Paulo

Paulo
Gender	Male
Age	16
Birthday	April 16, 1992 (Aries)
Grade	Junior as of Table for One
Species	Cat
Breed	Somali
Family	Paulo’s dad (Father) Rose Muir (Mother) Clara (Half-sister)
Occupation	Student, Burger-Tron employee
Affiliation	Junior friend group
Residence	Paulo’s house
Debut	Simple Pleasures, page 4 November 2, 2009 (2009-11-02)

Paulo is an orange Somali who skateboarded into Simple Pleasures slapping Lucy’s rear, and he has spent most of the comic since then getting hit for it. Transplanted from Maraschino to Roseville in the fifth grade, he built an entire ladies’-man routine out of sheer terror of talking to girls, and the routine stuck around long after he learned how to talk to them. Between shifts at Burger-Tron he has carried torches for Tess and Lucy, dated several other girls, and finally fallen for Daisy, the classmate who said hello to him on his very first day. It took him years to admit what David had spotted much earlier.

Personality

Paulo’s idea of keeping friends safe involves making the bridge worse.

Paulo will talk over you, probably wedgie you, and then go after anyone else who tries it. He starts off as an obnoxious would-be womanizer, picking on his male friends while David eggs him on. His no-filter loud mouth gets him in trouble even when he is trying to help. He wears nothing at all to school and a suit on dates, and he tears up far more easily than anyone that noisy has any right to. Behind all that, the bragging is mostly for strangers, and the crying is mostly for friends.

His carefully practised charm meets Lucy’s considerably less practised patience.

Paulo’s flirting act grew out of shyness, with Lucy giving him a particularly urgent reason to overcome it. As he tells it in Flirting with Disaster, he arrived at Roseville Elementary School so frightened of Lucy that he ran away the first time she spoke to him. In sixth grade he followed a slick high schooler named Aaron around the mall and copied his lines, and they worked on Aaron’s own girlfriends. He kept the act because other girls liked the new him and because he was too proud to drop it, and he admits to Lucy that he became exactly the kind of guy she hates. The act is less help when he has to risk being sincere. He stammers through a confession in Lucy’s dressing room until she cuts him off with an invitation to make out. Asking Daisy to be his girlfriend is another ordeal, and on their first date he struggles to kiss her. His own Art Fight blurb about Lucy says as much in character: she intimidates him, so he hides it by hitting on her some more.

He says whatever he is thinking, and his friends have come to prize that about him. A drunk Mike tells him in Happy Hour that he admires how Paulo always says what he means and wishes he could be that straight and honest himself. When he points that same bluntness at Sandy on Mike’s behalf, he leaves the voicemail in Witch Hunt that has Mike asking why on earth he would do that. He is a little less honest when the subject is himself. He tells Lucy the morning after their night together that she is talking to him, not Mike, and that “I don’t DO awkward..” while blushing through that very conversation. He insists through tears in Double Down that he is over her, and he nearly tells Daisy in Good Enough that he wants her love, then pretends he means Lucy’s. He is capable of a plainer apology, too. When Sue challenges him in Tickets Please, he admits he used to be a nasty guy with a chip on his shoulder.

Paulo can be recklessly brave, which is admirable until he is the danger. In middle school he dives in front of a car to save a bird, and in Carry Me he tackles a feverish Lucy out of traffic and then clings to the back of a moving bus. He tells hecklers at the convention to get out of his sight, and David sums him up in Golden Hour as a guy who fights for his friends. His roughhousing with David, though, cracks the rock bridge in Search and Rescue.

An apology finally leaves Paulo with nowhere to hide behind a joke.

He thinks very little of himself, and he has a specific reason for it. His mother left when he was small, and by his own telling she has not called, written, or sent a birthday present since the move to Roseville. He asks David “Am I a good person?” on the beach and answers himself with a guess that he has always been a fake. After hearing his friends pick him apart in Behind Closed Doors he decides that everyone thinks he is rotten and, well, “Maybe I am. So what.” Even after Daisy says she wants him, he has to ask whether she is sure.

