YMMV / Bittersweet Candy Bowl

• Abandon Shipping:
  • A large amount of Mike and Lucy shippers did this with Mike's revelation of his hatred of Lucy in "December."
  • Some of the Paulo X Rachel shippers did this too with after an update from the Unspoken Rule Chapter. Even Taeshi herself acknowledges this.
    Taeshi: two ships sunk in the span of a couple of pages, I’m on a roll!
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Did Mike simply outgrow the crush and isn't interested? Or is it embarrassment after all he said leading to him trying even harder to forget it?
  • Paulo teasing Abbey is hinted to be the former’s jealousy of the latter having feelings for Daisy.
• Angst? What Angst?: Stunningly for a series otherwise chock full of drama: Lucy seems not to suffer from any long term effects after almost being raped. No nightmares, no PTSD, no flashbacks. She just carries on as if nothing had happened. One might argue that she's just such a badass that she didn't need any counseling, but Daisy also does not seem to suffer from any psychological trauma even though she basically stood and watched helplessly, utterly incapable of helping as her friend was pinned to the ground and groped, about to get raped. This finally gets addressed in "Escape Route", where she's shown being anxious just from Augustus's phone ringing since Alejandro could be on the other side of the line, and her nightmare caps off with Alejandro straddling her, ultimately making her bawl when she wakes up. She probably didn't have to think about it or buried the memories after it happened, but when confronted with a real physical reminder, she's forced to remember her trauma.
• Anvilicious: BEING GAY IS A-OKAY!
• Archive Binge: Not the hugest, but growing. The entire archive is currently working on 2000+ pages. If you want to comment, reading it all probably wouldn't hurt as a start. And this archive is hardly all there is to see: Candybooru, the old DeviantArt comics (now moved), voting in TWC, the BC International comics, the ask blogs, and any extra content from the newsletters and in the compilations make up entire books worth of reading. This isn't even getting into the version differences between the original chapters and the webtoon/omnibus rereleases of the first three volumes.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • It seems that every one of the main characters have both fans who love them and fans who hate them. Most of it comes from shipping, though many of the criticisms also come from that they all seemed to have Taken a Level in Jerkass somewhere throughout the series.
  • Mike REALLY qualifies as this to some of the fanbase. While he does still have some fans willing to defend and sympathize with him for his regret of his past actions and some moments of clarity, there are other readers that find him really insufferable due to his self pitying, and spiteful behavior.
  • There are many fans who are either okay with or outright hate Madison due to her basically being a carbon copy of Lucy, and taking attention away from the main cast.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The ending of the "Featured Attraction" chapter. After the movie showing is changed from dub to sub on the audience's demand, Paulo, Daisy and David meet a dyslexic girl who laments having the experience ruined for her. Paulo is growing angrier at this, then the last page suddenly shows him running out of the movie theater demanding where Mike is so he can give him a swirlie. While some fans tried to explain this by saying that Paulo is taking out his anger at nerds on one nerd that he knows, the scene is still abrupt and is never mentioned again afterwards.
• Broken Base:
  • Abbey being coerced by Paulo into getting back with Daisy. While some are happy that Abbey and Daisy are getting back together again, a lot of readers are openly disgusted with the treatment Abbey receives from Paulo who constantly insults him and takes a stab at his dead mother in front of everyone in class and receives no repercussion whatsoever afterwards. Readers are also disappointed in Daisy for not lifting a finger to stop the abuse and basically using Paulo to make Abbey date her again, even though Abbey makes it clear that it's over between them. And finally Abbey himself is guilt tripped into getting back with Daisy by Paulo.
  • Whether Abbey's response to the above and to Paulo's continued fawning over Daisy ( Throwing him against a bathroom wall and choking him whilst calling Paulo out on his Casanova tendencies and demanding that he stay away from Daisy) was justified.
  • Fans are torn on weather or not the sex between Melanie and Augustus was consensual.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Some fans felt quite surprised and happy that Lucy flipped off Mike and told him that she's pretty much "fucking" done with him to his face.
  • After Mike's horrid behavior during the 100th chapter, many fans were very happy with Sue telling him off.
  • Paulo literally calling out Sandy via Mike’s phone after Mike yelled at Daisy in “Witch Hunt”.
