Amaya

From Candypedia
Amaya
GenderFemale
Age16
BirthdayDecember 11, 1992 (Sagittarius)
GradeJunior as of Table for One
SpeciesCat
BreedTabby
Family
OccupationStudent, Roseville cinema employee
AffiliationSwordsVale, Drama club, Junior friend group
DebutUnfit for Education, page 3
May 12, 2006 (2006-05-12)

Amaya is a short tabby cat in a bow tie who has been at Sue’s side since Roseville Middle School, and in all that time she has never said a single word on-panel in the main comic. She works the popcorn counter at the Eagle Cinema, sits at the junior lunch table, and gets her point across with smiles, thumbs, and the occasional hand-lettered sign. Her friends translate her without a second thought, while Paulo has learned the hard way that a quiet girl behind a ticket counter still has opinions about who gets into a restricted movie. The comic has shown her making a phone call, and Paulo is still cursing her for it.

Personality

Amaya’s cheerful thumbs-down ends Paulo’s argument before it can begin.

Amaya is small, she smiles a lot, and she has a way of sitting perfectly still while a whole conversation happens on her face. Ask her a question and you will get a thumbs-up, a thumbs-down, a raised eyebrow, or, on special occasions, a piece of paper with the answer written on it. Her closer friends read all of this fluently, which means she can be as chatty as she likes without saying a word. She is also, given half a chance, a bit of a schemer, and the sunny smile that makes her look so harmless is the exact thing that ought to worry you.

Amaya’s speech balloons in the main comic contain symbols, a question mark or a heart or a musical note, and the people around her fill in the rest.[1][2] When she wants to be exact she writes it down, which is how Paulo once ended up on the wrong end of a sign at a pep rally.[3] The rest of the time her friends do the work. In Tickets Please she brings a pair of tickets to lunch and smiles. From that alone, Sue and Lucy work out that she has snagged the last two seats to a preview screening only her theater gets to show, and James can only ask how on earth they are getting all this information.[4] Veronica’s commentary calls the two girls bilingual in English and “Amayese”.[4] Amaya is not actually mute, either. Veronica has said she is quiet by choice, and the main comic itself shows her dialing Sue in Back and Forth without letting us listen to the conversation.[5][6] David later reports an off-panel dressing-down from her in Participation Trophy.[7]

Most of what Amaya says with her face is a verdict. When Lucy clings to Zachary’s arm on the Silvershore Islands trip and Sue and Tess call him names, Amaya contributes a long, judging frown of her own.[8] Sue gets this treatment more than anyone. She fakes an opinion about a painting in Critical Hit and Amaya frowns her into retreat,[9] and later Sue calls David a buffoon and gets a flat, unimpressed stare, which, to Sue’s credit, she understands perfectly well and argues back against.[10] Stacy gets a subdued, skeptical look when she walks into the computer lab in Popularity Contest.[11]

The smile is the other half of her vocabulary, and it unsettles people who don’t know her well. David spends a plane ride in Arrival trying to crack it. He works his way up from “I don’t trust that smile” to accusing her of being a double agent, and she beams at him the entire time until Lucy ends the interview with a thrown book.[12][13] The same pleasant expression stays put while she gives Paulo a thumbs-down on an NC-17 ticket in Boy Toy, and while she hands him a broom in Payback after he can’t cover a bill he insisted on paying.[14][15] In the BCI story Everyday Life, the smile is also a bit of a mask. Customers leer at her and ask her to smile for them, and she gives them a strained one because she has to. A polite customer who tells her to keep the change gets the real thing, sparkles included.[16]

Amaya’s innocent grin suggests Sue’s encounter with Jessica was not entirely accidental.

