Lack of atrocities

For example, Tickets Please is about the revelation that he's been embracing his nerdy side, despite his well-known opinions on nerd culture.

Look at you fools, running around rigging and counter-rigging this puerile little contest. But what do you take me for, a minor side character in some webcomic? Do you seriously think I'd agree to your asinine plan if there remained the slightest chance of it affecting my decision? I made it thirty-five hours ago.

Sue clearly lacks coordination and isn't an excellent athlete, especially when compared to Paulo, but I really wish Sue was able to do a couple pull-ups here, not just to give her a respectable showing, but because she textually has a lot of upper body strength!

She successfully runs away from danger while carrying McCain. He may be one of the lighter cast members, but she still genuinely has to be quite strong to do it! She demonstrates that she has a lot of upper body strength and core strength. Plus, for the past several months, she's been on crutches, which force her to use her arms, upper body, and core to get around, further building muscles which would help with pull-ups.

This isn't to say she should have won the contest, and I know pull-ups are especially difficult for women, but Sue was written as strong, so let her be strong! But Sue just can't have anything... Maybe her arms were just spent from functionally already doing an arm workout all day with the crutches...

On the next page, Paulo just needs to be kind to Sue. She's been spiteful and judgmental and has shown off her superiority complex, and he needs to be kind to her.

Auditing Paulo and Sue's relationship over the course of the comic, I noticed something. Sue clearly cared for Paulo and tried to be a good friend to him for a long time. They weren't ever close, but she tried.

She asks after him first when he rescues Mike and Lucy from the river.

Sue helps Lucy make a cake for Paulo and Chirpy's birthday.

When Paulo rushes off because of a fight with Tess sparked by a question Sue asked, she seems worried about him.

Sue genuinely wants Paulo to be involved in her play.

Even after he's mocked it, she's disappointed he can't audition:

She encourages Jasmine to say nice things to Paulo to help repair their relationship after a fight

When Paulo trespasses backstage during her play seeking Lucy, she directs him to her:

She's not happy about it, but she does the genuinely kind thing because she sees how important it is to him, even though she has every reason to throw him out: she's at her most stressed, Paulo has repeatedly mocked the play and sent rude notes into rehearsal and Lucy supposed to be on in a few minutes and should be getting "in the zone". But she does it anyways, because it's important to him.

When they're outside Lucy's house after she leaves, even after Paulo physically shoves Sue out of his way to yell at Jordan through the door, she reaches out but backs off when his fur starts standing up on end.

Even after their relationship becomes more contentious in "Critical Hit" when they both throw hurtful barbs at each other, she gives him chances. Immediately after he's insulted her at the con, she still extends him olive an olive branch:

But Paulo never is kind to Sue.

This is not me cherry picking. They're sometimes amicable together, but the closest it gets is him being kind to her is when he's performatively nice to her because Daisy is watching. I asked other fans to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and the only thing anyone could of was how he fought to protect her during "Confrontation", just as she fought to protect him. While laudable, that's not really the same as being nice in a social setting.

He never was nice to her, no matter how many times she was kind. He just was rude and sexist and belittled her and her interests again and again and again and again while she got more and more upset.

So she gives up. She stops giving him chances and starts saying mean things about him after he throws that olive branch away at the convention. She becomes spiteful and indulges in her superiority complex and it gets us all the way to this moment in "Tickets Please":

And just. Paulo has to be kind in this moment. He need to be the one to extend the olive branch. If the next page is literally anything else, I don't know how they're going to go anywhere good from here.

Paulo's been the bigger person before.

Sue taking aim at Paulo's machismo is honestly pretty funny and it's one of the rare moments they appear to get along.

Sue had also played helper at mitigating some disastrous Paulo moments like in Study buddy too.

He really did have a friend out there, it's a travesty Sue never saw acknowledgement for that save.

I'd feel sure the whole turning point came around in Critical Hit, you can be sure while Sue is venting her frustrations out at Paulo, you can't help but think there's something visceral in bringing up Lucy that almost implies his actions had some influence on her leaving.

I feel the worst part is in the addendum chapter in the volume 4 copy when you have Sue trying to make peace, some great moments of them nerding out over comics and stuff, aaaand then her patience runs out. I think this is the only time in the story where Sue actually ruins a moment between them.

