
• Has a Type: He seems to like bubbly, extroverted people, or at least ones who are very passionate about their hobbies and interests. Lucy is the latter, while Rachel, Daisy, and James are the former.
• Heroic BSoD: Has started undergoing this with Lucy's departure.
• Hypocrite: He calls out Mike for stringing along Lucy when she never got over him, where he's the same guilty party in messing with Jasmine and dating Rachel while still explicitly pining for Lucy.
• Gay Bravado: At one point he decides to mess with Abbey's head by kissing him, and later begins hitting on Lucy's little brother as a joke. He messes it up and becomes scared that he's actually gay, with the latter incident leading to a realization that he may be bisexual after all.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Deconstructed. One of the central themes of the comic is that bullying and the bullies responsible for it are remembered by the people they do it to. As such, while Paulo is a nice person at heart, it doesn't excuse his Jerkassery, and that is starting to catch up with him. This leads to several blistering The Reason You Suck Speeches being given him, and Abbey outright attacking him in the bathroom and warning him to stay away from Daisy due to Paulo's Casanova Wannabe tendencies.
  • It even reached the point where Daisy has had enough of his actions. And if Daisy starts screaming at you, there is a problem.
• Like Brother and Sister: Shares this with Daisy, viewing her as a younger sister. Much to Daisy's chagrin, later on.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His arguably tactless and manipulative attempt at getting Abbey to reconcile with Daisy via guilt tripping, and then spending an inordinate time around Daisy and indirectly inspiring jealously from Abbey, while continuing to annoy and taunt Abbey every now and then results in Abbey finally snapping and attacking Paulo in the bathroom during Daisy's convention trip, demanding him to stay away from Daisy from now on.
• Oblivious to Love: To Daisy, it turns out. She begins dropping increasingly obvious hints that she likes him, but Paolo can't seem to catch on. It's particularly excruciating in "Featured Attraction", where he brings David along on what she thought was a date. And even David figures out what's going on, but Paolo remains oblivious.
• Parental Abandonment: He reveals to Abbey that his mother left him and his father to start a new family, and apparently told him to his face that he was a mistake and that she didn't want him around.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Is a frequent recipient of these. Jasmine gives him a short but stinging one that picks apart his character in four panels, then walks off and leaves him to think about it. He receives one by proxy from Mike when Mike finally cuts loose on all of his friends regarding the situation with Lucy. He receives a more violent one from Abbey later on, regarding Paulo's treatment of the women in his life along with a threat to stay away from Daisy as a result of it. After that, he receives one from Daisy, of all people for his previous treatment of Abbey and being a Jerkass to him.
  • He manages to give one In Chapter 109, when he's had enough of Abbey's antagonistic attitude towards him and tells him he's lucky enough to have family members who care for him.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Mike's Blue.
• Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: The manly man to Mike's sensitive guy.
• Sex for Solace: "Another Path" shows what would happen if he gave this to Lucy after her breakdown following Mike rejecting her confession. Later, he himself gets in on it (canonically, no less) at the end of "Leaving Home", after Lucy leaves.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Often from sophomore year onwards.
• Stupid Sexy Friend: On occasion, Paulo will have fantasies that segue into them involving Mike somehow.
• Third-Option Love Interest: Instead of getting together with Lucy or Daisy as expected, he joins with new character Jasmine. Subverted; he and Jasmine ultimately don't stay together, he had a couple other girls he needs to sort his feelings out with, and Chapter 98 shows that his main love interest was Daisy all along.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After many, many "The Reason You Suck" Speeches, Paolo eventually starts getting his act together and becomes increasingly more "heart of gold" than Jerkass.
• Tsundere: Actually gets in on this himself when he gets confused about his sexuality. Justified somewhat in this case— he's uncomfortable and nervous about understanding his sexuality, and Matt (the target of his behavior), who is gay himself, simply reminds him of that. He ends up apologizing for it though.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He used to actually be a rather shy boy, who lacked confidence to speak with girls. Then he got the idea to learn from watching an older teen flirt with them and took the lessons to heart.

David

David

Chipper and dimwitted David sees the world a little differently to those around him. His distance from the others sometimes yields surprisingly astute observations.

He's never had any solid relationship, if not for trying. He's too busy stalking other girls or goofing off to really get one.

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• Achievements in Ignorance: Eliminating Abbey from a dodgeball game by catching a ball thrown by him doesn't seem like much, but it means a LOT when it's thrown when the former is a Bully Hunter that's quite infamous for being near invincible when having an Unstoppable Rage after eliminating his girlfriend in the same game right in front of him. David's reaction to beating Abbey is to make a friendly joke after eliminating him from the game.
• Big Little Brother: Despite being the tallest of the group, David is actually the youngest.
• Berserk Button: Eating his popcorn or flirting with his love interest can get him to growl and bark at Paulo, whom he worships, like a savage animal.
• Beware the Silly Ones: Looks ready to maul Paulo in the earlier chapters for trying to eat his popcorn or flirt with his crush.
• Catchphrase: David to Kizuna: "Who are you?" Poor girl can't get a break...
  • David also tends to come out of nowhere with an "AWKWARD" announcement.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: Because of this, his profession of love to Paulo goes ignored... at first.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's the second most athletic member of the characters, behind Mike, actually besting Paulo in sports in a few occasions. He even caught a dodgeball thrown by an enraged Abbey, after he eliminated Daisy in a dodgeball game. And he did it while still retaining his silly nature.
• Flat Character: Although he actually tries to be this, as he attempts to protect himself, and sometimes Paulo, from drama and Character Development. His attempts to stay flat and keep the status quo is only hinted at in one or two occasions, but those two occasions actually cause the character development he tried to avoid.
• Fourth-Wall Observer: The only character who consistently refers to the narrative and interacts with the audience. Also dips into Meta Guy at points, saying opinions that the audience would be more likely to think.
• Occidental Otaku
• Reference Overdosed: He constitutes over half the references alone.
• Hero-Worshipper: Looks up to Paulo.
• Satellite Character: There are few moments where he's not around Paulo, honestly speaking. And aside from his comic relief gimmick he has very little story to contribute himself. Sue even lampahades it:
  Sue: All you do is cheerlead on Paulo and Daisy, dude.
• Shipper on Deck: "Everyday Life" shows that David is an avid supporter of Paulo/Daisy, and wants them to sort out their feelings together. He even refers to them as his "OTP" in "Golden Hour".
• Smarter Than You Look: By his junior year, he's taking English classes with Daisy and Abbey, both of them among the smartest characters in the series, in spite of him starting high school at the lowest English class level available.
• Token Minority: He was the only dog among the original five.
• Toxic Friend Influence: David admonishes Paulo for his positive character development, since David looked up to Paulo when he was womanizing.

