Chirpy

From Candypedia
Chirpy
GenderFemale
Age4
BirthdayApril 7, 2004 (Aries)
SpeciesBird
FamilyLucy (Owner)
DebutSimple Pleasures, page 1
November 2, 2009 (2009-11-02)

Chirpy is the baby of Lucy's little household of pets: a tiny pink bird hatched from an abandoned egg by Yashy, who she has called "Mommy" ever since.[1] Sweet-natured and endlessly trusting, she addresses everyone around her by nicknames like "Girl-Kitty", and she has always quietly wondered why her real mother never came back for her.[2]

Personality

Chirpy is about as innocent as characters in this comic get, and the writing gets a lot of mileage out of it. She mishears "genetic" as "generic" in Show and Tell,[3] spends all of Unfulfilled Fantasy demanding to know "What is proooom!!",[4] and concludes of Lucy's suspiciously mobile computer in Crash and Burn that "If I didn't know better, I'd say computers don't take walks.."[5]

She is also relentlessly affectionate. She tells Lucy "I love you, Girl-Kitty" as a baby in Blurry Memories and again, half-asleep, at Christmas.[6][7] When the other pets crow about catching Paulo and Tess together, her contribution is "It was only a kissie.. Meany-Kitty and Pink-Kitty love each otha! ♥"[8]

Even so, she rather hates being treated like a baby. She scolds Yashy for mocking Mike's broken leg ("That's not nice, Mommy! How would you feel if you broke your leg?"),[9] and when Mike calls her one in Feline Festivities, she protests "I am not!"[10] That chapter also uncovers the wound she carries around. Her mother abandoned her egg, and she has never stopped wondering why.[2] Veronica's commentary says it plainly: "She really feels like she's missing out on something, even though Yashy is right there."[10] In the comic's later, darker stretches she settles into the role of quiet comforter. She keeps watch over a grieving Yashy in the snow in Just Beautiful, and lets her lean on her at the Hospital.[11][12]

Appearance

Chirpy is a small pink bird, tiny enough to perch on Lucy's head or nap on her pillow.[13][14] She hatched on-panel as a cheeping chick in Flying Lessons,[1] and she learned to fly from Blur, since the wingless Yashy was never going to manage the lessons herself.[15] The family resemblance runs in the feathers, too. Her mother is a salmon-colored bird with a bandana on her head, and her twin brother is a smaller red bird.[16]

She has no everyday accessory, but she does dress for occasions. There's a party hat in Lucy's Birthday,[17] a red scarf in the winter chapters,[18] and a black-cat costume for Halloween in Mischief Night, complete with perky ears and a little bell.[19]

Significant events

Chirpy's first line in the comic is a panicked "Girl-Kitty!! She broke a bone!!", shouted over Yashy's failed attempt at flight in Simple Pleasures.[20] Flying Lessons tells her origin. Two years earlier, a snake raided a nest and the mother bird fled, leaving a single egg behind. Yashy saved the egg, sat on it until it hatched, and named the result Chirpy.[21][1] The same chapter has Mike telling her that Blur is her "daddy", a claim she repeats with great enthusiasm and Yashy never quite lives down.[22]

Through the middle-school chapters she is mostly comic relief, twice turning to the reader herself with asides like "Long comic is looooooong!"[23][24]

Her biggest chapter is Feline Festivities, where she is separated from Yashy at Tess's Christmas party. Alone in the crowd, she finds Mike sulking on the balcony and tries to cheer him up.[25][10] He snaps that she's "just a baby" who couldn't understand his problems, and hits a nerve nobody knew was exposed: "My mommy.. She never came back.."[26] She flees in tears, knocks herself out against Lucy's head, and sleeps through the long talk about her adoption that follows.[26][2] Lucy sings her a Spanish lullaby, and Chirpy closes the chapter with a drowsy thank-you.[27][7]

