Rose Muir

From Candypedia
Rose Muir
GenderFemale
SpeciesCat
BreedSomali
Family
DebutNew Year’s Resolution, page 10
September 11, 2023 (2023-09-11)

Rose Muir is Paulo’s estranged mother and Rodrigo’s ex-wife. By Paulo’s fifth-grade year, Rose had separated from Rodrigo, remained in Maraschino and remarried while Paulo moved to Roseville with his father. By Paulo’s account, she has had no contact with him since. In the main comic Rose is almost entirely an absence: three shouted lines in Paulo’s memory and, years later, a set of smiling family photographs he finds online.

Personality

Rose makes the custody arrangement brutally simple in Mother’s Day.

Canon gives Rose very little unfiltered characterization. Her only main-comic dialogue is a remembered argument with Rodrigo, heard by Paulo but never shown from her point of view. She calls Rodrigo worthless, refuses his request to stop fighting in front of their son, and ends with “Keep him, then!”[1] Everything else comes through the family she left behind or the life Paulo later sees through a screen.

Paulo makes the length of the absence clear when he says that since moving to Roseville she has never visited, called, sent a birthday present or sent a card.[2] Her Facebook profile, meanwhile, shows Rose smiling with a young daughter among flowers, taking her to the beach and a fifth-birthday party, and posing with her new family.[3] Veronica’s commentary calls it a “pretty nice life”,[3] while the commentary on Mother’s Day asks why Paulo’s mother did not even try and later describes her as a parent who failed him in a “pretty dire way”.[1][4]

The alternate-continuity Relative Strangers is the only story that gives Rose a sustained point of view. On the drive to Paulo’s funeral she worries that everyone will see her as the “worst mother in the world” while privately laying the failures of her first marriage at Rodrigo’s feet.[5][6] She defends herself to Daisy in terms of what she has provided for Paulo, only for Daisy to answer that love is what is missing.[7] At Paulo’s urn, Rose briefly admits that she missed his life; by the drive home she has retreated to calling him a stranger and telling herself she was never given the chance to know him.[8][9]

Appearance

Rose is an orange cat with dark brown hair and a fur pattern similar to Paulo’s.[3] Her first visual appearance is entirely photographic: Paulo finds images of her holding her daughter among flowers, brushing her hair back on a beach, and posing in a family portrait.[3] In Mother’s Day she is not drawn at all; her voice carries over panels of Paulo sitting in a tree.[1] The noncanonical Relative Strangers gives her an in-person design and shows a younger Rose smoking with Rodrigo at a party.[6]

Significant events

By Mother’s Day’s fifth-grade flashback, Rose and Rodrigo have already separated. Paulo tells Daisy that his mother is in Maraschino and has “married another guy already”, while he and his father have moved to Roseville.[10][11][12] Veronica later summarized the same history as Rose divorcing Paulo’s father, remarrying, and staying in Maraschino.[13] The chapter’s emotional center is Paulo making a Father’s Day card while the class makes Mother’s Day cards, then hiding in a tree and remembering an argument in which Rose tells Rodrigo to keep him.[14][1]

Paulo reduces a lifetime of hurt to one brutally simple explanation in Time Out.

Years later, Paulo finally says out loud what the silence has meant to him. In Time Out he tells Abbey about the missing visits, calls, presents and cards. He wonders whether he could look for Rose in Maraschino and then says she must have thought he and his father were losers who stood in the way of a better family.[2][15][16] In New Year’s Resolution, he uses Mike’s computer to find Rose Muir on Facebook and discovers the husband and daughter behind that imagined “better family”.[17][3] He smashes Mike’s mouse, leaves in tears, and later sobs that Rose has completely replaced him.[18][19] Third Wheel later has Abbey lend him a book about moving on after a parent fails you.[20]

Relative Strangers branches into an explicitly alternate version of the post-prom crash in Total Recall, one in which Paulo dies.[21] Rose learns of his death by phone, insists on driving to the funeral herself, and meets the friends who knew the life she missed.[22][23] Her attempt to police Daisy’s grief becomes a confrontation over whether providing for a child can make up for abandoning him, and Rose eventually leaves after Rodrigo asks her to let the teenagers grieve.[7][24]

Major relationships

Paulo

Rose’s daughter makes Paulo feel completely replaced.

Paulo has spent years asking why his mother does not love him, and Rose has never been around to answer. The line he remembers from the separation is “Keep him, then!”, shouted at Rodrigo while Paulo listened.[1] He later refers to his mother having called him a mistake, says she never visited after he moved to Roseville, and says she made no calls or sent birthday presents or cards.[2] He can imagine looking for her one moment and decide the next that she made her choice to forget him.[15]

Finding Rose on Facebook turns an old fear into something visible. The daughter in her photographs is old enough that Paulo concludes Rose must have had her almost as soon as she left; crying into Mike’s shoulder, he says she “completely replaced” him.[19] His next question is simpler: “Why didn’t she love me.. How come nobody loves me?”[25] Veronica has said Rose’s long absence from the story is deliberate given the kind of person Paulo is,[26] and the Facebook chapter leaves him with a surname he could use to find her again if he ever chooses to.[17]

Relative Strangers reverses the viewpoint without making the relationship any less broken. Alone at the urn, Rose realizes she does not know Paulo’s favorite song or drink and admits, “I missed it all.”[8] By the end of the drive home she is crying over the son she will never speak to again, then recovers by telling herself that he was a stranger and that she was never given an opportunity to know him.[27][9]