Abbey

Abraham "Abbey"

Bound by a strong moral code, Abbey struggles to balance his protective nature with his short temper. While he may butt heads with the more easygoing members of the class, he’s working on it.

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• Abusive Parents: His father was extremely physically abusive, and, from what we see of their interactions, emotional as well.
• Armor-Piercing Question: In Chapter 90, he hands Daisy a biting example of one when he makes it clear that he is not taking any more of Paulo's crap and pointing out her Moral Myopia, as she was fine defending Mike against Lucy while she doesn't say a word against Paulo.
  Abbey: If I ever did do anything to stop him, how would you react?
  Daisy: P... Paulo's a good person. He's just... a bit rough sometimes. He's just like that.
  Abbey: Lucy was 'just like that', yet every time you ended up on Michael's side... isn't that right?
  • He also ends up on the receiving end of this from Jasmine after seeing Paulo and Daisy together nearly puts him in a rage.
  Jasmine: You shouldn't let [Paulo] get to you.
  Abbey: Let me guess: "He's not so bad"?
  Jasmine: And what if he isn't?
• Berserk Button: Don't abuse/insult a girl in front of Abbey, unless you want a face full of fists.
  • This could be a bad sign.
  • He develops one about Daisy as well, in a Crazy Jealous Guy sort of way. And not in the fun way, either.
• Big Damn Heroes: Manages this twice, no less, saving Tess the first and Daisy the second.
• Beta Couple: With Daisy. Originally. Now it's complicated...
• Beware the Nice Ones: He tries his best to be a good person, and if you treat him and those he cares about with respect, he's quite kind and cheerful, if a little stuffy. But never bully someone with this guy around. He will beat the shit out of you.
• Big Brother Instinct: Is incredibly protective of his little sister, and women in general.
• Bully Hunter: Abbey hates bullies, mostly as a product of living with an abusive father who terrorized him, his mother, and his sister. During the student council election debate against Sue, he even argues that the punishment for bullying in school should be immediate expulsion. It's also one of his main problems with Paulo who, despite having redeeming qualities, can be a bully in the way he harasses certain people, like Mike and Abbey himself, for no real reason.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Had an abusive father. Said father had an affair, which Abbey happened to witness. He told his mother, who confronted him about it. She ended up getting beaten so badly that she had to go to the hospital, and later died (implied to be from her injuries). Abbey ended up internalizing the entire thing as being his fault because of it, which wasn't helped when, upon being arrested, his father told him he was the one who destroyed their family.
• Freudian Excuse: Has rage issues due to his father being abusive, having cheated on his mother, and may or may not have been the direct cause of his mother's death.
• Full-Name Basis: Abbey rarely uses nicknames on his peers. While it's not too noticeable with most of the cast, he pointedly never stops referring to Mike as his proper name "Michael".
• Green-Eyed Monster: While he does have genuine reasons to dislike Paulo (Paulo gives him a lot of grief during most of the run of the comic), some of his more violent anger towards him comes across as this, growing increasingly incensed by even seeing him talking to Daisy out of the belief that that Paulo is trying to steal her away and hurt her. In reality Daisy is the one person Paulo doesn't try to score with.
• Heel Realization: Not that Abbey was ever really a heel per-se, but during a talk with Jasmine he breaks down in tears at the thought that he may be wrong about Paulo being nothing but a scumbag to Daisy, which in his eyes makes him a bully for all the intimidation and threats of violence he passed his way.
  • He gets another one later on when he accidently sets off Paulo's insecurities over being abandoned by his mother, even trying to comfort him when he starts crying despite having just gone off on a tangent over how much he hates Paulo and sees him as worthless. This one seems to stick, as when they're seen later Abbey is noticeably less hostile to him.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Dangerously borders on this, which he worries about constantly. In the process of trying to stop bullies, he engages in their very same tactics of violence and intimidation, sometimes for minor offenses like teasing.
• Internalized Categorism: His daddy issues causes him to hold disdain for any overtly masculine men.
• Jerkass Has a Point: In spite of his issues, Abbey has justified reasons to dislike Paulo...at least most of them.
• Knight Templar: Well, at first he seemed to just hate bullying thanks to his Freudian Excuse, but as of Chapter 62, and being elected onto Student Council, he's ready to expel anyone for the slightest bullying.
• Matchmaker Crush: He initially tries to make Mike accept Daisy's feelings, since that is what would make Daisy truly happy.
• Pet the Dog: One of the reasons of his dislike for Paulo is that he's disgusted with him for having the female student body beat up Mike during the earlier chapters for "cheating" because Paulo refused to acknowledge Sandy's existence. It is the only reason in his rant about his hate for Paulo that is not personal.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Hands one to Paulo, with a brutal assessment of his character regarding Paulo's treatment of the women in his life, along with a threat to stay away from Daisy. And this is after choking him long enough to leave him gasping for air.

  Abbey: "Stay away from her. I know the kind of person you are. Taking advantage of every girl who even looks your way. On to the next, and on to the next. I'm not letting it happen to her.... You're not fooling me. I'm simply giving you a warning. That's all."

