Stacy

From Candypedia
Stacy
GenderFemale
Age16
BirthdayDecember 17, 1992 (Sagittarius)
GradeJunior as of Table for One
BreedTabby
OccupationStudent
AffiliationCheer squad, SwordsVale
DebutThe Burden of Parenthood, page 3
March 22, 2010 (2010-03-22)

Bubbly, gossipy and never more than a step behind Katie, Stacy is one of the popular girls of the Roseville High School cheer squad. She is also a level 56 Sylvarian ranger on Sue’s strictly in-character SwordsVale server, which is not something she wants Katie to know about. Keeping those two lives apart takes a fair amount of work. Mike gets a strawberry lemonade in the face for stumbling onto her secret.

Personality

Stacy enjoys the perks of being popular. She cheers, she gossips about boys with Katie, she has confident opinions about which shade of green goes with a crimson brooch, and she leans pretty hard on the word like. Then she goes home to a princess-themed bedroom and logs into a demanding fantasy roleplay server where nobody is allowed to break character, and she would very much prefer that nobody knew about it. She also has a history of writing florid love poetry, another subject she would rather Mike did not bring up. Much of the comedy comes from watching her scramble when those two lives threaten to meet.

Popularity is a lot to lose when your friends are watching.

Stacy protects her reputation the way other people protect a bank balance. When Mike bumps her mouse and her MMORPG character appears on screen, she screams and hurls a drink at him, then tells him “Only LOSERS like that stuff!!” about a game she has just left open on her computer.[1][2] Her explanation, when Sue finally drags one out of her, is that she worked hard to get where she is and that popularity feels like a lot to lose.[3] The secrecy is deliberate, too. Perched on Mike’s desk in Behind Closed Doors, she tells him there’s “Nothin’ wrong with keeping certain interests to yourself. I do it all the time.”[4] A few pages later she is happily agreeing with the table that she hates fake people.[5]

Her interest in the game is more than a passing one. Sue reports that Stacy is level 56 with iridium armor, and Stacy herself admits she spends her free time role-playing a Sylvarian ranger.[6][7] She refuses to let Mike so much as say hello in-game, since the server is a serious one where everyone stays in character.[8] She turns up to the convention in full SwordsVale cosplay, and when she needs to say sorry to somebody in hospital her idea of a gift is the board game Pandemic.[9][10] The streak runs back a long way. She was placed in Honors English for freshman year alongside Mike and Daisy, and she worked set changes for Sue’s play.[11][12] The purple-prose love letter Lucy read aloud in eighth grade came from her pen as well.[13]

Stacy talks in two registers, and you can hear the switch. Around Katie she is pure valley girl, and her very first line in the comic is a “Fer shure!” in support of whatever Katie just said.[14] Alone with Mike, or cornered by Sue, she can drop the valley-girl chatter and speak plainly and rather sharply.[8][3] The clearest picture of the two modes comes at the end of Local Area. She is mid-gossip with Katie, freezes when Mike walks by, gives him a small grateful smile, and then turns back to Katie with a bright “Fer sure!!” as though nothing happened.[15] The persona is not especially sturdy, mind you. She goes red beside Mike in homeroom.[16] At the convention she ducks behind Sue when Paulo spots her in cosplay,[9] and Mike only has to mention her old love letters to make her shriek.[17]

Stacy admits she owes her guildmates better.

Stacy is also blunt to the point of meanness, often without noticing how she sounds. Asked point blank whether she is ashamed of the guild, she says yes without much fuss, and she asks a bedridden Sue whether she was born with two left feet.[3][18] She goads Daisy into gossiping and then pokes at Abbey’s jealousy, and Mike is happy to tell her to her face that she is not very nice.[19][4] Veronica has said she enjoys writing Stacy as obliviously mean, delivering an insult as though it were just business.[6] She can own up when she has hurt someone. She apologizes for the lemonade once she calms down,[2] and when Sue apologizes from her hospital bed, Stacy admits that she is the one who owes an apology.[10]

Appearance

Stacy is a teenage cat with yellow fur, orange tabby markings and grey eyes.[20] She has no particular breed to her name. Veronica has said as much when asked, contrasting her with Amaya, who is a tabby.[21] She usually wears a purple bow on the right side of her head, tucked under her ear.[22] Veronica groups her with the comic’s other “girls with a ribbon on the right side of their head.”[23] Purple is rather her colour in general. She shows up to Lucy’s birthday sleepover in a purple tank top,[24] and for her study session with Mike she wears a purple spaghetti-strap top with white capri pants and flats.[25]

Being on the cheer squad means she often appears in uniform.[26] She has a small wardrobe of costumes besides, though: a Santa dress at Tess’s Christmas party,[27] tattered clothes and bruise makeup as an injured villager in Sue’s play,[28] and full SwordsVale cosplay at the convention.[9] Her in-game avatar is a brown cat-like character in spiked pauldrons and a pink cape.[1] Veronica briefly drew her hair longer, but later handed the longer-hair idea to Haley to help tell the ribbon girls apart.[23]

Significant events

Middle school

Katie and Stacy settle into their familiar hallway partnership.