Amaya will happily run interference for a friend. She physically plants herself in front of Sue, arms waving, to stop her marching up to Stacy and Katie in Popularity Contest,[17] and in Participation Trophy she quietly gets Sue into a needed conversation with Jessica and pushes David to apologize.[18][7] The instant James lets slip who sent David, though, she blushes, sweats, and looks anywhere but at Sue.[19]

Amaya has her own nervous moments, too. She hugs her knees and stares at the pavement when Lucy walks over in It’s All in the Mind,[20] and she sits with her knees up and her hands in her lap through the first-kiss stories at Daisy’s slumber party.[21] When Paulo laughs at her SwordsVale cosplay, all she can manage is a nervous smile.[22] That doesn’t stop her stirring things up in Tickets Please. As Sue and Paulo squabble over her tickets, Veronica’s commentary has her privately cheering that a bloodbath is imminent, all thanks to her.[23]

Appearance

Amaya is a short tabby cat, and short is very much the operative word. She debuts as a little figure in a bow tie,[1] and David has to lean down to interrogate her on the plane.[12] Sue smiles down at her in the hallway,[24] and a drunk Sue can dip her on the dance floor without much trouble.[25] The bow tie has stayed with her from eighth grade through junior year, and when she produces her preview tickets they peek out from just below her big bow.[4]

Amaya’s off-duty wardrobe leaves little room for blending in.

At work she wears the Eagle Cinema employee uniform behind the concession counter.[26][14] Off the clock she has a surprisingly bold wardrobe for someone so quiet. In It’s All in the Mind she turns up in a purple shirt with striped yellow sleeves, a purple-and-blue baseball cap worn backwards, blue shorts and blue-and-yellow shoes, with a skateboard to complete the look. While Sue and Lucy catch up, she lies flat on her stomach on the board and rolls along the street.[27][28] She goes trick-or-treating dressed as a Hershey’s Kiss in Witch Hunt,[29] plays an injured villager in a tattered shirt and bruise makeup in Sue’s play in Curtain Call,[30] and attends the convention in Guest of Honor in SwordsVale cosplay alongside her guildmates.[31]

Significant events

Amaya first appears in Unfit for Education, already a middle-school classmate of David, whose hypothesis about puberty earns him a smack.[1] She and Sue share a crush on Mike,[32] and the group discovers her popcorn-counter job at the Eagle Cinema in Off to the Movies.[33] She and Sue are partners for both the tied-legs race and the wheelbarrow race in Field Day, with Sue holding her ankles and asking her nicely not to kick.[34][35]

During freshman year she backs Sue on guitar at Tess’s party in Feline Festivities[36] and struggles to keep her head above water in swim class in Under Pressure.[37] In Invitation, Tess invites her on the Silvershore Islands trip, to Sue’s delight.[38] The two room together and return with photos and plans for a slideshow.[39][40]

In Off to the Movies, Amaya’s shift includes one customer who takes the popcorn machine personally.

By sophomore year the cinema job is paying off for other people. Amaya lets Paulo and Jasmine into an R-rated film in Back and Forth, then calls Sue about them.[26][6] Away from work, she attends Daisy’s slumber party in Pillow Talk,[21] gets danced dizzy by David at Tess’s Christmas party in At Loose Ends,[41] and plays an injured villager in Sue’s production in Curtain Call.[30]

On the gallery trip in Critical Hit, Amaya helps Sue with the assignment and brings tickets to the special exhibit.[42][43] At Rachel’s party in Happy Hour, she enjoys dancing with Sue, until Matt later insists that everyone cheer up and dance whether they feel like it or not.[25][44] In Payback, which is exclusive to Volume Four, Paulo’s offer to pay for his friends leaves him working off the cinema bill with a broom.[15] Amaya is also part of the SwordsVale guild with Sue, Stacy and Abbey,[45] refuses Paulo an NC-17 ticket in Boy Toy,[14] and joins her guildmates in cosplay for Guest of Honor.[31]

After Lucy returns, she catches up with Sue and Amaya in It’s All in the Mind, where she compliments Amaya’s skater outfit.[20] Amaya goes trick-or-treating with her in Witch Hunt[29] and tries unsuccessfully to keep Sue away from Stacy and Katie in Popularity Contest.[17]

Amaya offers Sue two tickets, making generosity look effortless.