  • He gives Paulo another one after they end up in the principal's office, calling him out on his mistreatment of others and essentially stating that no one genuinely cares about him, they just put up with him. This winds up making Paulo cry and reveal that his mother abandoned him, something Abbey was clearly not expecting.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness
• Shadow Archetype: His "Disaster Dominoes" version. Abbey hates abuse, that Abbey was abusive. Abbey loves Daisy, that Abbey constantly tried to beat what he didn't like out of her. Abbey gets therapy, that one clearly didn't.
• Ship Tease: With Daisy until they got together, and a little bit here and there, with Jasmine after they decide to befriend each other in "Clean Slate".
• Single-Target Sexuality: Unlike the other characters who have had multiple love interests and crushes, Abbey has always been solely devoted to Daisy. This unfortunately ends up causing him great heartbreak when he discovers she still loves Mike, and still finds herself wanting to talk to Paulo.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: Abbey is the second tallest male character next to David, and also has the second darkest shade of fur. Abbey is usually polite and genial, but his snarkiness manifests around those he dislikes or thinks are stupid (like Paulo).
• There Are No Therapists: Averted Abbey is currently seeing a therapist about the mental issues that resulted from his past. He's slowly recovering. Maybe.
• Turn Out Like His Father: He does in "Disaster Dominoes", but is otherwise struggling with it throughout the whole series. He fears this trope more than anything, and his small doubt that his behavior towards Paulo as a perceived threat to Daisy is nothing more than violent misunderstandings is just a leadup to it.
• Violently Protective Boyfriend: In the process of thinking he's doing what's right for Daisy, he ends up hurting the people he thinks will mistreat her the most, and stays very wary of Paulo for this reason. He ends up assaulting Paulo, giving him a forearm choke in the bathroom of a convention, warning him to not try anything on Daisy.
• You Are What You Hate: He hates people who are abusive, while he himself physically threatens and harms what he considers to be acceptable targets.

Secondary Characters

Sue

Susan "Sue"

Always busy behind the scenes, Sue's interest in the dramatic doesn't always extend to her social life. She'd much rather be writing or directing.

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• Ambiguously Gay: She really likes hanging out with Amaya. Although she recently mentioned having broken up with a boyfriend (which was McCain).
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Early in the comic she wanted to have a part in her classmates' drama, feeling her own life was boring or uninteresting. Her involvement in Mike and Lucy's problems later on eventually leads to her feeling guilty about Lucy's breakdown and having Mike scream at her for always taking Lucy's side when she's trying to get him to open up. The next time there's a dramatic outburst she practically flees.
• Cant Hold Their Liquor
• Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: With Stacy, eventually.
• Drama Club
• Go-Getter Girl: She's got a fairly extensive list of extracurriculars and difficult classes. Unfortunately for her, she can't measure up to Daisy and has slightly below average natural talent for balancing it all. In fact, she's become comfortable with losing.
• Graceful Loser: When Daisy "steps in" Abbey's place during student government elections, she first asks if she's joking. But by the end, she's impressed how Daisy can parlay her charisma into a dark horse victory.
• Not So Above It All: After claiming she knows how to drink responsibly, she throws up.
• I Just Want to Be Special: She spent the first part of high school feeling sad that she didn't get to be a part of her friend's exciting soap opera drama type lives. She walks back on this as the drama starts to have lasting negative consequences.
• Only Sane Man: Understandably doesn't want to be a part of any of the relationship drama that plagues her classmates. Even now that she's got a bigger role in it than before, she's still the most emotionally well adjusted and rational out of the main cast.
• Put on a Bus: During freshman year. She later got a supporting role in sophomore year.
• Ship Tease: A lot with McCain, although after McCain got hit with the Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, this sadly never got explored in the comic proper. Apparently they had an entire relationship and breakup offscreen.
• Team Mom: As the most normal person in the central circle of friends, she's usually the one that can be relied on for an unbiased opinion on a subject, and is stable enough to be supportive of any (or all) sides.
• Those Two Girls: With Amaya, though it is heavily implied they are dating. For a while, she was this with McCain until he left the comic.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Appparently she seems to ship MikexPaulo...
• You Never Asked: She went through an entire relationship with McCain and a breakup, but it was so understated in comparison to everyone else's drama that nobody even noticed. The breakup was so amicable that her life essentially continued unchanged.

Sandy

Sandy

Mike’s very own green light on the horizon, Sandy is Mike’s earliest childhood friend and his current love interest. Having found success as a young model, she struggles with the demands of work, school, and a budding long-distance relationship.

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• Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder: In "Eternal Flame" it's revealed she started to develop feelings for her hairdresser during her work abroad.
• All Take and No Give: Implied to be this in the main story, but blatantly portrayed this way in "Grave Concern". Mike supports her and cherished her whenever he could, but Sandy doesn't have the time or the patience to do the same and barely contacts Mike during their Long-Distance Relationship.
• Acquired Situational Narcissism: Eventually the pressures from her modeling career and her Stage Mom start to get her, leading to her becoming noticeably more uptight and her relationship with Mike becoming more unbalanced and distant.
• Childhood Friend: With Daisy when they were little kids, but doesn't remember her now.
• Childhood Friend Romance: With Mike. It's less than ideal.
• Furry Female Mane: Has a black one, which stands out against her white fur.
• Even the Girls Want Her: "Track Meet" hints that Daisy used to have feelings for her in the third grade.
• Growing Up Sucks: Working as a model since she was a preteen unfortunately puts her at odds with other people her age. She acts like a young adult more than a teenager.
• Informed Attractiveness: Supposed to be model-like in appearance, but looks similar to most of the other females. However, the comic presents her modeling success to be more a product of her demeanor and manner if anything.
• Long-Distance Relationship: With Mike. It's a pretty bad one.
• Nice Girl: She is a rather sweet person, but can be Innocently Insensitive at times. While the way she goes about her breakup is rather abrupt, even then she felt guilty about developng feelings for another man while still dating.
• My Beloved Smother: With a heaping dose of Stage Mom too. The few things we get about Sandy's relationship with her mother indicates that a lot of her upbringing is controlled by her. Her moving was dictated by her, her contracts and show appearances go through her (to the point where it's hinted that Sandy struggles with schooling and work), and even her relationships go through her. In Chapter 115, Sandy all but outright states that the leading reason for her breakup with Francis was because her mother didn't approve, and explicitly states that she can date Mike because her mother sees him as the "safe" option since he's nowhere near her. It seems like the story doesn't really blame her for her aloof nature because of this, as even Lucy in an alternate chapter acknowledgegs that Sandy's mom is the cause of most of her grief.
• Put on a Bus: Rather literally.
• The Ghost: for the longest time.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Mike misinterprets some advice from her to badly damage his relationship with Lucy.

Jessica

Jessica "Jess"

Jessica is a proud, quick-witted member of the cheerleading team who is never afraid to voice her opinion. Together with her closest friend Rachel, she has been quick to offer compassion to Daisy.