Freshman year keeps her busy, starting with the surprise party she shares with Paulo in Birthday Double-Team.[28] She accidentally receives David's adult magazine there, and innocently shows it to Lucy, dooming Paulo on the spot.[29] Then comes the beach trip of Arrival. When the group goes missing in Search and Rescue, Lily sends Chirpy and Blur out for help. They haul Zachary in off the street and burst through the door with "Pink-Kittyyyy!!!"[30][31] Fleeing the beast afterwards, the two birds slam into the group and knock everybody off a cliff, but their hearts were in the right place.[32]

As Lucy's life darkens, Chirpy's appearances turn quiet, and she is locked out of Lucy's room in tears during Dinner Time.[33] She sits beside the sobbing Yashy in the snow on the final page of Just Beautiful.[11] After Lucy is hospitalized at the end of Breaking Up, Chirpy is at the hospital with the other pets, supporting Yashy as she tells Mike "G'bye, Mike."[12] It is her last appearance on the main timeline.

Her ending arrives secondhand in Witch Hunt, where Lucy explains that the pets went to live with her aunt, and that the family found Chirpy's mother and a twin brother. A single wistful memory panel shows the tearful reunion.[16][34]

Major relationships

Yashy

Yashy rescues Chirpy's egg in Flying Lessons.

Yashy hatched Chirpy herself, declaring "My.. baby!" the moment the chick appeared, and by her own account has "tried to be a good mom".[1] A baby raising a baby has its limits, though. Yashy would rather play video games than peek-a-boo,[6] and Veronica's commentary admits she is "probably not the best mother material right now, being a baby herself".[10] Chirpy adores her anyway.[22]

Chirpy has always known Yashy isn't her real mother, and calls her "Mommy" without hesitation regardless.[2] Over the years the roles quietly swap. Chirpy becomes the one scolding Yashy's meanness,[9] and the shoulder Yashy cries on in the snow and at the hospital.[11][12] When Yashy refused to return to Roseville, the pets stayed together at Lucy's aunt's house.[34]

Lucy

Lucy raised Chirpy alongside Yashy from the egg onward, playing peek-a-boo and reassuring the worried chick with "Cheer up, Chirpy! You got me too, y'know! ♥"[6] The Christmas crisis is where the bond gets said out loud. Lucy blames herself ("Some caretaker I turned out to be… I'm not her MOTHER, Mike..") and sings her to sleep, and Chirpy answers with a sleepy "Thank you for taking care of me.."[2][27][7]

Chirpy returns the care during Lucy's worst year, perching worriedly on her head while she withdraws from everyone else.[13] The relationship ends in separation once the pets move to Lucy's aunt's. Asked in Witch Hunt whether she misses them, Lucy answers, "Of course. Every day. But I understand."[34]

Mike

Chirpy tries to cheer Mike up in Feline Festivities.

"Boy-Kitty" has been family-adjacent since the start, and the whole "Blur is your daddy" business was his idea.[22] Their defining scene is the Feline Festivities balcony, where a miserable Mike explodes at her attempts to comfort him. "What's the point?! You're just a baby!… Could you even begin to understand ANY of that?!"[10] He accidentally detonates her deepest grief and is horrified at once.[26] By the end of the night he has learned his lesson: "Shouldn't underestimate little birds like her, huh?"[2] Lucy's verdict was that he really should have vented at someone else.[2]

Chirpy holds no grudge, and her concern for his broken leg predates the party by a good while.[9] All the same, the household's final word on Mike is Yashy's hospital "G'bye, Mike", with Chirpy right beside her.[12]

Blur

Blur is the one who actually taught Chirpy to fly.[15] Thanks to Mike, she also calls him "Daddy", which flusters Blur and infuriates Yashy in equal measure.[22] The noncanon gag strip "Ships Ahoy! #65: Blur x Chirpy" plays one of their rounds of fly tag as a mock romance, ending in a tackle-hug.[35]

Her birth mother and twin brother

Chirpy's reunion with her mother, remembered in Witch Hunt.

