Katie

From Candypedia
Katie
GenderFemale
Age16
BirthdayFebruary 1, 1992 (Aquarius)
GradeJunior as of Table for One
SpeciesDog
BreedGolden Retriever
OccupationStudent
AffiliationCheer squad
DebutThe Burden of Parenthood, page 3
March 22, 2010 (2010-03-22)

Katie is Roseville’s self-appointed most popular girl, a cheerleader with a valley-girl cadence who has been in the same grade as Mike, Lucy and Daisy since middle school. She rates people by how well their outfit matches, treats swim class as a hair-care emergency, and travels with her best friend Stacy, who has known her since preschool and puts up with rather a lot. She goes starry-eyed for David, whose fur is shinier than hers. She has known Daisy for years and still manages to call her Danica, Debbie and Maisy.

Personality

Katie rarely gets through a sentence without the word like, and she believes, quite sincerely, that she is the most popular girl in her grade. She is a cheerleader who would rather sit out gym and do her nails. She is a mean girl with a good manicure, and a social climber who forgets the names of the people she is currently using. When something goes wrong she stomps, flings things, and shrieks. She has little patience for boys’ interests, and yet the dopiest boy in school can make her go starry-eyed simply by having better fur than she does.

Field Day leaves Katie more concerned with matching accessories than surviving it.

Looks are Katie’s first measure of a person, herself included. Bleeding and bandaged during a disastrous field day, her grievance is that the bandage doesn’t match anything she owns,[1] and even face-down in the grass she is musing about conditioner and coconut oil.[2] She wants out of swimming class because it leaves her smelling like a wet dog, so she informs the teacher that she is “allergic” and, when pressed on what to, offers “Um.. to water?”[3] A weekly period is her next excuse, and she stands by it later at the pool.[4] Veronica’s commentary says as much: this is a girl who makes excuses so she can sit out and do her nails.[1] She does her makeup in class,[5] checks a compact mirror during lessons,[6] and asks Jessica whether she likes her hair at a slumber party.[7] Other people get graded on the same scale, which is how Daisy ends up “a total mess”,[8] Sue’s swimsuit ends up from the dollar store,[4] and Tess’s hair becomes a bird’s nest.[9]

Katie discovers enthusiasm the moment Jessica and Rachel approve of Sue.

She will say or unsay almost anything to stay popular. She announces herself as the most popular girl in school in eighth grade and again as a freshman, the second time to a club for background characters that she has joined because she thought it was about getting more attention.[10][11] Veronica notes that Katie would absolutely be jealous of any group that might make her more popular.[11] The reversals are instant. She sneers at Sue turning up in a cheer uniform, and then, once Jessica and Rachel approve, she is all hearts, insisting she always said “Sally” would be great for the team.[12] Veronica’s commentary reads like a plea for the seniors to notice her and ignore how rude she has been.[12] Jessica and Rachel are not nearly as keen on Katie. Behind her back Jessica calls her an annoying prima donna and Rachel sums her up as a bully and a snob.[13]

Boys, to Katie, are mostly a scoreboard. Her middle-school crush on Mike is, in Veronica’s words, only there because liking Mike is the popular thing to do. Veronica even jokes that she doubts Katie is capable of genuine emotion.[10] She takes Paulo’s mistletoe off him and runs off to use it on some other boy.[14] Paulo, in turn, finds her hot but far too selfish and bratty to bother with.[15] By sophomore year she is describing an actual date as a chore, sighing that she now has to pretend to care about the boy’s band because “Guy stuff is so stupid.”[16] Her romantic advice is just as transactional, as Daisy finds out. David brings out a rather less dismissive side of her.

She is also not especially bright, and she has very little patience. She announces her “SECRET plan” to seduce a prom date out loud, within Lucy’s earshot.[17] She lands in English I rather than Honors,[18] asks at an audition whether there is a way to be an actress without reading the script,[19] and hears an MMO “raid” as a brand of bug spray.[20] When the field day goes badly she hurls sports equipment across the grass and fires an arrow into the air.[21] Lucy and Sue later laugh about her meltdown over an April Fools’ locker prank; Lucy’s impression has her pleading the First Amendment.[22] A recycling note signed by the “trash ghosts” is enough to leave her gasping in horror.[23]

Appearance

A red convertible completes the look, with a driver to match.