---

• Berserk Button: Jessica hates it when called out about how she bullies Tess, which led to Lucy's button being pressed... Tess pretty much just takes the bullying.
• Break the Cutie: Jessica got this from a lot of the school and Tess as a freshman.
• Freudian Excuse: See main page.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Has been seen drunk in "Back and Forth".
• Incompatible Orientation: With Lucy, for a bit.
• Lipstick Lesbian: Her sexuality was previously only implied, before being confirmed by her relationship with Madison.
  • Her crush on Lucy was revealed in the relationship chart, and, after being hinted at a couple times in the comic proper, eventually comes up in "Golden Hour", after she's over it and started dating Madison.
  • There's also the "Ask Roseville High" post where Jasmine is asked about her thoughts on homosexuality, and recieves glares from Jess and David.
  • She also calls Katie "hot" in "Casting Call".
  • And she makes it clear that she only slept with Paulo to piss off Tess.

Rachel

Rachel "Rachie"

A true flirt, Rachel revels in playful jokes that make light of those around her. While her open nature is often confronting to friends, her cheerful demeanour always shines through.

---

• Butt-Monkey: In Pillow Talk.
• Fag Hag: Her friend group is overwhelmingly filled with bisexuals and homosexuals.
• Friends with Benefits: With Paulo starting out, since she has her desire for a family in the future and Paulo's still holding onto Lucy. But she finds it very difficult not to fall in love with him. She eventually ends even this when Lucy returns in "Unspoken Rule".
• Friendly Enemy: Her teasing of Tess was never really mean spirited. During a sleepover at Daisy's, she barely cared that Tess was there, even stating that she's 'gotten used to her'.
• Love Hurts: She honestly does love Paulo, but in between his problems and his continuous pining for Lucy, she can't catch a break. Eventually, she accepts they won't be together and moves on.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: She's not shy at all about her love of sex, but she's on good terms with the group and a sweet girl.
• Nice Girl: Is perhaps too understanding of Paulo's insecurities.
• Really Gets Around: A self-admitted slut.
• Secret Secret-Keeper: She knew all along that Jessica wasn't nearly as experienced as she claimed.
• Sex for Solace: She engaged in this for Paulo, which started their complicated relationship.
• Smarter Than You Look: She's smart enough that she's got a realistic chance of getting into high quality colleges.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: While Tess definitely doesn't feel this way, as some point Rachel's dislike for her morphed into this.
  Hey bitch! Glad I won't be seeing your sorry face again... I was just kidding. Good luck, okay?

Jasmine

Jasmine "Jazz" "Jazzie"

A peppy freshman girl whose life is dominated by school activities. While she’d ordinarily keep to her own group of friends, Jasmine has taken an immediate liking to Paulo, happily adopting the role of his girlfriend and principal partner-in-crime.

---

• Asian and Nerdy
• Better as Friends: While they don't exactly become best buds, she and Paulo mutually split after realizing they don't have the time (on her end) or the emotional commitment (on his end) to maintain the relationship.
• But Not Too Foreign: She's kinda asian.
• Education Mama: implied to be the reason why she's in so many clubs and sports, although she actually enjoys most of them and harbors no resentment.
• Extracurricular Enthusiast: Is part of at least three clubs and one sports team.
• Go-Getter Girl: Has a frankly oppressing amount of extracurricular activities, to the point where she barely has time for her boyfriend. Not helped by the fact that when she does have free time, she's more likely to waste it with her regular friends than her boyfriend.
• Now or Never Kiss: Paulo and her date for a long time without making any technically romantic contact. They kiss on the very night they break up.
• Sixth Ranger: She joins the cast long after the core dynamic has been established, and is dropped not long after.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: A short but harsh one, toward Paulo. And what a zinger it is.
• Third-Option Love Interest: It doesn't last.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: While not free of issues herself, she is shown to be one of the most emotionally mature and reasonable characters on the cast, despite being younger than the core group herself.

Augustus

Augustus / "Final Fantasy Cat"

Calm and composed, Augustus is always sure of himself and executes his tasks with quiet efficiency and biting wit. While he keeps his emotions close to his vest, there’s one girl who can unravel everything…

---

• Anti-Villain: Arguably, as he genuinely cares for and respects Daisy and cares enough about Lucy to prevent her from following him home, given how terrible we see his home life to be. Also, he doesn't seem to be very keen on helping Alejandro get revenge on the main cast, and is fully aware of how horrible Alejandro truly is.
• Attempted Rape: Looked like he was about to do this to Daisy, but Abbey intervened, though it turns out he never planned to go there in the first place.
• Brutal Honesty: In spades.
• The Charmer: Used on Daisy, and it almost worked until Abbey came along. Averted with Lucy as she cut him off at jump street before he could begin to try with her.
• The Corruptible: He wasn't always the way he is now - he was turned that way. Alejandro saw to that.
• Everyone Has Standards: He's rather harsh to Lucy about her reasons for feeling depressed, but when it looks like she's about to actually attempt suicide, he does freak out, and tries to stop her. He later calls an ambulance when it actually happens.
• Evil Genius: Apparently plays this role in Alejandro's gang since Alejandro assigned him to develop a plan to get his revenge on the main group, though he's not all that evil. And he's at least intelligent enough to maintain an A-average.
• Foil: To Lucy. Taeshi herself says that "[Augustus] renders her NORMAL."
• Friendly Enemy: His thick skinned attitude makes him a good friend to Lucy, since unlike most of her other friends he'll never take her insults to heart, in addition to dishing to her as well as she gives. Leans more towards "friends" after he saves her life when she survives her Bungled Suicide.
• Heel–Face Turn: Appears to be going down this route, since he saved Lucy's life by calling an ambulance instead of letting her bleed out when she attempted suicide; him being accepted into Lucy's family and his aspirations to graduate high school make this even more plausible.
• Jerkass Has a Point: His "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Lucy below is just one example of many times he's done this because he's not the sugarcoaty type.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Augustus might be rough around the edges and can be perceived as untrustworthy but deep down, he's not really a bad person, which can be observed in his friendship with Lucy and genuine respect and love for Daisy. He even goes out of his way to reach out to Mike to hear his side of the story in regards to the events of "Eternal Flame", despite giving him a very harsh "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Like Brother and Sister: His eventual relationship with Lucy, after he saved her after her suicide attempt and she allowed him to stay in her home. While he does tell her he loves her, he means it strictly in the familial sense.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: Seems to be his reasoning for talking to Lucy despite the two's apparent disinterest in one another.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives a short one to Lucy to call her out on her Despair Event Horizon in regards to Mike, seeing them as Skewed Priorities.
  Augustus: "Do you have parents?"
  Lucy: "Yes?"
  Augustus: "A place to sleep?"
  Lucy: Yeah...?
  Augustus: "In a safe neighborhood?"
  Lucy: "What?"
  Augustus: "And you want to die because some stupid kid won't return your feelings. You're absolutely worthless."
• Only Sane Man: One of the more levelheaded characters. This is becoming his more seen side.
• The Smart Guy: Of Alejandro's crew, being the one in charge of making schemes for revenge. Because Alejandro himself is too lazy to do so.
• Schemer: Was this for Alejandro and even makes some schemes for himself, to the point he does it unintentionally now.
• Smug Snake: More so in his first appearances, especially in his interactions with Abbey when he taunts for being just like his abusive father.
• Took a Level in Kindness: In his earlier appearances, he was actively malicious. He eventually realizes how horrible Alejandro is and settles on trying to befriend the main cast.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: He really did, and though he was stealing in his origin story he states it is only because nobody at home really cared for him. But then Alejandro got a hold of him.