I am curious to see if this goes into the apology direction too and if it goes in a similar direction to Abbey, at least that moment they bonded over mothers but it's a wonder what Paulo and Sue could bond over if not just showing some modesty.

Though I do wanna say that I have wanted to establish a kinda.. busybody snipey element to Sue, that is seen in her interactions with Paulo, which has made him not like her very much.

While these are valid moments where Sue sniped at someone she found annoying who was doing an annoying thing, Paulo similarly finds this trait of hers annoying! They just find each other annoying! He thinks she is

Also it’s funny how there’s multiple moments where Sue just complains about Paulo while he’s not even there!

That’s what I wanted to focus on in Behind Closed Doors, this tendency to bitch about Paulo behind his back, or if Paulo is brought up in conversation make it pretty clear he’s not thought of that fondly.

Which she can certainly feel! She has every right to, as seen by Itsaboutcats’ posts about Paulo’s sexism! Though I do wonder if, other than when brought up during Intervention, Paulo has similarly brought up Sue just to be rude to her behind her back. I’m currently traveling so can’t really do any obsessive research, but on first thought I’m drawing a blank.

Not that it proves anything. I just find their quasi-adversarial relationship entertaining. I don’t really write their relationship as some sorta lesson to be learned, or who is going to win morally (or whether I’m on Paulo’s side more than Sue’s). They are just classmates forced to get along with each other because they hang around the same group of friends.

I have been doubling back to try and find a time but I think I'd have an easier time looking for a pin in a haystack. I honestly don't think we've ever seen Paulo say something bad about her behind her back! (Maybe something to do with being out of sight out of mind?) I'd totally believe he'd bitch about her behind her back inbetween comics but I can't think of us ever seeing a slight against her with the camera on.

Admittingly I forget about BCD at times, I feel like with the way Sue only said passing comments against Paulo in the past my mind deceives me with it as something in their relationship than something about Sue, and that's despite Participation Trophy when David got some of that.

I do like how even when it's not about Paulo it's like WELL...I THOUGHT ABOUT PAULO SO LETS GO A LITTLE FURTHER. LOL

Veronica: oh my god WHAT!!!

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!

I didn’t know about this at all, but I’m definitely aware of classic neko app!!! Souppy used to talk to me about this lil’ guy!! Oh my god I’m blown away!

When you sent this ask, I was assuming it was just gonna be a generic white cat with a ribbon or a generic grey cat because Mike and Lucy’s designs are….. extremely simple, but they’re right there!! In name!! It’s literally them!!! Oh my god!!! ;__; Thank you neko person!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On the next page, Paulo just needs to be kind to Sue. She's been spiteful and judgmental and has shown off her superiority complex, and he needs to be kind to her.

Auditing Paulo and Sue's relationship over the course of the comic, I noticed something. Sue clearly cared for Paulo and tried to be a good friend to him for a long time. They weren't ever close, but she tried.

She asks after him first when he rescues Mike and Lucy from the river.

Sue helps Lucy make a cake for Paulo and Chirpy's birthday.

When Paulo rushes off because of a fight with Tess sparked by a question Sue asked, she seems worried about him.

Sue genuinely wants Paulo to be involved in her play.

Even after he's mocked it, she's disappointed he can't audition:

She encourages Jasmine to say nice things to Paulo to help repair their relationship after a fight

When Paulo trespasses backstage during her play seeking Lucy, she directs him to her:

She's not happy about it, but she does the genuinely kind thing because she sees how important it is to him, even though she has every reason to throw him out: she's at her most stressed, Paulo has repeatedly mocked the play and sent rude notes into rehearsal and Lucy supposed to be on in a few minutes and should be getting "in the zone". But she does it anyways, because it's important to him.

When they're outside Lucy's house after she leaves, even after Paulo physically shoves Sue out of his way to yell at Jordan through the door, she reaches out but backs off when his fur starts standing up on end.

Even after their relationship becomes more contentious in "Critical Hit" when they both throw hurtful barbs at each other, she gives him chances. Immediately after he's insulted her at the con, she still extends him olive an olive branch:

But Paulo never is kind to Sue.