He lashes out fast and apologises almost as fast. He screams homophobic abuse at Matt on the beach and is saying sorry for everything within a few pages. He punches Mike in the snow in Leaving Home and is soon sobbing on the ground, and in Mutual Assurance he hugs Mike outside school and admits “I’m always taking it too far”. The homophobic jabs are a habit of long standing, from calling Mike a fruitcake to tossing off the word as a punchline. Paulo is the one who eventually names it as a problem. He tells Matt that he does not know who he is lately and that he keeps taking his insecurity out on other people.

Part of what he does not know about himself is who he is attracted to, and for a while he keeps his questions quiet. He asks Mike in Boy Toy whether Mike has ever liked a guy, begs to be taken seriously, and then asks whether Mike thinks he is weird. He tells Daisy he might be questioning, hugs Matt on the beach while insisting he is just “testing something out”, and flirts with Jordan in Fair Game before loudly taking it back. On the bleachers in Track Meet he finally says it without a joke attached, conceding that “James is.. pretty.. .. good-looking.” He still bristles at the idea that this means love, telling Daisy he likes other people too, and he has never put a label on any of it himself.

For a boy who wants to give nerds swirlies, he is a bit of a nerd. He sneers at internet nerds and at the SwordsVale crowd, and then loses his mind meeting the Hyper Space Cadets actors at the convention in Guest of Honor. In Tickets Please he can discuss Abbey’s book and admits Jasmine helped him with the Twilight question. Lucy duly lumps him in with the rest of the group’s nerds.

He takes work seriously, not least because he is worried about money. He mops up vomit three times in one Burger-Tron shift with a customer-service grin. He frets that detention will cost him hours, and he says he does not want to stress out his dad, to whom he gives half of what he earns. Even getting together with Daisy has to fit around his shift: he brings her back inside because he really does not want to get fired. In the same spirit, Veronica has said he served Augustus at the counter because he was not about to put his job at risk.

Appearance

Paulo is happy to explain the advantages of being a Somali.

Paulo is a Somali with long orange fur and white markings on his chest and face, a breed he is happy to brag about. His hair tips are a darker brown and his eyes are a lighter brown. As a fifth-grader in the Flirting with Disaster flashback he turns up in a long-sleeved hoodie with a white hood. He stands a little taller than some of his friends, tall enough to yell about it at Jordan, though Abbey is taller still. Veronica’s notes correct an early design sheet that put Abbey slightly below Paulo.

Paulo is largely seen without clothes unless the situation calls for it. Formal occasions include dates, as with a suit and corsage for junior prom with Tess, his dad’s shirt for his date with Jessica, and the same suit again for his second prom with Rachel. From Small Fry onward he is often in his Burger-Tron uniform and yellow gloves. His costume efforts are a mixed bag. There is a Santa hat with mistletoe attached one Christmas, a Twilight vampire in Mischief Night that amounts to casual clothes and glitter courtesy of Jasmine, and a rather more committed Joker in Witch Hunt.

In Unspoken Rule, Paulo gets a haircut and shows it off at Lucy’s door, and for the rest of the comic his cheek hairs are a lot less bushy. Veronica’s commentary on that page is frank about the reason, calling his original hair an annoying mess that “would create tangents around his neck”.

Significant events

Elementary and middle school

David wastes no time declaring a new best friend in Mother’s Day.

Paulo moves to Roseville from the city of Maraschino as a new fifth-grader, and Daisy is the first classmate to welcome him. He shows off by climbing a tree, panics the moment Lucy speaks to him, and runs. The Mother’s Day flashback shows what he carries with him from home. Alone up a tree, he remembers his mother calling his father worthless and lazy, warning that growing up in that house would make Paulo just like him, and finally telling his father “Keep him, then!” David catches him crying up there, and by the end of the day the two are best friends and Paulo is handing his father a card. The summer before sixth grade brings a less successful bit of showing off: his tree-race dare in Troubled Waters ends with Mike falling into a river after avoiding a bird’s nest. Paulo pulls Lucy and Mike back out. In sixth grade he picks up his pickup lines from Aaron at the mall, and Lucy punches him the first time he tries them on her.