Pets

Yashy

Yashy

Lucy’s first pet, and the loudest by far. Yashy is something of a prodigy, with a sharp wit that betrays her young age. Bratty, loudmouthed, and rude, deep down she wants nothing more for Mom to settle down with her flea.

---

• Action Girl: She's seen as pretty hot-headed and violent towards others.
• Bratty Half-Pint: What she lacks in size, she more than makes up for in volume.
• Catchphrase: "Whore!!" to Daisy.
• Child Prodigy: The character page states she's one of these, but would rather insult others than put it to other uses.
• Deadpan Snarker: Is a user of this very frequently.
• Expy: She was originally supposed to be a baby Yoshi, but after many years, the tone of the story changing, her personality developing, and a fear of copyright law striking, Yashy was slowly changed into a lizard-thing that somewhat looks like a Yoshi but isn't. Any references to Yoshi like laying multi-purpose eggs or using a prehensile tongue to attack/swallow were also removed, most notably in the remake of "Chirpy's Introduction". Her name stayed, with the in-universe justification that Lucy simply named her after Yoshi because of the physical resemblance.
• Gamer Girl: She's seen playing video games often and is seen trying to coerce Chirpy into one of them during her first appearance in-comic.
• The Nicknamer: Mike is "Flea," Daisy is "Whore."
• One of the Boys: More action-oriented, snarkier and less feminine than the other characters and rarely gets upset over the dramatic situations the main characters are facing, with one exception.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Mike goes to see Lucy in the hospital following her suicide attempt, he sees Yashy. Yashy doesn't even bother to look at him and refers to him by name, rather than her usual "Flea".
• Put on a Bus: Along with Lily, she's moved to Lucy's grandmother's house and insists on not coming back to Roseville. But not before delivering a Wham Line.
• Shipper on Deck: Yashy considers Lucy and Mike to more or less be a couple, hence why she refers to Daisy as "Whore", as she thinks she's trying to steal Mike from Lucy. She probably doesn't think Lucy and Mike would be a couple now.
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: Lucy claims that the reason she won't take Yashy to movies anymore is because Yashy keeps quoting them.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: She's the tomboy to Chirpy.

Chirpy

Chirpy

Innocent and naïve, Chirpy remains in awe of the world around her. She clings to Yashy and always does her best to follow the examples of grown-ups (while making frequent mistakes in the process.)

---

• Cheerful Child
• Earn Your Happy Ending: She eventually rediscovers her mother and sibling and goes on to live with them again.
• Half-Identical Twins: She has an estranged twin brother, who she never got to grow up with until years later.
• The Nicknamer: Refers to other characters by simplistic, descriptive nicknames; Lucy is Girl-Kitty and Mike is Boy-Kitty.
• Parental Abandonment: Her mother was attacked by a snake, and only had the strength to carry one egg. Lucy may have gone this way.
• Put on a Bus: Along with Lucy and the other pets in "Breaking Up". She continues to stay gone after Lucy returns, where it's revealed she's staying with Lucy's grandmother.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: She's the girly girl to Yashy.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: She's far less happy about Yashy's violent habits.

Lily

Lily

Lucy’s most mature pet, Lily is a source of wisdom for much of the cast (and babysitter to others.) Patient and understanding, she is usually able to steer her friends in the right direction.

---

• Put on a Bus: Along with Yashy, she moved in with Lucy's grandmother When Lucy is transferred to private school.
• There Are No Therapists: Lily averts this one single-handedly.
• Secret-Keeper: She's the only one of the pets who knows about Sandy and Mike's relationship...at least until Lucy finally reveals the secret to Yashy and Chirpy, much to their devastation.
• What the Hell, Hero?: To Mike after his directly causing Lucy's breakdown.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Assuming she's not Older Than She Looks.

Blur

Blur

Mike’s pet bird Blur was rescued from a fire as a youngster and has trouble remembering what came before the incident. He counts Yashy as a close friend and can often be seen playing or arguing with her.

---

• Line-of-Sight Name: In a sense, Yashy declared Blur to be his name after he called his memory a "blur."
• Meaningful Name: "You're as quick as a blur and your memory sucks!"
• No Name Given: Due to amnesia, we never learn anything as to who he was before that fateful thunderstorm.
• Only Known by Their Nickname
• Shoo Out the Clown: Sort of. He runs away after Lucy is Put on a Bus, since her own pets left with her.
• The One Guy: Of the pets.

Fan Characters

Tess

Tessa "Tess" Canning

A rich party girl with a rebellious streak, Tess departed the scorched earth of Junior year to find newer, younger friends. She has since struggled to reconcile her upcoming graduation with the close friendships she quickly forged.

---

• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With Paulo. Originally.
• Big Fancy House: Lives in one. Mike and Lucy are suitably impressed.
• Book Dumb: Still needs to study for PSATs in senior year.
• Butt-Monkey: Tess has minor butt monkey time around Jessica and Rachel.
• Demoted to Extra: After becoming a major character up until the main characters' sophomore year, her relevance to the plot decreases as she continues to focus on her studies.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Tess has drinking mentioned in her character bio. She was seen drinking wine in the "Arrival" chapter of the Summer Vacation arc.
• Heel–Face Turn: A pre-story example.
• Put on a Bus: She graduates high school and heads off to college late into the series.
• Rich Bitch: During her relationship with Roger. Junior and senior year, still rich but not a bitch anymore.
• The Tease: She's occassionally like this with Paulo.
• Tsundere: Tess is one, too. Sometimes.