• Continuity Lockout: In some cases, the events and conversations the main characters reference are from side comics, like the BC International line or "Ask Roseville High". If a reader didn't see those comics, the context is lost.
• Crack Pairing:
  • Due to the fact that there are so many characters here that there's bound to be someone shipping two or three characters whom have never met or barely interacted with. It got even worse when the Official BCB Art Meme had you forcing two characters; one that you like and the other that you don't like, to make out. Hell some people unintentionally found their new OTP because of this.
  • One of the most well-known ones is DavidxSue, the reason some fans like this ship mostly just stems from the fact that seeing complete opposites get together seems rather cute. It got to the point that Taeshi made a comic◊ with them in it.(Although it's busy rotting in the Graveyard so it's left up in the air what is Taeshi's opinion on the ship.)
  • DavidxRachel, due to being one of the two token dogs, they're not shipped frequently but it's acknowledged. It also helps that in Another Plan◊ they decide to have sex so that Rachel can have her own baby, it's also implied that she found him to be a much better partner than Paulo. And besides she's a dog, dogs like big bones.
  • LucyxSandy, some fans began to get tired about how indesicive Mike was about who he really loved and decided to just have Lucy and Sandy hooking up. After a while different reasons have sprung up. After Mike more or less just chooses Sandy over Lucy fans began to draw fanart of them together just for laughs. But after the events of December, fans began to draw fanart of this ship just to spite him. In fact after Mike reveals his hatred of Lucy the most common theme in Lucy x Sandy fanart is Sandy more or less dumping Mike over Lucy, while Lucy either looks indifferent or outright just taunting him.
  • AbbeyxLucy Mostly because Lucy's dependency and Abbey's white-knighting go together on paper, although realistically most fans agree that the relationship might get insular and toxic, then end with a really explosive fallout.
    • It certainly helps that one time in his early days in the comic, Abbey more or less began to flirt at her and her reaction was to blush. (And punch him in the face)
  • The True Ending to BCB.
• Designated Villain: Downplayed with Abbey from “Guest of Honor” to “Moments Apart”. While he does threaten Paulo to stay away from Daisy while choking him briefly, the reason he did this was because Paulo wouldn’t stop teasing him. Abbey isn’t flat-out demonized by the storyline, but characters are both aware of how Abbey’s hatred of Paulo is blinding him and sympathize with his issues.
• Die for Our Ship: An alarmingly high portion of fans have unreasonably hostile opinions of those making up the ship not their own. Such as blaming Sandy for everything, in spite of her having absolutely nothing to do with Paulo's problems, little to do with Lucy's, and nothing to do with Michael's "December"-era behavior with Lucy, other than helping him realize how toxic Lucy is at the moment. Sandy shippers do similar when they make Lucy the scapegoat. It can be... disconcerting.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • There's a portion of the fandom who says Augustus has done absolutely nothing wrong. There is also the portion of the fans who ignore Mike's harshness toward Lucy, in spite of her facade having mostly faded already. To be fair, Lucy is no innocent on acting harsh herself.
  • There's also those who easily overlook or glorify Paulo's nasty attitude towards his friends. He is shown to attack Mike a total of three times unprovoked due to Mike's role in Lucy's moving due to him calling out her treatment towards him in a justified, if harsh fashion; and is also shown to bully Abbey and assist Daisy in getting back together with her against Abbey's wishes and without any consideration for his feelings.
  • Some people despise Mike for calling out Lucy's abusive, toxic behavior towards him. These same people were happy when she plainly tells him to fuck off later instead of doing any self-examination. The way some of these people responded, you'd think Lucy had never done anything wrong.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Amaya (has no speaking lines), McCain (has few speaking lines), and Liam (hasn't even appeared in the comic proper) are more popular on the forums than one would think.
  • Another example might be Larken.
  • Liam shows up as background filler at times. The second link also has Amaya and Larken.
  • Augustus is much more popular than one would expect, to the point that a number of fans act like he's done absolutely nothing or planned to. And the fans that hate him go nuts when he shows up, fearing he'll do more stuff he has never done in the first place.
  • The recurring turtle character who appears at random to trip the cast beginning in "Field Day" (although canonically he was around since the first chapter, which was published later on as a replacement for the original first chapter) seems to have grown slightly more popular. Especially on the Ask BCB Tumblr page.