Katie is a yellow-furred dog with long, floppy ears that stream out behind her when she is being dragged across a field.[24][25] Makeup is part of her design rather than a one-off. She is drawn wearing it from her very first panel,[26] and it runs down her face when Lucy hoses her, which earns her the nickname “miss mascara”.[10] She applies it in class and checks it in a compact mirror during lessons.[5][6] Her well-kept fur is her stated pride, which is exactly why David’s outshining it upsets her so much.[17] Her classmates rate her as good-looking; Jessica and the stage manager both say as much out loud.[27]

Her wardrobe is whatever the occasion calls for. She is seen in her cheer uniform from the freshman pep rally through junior-year tryouts.[28][29] At the pool she lounges in a two-piece and strappy sandals that Sue reckons may as well be a bikini,[4] and at Lucy’s slumber party she turns up in a pink polka-dot sleep set.[7] In sophomore year she rides in a red convertible; a red sports car is also where the trash ghosts eventually find her.[30][23]

Significant events

Middle school

Katie first turns up in The Burden of Parenthood, standing beside Stacy and holding a robotic baby doll that she suspects is defective.[26] She argues for Justin Timberlake when Daisy polls the class for prom music,[31] and holds a sleepover that Daisy says she was not invited to.[32] She also quarrels with Daisy over captaincy at the Pep Rally.[33] In Puppy Love she leaps onto Mike’s back, convinced he has accepted her anonymous dance request, and Lucy settles the matter with a garden hose.[10]

Katie looks forward to high school’s older guys.

Katie spends Field Day getting dragged, plowed and bandaged in two tied races.[25][34] She nevertheless finishes the day smitten with David.[35] On the last day of school she is placed in English I and leaves for the summer looking forward to the older guys at high school.[18][36]

Freshman year

High school puts Katie and David together in English I,[5] and she joins the mob that kicks and eggs Mike after the Sandy business comes out.[37] At Tess’s Christmas party in Feline Festivities she runs off with Paulo’s mistletoe, trips face-first into David’s thorn-spiked punch, and vomits it back up.[14][38] The swimming unit in Carry On and Under Pressure is mostly her inventing reasons not to get wet.[3][4] She also runs for student council and loses, as Sue recalls the following year.[39]

Katie joins Mike’s public trial when romance becomes everyone’s business.

In Out of the Frame she helps turn Sue’s club for neglected characters into a mob in search of Lucy.[40][41] She joins Daisy and the older girls for a shopping trip in A Different Side, then tells Daisy to stay away from her at school in Rising Temperature.[9][8] The year ends in Moving On with Katie begging David not to leave when he moves up to CP English II.[42]

Sophomore year

Katie has her own contribution to Pillow Talk’s gossip session.

Katie auditions for the female lead in Sue’s play in Casting Call and loses out when Sue throws Lucy onto the stage between her and Mike.[27][19] At Lucy’s birthday slumber party in Pillow Talk, she piles onto the gossip about Jessica and offers her own first-kiss story.[43][44] In Local Area she has plenty to tell Stacy about a boring date.[16] In Fashion Disaster, a chapter that only appears in Volume Five, Abbey disguises a question about Stacy’s cosplay as corset-colour advice for Daisy. Katie’s objection is to the colour viridian.[24]

Junior year

Clean Slate closes on Katie finding a note weighed down with soda cans on a sports car, signed by the “trash ghosts” and urging her to recycle.[23] In It’s All in the Mind, Lucy and Sue recall her meltdown over an April Fools’ locker prank.[22] She pairs with Stacy for volleyball in Time Out.[45] In Popularity Contest she helps Stacy snub Sue in the hallway,[20] squabbles with Daisy over who runs the cheer squad, and changes her tune about Sue the instant the seniors approve of her.[29][12]

Major relationships

Daisy

Katie’s welcome wears off rather dramatically in Rising Temperature.

Katie’s welcome to Daisy depends heavily on who’s watching. The two have been rivals since middle school, where Katie scowls “showoff” at Daisy for MCing the Pep Rally and the pair end up slapping each other over who should be captain.[46][33] When Daisy falls at the freshman pep rally in A Different Side, Katie asks whether she is okay and even gets her name right.[47] But after Jessica and Rachel praise Daisy’s outburst, Katie is suddenly Daisy’s oldest friend, insisting she knew “Debbie” first to get onto the mall trip.[9] She also calls her Danica before the trip and Maisy afterwards.[9][48] Then she encourages Daisy to pursue Mike despite his girlfriend: “Boys are, like, all the same.” They get desperate when their girlfriends are away, so Daisy should simply be there when it happens.[48] Veronica calls her a pretty awful influence, but agrees that Daisy must either act or accept she has lost.[48]