This is not me cherry picking. They're sometimes amicable together, but the closest it gets is him being kind to her is when he's performatively nice to her because Daisy is watching. I asked other fans to make sure I wasn't missing anything, and the only thing anyone could of was how he fought to protect her during "Confrontation", just as she fought to protect him. While laudable, that's not really the same as being nice in a social setting.

He never was nice to her, no matter how many times she was kind. He just was rude and sexist and belittled her and her interests again and again and again and again while she got more and more upset.

So she gives up. She stops giving him chances and starts saying mean things about him after he throws that olive branch away at the convention. She becomes spiteful and indulges in her superiority complex and it gets us all the way to this moment in "Tickets Please":

And just. Paulo has to be kind in this moment. He need to be the one to extend the olive branch. If the next page is literally anything else, I don't know how they're going to go anywhere good from here.

Paulo's been the bigger person before.

Sue taking aim at Paulo's machismo is honestly pretty funny and it's one of the rare moments they appear to get along.

Sue had also played helper at mitigating some disastrous Paulo moments like in Study buddy too.

He really did have a friend out there, it's a travesty Sue never saw acknowledgement for that save.

I'd feel sure the whole turning point came around in Critical Hit, you can be sure while Sue is venting her frustrations out at Paulo, you can't help but think there's something visceral in bringing up Lucy that almost implies his actions had some influence on her leaving.

I feel the worst part is in the addendum chapter in the volume 4 copy when you have Sue trying to make peace, some great moments of them nerding out over comics and stuff, aaaand then her patience runs out. I think this is the only time in the story where Sue actually ruins a moment between them.

I am curious to see if this goes into the apology direction too and if it goes in a similar direction to Abbey, at least that moment they bonded over mothers but it's a wonder what Paulo and Sue could bond over if not just showing some modesty.

Paulo is something of a lady's man, a flirt who hits on girls freely and attempts to charm them. He flirts with basically every girl that moves in middle school.

But he's never makes a pass at Sue, even though they were on pretty amicable terms all the way through freshman year and the beginning of sophomore year.

When pressed on his opinion of her as a romantic candidate, Paulo describes her as "kinda cute", but it seems really half-hearted, like he knows there's objectively nothing wrong with her appearance but he just isn't into her. Her personality's part of it, but that didn't stopped him from pursuing Katie, who he described as "selfish and bratty". Sue just isn't his type. Which is fine! There's nothing wrong with not being attracted to Sue, and she probably wouldn't appreciate his romantic attention.

But Paulo clearly treats Sue differently than her female peers. He's rude to her, casually disrespects her, and puts her down completely unprovoked in a way he just doesn't with the girls he likes, starting back long before his relationship with her truly became contentious:

So Paulo is rude to Sue and doesn't respect her. But he jerk to most people early on; just look at how he treated Abbey and Mike! But it can't be ignored that Paulo does not have any female peers he both respects and isn't attracted to. We can't extricate his treatment of Sue from his sexist worldview of women:

Paulo says this to get a rise out of Mike, but it's very much at Sue's expense. He's reducing her to a sex object, with the implication that the only reason Mike would be inclined to do the play with her is for sexual reasons; Sue as a person or an artist has no merit. Paulo personally doesn't find her attractive, but he's still is reducing her to a sexual entity because he fundamentally doesn't respect women:

Paulo explicitly frames himself as valuing women's bodies and not their personalities, characterizing women as conquests and objects to be won by men. This is deeply gross and sexist. Even if we've seen him care about women in genuine ways, this is how he talks about them. He's broadcasting a worldview that values women based on how sexually desirable he finds them first and will only maybe consider them as people second. And it's not like these examples are all ancient history; two of these are from within the past year and reinforce that he still believes those earlier, nastier, explicitly stated positions.

And 4/5 of these examples happen in front of Sue. She's aware that this is how he thinks about women. And Paulo also has specifically attacked her body, the only metric he claims to value in women:

Sue is failing to live up to her ideals here; she thinks fatphobia is bad and is trying to discourage mocking people for being overweight, but she is still a teenage girl who is insecure about her own body. Paulo takes the opportunity to insult Sue's in a scenario that will render her a hypocrite for being insulted by his insult. He's doubling down on the notion that it's okay to make fun of and not respect girls he doesn't think are attractive.