By the time middle school rolls around, the act is fully installed. He debuts in Simple Pleasures by skateboarding past Lucy, slapping her rear, and offering her a ride. That ends with him crashing into a turtle and David hauling him off while screaming about park bears. He looks after the baby doll Alegria in The Burden of Parenthood, throws himself in front of a car for a bird in Helping Hands, and spends the rest of the era needling Mike.

Freshman year

Paulo’s grand romantic entrance earns him a date, though not quite the one he imagined.

High school starts in Enter High School, and Paulo spends most of the year in love with a junior. He takes Tess to prom as friends and defends her against Jay and his jeering classmates in A Different Side, and then gets his heart broken properly in Love My Way when she tells him he is only a kid. The same year, a game of truth or dare in Flirting with Disaster gets Lucy to admit that he was her first crush, and gets Paulo to explain where the whole playboy routine came from. The year closes with a toast to the end of freshman year in Moving On.

Summer after freshman year

The summer trip in Arrival and Search and Rescue has Paulo sharing a bed with Mike and cracking a rock bridge while playing rough with David. In Intervention David badgers him into admitting that, forced to choose, he would save Daisy over Tess.

Sophomore year

Lucy turns up at his door after Mike rejects her and stays overnight in Another Shoulder, a night that changes how the two of them treat each other. Back and Forth is rougher on him. Jessica takes him clubbing and he has his first sexual experience with her in the restroom, then asks her afterwards “Was I that bad!?” and curls up in a ball apologising when she calls him inexperienced. Jessica’s scheming also sets up his drive-in date with Rachel, and by the end of the chapter Jasmine has rescued him from a hallway brawl and the two start dating.

Rachel’s morning-after arrangement begins with Paulo apologising to someone else.

The relationship with Jasmine lasts until the winter, and Lucy is most of the reason it goes no further. Paulo campaigns for Daisy in Feline Filibuster, carries a feverish Lucy across town in Carry Me and struggles with wanting her while dating Jasmine, and he and Jasmine call it off at New Year’s in Ten Seconds to Midnight. He goes to Lucy’s dressing room in Curtain Call meaning to confess, and she leaves Roseville without warning in Leaving Home, leaving him face-down in the snow with Mike. He wakes up at Rachel’s the next morning, and the two settle into a friends-with-benefits arrangement that carries through Volume Five’s exclusive Afterglow. At Rachel’s birthday party in Happy Hour he gets drunk, names Mike his best friend, and lets slip that his father drinks.

Spring is when he gets a job, and not long after that a hospital bed. In Small Fry he starts at Burger-Tron, gets a burnt birthday breakfast from his dad, and lets Rachel teach him to drive. He takes Rachel to his second junior prom in Total Recall, but the drive home ends in a crash that is not his fault. Mike and Tess visit him in the Hospital. In Boy Toy he confides in Mike that he might have feelings for a guy, and in Class of 2008 Tess graduates and says goodbye.

Summer after sophomore year

Paulo spends a whole convention day with Daisy in Guest of Honor, and Abbey grabs him by the throat, shoves him into a restroom stall and threatens him. The weekend at Matt’s aunt’s beach house in Golden Hour brings a painful phone call from Daisy, an unexpected declaration from David, and a confrontation with Matt. Behind Closed Doors, set between Ice Block and Dial Tone, has him hiding in Mike’s closet and overhearing the SwordsVale group and Daisy discuss him. When he finally leaves, he goes straight to Rachel’s door.

Junior year

The new school year finds him cold toward Daisy in Table for One. Once Lucy returns, his arrangement with Rachel ends in Unspoken Rule, and he turns up at Lucy’s door with a new haircut.

Lucy is back in Roseville this year, and the two of them keep colliding. Their carnival date in After You ends on a Ferris wheel with Lucy telling him he never had a chance, and in High Expectations he confronts her about Augustus and walks away hurt. Between those, at Daisy’s sixteenth birthday in Moments Apart, he and Daisy have their first honest talk about what they think of each other. He apologises to Mike outside school in Mutual Assurance, scouts Jordan on Matt’s behalf in Fair Game, leaves Sandy a voicemail in Witch Hunt, and dismisses college while serving the SAT-takers in College Material. Miranda offers to recommend him for a summer job instead.