When Daisy waves to her at school after Easter break in Rising Temperature, with Jessica and Rachel out of sight, Katie asks who she is, then tells her to “BUZZ. OFF.” She explains that she only went along with Daisy because of those girls, and that Daisy is not in her league and is always a mess. She rounds it off by wishing her luck at not being the ugly duckling forever and telling her never to speak to her again.[8] Abbey sees the whole thing. Veronica’s commentary is a small wail of regret, and she also mourns that Katie could have stayed chaotic instead of becoming an actual cruel mean girl to Daisy.[8][40] Jessica and Rachel, when Abbey asks about them, make clear they were never Katie’s friends either.[13]

By junior year Daisy is cheer captain, which Katie treats as a clerical error. In Popularity Contest she tries to take credit for leading the squad while the two of them push cheek-to-cheek with fixed smiles,[29] and she tuts that Daisy’s decision to let Sue try out is “unresponsible”.[12]

David

David tells a starry-eyed Katie she smells like dirt in Field Day.

Katie’s crush on David is an awkward fit for her social climbing, and it hits her as soon as she notices his fur is shinier than hers.[17] She spends Field Day trying to learn his routine. He tells her his product is “Ovaries”, she goes looking for it in a magazine, and when he finally reveals that he rolls in dirt she swoons and calls him her “beauty guru”.[17][35] Mike, watching from the sidelines, notes that the two are really getting along.[35] Freshman year puts them side by side in English I, where she pinches his ear and tells him how smart he is while he informs her that he can see her cleavage.[5]

She is still willing to put him down in public. In front of Sue’s club she tells him he is “a loser among the losers, hon”.[11] Yet when he moves up to CP English II in Moving On she falls apart entirely, protesting that they were best friends or something and that she needs him, then offering to fulfil his desires. David has her scratch his back, declares all his desires fulfilled, and walks out, with Katie clinging to his leg shouting “DON’T LEAVE ME”.[42] David’s own feelings are harder to read: he offers to “try again” at making a baby with her in eighth grade, when she complains about her robotic doll.[26] At Lucy’s slumber party he brushes her hair while she sits with her eyes closed, perfectly content.[44]

Stacy

Katie asks the question Stacy has learned not to answer.

Katie usually sets the terms of her friendship with Stacy. From their shared debut onward Stacy is at her shoulder answering “Fer shure!” to whatever Katie has just declared.[26][31] She suggests the angry mob in Out of the Frame,[40] and is still walking the halls with Katie junior year.[49] The affection is real on Katie’s side too, in her fashion. She hugs Stacy and swears her to secrecy over a boring date as though it were state business.[16] She also throws an arm round her shoulders and pairs with her in gym.[20][45]

Stacy is the clever one, and it grates on Katie. She demands to know how Stacy got into Honors,[18] and when Stacy stays behind to wait for a study partner Katie yells “Looooserrrrr” as the convertible she is riding in pulls away.[30] So Stacy hides. In Popularity Contest she shrugs when Katie asks whether she knows “this freak”, then backs up Katie’s dismissal of Sue.[50][20] She later explains that Katie can be awful sometimes, but “I’ve known her since preschool!” and if anyone knew about her role-playing hobby she would lose everything.[51] Veronica jokes that Katie is heroically saving Stacy from a life enslaved to MMORPGs.[20] When Stacy finally apologizes to Sue, she admits she wishes she could be more herself: “Katie makes it tough.”[52]

Minor relationships

Sue

Katie keeps bulldozing Sue’s plans. She trades swimsuit insults with Sue at the pool,[4] and she helps turn Sue’s club for background characters into a mob rather than a meeting.[41] In Popularity Contest she is the wall between Sue and Stacy, demanding to know whether Stacy knows “this freak” and hearing Sue’s mention of a raid as “BUG SPRAY”.[50][20] She fawns over “Sally” the moment the seniors approve of her.[12] Sue’s verdict, delivered to Stacy, is that Katie is an airhead jerk.[51]

Lucy

Lucy is unimpressed by Katie’s claims to popularity. Katie calls her the ugly duckling and gets hosed for it,[10] and then gets dragged bleeding through the three-legged race.[25] Later she assumes Lucy is skipping swimming because of her period.[53] At lunch she tests whether bottled water bothers Lucy too, splashing her until Lucy snaps “Go back to your table!”[54] Lucy is still doing impressions of her years later.[22]

Mike

Katie mistakes Mike’s sarcasm for romantic confirmation in Puppy Love.