Stacy first appears in The Burden of Parenthood, where the roll call pairs her with Clinton for the mechanical baby project, and she is next seen beside Katie clutching a startled-looking doll.[29][30] She gets her first line in Prom Preparation, backing Katie’s choice of prom music, and stays a hallway fixture at Katie’s side from then on.[14][31] In Puppy Love she is the tearful secret admirer whose letter to Mike gets read aloud and mocked, a fact Veronica confirms in the commentary.[13] By the last day of school in Farewell, Middle School she has been placed in Honors English for the coming year, much to Katie’s irritation.[11]

Freshman year

Stacy has a less orderly proposal for Sue’s club.

High school opens with Stacy sitting in Honors English alongside Mike and Daisy in Enter High School, and otherwise chatting in corridors with Katie.[32][33] At Tess’s Christmas party in Feline Festivities she gushes over the carolers Mike is convinced include Sandy.[27] The fourth-wall omake Out of the Frame puts her in Sue’s club for neglected characters, where she quickly proposes a mob.[34] In A Different Side she is in cheer uniform on the squad[35] when Daisy takes her fall from the pyramid.[36] In Rising Temperature she stands by while Katie humiliates Daisy and then joins in the ridicule.[37]

Sophomore year

Stacy appears with Tess at Lucy’s birthday sleepover in Pillow Talk.[24] At Tess’s Christmas party in At Loose Ends, she chats with Mike and Sue about his trip to see Sandy[38] and giggles when Paulo calls the relationship a charade.[39] For Sue’s play in Curtain Call she works the set changes and plays an injured villager next to Amaya.[12][28]

Local Area reveals exactly how seriously Stacy takes keeping her hobby private.

Her first spotlight chapter is Local Area, where a study session introduces Mike to her secret hobby[1] and, through her, Sue’s guild.[8] Not long after, in Fashion Disaster, one of the chapters found only in Volume Five, Abbey very nearly blows that cover in front of Katie.[40] In Total Recall she stands dejected among the cheerleaders in a gym littered with sports equipment.[26]

Before junior year

Stacy makes a late entrance to Guest of Honor’s panel, but at least she made it.

Stacy goes to the convention in Guest of Honor in SwordsVale cosplay with Sue, Abbey and Amaya, and hides behind Sue when Paulo spots the group.[9] She cheers right up when Daisy does a voice from a cartoon she watches, and then slinks late onto the stage for Sue’s panel.[41][42]

The flashback chapter Behind Closed Doors takes place between Ice Block and Dial Tone.[43] Stacy arrives with Sue and Abbey after Mike misses a guild meeting,[44] and joins the group’s gossip about Paulo.[5]

Junior year

Popularity Contest brings her two social circles into conflict: Sue kicks her out of the guild for ignoring her around Katie.[3] After Sue’s attempt at cheerleading ends in a broken leg,[18] Stacy visits her in hospital and the two reconcile.[10] She is still walking the halls with Katie in Burnt Bridges.[45] In Fuel Economy, a cheerful Paulo offers her a ride and gets a flat, baffled “What” in return.[46]

Major relationships

Katie

Stacy is less than thrilled to see Sue at cheer practice in Popularity Contest.

Katie usually takes the lead, and Stacy is happy to back her up. The two have been friends since preschool.[7] Stacy gives a cheerful yes to Katie’s choice of prom music[14] and joins in with a disgusted little chorus after Katie brushes off Daisy in Rising Temperature.[37] Katie is not above picking on Stacy, either. She sulks about Stacy getting into Honors[11] and calls her a loser for waiting on a study partner instead of taking the convertible.[22] In Popularity Contest she steers Stacy away from Sue by the shoulders.[47] She also hugs her and confides in her, and Stacy laughs along happily, so there is real affection in the arrangement too.[15]

Stacy knows Katie can be cruel and stays anyway. When Sue demands to know why she pretended not to know her at lunch, Stacy concedes that Katie can be awful sometimes and then insists, “I’ve known her since preschool! You wouldn’t understand!”[7] Katie proves rather less steadfast about keeping Sue out. When Sue shows up at cheer practice in uniform, Katie insults her until Jessica and Rachel welcome her, then starts fawning over the new girl she calls Sally. Stacy has to stand there mortified while the two halves of her life meet.[48][49] Even her apology to Sue comes with the admission that being herself is tough around Katie.[10] Their friendship continues: the two are back chatting happily in the halls in Burnt Bridges.[45]

Mike

Mike keeps his promise, and Stacy answers his knowing grin with a grateful smile.