Paulo only has been shown to respect women he's attracted to, and he laughs at the idea of being attracted to Sue.

So of course all of this is is going to make Sue think he's really sexist! Sue is overtly unimpressed by Paulo's objectification of women and is someone who thinks about gender politics.

And if you're Sue and Paulo has communicated that he only is willing to treat women well if he's attracted to them, the implication winds up being that he's never going to respect you, no matter what you do or say. But Sue so deeply wants to be respected. She can't debate her way into being respected with someone who's deeply sexist. Sue's not going to be vulnerable and ask for respect when Paulo's already given her an answer about how he sees her and women as a whole.

I think Sue commits so heavily to the position of "Paulo's and idiot and therefore undeserving of respect" in part because of this. If Paulo's never going to respect her, then she's never going to have to respect Paulo right back. She doesn't want to see qualities she respects in Paulo when he's positioned himself to never respect her.

The lack of respect obviously has exacerbated Sue's insecurities, and there's more that goes into their dynamic than this, but the sexist elements are palpable. Paulo may have grown a lot, and his treatment of women has improved significantly, but he still doesn't have any female peers he both respects and isn't attracted to and has started making up sexual scenarios to degrade, humiliate, or provoke women- including Sue.

Oh this enticing bait

The chemistry potential is what drew me into the rabbit hole originally. I really liked how they each tried to protect each other in Confrontation to begin with. It’s very tragic that they just hate each other afterwards, much more so in recent chapters and with the new canon knowing those earlier moments were not one-offs and Paulo is very misogynistic with girls he just doesn’t like :////.

It’s one of the more interesting relationships in my head because it could go in any particular direction given those twos quirks. Skys the limit

But I don't agree with that assessment! Sue is accepting that people can change, even if it's someone she struggles to get along with, otherwise the message she told Abbey in Moment's apart wouldn't have carried much weight (or even be said lol). I'd feel strongly she's crashing out more from being upstaged again but even more because the subject was an area she was absolutely sure she had an advantage in. The world's been handing out L's the last couple of months for her and this is the icing on the cake.

Losing out to Paulo is a particularly grievous wound against her ego, don't get me wrong. Considering where Paulo resides in her friendships -- it sucks -- but this wouldn't be an especially new experience considering David. But I feel Lucy chastising her for holding a grudge and James, an outsider not quite seeing what her problem is is something that probably stings just as much if not more.

This chapter's feels like a much needed continuation of Critical hit, where the subject had been with Sue's image and the kids applying adapting and applying their knowledge and experience to niche shit they were new to. But now this is 'general' knowledge she's losing in and we can see which character has seen growth that Sue took pride in.

To me, Sue strikes a similar chord as well. Sue clearly really wants to be respected and taken seriously, and even though I don't think the text directly nods to this angle, this does read as the gendered experience of a teen girl to me.

It's 2009 in-comic, and I was a teen girl too at that point. And one of the really exhausting things about growing up as a girl then was the realization that society at large does not respect women or take them or their interests seriously. And I think Sue, who really wants that respect, would feel this acutely, especially in her interactions with some of her male peers.

The way Paulo engages with Sue fundamentally reflects that he does not value either her lived experiences or her ideas.

Paulo treats Sue's life experiences as unworthy of interest. He is very clearly signaling that they are not important.

He also does this with her ideas. While Paulo wants to make an excuse to leave the con, he does so it at Sue's expense. We don't know what her panel was on, but he is fundamentally communicating that her ideas are not worth listening to.

Sue gets cut off and talked over

This disrespect of Sue's ideas is also communicated by her male peers' willingness to cut her off and talk over her. Studies find women are disproportionately interrupted by men.

As we've seen, Paulo does this to Sue in casual conversation, interrupting her often in order to insult her or otherwise put her down.

But it's not all Paulo! Even Abbey, champion of benevolent sexism, interrupts Sue, edges out her voice, and shouts over her so she can't finish her points:

As is the case in real political debates between a man and a woman, when Sue gets the chance to present her ideas, her male peer repeatedly cuts her off and talks over her.