Paulo walks away from High Expectations with the point painfully clear.

Throwing a volleyball at Abbey’s head in Time Out lands Paulo on the principal’s couch beside him, where he talks about his mother and floats the idea of looking for her in Maraschino. He offers Abbey a ride in Fuel Economy and the two trade apologies. In Double Down he confronts Lucy about avoiding her friends, and the fight ends with a slap and Paulo punching a tree in the snow. Later, on the bleachers in Track Meet, Daisy and Paulo each admit something about who they find attractive.

Later that winter, Paulo nearly confesses to Daisy over milkshakes at Burger-Tron in Good Enough and covers by saying he meant Lucy. Over the holidays in New Year’s Resolution he finds his mother online under the name Rose Muir, raising a young daughter he guesses is six or seven. The discovery leaves him asking Mike why nobody loves him, and Mike’s answer lands harder than either of them expected.

In Rain Check, Paulo makes the leap, though the weather is still doing the dramatic work.

In Rain Check he runs out of a shift in the rain to tell Daisy he loves her, and the two become a couple. They keep it quiet through Review Session, where Paulo also confirms his summer job and his decision not to go to college. A gift and heartfelt thanks from Abbey make him hesitate in Third Wheel, but he and Daisy decide to keep dating in secret. Their first proper date in Made Fresh ends in his beat-up yellow car with even Paulo asking to take things slow. In Tickets Please he wins a ticket contest against Sue, apologises to her for the person he used to be, and brings the tickets to a sick Daisy.

Major relationships

Lucy

Lucy calls their night together wrong, while Paulo remembers it fondly in After You.

For Paulo, Lucy has always been both the reason for the act and the person most likely to punch him for it. The two liked each other on sight in fifth grade, and he was so scared of her that he ran when she spoke to him. When he finally tried Aaron’s lines on her in sixth grade she punched him, crying that he was just like all the rest, and he kept the persona anyway. The early comic runs on that pattern. He harasses her, often inappropriately, and takes a well-deserved cartoonish thrashing for it. Even mid-confession in Flirting with Disaster, right after she tells him the real him is still inside, he offers to show her how real this Paulo can get and earns an uppercut.

Somewhere in sophomore year he became the person she went to, which was never quite the same as being the person she wanted. After Mike rejects her she spends the night at his place in Another Shoulder. He tells her that people love her and promises that wherever he is she has got him. They make out, but he stops things going further while she is so upset. By morning he is daring her to check under the covers and crowing that he made her look. Carrying her feverish across town in Carry Me, he cries that he just wants to be with someone he really likes. He goes to her dressing room in Curtain Call to finally say so, and she cuts him off with “Let’s make out.” His whole answer is “Okay.” She vanishes from Roseville days later, and he never does get to say it.

When she comes back, he finds out she had already agreed to leave when she slept with him, and it takes him a long while to forgive her for it. On the Ferris wheel in After You she admits she was trying to tide him over before she left. He says it was nice, and she says it was not right. When she shouts that he never had a chance he rips the head off the teddy bear she won him. He confronts her over Augustus in High Expectations and asks why she did not just stay gone. The worst of it comes in Double Down. She tells him she disappeared because she tried to kill herself, he accuses her of sleeping with Augustus and throws their own sexual history back at her, and she slaps him: “I only did it ’cause I felt sorry for you.” He tells her how good it feels to finally hear that, because he is so over her, and he says it crying. He apologises for the Augustus remarks across the Burger-Tron counter in Rain Check, but their reconciliation still puts him in a difficult position. In Line in the Sand, he wants to check on Mike until Lucy invokes his old promise: “Say the word”. He sits back down, putting Lucy first despite his worry about Mike.

Daisy

On the Scenic Route, Daisy refuses to let Paulo mistake uncertainty for failure.