Stacy admires Mike from behind corners in middle school, before he knows who is writing to him. She is the girl peeking around the wall in Puppy Love while Lucy reads out a florid “My dear prince” letter and calls its author a basement-dwelling freak, and she is the one weeping when Mike screams at his admirers to leave him alone.[13][50] By sophomore year she is still going red when he smiles at her in homeroom.[16] On the bus in Local Area, Mike mentions he kept the letters and thought they were great. Stacy denies everything, softens visibly, and settles on the deniable “I’m sure whoever wrote them would appreciate that.”[17][51] Veronica has described the attraction as one-sided.[52]

Mike gets to meet both sides of her during their study session. He bumps her mouse, her SwordsVale character fills the screen, and he gets a strawberry lemonade in the face for his trouble.[1] Rather than laugh at her, he tries to comfort her with a joke about Losertown and asks if he can join the game, which is the last thing she expected.[2][8] She lets him, on the condition that “NOBODY NEEDS TO KNOW,” a warning she delivers by lunging out of the car window.[53] He keeps his word. Passing her and Katie at school, he offers only a knowing grin, and she answers with a grateful smile before snapping back into character.[15]

The two settle into being real friends after that, if not romantic ones. Veronica counts Stacy among the small group Mike is genuinely close to, alongside Sue, Amaya and Abbey, and Abbey mentions the three of them heading home together in College Material.[54][55] Mike is also willing to call her out, cheerfully telling her that she keeps her hobbies secret because she is not very nice, which earns him an indignant sputter and not much of a rebuttal.[4]

Sue

Stacy dares Sue to try being popular, then thinks better of it.

Stacy wants Sue’s guild and Katie’s lunch table both, and Sue is the one who ends up paying for it. Their history is not exactly reverent. In the fourth-wall omake Out of the Frame, Stacy suggests turning Sue’s club for neglected characters into a mob,[34] then helps lead it.[56] By Local Area she is a devoted member of Sue’s in-character server.[8] They also enjoy gossiping together: in Behind Closed Doors, Stacy laughs along when Sue chants “One of us!” after Daisy joins in venting about Paulo.[57]

Sue thinks highly of Stacy as a guildmate, which makes being ignored at lunch in Popularity Contest all the more hurtful.[58][59] When she tries talking to Stacy again in the hallway, Katie intervenes and Stacy leaves with her.[47] Confronted later, Stacy does not even pretend it was an accident. “Of course I did.” is the answer, followed by a genuinely puzzled question about whether that makes it worse.[6] Sue kicks her out of the guild and tells her it isn’t much of a life if she can’t be herself in it. The two end up daring each other, Sue to try being popular and Stacy to watch her try, before Stacy panics and begs her not to.[3][7]

Sue’s cheerleading attempt ends in a hospital bed, and Stacy arrives scolding her for her footwork.[18] But when Sue apologizes for trying to prove a point, Stacy insists that Sue is not a loser and that letting the guild play nobodies for her sake was never a nice thing to do. She says she respects them and wishes she could be more herself, then holds up a copy of Pandemic as “a little jerk’s peace offering.”[10] Sue accepts it, and her, on the understanding that Stacy will be a little jerk sometimes and might grow out of it, and the chapter ends with the two of them playing.[10]

Minor relationships

Abbey

Stacy suggesting it’s no wonder Abbey gets jealous, hand on his shoulder, in Behind Closed Doors.

Abbey is a fellow guildmate and, in the Volume Five book chapter Fashion Disaster, very nearly the end of Stacy’s social career. He walks up to her in front of Katie and starts asking about her SwordsVale cosplay. Stacy frantically waves him off.[40] He recovers by turning it into a question about a corset for Daisy, which Stacy answers in full valley-girl mode with a recommendation of pine green to match the crimson brooch.[60][61] Off duty she is comfortable enough with him to needle his jealousy over Daisy with a hand on his shoulder.[19] In College Material, Abbey mentions heading home with her and Mike.[55]

Daisy

Stacy and Daisy share a cheer squad, and Stacy treats Daisy as fair game both there and around her guildmates. She is on the squad when Daisy falls from the pyramid in A Different Side, then stands by for Katie’s brush-off one chapter later.[36][37] In Behind Closed Doors she prods Daisy into gossiping about Paulo and, on the way out, teases her for being too good for the nerds.[19][62] She stifles a laugh at Daisy’s leadership tussle with Katie at practice.[63] Then Sue appears in uniform, and Stacy rounds on Daisy with a furious “YOU did this?!”[48]