And I'll give Mike an honorary mention for joining the "cutting Sue off and screaming at her" club:

Her art is mocked

Sue's play was deliberately crafted around her love of her friends. She wanted to help repair Mike and Lucy's relationship, and she also wanted all of her friends to be involved; she even genuinely wanted Paulo to audition. While her play didn't have autobiographical elements the way Jess's did, on a meta level it was very much about her social circle and her hopes that her friends could bridge the rift between them.

And of course, Paulo and David repeatedly insult her creative work without meaningful critique beyond describing a single transition as "clunky".

In contrast, Madison also is critical of Sue's play, but she actually provides specific criticism and clarifies her intention isn't to be hurtful.

Sue's interests are frequently mocked

Every interest Sue expresses, Paulo mocks, whether it's theatre, cosplay, or video games. Paulo loves videogames himself, but he ridicules Sue for her gaming. While he also mocks Mike for these interests, it's worth noting that Paulo characterizes theatre and SwordVale as "gay" (derogatory) because he considers them effeminate and therefore unworthy of genuine respect. And when you just consider feminine things inherently unworthy of respect... that's sexism, baby! (Taps sign about women's interests not being taken seriously).

Final thoughts

These exchanges aren't really framed as Sue experiencing sexism by the narrative. Abbey was having a breakdown toward the end of the debate. David clearly adores Jess's play and is increasingly characterized as having good media analysis skills. Paulo has a long history of being a jerk to Mike as well as Sue. But Paulo and David's interactions with Sue can't be cleanly separated from their misogyny and overt womanizing. It's worth noting that Paulo doesn't have any female peers he's been shown to both respect and not have romantic interest in. This makes Paulo's behavior towards Sue read as sexist, even if it isn't overt, especially when it aligns with sexist trends that women experience.

I'm starting a series of posts I'm calling "Design Corner", detailing the changes to characters' everyday looks over time and across revisions, and there's no one I'd rather start with than Sue!

Most of the characters' designs slowly evolve over the course of the comic, and that's true for Sue, but her initial design was also significantly edited.

Originally, Sue had no hair or distinguishing features aside from her necklace... which incidentally appears the same as Sandy's necklace. If you had a picture of early Mike or Lucy without their accessories wearing Sandy's necklace, you'd have a picture of Sue. Revisions were needed to visually distinguish Sue and reduce confusion. And so, Sue got hair retconned onto her!

The hair was added to depictions of Sue going back to her earliest appearance in the timeline in the summer between 5th and 6th grades. It's short and straight and just about chin-length.

Interestingly, in some of the drawings of Sue in "Confrontation", she had tiny tufts of cheek fur growing in some panels. Maybe it was just a little bit of extra cat fuzziness or perhaps it was an early idea of how to differentiate Sue's appearance that later got used for Lucy instead. Sue's jawline gets smoothed out when the hair was added; no cheek fur for Sue!

But Sue does get her own unique design element during freshman year:

Sue's holly pendant makes its first appearance in "Feline Festivities", and gets incorporated into her daily look promptly afterwards:

And so, Sue officially sheds the design elements that made her confusable with other characters.

Her hair starts being less straight and becomes a little fluffier in "Out of Frame".

Incidentally, this is the first chapter in the archive where Sue was originally drawn with hair. It likely started short to avoid providing too dramatic of a change for readers, but from this point, Sue starts growing out her hair. It starts creeping past shoulder-length when the Silvershore Isles trip occurs, with some inconsistency in its depicted length.

At any rate, by the start of the school year, it decisively hits her shoulders.

From there it grows quickly, being comfortably past her shoulders when the campaigning for the student council elections begins:

This might look like Sue's current design at a glance, but we're not quite there yet! Next, Sue's pendant changes. It's simplified to have rounded leaves:

Sue's hair might gain a bit more length to too! It isn't always obvious in front-facing shots, but sometimes we see it drawn with swish and drama that makes it seem a lot longer.

And so, we have our modern Sue, if not for....

...her cast. This is obviously going to be a temporary change, but it still is part of her day-to-day appearance for the time being. And the next time we see it, she's gotten her friends to sign it!