Chirpy's mother fled the snake attack and left a single egg behind. As Yashy tells Mike, "We still haven't found her mom. Maybe one day she'll fly back."[21][1] That absence powers Chirpy's one dramatic arc, from her baby-era "Does Mommy hate me?" to the balcony breakdown at Christmas.[6][26] The reunion itself happens entirely off-panel, reported by Lucy years later alongside a single tearful memory panel.[16]

Minor relationships

Paulo

"Meanie-Kitty" and Chirpy are April birthday twins, and Veronica's commentary confirms hers falls a few days before his, which is how they ended up sharing one surprise party.[28] Chirpy repaid the honor by showing his adult magazine to Lucy,[29] though she was later the lone voice defending his fling with Tess as true love.[8]

Quotes

My mommy.. She never came back.. — Chirpy, breaking down in front of Mike in Feline Festivities

.. I love you, Girl-Kitty.. Thank you for taking care of me.. — Chirpy, half-asleep in Lucy's arms in Feline Festivities

Did you see how far Mommy FLIED?? — Chirpy, starry-eyed while Yashy pummels Mike in Flying Lessons

Meow! I'm tryin' to curse ya! — Chirpy, flying circles around Lucy in a black-cat costume in Mischief Night

MOMMY I'LL GIVE YOU MY EARS!! — Chirpy, offering to fix Yashy's entirely imaginary deafness in Show and Tell

Gallery

Trivia

  • Flying Lessons is a remake of the DeviantArt-era chapter "Chirpy's Introduction", which was cut from the 2011 Volume One and restored later. Veronica's commentary notes the remake stripped out Yashy's Yoshi-derived behaviors around the egg.[36][21]
  • The pets exist because Veronica "wanted Lucy to hold little cute animals like Misty was holding Togepi from Pokemon", with the baby Yoshis of Super Mario World as the other inspiration.[37]
  • In the original 2000s comics, Chirpy also eventually left the group after finding her mother and brother; the modern comic repeats that ending off-panel, revealed in Witch Hunt.[37][16]
  • She has a descriptor nickname for everybody: Girl-Kitty (Lucy), Boy-Kitty (Mike, and Zachary too), Meanie-Kitty (Paulo), Boy-Doggie (David), Pink-Kitty (Tess), and Boy-Birdie (Blur).[20][10][38][28][29][31][22]
  • Veronica has described the pets as "permanent children", created to be ageless.[39]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Chapter 6: Flying Lessons, page 3
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 13
  3. ↑ Chapter 9: Show and Tell, page 2
  4. ↑ Chapter 17: Unfulfilled Fantasy, page 14
  5. ↑ Chapter 36: Crash and Burn, page 4
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Chapter 19: Blurry Memories, page 2
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 16
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 45: Return, page 10
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Chapter 17: Unfulfilled Fantasy, page 1
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 10
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Chapter 71: Just Beautiful, page 33
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 Chapter 75: Breaking Up, page 21
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Chapter 65: Dinner Time, page 4
  14. ↑ Chapter 45: Return, page 11
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Chapter 19: Blurry Memories, page 7
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 Chapter 105: Witch Hunt, page 7
  17. ↑ Lucy's Birthday, page 3
  18. ↑ Chapter 71: Just Beautiful, page 29
  19. ↑ Chapter 57: Mischief Night, page 3
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Chapter 1: Simple Pleasures, page 1
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Chapter 6: Flying Lessons, page 2
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 22.4 Chapter 6: Flying Lessons, page 4
  23. ↑ Catty Remarks, page 2
  24. ↑ Chapter 16: Field Day, page 11
  25. ↑ Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 9
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 26.3 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 11
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Chapter 28: Feline Festivities, page 15
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 28.2 Birthday Double-Team, page 1
  29. ↑ 29.0 29.1 29.2 Birthday Double-Team, page 2
  30. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 12
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 16
  32. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 18
  33. ↑ Chapter 65: Dinner Time, page 3
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 34.2 Chapter 105: Witch Hunt, page 8
  35. ↑ Ships Ahoy, Season Five, page 12 🔒 (members only)
  36. ↑ Chapter 6: Flying Lessons, page 1
  37. ↑ 37.0 37.1 "Bittersweet Candy Bowl on Tumblr". 2021-02-21.
  38. ↑ Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 17
  39. ↑ "Bittersweet Candy Bowl on Tumblr". 2026-03-07.
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