Paulo has trouble believing he is good enough for Daisy. Long before admitting to a crush, he explained his attachment as a debt to her kindness. She was the first classmate to speak to him at Roseville Elementary School and the first to tell the others he was amazing. When David forces the fairytale choice in Intervention, Paulo picks her over Tess. His reasoning is that she was the first person who wanted to be his friend and the only one who accepted him after he became a womanizing jerk, and that all he has ever done is take her for granted. David’s reply is that Paulo likes her, and Paulo blushes and says nothing. He pays the debt in odd currency. He intimidates the sophomore electorate into voting for her in Feline Filibuster, makes a pact with her in Take Heart that at least one of them should be happy, and teaches her to skip rocks in Scenic Route. When she talks about studying overseas, he starts worrying about saving enough to visit.

Paulo strong-arms Daisy’s voters in Feline Filibuster.

The two fall out for a while because Paulo decides she will not stick up for him either. After Abbey assaults him at the convention, Daisy phones him in Golden Hour to say Abbey is nothing like him and that she used to look up to him. Then, hidden in Mike’s closet in Behind Closed Doors, he hears Daisy join her friends in declaring that Paulo sucks, and he walks home concluding that nobody is on his side, not even her. He stays cold toward her through Table for One and Love Again, until she cries to him in Unspoken Rule that she misses him and minds losing him more than she minds her own breakup.

From there Daisy does most of the work of talking him into his own worth. At her sixteenth birthday in Moments Apart he tells her she is the brilliant one, she tells him he looks “strong and soft”, and when she asks whether he has ever thought of her that way he refuses to answer. On the bleachers in Track Meet they trade admissions about who they find attractive, and in Good Enough he nearly confesses over milkshakes before covering with “Uhh, Lucy’s. Lucy’s love.” It takes overhearing her own confession to Lucy in Rain Check to get him out into the rain, where he tells her that “It’s really not that hard falling in love with your best friend.” Even then he goes back inside so he will not get fired. He asks whether she is sure she wants him, since he thought she was destined for something greater. Daisy punches his shoulder: “You won’t drag me down.” Veronica has said the two got together much earlier than she originally planned. They date quietly at first. In Third Wheel Paulo wonders whether they should wait to get together for Abbey’s sake, then immediately protests that he does not want to: “I love you!” They settle on keeping it secret instead. On their first proper date in Made Fresh he lists his quick relationships and says he wants this one to go slower. He still turns up with the contest tickets in Tickets Please and returns her kiss despite her cold, and his Art Fight blurb admits in so many words that he does not think he deserves her.

Mike

They call it even, more or less, in Mutual Assurance.

Mike is the friend Paulo wants to be better for, and for a long stretch he is also the one Paulo treats the worst. They met amicably enough in fifth grade, with Paulo apologising for scaring him, but by middle school they were rivals for the same girl. Mike is the pansy who catches Lucy when Paulo crashes, the target of nicknames like Homo McWhiskers, and the victim of a cheating rumour Paulo happily stirs up. The childhood tree race in Troubled Waters ends with Paulo helping pull Mike out of the river. A late-night apology has Paulo calling him a true friend on the summer trip in Arrival, which is about as far as the truce goes for a while.

Mike is also the person Paulo tells the truth to when he is drunk or crying or both. When Lucy vanishes in Leaving Home he punches Mike, then sobs face-down in the snow that he never got to tell her while Mike strokes his head, and answers the offer of support with “Hands off, fruitcake.” Drunk at Rachel’s party in Happy Hour, he decides Mike is alright after all and names him his best friend, to David’s wounded little “Hey..” When Mike says he cares in Total Recall, Paulo asks where the engagement ring is, then calls him back for “Me too.” Mike is the first person he tells about liking a guy in Boy Toy. In Mutual Assurance he hugs Mike outside school and asks him outright for one more chance: “I want to be better.. so please don’t give up on me.” He repays that patience with Sandy interventions Mike never asked for, telling him he is either part of her life or he is not, leaving her the Witch Hunt voicemail from Mike’s phone, and play-acting a call to her in Eternal Flame.