Katie’s crush on Mike is a fashion choice, and she treats him accordingly. She jumps on his back in Puppy Love, certain he has accepted her anonymous dance request; he promptly tells Sue that he is not inviting Katie to the dance.[10] During Field Day he plows her face through the dirt in the wheelbarrow race.[34] In high school she joins the crowd egging and kicking him,[37] and pesters him about why “your girlfriend” skips swimming.[3]

Quotes

Like, I knew you’d pick me. I am, like, the most popular girl in school after all! Katie, from Mike’s back in Puppy Love

This bandage doesn’t match ANYTHING! Katie, bleeding, and with priorities, in Field Day

Um, like, you can’t PROVE I’m not having my period every week? Katie, to Sue, poolside, in Under Pressure

Don’t worry.. Maybe you won’t be, like, the ugly duckling forever, ‘kay? Now PLEASE don’t ever, like, talk to me again. Katie, dropping Daisy in the hallway in Rising Temperature

Buttt, like, David! We were, like, best friends or something! You can’t just, like, go! I, like, need you or some junk! Katie, as David leaves English I in Moving On

“Raid”?! You mean like the BUG SPRAY?! Ewwwwuh! Katie, to Sue in Popularity Contest

Trivia

  • Her full name is Katherine, and she reacts to hearing it with an “Eww!”[55]
  • Her “ugly duckling” insult recurs for both Lucy and Daisy.[10][8]
  • Veronica’s commentary on the “Ovaries” gag calls Katie the tragic result of American sex education.[17]
  • The remastered Out of the Frame cast Katie in roles originally filled by DeviantArt fan-characters; Veronica says the chapter wrote itself once Katie was in it.[11]
  • Veronica shot down a fan headcanon that Katie’s family is anti-vaccine, saying that crossed a line.[56]
  • The noncanon Ships Ahoy gag strips pair her with David (#41) and with Stacy (#60).[57][58]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 16: Field Day, page 6
  2. ↑ Chapter 16: Field Day, page 4
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Chapter 31: Carry On, page 1
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Chapter 35: Under Pressure, page 2
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Chapter 21: Enter High School, page 5
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 4
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 12
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Chapter 38: Rising Temperature, page 3
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Chapter 37: A Different Side, page 15
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 Chapter 13: Puppy Love, page 3
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 Out of the Frame, page 1
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 11
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 46: New Beginnings, page 7
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 12
  15. ↑ Chapter 44: Intervention, page 13
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 15
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 Chapter 16: Field Day, page 2
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Chapter 18: Farewell, Middle School, page 3
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Chapter 53: Casting Call, page 9
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 4
  21. ↑ Chapter 16: Field Day, page 10
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 Chapter 103: It’s All in the Mind, page 6
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 Chapter 93: Clean Slate, page 12
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Five, “Fashion Disaster”, page 1; Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Five, “Fashion Disaster”, page 2; Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Five, “Fashion Disaster”, page 3
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 Chapter 16: Field Day, page 5
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 26.3 Chapter 5: The Burden of Parenthood, page 3
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Chapter 53: Casting Call, page 7
  28. ↑ Chapter 37: A Different Side, page 9
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 9
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 1
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Chapter 7: Prom Preparation, page 1
  32. ↑ Chapter 8: Helping Hands, page 1
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Chapter 11: Pep Rally, page 4
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 Chapter 16: Field Day, page 8
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 Chapter 16: Field Day, page 12
  36. ↑ Chapter 18: Farewell, Middle School, page 5
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 Chapter 22: A Difficult Choice, page 4; Chapter 24: Wardrobe Malfunction, page 2
  38. ↑ Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 13
  39. ↑ Chapter 60: Feline Filibuster, page 5
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 40.2 Out of the Frame, page 2
  41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 Out of the Frame, page 3
  42. ↑ 42.0 42.1 Chapter 40: Moving On, page 3
  43. ↑ Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 19
  44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 39
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 Chapter 108: Time Out, page 9
  46. ↑ Chapter 11: Pep Rally, page 3
  47. ↑ Chapter 37: A Different Side, page 11
  48. ↑ 48.0 48.1 48.2 Chapter 37: A Different Side, page 16
  49. ↑ Chapter 101: Mutual Assurance, page 1
  50. ↑ 50.0 50.1 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 3
  51. ↑ 51.0 51.1 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 8
  52. ↑ Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 14
  53. ↑ Chapter 31: Carry On, page 4
  54. ↑ Chapter 31: Carry On, page 5
  55. ↑ Chapter 53: Casting Call, page 6
  56. ↑ “Ask response rejecting an anti-vax headcanon about Katie”. 2021-03-09.
  57. ↑ Ships Ahoy, Season Four, page 2 🔒 (members only)
  58. ↑ Ships Ahoy, Season Five, page 7 🔒 (members only)
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