McCain

Alec "McCain" McCain

Alec "McCain" McCain remains detached at all times, making blunt pronouncements in situations which do not always welcome them. His tone-deaf flavour of cold rationality doesn’t earn him many favors with most of the cast.

---

• The Cameo: Finally makes an apperance in Chapter 89 Guest of Honor, Page44
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He made a lot of appearances in earlier volumes, but nowadays he is either offhandedly mentioned or reduced to a non-speaking cameo
• Brutal Honesty: He tends to say what's on his mind, no matter how insensitive or poorly-timed they are.
• Deadpan Snarker: Usually the one to bring in some snark, which ends up making him a prime target for: "Shut it, McCain
• Phrase Catcher: Whenever he tries to say something, almost always everybody tells him to "Shut it, McCain."
• Put on a Bus: He gets a more graceful exit than Kizuna, but he simply quietly stops appearing, unlike Tess.
• Odd Friendship: His friendship with Sue stems mostly from their shared positions as Straight Men. Still, they get along pretty well and seemingly has gone somewhere once.
• Ship Tease A lot with Sue back in the day, unfortunately after he got hit with Chuck Cunningham Syndrome it has more or less gone nowhere.
• You Didn't Ask: His now non-canon relationship with Sue was going to be revealed this way, until he was dropped from the comic.

Kizuna

Kizuna "Kizu"

Madly in love with David, Kizuna never has any luck getting David to notice her, let alone consider her romantically. Airheaded and clumsy, Kizuna is nevertheless a skilled cook, sadly for David. She appears oblivious to his dimwitted comments.

---

• Ax-Crazy: In Disaster Dominoes.
• Amusing Injuries: Two notable instances include Eye Scream and being used to make a fire.
• Cute Clumsy Girl
• Bus Crash: in a reference to Poochie.
• Killed Off for Real: Her artist requested Taeshi cease using her.

Carson

Carson

Carson is a manifestation of his creator’s heartfelt objection to the pervasiveness of the “token” gay stereotype in modern pop culture. (He blindly loves Michael, dresses flamboyantly and borrows his name from “Queer Eye”.)

---

• Abhorrent Admirer: Blindly loves Mike, in which Mike doesn't return his feelings
• Camp Gay
• Cross Dresser: He dresses up as a japanese schoolgirl for Halloween.
• Forgotten Fallen Friend: For a definition of friend, anyway. During Halloween, Mike leaves him at the bottom of a basement with no way out. Nobody cared. However, this is non-canon, and has been removed from the story.
• Incompatible Orientation: With Mike.
• Killed Off for Real: To an extent. The pages where Carson is trapped were removed and are now non-canon, but Carson has seemingly disappeared from the story since then.
• Stereotype Gay

Carter

Carter

He loves Lucy.

---

• Abhorrent Admirer: His absolute weirdness turns everyone off.
• Killed Off for Real
• Non-Standard Character Design: He's drawn in a Stylistic Suck fashion.
• Reality Warper: He created a cardboard box TIEM MASHENE. Which also functions as a teleporter, which he uses to spy on Lucy.
• Single-Target Sexuality: For Lucy.
• Stylistic Suck: He's barely more than a stick figure.
• Stalker with a Crush

Minor Characters

Amaya

Amaya

Mild-mannered popcorn merchant Amaya is Sue's best friend. She chooses to remain mute. Her job at the cinema can sometimes be very useful to those who know her!

---

• Ambiguously Gay: It is heavily implied she and Sue are dating.
• Cute Mute: Gives off this impression due to her insanely shy nature. Given that she only seems to talk off-camera, she's actually The Silent Bob.
• Flat Character: By virtue of an inability to really contribute to the plot, and having never been in a major relationship. Her only actual trait is a generically sunny disposition.
• Not So Stoic: Her constant smile vanishes when Mike slams Paulo's face into the table and has a look of concern for him afterwards.
• Perpetual Smiler: She is almost always seen with a smile on her face. The only times where she's not is while she's in contemplation.
• Those Two Girls: With Sue, to Ambiguously Gay standards.
• The Quiet One: Amaya can talk. She just chooses not to. At least while she's on-screen, anyway.

Katie

Katherine "Katie" He

Precocious Katie spends most of her time worrying about makeup and hair styles and has been duly rewarded by her position as the most popular girl in school. She’s not necessarily mean and cruel… she just doesn’t think too much about others.

---

• Alpha Bitch
• Brainless Beauty: Oh, my gawd. That is, like, sooo Katie, y'know? Like, totally.
• Carload of Cool Kids: Her apparent standard state of being.
• Cleavage Window: Seen here
• Forbidden Friendship: While she genuinely enjoys Daisy's company, Daisy is "uncool" and thus can't hang out with her at school.

Stacy

Stacy

Katie’s best friend. Fluent in the written word, Stacy’s peers haven’t (yet) deterred her from a passion for reportage, creative writing, and poetry.

---

• Closet Geek: She loves to cosplay and talk about her hobbies, just not when she's around more popular company. Sue eventually gets tired of this attitude and has a minor spat with her about it, but they decide to keep the friendship.
• I Have This Friend: She didn't give Mike that love note, honest. But she's sure whoever sent them was very thankful Mike kept them.
• Gamer Chick
• Shrinking Violet: Due to being ashamed of each and every one of her hobbies.

Flower Girl

Flower Girl

This mysterious girl is absent from just about everything besides David’s fantasies. While she remains unaware, she has completely captured David’s affections, and he spends a lot of his time clumsily stalking her.

Molly

Molly

Abbey’s little sister seems to have an endless reserve of childish positivity, showing strong dedication to schoolwork and her local Girl Scout troop. She loves her brother dearly, and shoulders more of their shared burden than he’d like.