In New Year’s Resolution, Paulo briefly wonders whether Mike might mean more than friendship. Reeling from finding his mother online, he asks Mike why nobody loves him, and Mike tells him plainly that he loves him and that Paulo is his best friend. Paulo says not to get any ideas, Mike hurries to clarify, and Paulo looks let down and cries before covering by shouting that nobody at their school is good enough for Daisy. He warns, “Don’t just throw that word around, dumbass.” But Mike insists he means it: Paulo has stayed beside him when he felt alone. They embrace, and Paulo accepts that being loved as a friend matters too. These days the worry runs both ways. In Made Fresh he presses Mike about skipping meals and gets redirected toward Lucy, which Veronica has pointed out with some exasperation on his behalf. In Tickets Please, though, the good influence he is trying to thank without giving away his relationship is Daisy. Lucy supplies “Mike” as cover, and Paulo flushes and agrees: “Yes. Mike.”

David

Even buying ice cream becomes an excuse for David to hug his amigo.

David has loved Paulo unconditionally since the fifth grade, and Paulo has spent the years since not entirely sure what to do with that. They met in Mother’s Day when David caught him crying up a tree and Paulo dared him to come up and say that. On the principal’s bench Paulo blurted out that his parents were separated, and David thought that was cool since he had no dad at all. After checking that Paulo’s dad was cool, he declared “We’re best friends now!” David has been the sidekick and getaway vehicle ever since, hauling Paulo off from park bears, playing Kapow with him until a bridge cracks, and accidentally giving Chirpy the magazine meant for Paulo at their joint birthday party. He calls Paulo Aibou, and he is visibly hurt in Happy Hour when a drunk Paulo hands the best-friend title to Mike.

David is also right about Paulo more often than anyone else is, which Paulo finds hard to take. He spotted the Daisy thing first, dismantling every objection in Intervention until Paulo shouted “Daisy, OKAY?!” and later complained about being brainwashed. The following summer, when Paulo tells him on the beach in Golden Hour that Daisy hates him, David insists that she cares about him enormously, “And that’s why you’ll reproduce!” In the same conversation Paulo asks whether he is a good person and begs David to be real for once. David lifts him bodily, spins him around, tells him he fights for his friends and is the apple of his eye, “And that’s why I love you.” Paulo realises he means every word and flees. The following day in Ice Block he tries to bring it up, gets nowhere, and settles for insisting on paying for David’s ice cream, an easier thank-you than talking about what David said. David responds to the news about Paulo’s mother in New Year’s Resolution by vowing to kill her.

Rachel

Rachel smiles sweetly while Paulo admits their relationship is complicated in Happy Hour.

Rachel wanted something from Paulo that he never quite had to give, because when she had him he was often thinking about somebody else. Their date at the Drive-in theater was Jessica’s scheme; afterwards Rachel teased him about being a virgin, not knowing what had happened with Jessica. When she apologised for the setup later, he forgave her on the grounds that everyone is pretty stupid sometimes. He wakes up at her place the morning after Lucy leaves town, and the two settle into friends with benefits. Rachel develops feelings, but Paulo is still crying over Lucy into Rachel’s arms over a toilet in Happy Hour. When Rachel confesses during his driving lessons in Small Fry, he brings up Lucy again. In the later Volume Five-exclusive Afterglow she admits she has held out hope for something more, and he panics that he thought she wanted fun and not to get married. She laughs it off and calls him a good lay and a good guy, and he pouts, “JUST ‘good’?”

He did not handle the ending well. In Behind Closed Doors he walks from Mike’s closet straight to her door, having decided that everyone is right about him being rotten, and kisses her. Madison calls out how he has been treating her. Once Lucy is back in Roseville, Rachel finally walks away in Unspoken Rule. Paulo asks whether Lucy’s return bothers her; Rachel replies that it should not, since they are not together. She cries out of his sight, then pulls herself together: “It’s for the best.” They stay friends, and she is still delighted to see him. Paulo counts Rach among his quick relationships that were not really good. His Art Fight blurb admits he wanted friends with benefits because there were other girls he would rather have been with, and that he feels bad about it.

Tess

Tess admits that falling for Paulo is precisely why they cannot be together.