Rodrigo

Everything Rose says aloud in the main comic is addressed to Rodrigo, and none of it is kind. In Paulo’s memory she calls him “WORTHLESS! A stupid, lazy slob!”, rejects his request not to argue in front of their son, and tells him that growing up in the house will make Paulo “just like you” before ending with “Keep him, then!”[1] Rodrigo answers that he and Paulo get along fine, and he is the parent who remains with the boy. Paulo later guesses that Rose saw both of them as losers and wanted “a better family”.[16]

The alternate Relative Strangers carries that contempt forward. Rose’s memories cast Rodrigo as the college dropout who would not apply himself and wasted their money drinking,[6] and on the way to the funeral she blames him again for failing their son.[5] His one quiet pushback is to tell her to let Paulo’s friends grieve; she leaves with “Spineless as always” and later jokes that at least she will never have to speak to Rodrigo again.[24][28]

Minor relationships

Daughter

Rose and her daughter, all smiles among the flowers, in the profile Paulo finds in New Year’s Resolution.

Rose’s younger daughter is unnamed in the main comic. Paulo finds four photographs of her, including one with a number-five birthday candle, after having wondered in Time Out whether he might have a brother or sister somewhere.[3][15] Later that night he guesses that she might now be six or seven and treats her existence as proof that Rose replaced him.[19]

The alternate Relative Strangers calls the girl Clara. There, Rose is a stern parent who threatens to cancel swimming lessons when Clara fools around,[29] but after Paulo’s funeral she takes Clara’s hand and promises herself that she will never let anything happen to her.[30]

Quotes

Keep him, then! Rose Muir, ending the argument Paulo will never forget in Mother’s Day

You are WORTHLESS! A stupid, lazy slob! Rose Muir, to Rodrigo, with their son listening, in Mother’s Day

No, maybe he should listen! Growing up in this house is going to make him just like you! Rose Muir, declining to spare the boy in Mother’s Day

His mother. Rose Muir, introducing herself to a sobbing Daisy in the noncanonical Relative Strangers[31]

I missed it all. Rose Muir, alone at Paulo’s urn in the noncanonical Relative Strangers[8]

He was a stranger to me anyway. Rose Muir, on the drive home in the noncanonical Relative Strangers[9]

Trivia

  • Rose first speaks in Mother’s Day, but she is not drawn there. Her first visual appearance is the Facebook profile in New Year’s Resolution.[1][3]
  • The full name “Rose Muir” appears in the main comic as text in Paulo’s Facebook search bar.[3]
  • Mother’s Day was originally a print exclusive in Volume 2 and joined the web archive during the Omnibus revamp.[32][33]
  • Relative Strangers grew out of a commissioned prompt about Paulo actually dying in Total Recall. Veronica scrapped her first script and reworked the idea, and the newspost announcing the finished story read, “Paulo’s dead. Now meet his mother.”[34][35]
  • Relative Strangers turns canon’s “Keep him, then!” around: in Rose’s version of the marriage, she remembers Rodrigo as the one who “made me keep him.”[1][6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 Chapter 58: Mother’s Day, page 6
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Chapter 108: Time Out, page 19
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Chapter 119: New Year’s Resolution, page 10
  4. ↑ Chapter 58: Mother’s Day, page 10
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Relative Strangers, page 7 🔒 (members only)
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Relative Strangers, page 8 🔒 (members only)
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Relative Strangers, page 22 🔒 (members only)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Relative Strangers, page 20 🔒 (members only)
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Relative Strangers, page 29 🔒 (members only)
  10. ↑ Chapter 58: Mother’s Day, page 3
  11. ↑ Chapter 58: Mother’s Day, page 4
  12. ↑ Chapter 58: Mother’s Day, page 11
  13. ↑ “Ask response on Paulo’s parents’ divorce”. 2015-03-29.
  14. ↑ Chapter 58: Mother’s Day, page 2
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Chapter 108: Time Out, page 20
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Chapter 108: Time Out, page 22
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 119: New Year’s Resolution, page 9
  18. ↑ Chapter 119: New Year’s Resolution, page 11
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Chapter 119: New Year’s Resolution, page 23
  20. ↑ Chapter 123: Third Wheel, page 15
  21. ↑ Relative Strangers, page 1 🔒 (members only)
  22. ↑ Relative Strangers, page 3 🔒 (members only)
  23. ↑ Relative Strangers, page 5 🔒 (members only)
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Relative Strangers, page 25 🔒 (members only)
  25. ↑ Chapter 119: New Year’s Resolution, page 24
  26. ↑ “Ask response on why Paulo’s mother is rarely mentioned”. 2018-04-20.
  27. ↑ Relative Strangers, page 28 🔒 (members only)
  28. ↑ Relative Strangers, page 27 🔒 (members only)
  29. ↑ Relative Strangers, page 2 🔒 (members only)
  30. ↑ Relative Strangers, page 19 🔒 (members only)
  31. ↑ Relative Strangers, page 14 🔒 (members only)
  32. ↑ Chapter 58: Mother’s Day, page 1
  33. ↑ “Ask response on Mother’s Day’s print exclusivity”. 2017-04-18.
  34. ↑ “Ask response on how BCIs get made”. 2025-11-25.
  35. ↑ “Relative Strangers newspost”. 2026-07-25.
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