Quotes

Just remember: NOBODY NEEDS TO KNOW. Stacy, lunging out of the car window at Mike in Local Area

This is a serious server where we remain IN CHARACTER Stacy, refusing to let Mike say hello in-game in Local Area

I know it’s hard for someone like you to understand, but when you’re popular, it feels like a lot to lose. Stacy, explaining herself to a freshly betrayed Sue in Popularity Contest

Please don’t try, actually. You could really embarrass me.. Stacy, about two seconds after daring Sue to become popular in Popularity Contest

I should be sorry. You’re not a loser. Just ’cause Mike and Amaya and Abbey let me pretend like they’re nobodies doesn’t mean it’s a nice thing to do. Stacy, at Sue’s hospital bedside in Popularity Contest

Angry mob? Stacy, offering a solution to being a neglected character in Out of the Frame

Fer real! I hate fake people like that. Does he think you’re, like, dumb? Stacy, piling onto Paulo without a trace of irony in Behind Closed Doors

Trivia

  • Local Area was a Kickstarter-reward chapter, and Veronica’s commentary calls it fully canonical, adding that she had always wanted to do a little story like this about Stacy.[15] The Volume Five Kickstarter pitched it as the chapter about Stacy’s secret MMORPG shame.[64]
  • Veronica’s summary of her: “stacy is only a tsundere for NERD CRAP”.[2]
  • Veronica has said of Stacy’s obliviously mean streak that “She’s not trying to be mean!!! It’s just business!” She names Daisy and Sandy as the other characters who share it.[6]
  • Stacy is one of the girls Paulo made out with in eighth grade, as his memory montage in Back and Forth shows. Veronica confirmed it when asked.[65][66]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 6
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 7
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 7
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 8]
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 22]
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 6
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 8
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 8
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 30
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 14
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Chapter 18: Farewell, Middle School, page 3
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 18
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Chapter 13: Puppy Love, page 1
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Chapter 7: Prom Preparation, page 1
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 15
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 4
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 3
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 13
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 17]
  20. ↑ Veronica (2017-04-02). “Ask response on character design changes”.
  21. ↑ “Ask response on Stacy’s breed”. 2020-04-10.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 Chapter 82: Local Area, page 1
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 “Ask response on the ribbon girls and Haley’s design”. 2026-05-13.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Chapter 61: Pillow Talk, page 8
  25. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 5
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 Chapter 85: Total Recall, page 5
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 8
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Chapter 74: Curtain Call, page 20
  29. ↑ Chapter 5: The Burden of Parenthood, page 2
  30. ↑ Chapter 5: The Burden of Parenthood, page 3
  31. ↑ Chapter 8: Helping Hands, page 8
  32. ↑ Chapter 21: Enter High School, page 5
  33. ↑ Chapter 25: Humble Approach, page 1
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 Out of the Frame, page 2
  35. ↑ Chapter 37: A Different Side, page 9
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 Chapter 37: A Different Side, page 11
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 37.2 Chapter 38: Rising Temperature, page 3
  38. ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 15
  39. ↑ Chapter 69: At Loose Ends, page 16
  40. ↑ 40.0 40.1 Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Five, “Fashion Disaster”, page 1
  41. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 41
  42. ↑ Chapter 89: Guest of Honor, page 44
  43. ↑ Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 1]
  44. ↑ Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 6]
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 Chapter 111: Burnt Bridges, page 4
  46. ↑ Chapter 112: Fuel Economy, page 6
  47. ↑ 47.0 47.1 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 4
  48. ↑ 48.0 48.1 Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 11
  49. ↑ Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 12
  50. ↑ Chapter 13: Puppy Love, page 4
  51. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 4
  52. ↑ Veronica (2015-11-21). “Ask response on the Choices posters”.
  53. ↑ Chapter 82: Local Area, page 9
  54. ↑ “Ask response on Mike’s primary friend group”. 2020-09-10.
  55. ↑ 55.0 55.1 Chapter 106: College Material, page 11
  56. ↑ Out of the Frame, page 3
  57. ↑ Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 23]
  58. ↑ Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 2
  59. ↑ Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 3
  60. ↑ Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Five, “Fashion Disaster”, page 2
  61. ↑ Bittersweet Candy Bowl: Volume Five, “Fashion Disaster”, page 3
  62. ↑ Chapter 120.1: [Unknown Title, page 24]
  63. ↑ Chapter 109: Popularity Contest, page 10
  64. ↑ “Bittersweet Candy Bowl Volume Five Kickstarter campaign”. 2017-02-06.
  65. ↑ Chapter 54: Back and Forth, page 5
  66. ↑ “Ask response on Paulo and Stacy in eighth grade”. 2015-08-03.
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