Tess took Paulo’s crush seriously enough to tell him he was too young for the relationship he wanted. He takes her to junior prom as friends and defends her against Jay and their jeering classmates in A Different Side, but at the prom itself in Love My Way the rumours about her past get to him. He asks whether he is better than any of her exes, and she answers that he is one of her best friends. Then it comes out: “Dammit, I love you!” Tess tells him he is just a kid with his whole life ahead of him for love, and says she wants memories of them as friends. Their hotel-room embrace in Return looks like more to Lucy, but David’s questions about Daisy have given Paulo cold feet. He insists they are not a couple, and is still a virgin when Jessica gets hold of him.

The fondness outlasted the crush on both sides, from a slight distance. She refuses to teach him to drive in Small Fry, and she sits with him in the Hospital in Total Recall and owns up to her own past. At her graduation in Class of 2008, he finally understands her decision: he will miss her, but wants her to “kick ass out there.” Tess kisses his forehead and says she will miss him too. She later heads the list of quick relationships he gives Daisy.

Abbey

They still don’t like each other, naturally.

Paulo and Abbey spent much of high school disliking each other and arrived at something like friendship by way of a principal’s couch. Paulo let him write his essay in Rising Temperature and kept up the jabs through high school. Abbey escalated things in a convention restroom in Guest of Honor, grabbing Paulo by the throat and shoving him into a stall. Over Paulo’s protest that he had not done anything, Abbey called it a warning. Paulo called him a psycho afterwards, and later revealed the assault to Daisy over lunch in Love Again.

Sent to the principal after Paulo hits Abbey with a volleyball in Time Out, they discover how much they have in common. Stuck beside Abbey in the principal’s waiting room, Paulo told him “At least your mother fucking loved you.” He went on to give the plainest account of his mother he has given anyone. There had been no visits or calls since the move, he guessed she thought he and his dad were losers and wanted a better family, and maybe he could go looking for her in Maraschino. He swatted Abbey’s hand away when it got too kind, and Abbey covered for him with the principal afterwards. In Fuel Economy Paulo offers him a ride while insisting he still does not like him. He admits Daisy put him up to the apology but says the ride is his own idea, and Abbey answers by asking forgiveness for the threatening and the assaulting.

Abbey has said in so many words what the friendship has done for him. In Third Wheel he brings Paulo a book and explains that he has talked to his therapist about him a lot. If someone he used to hate is not actually a bad person, he says, maybe he can learn to go easier on himself. Paulo hugs him and tells him “You’re a really cool guy.” The conversation makes Paulo worry about hurting Abbey by getting together with Daisy. His Art Fight blurb sums up where they stand: he is cool with being friends, even though Abbey is annoying.

Minor relationships

Matt

In Golden Hour, Paulo finally sees what his insults are doing to Matt.

Paulo met Matt as a rival for Rachel’s attention in Take Heart and, on learning that Matt is gay, swapped jealousy for plain rudeness. On the beach weekend in Golden Hour, fresh from David’s declaration, Paulo screams at Matt that he is not like that and calls him a creep. Within moments he is swearing, begging him not to tell Rachel, and apologising for everything. Matt tells him about coming out to unhappy parents and says reactions like Paulo’s are why he still hides it. When Paulo calls himself a worthless bully with no future, Matt reminds him “You’re SIXTEEN” and that owning up to mistakes makes him a good kid. Paulo hugs him by the campfire, claiming to be testing something, and Matt tells him to take his time.

Paulo repays him in Fair Game by investigating Matt’s crush, Jordan, to see whether Jordan is gay. Upon learning he is not, Paulo tells Matt and praises his optimism, only to discover how frightened Matt is of never finding someone. Paulo tries to reassure him, but soon they are both crying, with Matt comforting him in turn. His discretion has limits. In Made Fresh he blurts Matt’s crush to Jordan himself, then tells Jordan that someone out there thinks he is worth it.

Jasmine

Paulo tells Jasmine he doesn’t need a crazy girlfriend on top of everything else in Back and Forth.