In Participation Trophy, Amaya arranges for Sue to talk with Jessica and also presses David to apologize to her.[18][7] In Tickets Please, her preview-screening tickets become the prize in a contest between Sue and Paulo. She gives Sue both tickets despite Paulo winning, but Sue passes them on to him.[46][47]

Major relationships

Sue

Sue takes the karaoke stage at Tess’s party while Amaya plays guitar in Feline Festivities.

Sue talks and Amaya nods, and that arrangement is older than the comic itself. Veronica has said the pair began in her pre-BCB comics, where Amaya would tag along and Sue would do the talking for her, and her commentary in Participation Trophy notes that Sue has known Amaya for pretty much all her life.[5][10] The early chapters treat them as one unit, from cornering Mike about the dance in Prom Preparation[32] to sharing a stage at Tess’s party with Sue on vocals and Amaya on guitar.[36] Sue’s bedroom has a framed photo of the two of them.[48] Sue leans on her in ways she barely notices. She relies on Amaya for the art-gallery answers in Critical Hit,[42] and when Stacy has rattled her in Popularity Contest, the person she asks whether she’s a loser is Amaya.[11]

Amaya doesn’t need to say a word to argue with Sue. She frowns Sue out of a fake art opinion in Critical Hit,[9] and Participation Trophy shows how far she will take it. Sue is on crutches and insisting she is fine about Jessica’s play getting the praise hers didn’t. Amaya carries her books, steers her down the hallway, and lets her cry, right in front of the locker where Jessica and Madison happen to be standing. Sue works it out at once. “You led me here on purpose, didn’t you.” Amaya gives her a small, coy grin.[18] Sue thanks her afterwards, then adds “Now never do that again”, and Amaya’s smile hitches into a sweat.[49] It gets worse when James exposes Amaya as the “little birdie” who tore into David about apologizing.[19] Veronica’s commentary calls the whole operation delightfully devilish, and notes that Amaya put Sue in the perfect place to talk it out because she wasn’t about to do much talking herself.[18]

Underneath the managing, the friendship is a warm one, and Sue is the one who notices when Amaya is happy. In the BCI story Everyday Life, Sue visits her at the counter and thinks about being told not to intervene when customers leer, which she finds hard. When a polite customer makes Amaya beam, Sue reflects that seeing her brightest smiles makes her happy too.[16] The loyalty runs the other way as well. When Paulo wins the ticket contest in Tickets Please, Amaya hands Sue the envelope containing both tickets regardless, and Lucy observes that Sue was always going to get priority.[46] Sue calls after the departing group, and Amaya turns around with a bright smile. Sue hands the tickets to Paulo anyway.[47]

Paulo

Paulo knows exactly which friend can rescue his movie plans.

Amaya noticed Paulo growing up before Paulo did. At the freshman pep rally in A Different Side, he admits that ogling the cheerleaders feels a little disrespectful. She holds up a sign reading “Character development” with an arrow pointing at him,[3] having spent the kickball game earlier that day worrying for him and clapping when he homered.[50][51] A flashback in Feline Filibuster shows him gripping her shoulders and ordering her to vote for Daisy.[52] In Boy Toy he turns to flirt with a silhouette, realizes it is Amaya holding a broom, and waves her off, claiming she is “PRACTICALLY a boy” so it wouldn’t count. She watches him go with a bright smile.[53] Veronica has said the pairing “sorta appeared out of nowhere” and that she finds it cute all the same.[54]

At the Eagle Cinema she is his connection, and the connection has terms. In Back and Forth he begs her for R-rated tickets for himself and Jasmine, and she gives him a big thumbs-up, which Veronica’s commentary rewards with “Amaya, you are such a bro”.[26] Then she watches the pair walk off with a puzzled frown and dials Sue without taking her eyes off them.[6] When Lucy confronts him about his freshman date a few pages later, all he can manage is “God dammit, Amaya!”[55] Her generosity has a ceiling, too. An NC-17 showing gets a pleasant smile and a firm thumbs-down in Boy Toy, and pleading gets him a popcorn to go and nothing else.[14] In Payback she covers for him beautifully, refusing Jasmine’s money so the girls work out that Paulo has arranged to pay for them.[56][57] Then she types up his total, watches his face fall, and hands him a broom without changing her expression.[15]