---

• Cheerful Child: Just don't mention her mother.
• Cowardly Lion
• Cute Kitten
• Fearless Fool: Her failure to grasp the magnitude of danger is what allows her to stay calm during a kidnapping.
• Kiddie Kid: Despite a 3 to 4 year age difference between her and Abbey, her stature and demeanor make her seem younger. Lampshaded when Paulo asks if she's six/seven years old, only to be shocked when she reveals herself to be 12 (as of 2009).
• Precocious Crush: "Everyday Life" reveals that she's gained one on Paulo. Even though she's far out of his strike zone, he can't seem to help attracting tsunderes.
• The Tell: While she always acts happy...
  Justin: You don't look too happy yerself! Yer ears always down!
• Tomboy Angst: Her 2009 New Years resolution is to get stronger and much more "buff" than she is; but when Paulo is in earshot, she quickly amends it to be "dainty and beautiful like a model" with an embarrassed face.

James

James

A member of Roseville High's track team who seems to have a rather keen interest in Mike. He also works with Paulo at the Burger-Tron.

---

• Even the Guys Want Him: "Track Meet" hints that Paulo has a crush on him.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: He has golden fur and a sunny, friendly personality, if not a bit insensitive at times.
• Innocently Insensitive: Shows shades of this in "Link Play".
• Keet: He's very friendly, bubbly, and excitable.
• Mirror Character: To Daisy. Mike even notes the resemblance they share. They're both energetic, friendly, fluffy-furred cats, albeit with a tendency to be Innocently Insensitive at times. Both of them are also quite athletic, with Daisy being a cheerleader and James being a member of the track team.
• New Transfer Student: He went to another school when he was first introduced, but he trasferred to Roseville High offscreen sometime after the summer. He's not even in the same year as Paulo, so he never saw reason to bring it up.
• Nice Guy: Very much so.
• Ship Tease: With Mike in the "Date Night" chapter.
• Stalker without a Crush: Freely admits to stalking Mike for over four months to scope him out for the track team. To his credit, it worked. Subverted. As it turns out, he does have a crush on Mike.

Justin

Justin

A hapless kid dragged into various misadventures by other members of the cast, Justin is generally seen looking for cover and wishing he could just go back home.

---

• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: He hasn't made an appearance for several chapters straight!
• Goggles Do Nothing
• The Drag-Along
• Precious Puppies
• What You Are in the Dark: He comes back to save Molly upon realizing how ashamed he felt to abandon somebody.

Matt

Matt "Oreo Cat"

A true optimist at heart, Matt always tries to make the best out of every situation. His inclination to be kind has made his friends fiercely protective of him. Also confirmed to be gay and has a crush on Jordan, Lucy's Big Brother.

---

• Gentle Giant: He's a big chubby guy with an equally big heart.
• Hidden Depths: Obviously due to the fact that he's gay, he has some emotional baggage and is very kind and understanding. To other people's plights.
• Incompatible Orientation: Unfortunately for him, Jordan's straight.
• Nice Guy: Probably one of the kinder characters out there in the cast. Even when Paulo, outright lashes out on him for being gay (due to Paulo himself having to work through his bisexuality), he doesn't get mad at him and is very understanding. Even letting the somali hug him so he could "work things out".
• Shrinking Violet: He's very shy and quiet, but his shyness increases when it come to his crush on Jordan.
• Straight Gay: Matt is shy, and soft-spoken but he’s not all campy. To the point that him being gay is quite a shock to Paulo.

Madison

Madison

Madison swears she’s a nice person, but it’s not all that obvious when she’s letting you know about every little thing that annoys her. Jessica, her new girlfriend, finds this adorable.

---

• Alpha Bitch: Is not afraid to say how much Paulo irks her.
• Brutal Honesty: Her main method of angriness.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Mostly over Jess's old crush on Lucy. She flips out when David suggests that she is Jess's Replacement Goldfish, and later threatens to kill Lucy if she ever comes back. She also tends to respond to Lucy's presence with unbridled fury after she returns to Roseville High.
• Got Me Doing It: Even if her default mode of interaction is acting bitchy, she can easily get swept up in the enthusiasm of others.
• Insecure Love Interest: While yelling at Lucy in "PDA", she reveals that she doesn't think she's good enough for Jess.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Despite coming off as generally abrasive, she was right to tell Paulo off for ignoring Rachel's feelings for him.
• Replacement Flat Character: She takes Lucy's place in the circle of personalities when Lucy transfers out of Roseville High for a year. And when Lucy comes back, Madison serves as a sharp contrast from how Lucy used to act to how she acts after her character development.
• Lipstick Lesbian: She's in a relationship with Jessica.
• Running Gag: Everybody keeps calling her Lucy due to the fact that she's pretty much a carbon copy of her, much to her ire.
• Unknown Rival: She pretty much starts to get sick of the fact that people calling her Lucy and threatens to lynch her when she finally meets her.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Calls out Paulo for being blind to Rachel's feelings for him, and treating it as just a Friends with Benefits relationship.

Alejandro

Alejandro/ "Confrontation Cat" or "Rapecat"

A mugger that the gang runs into in the Confrontation arc. After getting beaten by Lucy and Mike, he plans to exact revenge on them.