Paulo later singled out his relationship with Jasmine as better than his other early relationships, though his feelings for Lucy stayed on his mind throughout. She saves him from a hallway brawl in Back and Forth, and he pronounces her awesome. They print campaign posters together in Feline Filibuster, but her crowded schedule becomes a sore point: their argument in Pillow Talk ends with her calling him a slacker. His guilt over Lucy while carrying her in Carry Me makes matters worse. The two break up mutually at New Year’s in Ten Seconds to Midnight, after which she cries alone and later calls him immature. Jasmine has since said the relationship taught her to relax, and she speaks well of him to Daisy. Paulo, ranking his own history for Daisy, sets her apart from the rest: “I.. liked what I had with Jasmine. That was better.”

Paulo’s dad

His father’s parental investigation ends with a reminder about school.

Paulo and his father get along in the wordless way of two people sharing a home. His dad works a job that puts him in a hard hat and comes home late, and Paulo says he never really checks on him. When Lucy and Paulo pass him at the breakfast table in Another Shoulder, his whole reaction is “You’re gonna be late.” and a smirk behind the newspaper. Fifth-grade Paulo told David his dad was cool, and the Father’s Day card in Mother’s Day earned a “Thanks, kid.” Paulo goes to him in Piece of Cake to ask whether feelings for a friend count as cheating, gets a burnt birthday breakfast from him in Small Fry, and hands over half his Burger-Tron pay. Not that everything is fine at home. Drunk in Happy Hour, Paulo remarks that it is no wonder his dad drinks, and in Time Out his biggest worry about detention is stressing his dad out.

Sue

Paulo defends a real interest, and Sue still refuses to believe him.

Paulo and Sue just find each other annoying, as Veronica puts it. They clash at the Art gallery in Critical Hit, he calls her fatty in Take Heart, and she is one of the voices pressuring Daisy about him in Behind Closed Doors. The ticket contest in Tickets Please ends with Paulo telling her she is allowed to resent him. He was a nasty guy with a chip on his shoulder back in the day, he says, and he hopes his actions now show how much he wants to change. Sue hands over the tickets with “I only wanted it to spite you.” and he thanks her sincerely.

Quotes

Somethin’ about making a girl swoon like that.. It felt.. It felt.. .. AWESOME. Paulo, on discovering pickup lines in Flirting with Disaster

Dammit, I love you! Paulo, to Tess at junior prom in Love My Way

Daisy, OKAY?! Paulo, cracking under David’s fairytale interrogation in Intervention

Was I that bad!? Paulo, to Jessica in a club restroom in Back and Forth

I’m not crying! Come up HERE and say that! Paulo, to David, from a tree, in Mother’s Day

I’m so fucking insecure and I keep taking it out on you. Paulo, to Matt in Golden Hour

It’s really not that hard falling in love with your best friend. Paulo, to Daisy, soaked, in Rain Check

Gallery

For a complete gallery, see Gallery:Paulo.

Illustration

• 
  A style experiment by Taeshi, including Paulo.
• 
  The main four go on a walk.
• 
  Paulo and the other main characters pose for a style experiment.
• 
  Daisy and a nervous Paulo sit together.
• 
  Daisy isn’t having a good day.
• 
  Daisy’s date is cut short by an unexpected guest.
• 
  In an ancient meme redraw, Paulo supports love.
• 
  Paulo hesitantly sports a bisexual pride flag in a Pride Month drawing for Twitter.

Promotional

• 
  A sideways banner ad featuring Paulo and Tess.
• 
  A sideways banner ad featuring Paulo.
• 
  A sideways banner with Paulo.
• 
  Paulo in an ad for the Volume One kickstarter.
• 
  Paulo and Daisy high-five to promote Bittersweet Club International.
• 
  Comic advertising the Daisy plush stretchgoal of the Volume Five kickstarter.
• 
  Daisy and her family advertise the six remaining days of the Volume Seven kickstarter.
• 
  Daisy cheers on the final day of the Volume Seven kickstarter.

Trivia

• Veronica’s commentary on his very first page sums him up as “a very rude dude!”
• He drinks Blasto, an orange soda.
• Veronica toned down his groping of Lucy in the omnibus edition, so that he now caresses her face more often than her chest. She wanted the early chapters to read as hormonal teenage sins rather than something predatory.

See also

• Daisy
• Lucy
• Mike
• David
• Burger-Tron