The ticket contest in Tickets Please starts with her, and the tickets end up in Paulo’s pocket. She brings the last two seats for a preview screening to lunch, and Sue claims them over Paulo’s objections. When Sue tells her to just hand them over, Amaya smiles toward Lucy, who proposes that the two of them fight for it.[58] Paulo wins the park contest, and after a detour through Sue’s hands, both tickets are his.[46][47]

Lucy

Lucy assures a flustered Amaya she’s “looking good, no sarcasm” in It’s All in the Mind.

Lucy is Sue’s friend first and Amaya’s by extension, and Amaya gets visibly shy when Lucy approaches her. On the plane in Arrival, Lucy ends David’s interrogation of Amaya by throwing a book at him.[13] Later, when Lucy has come back and is circling the edges of the group in It’s All in the Mind, Amaya spots her before Sue does and sits on the curb hugging her knees, blushing, and studying the pavement.[27][20] Lucy says “Nice getup”, and Amaya’s face collapses into self-doubt until Lucy hurries to add that she means it, “no sarcasm”, and that Amaya could give Sam some tips. That earns an appreciative smile.[20] By Tickets Please, Lucy is choosing to sit with Sue and Amaya at lunch.[59]

Lucy takes Amaya’s silence in stride and translates it aloud for everybody else, even when Sue is the one being managed. In Tickets Please she helps Sue read the preview-screening story off Amaya’s smile,[4] and when Amaya refuses to settle the fight over the tickets, Lucy is the one who says it plainly: “Sounds like Amaya wants you two to fight for it.”[58] James, new to all this, asks whether they all just guess what she’d say, and nobody bothers to answer him.[58] When Amaya hands the tickets to Sue after Paulo has won, it is Lucy again who explains to the group that Amaya is Sue’s friend, so Sue would always get priority.[46]

Minor relationships

David

David declares Amaya a fly dancer, apparently unaware that dizziness is not a compliment.

David has been getting on Amaya’s nerves since her very first panel, when his hypothesis about puberty earned him a smack in Unfit for Education.[1] He shoves her aside at the pep rally in A Different Side,[3] spends a plane ride in Arrival accusing her of espionage,[12][13] and in At Loose Ends dances her so dizzy that she throws up offscreen while he is still declaring her a “fly dancer”.[41] None of it gets a word from her on-panel. When he hurts Sue in Participation Trophy, she gives him an off-panel dressing-down he describes as the angriest he has ever seen her, and the two girls glare him clean out of the hallway.[7]

Mike

Amaya gets a quiet apology in Puppy Love, rather than the dance invitation she hoped for.

Mike was an early shared crush for Amaya and Sue, though Veronica’s commentary in Prom Preparation makes clear the girls just like to think about him sometimes.[32] He lets them both down gently during the dance preparations,[60] and offers a disappointed Amaya a quiet “Sorry.” in Puppy Love when Sue’s latest pitch gets shot down.[61] Later, she picks up his dropped clipboard for him at the gallery in Critical Hit,[62] and in Date Night she has popcorn and soda ready at the counter while he and James chat.[63]

Amaya’s dad

Amaya’s father works at the Eagle Cinema too. In Featured Attraction he apologizes to the audience and agrees to restart a dubbed film with subtitles after some moviegoers complain. Paulo, recognizing him, silently begs him not to think he’s with the rowdy crowd.[64] Veronica’s commentary sums up Paulo’s panic as wanting very badly to impress his friend’s dad.[64]

Quotes

Amaya has never said a word on-panel in the main comic, so this section belongs to her written verdict on Paulo and to the people trying to figure her out.