  • Rachel is well-loved for being a supportive friend to Paulo and Daisy.
  • Matt or as Fans like to call him "Oreo Cat" or any other variation. Ever since his debut in Chapter 81 fans liked him because he was rather cute and nice, fans began to love him even more when it was revealed that he was gay and had a crush on Jordan. Making him along with Jessica to be one of the only confirmed gay characters.
• Epileptic Trees: After Sandy moved out to pursue her career, many fans had been speculating that she's been cheating on Mike behind his back and taking advantage of their Long-Distance Relationship and lack of communication. It is revealed to be true in “Eternal Flame”.
• Fanfic Fuel: What was Lucy doing after she moved to a private school. The most common thing that happens in fanart is that she meets up with Sandy and either become friends, best friends, rivals or even lovers.
• Fan Nickname: Extended time calling them McCain, "Final Fantasy Cat", and "Confrontation Cat" has made them more used than their official names, especially among fans. Their names being Alec, Augustus, and Alejandro, respectively.
• Growing the Beard: Volume one is hit and miss in terms of story, and the art is very amateurish, excluding the occasional arc that has been remastered. It is for this reason that the authors recommend that new readers start at volume two.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Mike's status as a complete Butt-Monkey becomes this as the consequences play out.
• Ho Yay:
  • Mike and Paulo, especially in the summer vacation arc.
  • David towards Mike here. And towards Abbey at times. Maybe.
• I Knew It!: Many fans had theories or hunches that Sandy might've been not so loyal to Mike thanks to their Long-Distance Relationship. This Epileptic Trees were finally given their due in "Eternal Flame".
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Augustus losing the girl he likes permanently was a bit sadder than expected.
  • Also Lucy in the later chapters, when she attempts to atone for what she's done and is met with scorn and hatred from Mike. Not so much after she comes back, where she's more well adjusted, but still has some of her tsundere traits left for people she cares about.
  • Abbey, to some fans. It's hard not to feel sorry for the poor guy after everything he's been through, but he's still rather aggressively and somewhat violently protective of his loved ones and the weak, to the point where he comes off as more harsh than good.
  • Some fans also consider Mike this. His relationship problems both in his past (with Lucy) and currently (with Sandy) don't excuse him for being a Jerkass, the fact that most of the friendships he had had some degree of toxicity throughout his life make it a bit more understandable.
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Quite a few to go around even.
  • Mike and Paulo could easily end up with any of the girl classmates, and some people have even paired Mike and Paulo together!
  • Lucy herself is no slouch, it helps even back in the early days of the comic she was quite the popular girl in a sense that quite a lot of guys liked her.
  • Augustus isn't far behind from the three above too. Having quite the ships under him, from people he's actually close too, to those he's somewhat familiar and then some whom he never met before.
• Memetic Badass: Within the fandom, Alec "Badass" McCain.
• Misaimed Fandom: Certain sections of the fandom seem to be completely missing the point of all the deconstruction, taking sides and defending their chosen character's actions regardless of how nasty it gets.
• Moe: Pretty much all of the girls at some point, but especially Molly, Abby's younger sister.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • There's probably at least a few people who thought that the incentive chapter "Disaster Dominoes" was a little creepy...
  • The mild violence in "Confrontation" can bring up some nightmare fuel about being beaten up and nearly raped by a gangster.
  • The easter egg on the figurine promo page.
    It's not like she wants to kill you or anything.
• Ron the Death Eater: Occurs very often for several different characters depending on whose side a fan takes in any of the conflicts in the comic. Put in brief, Lucy, Mike, Tess, Sandy, and Abbey are some of the more frequently on the receiving end of this, being portrayed as unrepentant Jerkasses and even murderous in some cases. Particularly egregious for Sandy as she's hardly in the comic at all, and (used to be, anyway) nothing but a sweetheart whenever she showed up.
• The Scrappy: There are many fans who are either indifferent towards or outright hate Madison due to her basically being a carbon copy of Lucy, and taking attention away from the main cast. Although this is starting to dissipate.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Abbey was introduced as a character with a traumatic background and eventually someone who would date Daisy. Unfortunately, when his dislike of Paulo grew into a blind hatred, he ends up dumping Daisy (for the second time) when she calls him out for assaulting Paulo, and starts hanging out with Jasmine and her friends. From that point on, Abbey has been largely Demoted to Extra.
