Paula Trainor

Paula Trainor is the best friend of Amy Barksdale in Brother Grimace's "A Path of Roses and Thorns." She is the Dean of tha Curtis E. LeMay College of Military Sciences at Tennyson University, and a Lieutenant (three-star) General in the United States Air Force. She possesses several degrees ( undergrad degrees in Biology, Aeronautics and Political Science, graduate degrees in the latter two, and her Ph.D in Political Science.

Paula is an African-American woman of roughly forty years in age (she and Amy were in the same year in college). She is 5'10 in height, weighs one hundred and twenty five pounds, and has long, dark hair that (when let down) falls just over her shoulders. Paula is a very attractive woman, slightly vain about her appearance (she once bragged about having the same clothing size since her time in college, and does not feel at ashamed to go to beauty spas or wearing feminine clothing when out of uniform), and not at all reluctant to speak her mind. Paula is also a lesbian, and while she is not openly gay (because she wishes to remain in the military), she does have a semi-public, long-term relationship with Sammi Rudolph. (Paula and Sammi were married in 2012, and reside in Paula's refurbished Georgetown brownstone, as seen in the post-canon Falling Into College fic Why We Fight.) She does not let her sexuality act as the primary focus of her life (she once jokingly remarked that she has saved that position for her quest to get Amy married). She is a native Rhode Islander and presumably quite wealthy (according to the car she owns - a custom-made BMW roadster - and the eclectic mix of A-list persons that she knows; it has been revealed that she has a personal relationship with members of Great Britain's Royal Family). She also has a slight dislike of Southerners (or perhaps just of Daniel St. John).

(It is never stated exactly what Paula's duties in uniform entail, but it is known that she was the commander of a nuclear missile site at one time, and served at some time during the second term of the Reagan Administration (she was on the rotation for at least one year between 1985 and 1987) as the officer who "carried the Football." She has enough authority to allow her to intimidate Federal officers, and also be immediately appraised of emergency situations throughout the government. It has been recently revealed that Paula's last posting, before she was assigned to Tennyson University, was as the Director of Project Fast Forward (located at Niagara Falls, New York). She has the Secret Service code-name of 'Godseye', for reasons also not revealed.

Paula was to be Amy's Maid of Honor at her wedding to Maurice 'Reese' Wyatt, but was called away to the White House on important business and returned for the reception. (Not wanting to take away from Amy's special day, Paula didn't tell her that she had been promoted to brigadier general and selected to become the Deputy Director of DELPHI, replacing Robert Bakeson.) She has recently been selected for a high-level position in the United States Department of Extranormal Affairs, for which she would have had to resign her post at Tennyson, but still remain in the Washington, D.C. area. She has instead elected to take the Dean's position at Tennyson, but still possesses an enormous amount of political and personal power (as the position she would have assumed is being held open for her).

In some alternate realities, Paula also possesses metahuman powers, but as of this point, those powers have not been revealed.

In the Apocalyptic Daria universe, Paula was responsible for saving the lives of Amy, her family, and several of their close friends by deploying a DELPHI Gridrunner Mark II aircraft to Tennyson University and extracting them (and others) before Washington, D.C. was destroyed by a nuclear weapon. This is shown in the as-yet unreleased tie-in fic Twilight Friday.

In the Daylight continuity of Legion of Lawndale Heroes, Paula saved the remaining members of the Barksdale family (Amy, as well as Tess Barksdale and Erin Chambers, because she could reach them in time) by taking them with Delphi forces evacuating to another Earth. In 'The Hope Mission',it is revealed that this Paula was promoted to the rank of a four-star general, and that Amy holds an unspecified position on her staff.