Character development Amaya, written on a sign and pointed at Paulo in A Different Side

.. I don’t trust that smile. David, sizing Amaya up on the plane in Arrival

God dammit, Amaya! Paulo, learning who told Sue about his date in Back and Forth

I’m not a loser, am I Amaya? Sue, turning to Amaya for reassurance in Popularity Contest

You led me here on purpose, didn’t you. Sue, catching on to Amaya’s scheme in Participation Trophy

Do you all just.. guess what she’d say? James, watching the table translate Amaya in Tickets Please

Gallery

For a complete gallery, see Gallery:Amaya.

Appearances by volume

Outfits

Trivia

  • In the Bittersweet Candy Bowl popularity poll, Amaya ranked 5th in 2021, 6th in 2022, and back to 5th in 2023.
  • Veronica has said she considered making Amaya properly mute, but decided she was too much of a gag character to be good representation.[5]
  • In the body-swapping BCI comic Magic Tricks, it is Lucy speaking from Amaya’s body when she tells David to fix his wand. David asks since when she talks, and Lucy says it should be obvious; Amaya, in Lucy’s body, is still smiling silently.[65]
  • David refers to Amaya as “they” when describing how she tore into him in Participation Trophy, and Veronica’s 2026 Tumblr answer about her uses “they” throughout as well.[7][5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Chapter 4: Unfit for Education, page 3
  2. ↑ Chapter 42: Arrival, page 1
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Chapter 37: A Different Side, page 10
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Chapter 129: Tickets Please, page 12
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 “Ask response on whether Amaya is mute”. 2026-01-24.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 25
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 16
  8. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 19
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 17
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 9
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 6
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Chapter 42: Arrival, page 3
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Chapter 42: Arrival, page 4
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 13
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Four, “Payback”, page 6
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Everyday Life, page 24 🔒 (members only)
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 3
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 11
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 15
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 Chapter 103: It’s All in the Mind, page 5
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 38
  22. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 31
  23. ↑ Chapter 129: Tickets Please, page 15
  24. ↑ Chapter 62: Call Waiting, page 5
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 11
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 23
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Chapter 103: It’s All in the Mind, page 4
  28. ↑ Chapter 103: It’s All in the Mind, page 6
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 Chapter 105: Witch Hunt, page 16
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 20
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 30
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 Chapter 7: Prom Preparation, page 3
  33. ↑ Chapter 12: Off to the Movies, page 2
  34. ↑ Chapter 16: Field Day, page 3
  35. ↑ Chapter 16: Field Day, page 7
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 7
  37. ↑ Chapter 35: Under Pressure, page 3
  38. ↑ Chapter 41: Invitation, page 2
  39. ↑ Chapter 42: Arrival, page 7
  40. ↑ Chapter 45: Return, page 17
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 21
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 3
  43. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 12
  44. ↑ Chapter 80: Happy Hour, page 38
  45. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 8
  46. ↑ 46.0 46.1 46.2 46.3 Chapter 129: Tickets Please, page 24
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 47.2 Chapter 129: Tickets Please, page 25
  48. ↑ Chapter 53: Casting Call, page 1
  49. ↑ Chapter 126: Participation Trophy, page 14
  50. ↑ Chapter 37: A Different Side, page 5
  51. ↑ Chapter 37: A Different Side, page 6
  52. ↑ Chapter 60: Feline Filibuster, page 16
  53. ↑ Chapter 87: Boy Toy, page 16
  54. ↑ “Ask response on BCB ships including Paulo and Amaya”. 2026-05-29.
  55. ↑ Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 30
  56. ↑ Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Four, “Payback”, page 3
  57. ↑ Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Four, “Payback”, page 4
  58. ↑ 58.0 58.1 58.2 Chapter 129: Tickets Please, page 17
  59. ↑ Chapter 129: Tickets Please, page 11
  60. ↑ Chapter 7: Prom Preparation, page 4
  61. ↑ Chapter 13: Puppy Love, page 3
  62. ↑ Chapter 79: Critical Hit, page 9
  63. ↑ Chapter 118: Date Night, page 3
  64. ↑ 64.0 64.1 Chapter 113: Featured Attraction, page 14
  65. ↑ Magic Tricks, page 20 🔒 (members only)
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