---

• Affably Evil: Downplayed, as he is only this to the other members of his gang. Usually, he's Faux Affably Evil.
• Arch-Enemy: To pretty much everyone in the main cast, specifically Mike and Lucy for the No-Holds-Barred Beatdown they gave him.
• Asshole Victim: Of a non-lethal sort, he is given a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown by Mike and Lucy, but it was in self-defense.
• Ax-Crazy: A ruthless and sadistic gang leader, what did you expect?
• Bad Boss: To his own girlfriend horrifyingly enough, the worst part is, he actually treats the other members of his gang with respect.
  • Some keen-eyed forum users suggest he was the one who date-raped Tess when she was a freshman.
• Big Bad Friend: He was friends with Augustus.
• The Bully: Implied, if he was the boy Tess was dating.
• Child Hater: Considering he is antagonizing a bunch of teenagers.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: A dark example, as he once beat his girlfriend, Melanie, because he had a dream were she cheated on him.
• Combat Sadomasochist: Alejandro took two of Lucy's kicks, had his teeth smashed into each other hard enough to chip one and draw blood, and was still okay enough to beat Lucy senseless before Mike came back, smashing his face into an alley floor and still not stopping him. It took Mike and Lucy together to turn the fight around (at which point it became a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown). And he beat Mike (and was about to crush his skull) before all this happened.
• The Corrupter: If Augustus is anything to go by.
• The Dreaded: Everyone in the main cast is terrified of this guy, with good reason of course.
• Dirty Coward: Abused his defenseless girlfriend, and spent a majority of his on panel time harassing a bunch of teenagers.
• Domestic Abuse: To Melanie, in a manner disturbingly similar to Abby's dad.
• Ephebophile: Had a relationship with a 15-year-old girl named Melanie, and attempted to start one with Lucy as well.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted with Melanie, for obvious reasons. However, it's played straight with the other members of his gang.
• Even Evil Has Standards: When Lucy tells a panicking Daisy to shut up, he responded by smacking the former in the face, and telling her to shut up.
  • He was also clearly disturbed when Lucy gave his dragon, Toby, a Groin Attack.
• Evil Duo: With his dragon, Toby.
• Evil Gloating: Probably the only reason Lucy didn't get raped.
• Faux Affably Evil: Until you make him mad.
  • He does seem to genuinely care for the members of his gang. He's a complete douche to everyone else, though.
• For the Evulz: Probably his most defining characteristic, everything this asshole does is for no reason.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Alejandro states in "Confrontation" that his ex-girlfriend is the one who gave him his trademark scar when she tried to hurt him, which he proceeded to get her back for.
• Greater-Scope Villain: While the story doesn't exactly have a primary villain, being an ensemble teen drama, he's most certainly responsible for most of the cast's problems. His manipulations led to Paulo's jerk mentality and phobia of barking, Augustus's corruption, and "Confrontation" in general, which was a key factor in Lucy's worsening self esteem.
• Hated by All: Nobody likes this violent jerk, not that he cares.

• Jerkass: Beyond any reasonable doubt. He's aggressive, violent and extremely confrontational, it is even in his nickname.
• Knight of Cerebus: This series was always a Dramedy, but the characters were never in any real danger. Alejandro changed that.
• Kick the Dog: This is basically his entire M.O., worst of all, he mostly does it For the Evulz.
• Lack of Empathy: This guy kicks the shit out of people, robs them blind, and possibly raped Tess For the Evulz.

• Laughably Evil: At least when in a good mood.
• Lazy Bum: It's his one weakness as an antagonist. He completely delegates the task of devising a plan for revenge against the main cast to Augustus and has been doing so for two years.
• Moral Myopia: He doesn't like it when people hurt his gang, even when they're the ones who started it.
• Pet the Dog: He actually cares about his gang.
• Serial Rapist: Heavily implied, his other nickname doesn't help.
• Villainous Friendship: With his gang, more specifically, his dragon Toby.
• Would Hit a Girl: And hits two on-panel. He also hit his old girlfriend Melanie when he even dreamed about her cheating on him.
• Would Hurt a Child: Alejandro is in his twenties. And while the main cast is in high school, they aren't even adults, much less his age - which doesn't stop him from beating the crap out of some of them. Or plotting vengeance against them for two straight years after they turned the tables on him.

Toby

Toby

Alejandro's dragon and only true friend.

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• Affably Evil: Let's just say he is a lot nicer than his boss.
• Angry Guard Dog: Him defending Alejandro in "confrontation" gives off this vibe, he even savagely barks as he is beating down Paulo.
• Arch-Enemy: To Paulo, as he caused his fear of barking.
• Asshole Victim: Like Alejandro, of a non-lethal sort, but he was given a pretty vile Groin Attack by Lucy.
• Ax-Crazy: His Slasher Smile can be just as big as Alejandro's.
• The Brute: He is noticeably stronger than Alejandro, to the point were the latter usually relies on him in a fight.
• The Bully: Just like his boss.
• Co-Dragons: With Augustus to Alejandro, though Toby is much higher on the chain of command than him.
• The Dragon: To Alejandro, though technically Co-Dragons with Augustus he is noticeably a lot more involved with Alejandro's crimes.
• Dirty Coward: Runs like a scared child after Lucy kicks his ass and gives him a Groin Attack.
• The Dreaded: To Paulo at least, as he caused his fear of barking.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: He is Alejandro's only real friend, and they seem to get along.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Stopped Alejandro from killing Melanie.
• Evil Duo: With Alejandro.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Implied.
• False Friend: To Augustus.
• Fat Bastard: He's quite overweight, not that this stops him from beating the crap out of Paulo.
• Faux Affably Evil: Has his moments, like when he explained to Augustus that Alejandro can have him killed at any time, with a big friendly smile.
• For the Evulz: He has no reason for what he does, other than being friends with Alejandro.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Downplayed, but he is ultimately the cause of Paulo's fear of barking, turning much worse after he and Alejandro discovered it back when Paulo was in sixth grade.
• Hero Killer: He almost killed Paulo, twice.
• Jerkass: He's a little nicer than Alejandro.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: At first it seems like he is horrified by Alejandro's treatment of Augustus, that flashback in "Trapped" reveals that he isn't.
• Karma Houdini: So far, he didn't seem to suffer any long term consequences for his involvement in "Confrontation".
• Kick the Dog: His treatment of Paulo in "Confrontation".
• Knight of Cerebus: Serves as this with Alejandro.
• Laughably Evil: At least when he and Alejandro are just screwing around.
• Near-Villain Victory: He would have most likely killed Paulo if Lucy didn't show up.
• Obviously Evil: He and Alejandro aren't the nicest looking guys.
• Small Name, Big Ego: Despite how he's played up, it can't be ignored that he was defeated by children half his age.

Melanie

Melanie

Alejandro's old girlfriend.

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• Ephebophile: After she pierces Augustus' eyebrows, she kisses him and sleeps with him. Downplayed as she's just two years older than him (15 to 13 at the time).
• Foregone Conclusion: Subverted. The story seems to point to her dying or some other tragedy happening at the end of her story, but in reality she's merely hospitalized and then manages to escape Alejandro's grasp.
• Love Confession: To Augustus.
• The One That Got Away: Again, to Augustus.
• Sanity Slippage: Alejandro's abuse has really taken a toll on her.
• Starting a New Life: Dreams of this, as her entire intent is to get a scholarship to a college and escape her current life. Most specifically, she wants to get away from Alejandro.
  • She gets her wish, by being hospitalized
• The Smurfette Principle: So far the only known female member of Alejandro's gang.
• Token Good Teammate: She's easily the nicest member of Alejandro's crew, and objects to bringing a kid in.

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