• Toy Ship:
  • "Adventure Shipping" with Molly and Justin
  • Mike and Sandy in 3rd grade before Sandy moved.
  • Paulo and Lucy in 5th grade.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Abbey is this after getting back together with Daisy. At first, things seemed alright despite Abbey being a little distant, but Paulo’s unwarranted teasing was making it worse to the point where Abbey assaults Paulo in “Guest of Honor”.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Daisy is this to some readers after her (second) breakup with Abbey. There was fault to go around, to be sure (she was angry at Abbey for physically assaulting Paulo), but considering her history of downplaying Paulo's teasing and emotional abuse of Abbey (up to and including Paulo bringing up his dead mother in front of the whole class), several fans were upset when her later attempt to mend bridges with Paulo seemed to put all the blame on Abbey for how things ended and none on either of them. It doesn't help that even other characters describe the relationship as her "stringing him along" due to her still having feelings for Mike.
  • While Paulo's jerkish behavior isn't typically meant to be seen in a sympathetic light, several fans felt this way about him being physically threatened by Abbey (related to the above entry) due to his hand in essentially guilting Abbey back into dating Daisy after they broke up the first time and his constant teasing and bullying (especially knowing the problems Abbey is dealing with at home). The fact that he doesn't acknowledge his hand in pushing him over the edge, even after the breakup, doesn't help.
  • Speaking of Paulo, his actions and behavior after Lucy comes back. Has fans mostly against him rather than feeling sorry for him. Him stating that he was waiting for her so that they could be together is pretty much easy to debunk and taken with a grain of salt. And while he's trying to be a good, but blunt friend with Mike, half the time he deliberately brings up sore topics with the boy and gets surprised when Mike lashes out in turn.
  • Many fans feel this way about Mike after Lucy comes back and he starts dealing with the emotional fallout of ending their relationship, while also struggling with no emotional support from Sandy. It's worth pointing out that Mike does have legitimate grievances with both Lucy and the rest of his friends (Paolo being the worst offender) for how they have treated him over the course of the comic, but most of it took place in earlier parts of the story where it was played for slapstick comedy (as an example, the mild-mannered Sue chokes Mike with his own scarf at one point under the mere suspicion that he's the reason Lucy is upset), and Mike never seemed to hold it against them before, save for Lucy (which he chewed her out for after the abuse had stopped). Couple that with the fact that most of his recent behavior has consisted of vicious and over the top meltdowns over the slightest criticism, and you get a lot of fans who either don't care that he's losing all his friends, or are actively reveling in it.
  • While it is true that Mike's resentment-induced actions toward Lucy were a bit over-the-top, it's easy to forget that Lucy wasn't entirely innocent herself before Mike called her out on her actions. These days, it can seem like nothing is allowed to go right for Mike, and several other characters have torn into Mike and not Lucy even though both Mike and Lucy are trying to be better people.
• Webcomics Long-Runners: Still going strong since 2006 and due to its Long Runner status, it currently have 138 chapters and over 2,000+ pages.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not for Kids?: The comic seems to pass as a kid's material because of the cutesy art style, however the sexual undertones, sexually suggestive content, and lots of swearing proves that it's not exactly for kids. Not to mention a few chapters after December Arc turn the whole series being an emotional roller coaster.
• The Woobie: Pretty much everyone but David has gotten woobie time in the main cast.
  • Special mention goes to Daisy. Despite her faults and jealousy towards Lucy, she never intends any harm to anyone she cares about.
  • Chirpy. She was separated from her mother by a hungry snake when she was still in her egg, leading to Yashy raising her. You just want to cradle Chirpy in your arms when she gets upset in “Feline Festivities”. She does get to eventually see her birth family again in the post-December chapters, so she has a happy ending.
  • Wynn from the original version of Out Of The Frame deserves special mention.
  • Abbey’s younger sister Molly. She grew up alongside her brother with a horribly abusive father who would hurt their mother for the pettiest of reasons. Her trauma was so bad that she starts crying when Kevin playfully socks Janet at one point.