Bittersweet Candy Bowl/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Abandon Shipping: A large amount of Mike and Lucy shippers did this with Mike's revelation of his hatred of Lucy in "December."
  • Alternate 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?
  • 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.
  • Anvilicious: BEING GAY IS A-OKAY!
  • Archive Binge: Not the hugest, but growing. The entire archive is current working on 800 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. Booru, DA, voting in TWC, and a chatroom.
  • Complete Monster: Abby's father Just...just Abby's father.
  • Crack Pairing: And it's awesome.
  • 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 recent behavior with Lucy, other than being his justification for it. Sandy shippers do similar with Lucy as the one to blame. It can be... disconcerting. Sometimes goes into Fan Dumb territory. The Mike x Lucy shippers seem to do it more commonly.
  • 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.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • 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 his Hate Dumb goes 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 beggining 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.
  • Fan Dumb: A lot, actually. The Mike fans who treat Lucy like the Antichrist, the more extreme Lucy fans who consider her completely innocent, the Sandy haters who blame her for damn near everything, the list goes on.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Mike's status as a complete Butt Monkey becomes this as the consequences play out.
  • Impromptu Makeover: Lucy got one. She was unhappy with the result.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Augustus losing the girl he likes permanently was a bit sadder than expected.
    • Also Lucy in recent chapters.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Mike and Paulo could easily end up with any of the girl classmates, and some people have even paired Mike and Paulo together!
  • Memetic Badass: Within the fandom, Alec "Badass" McCain.
  • Misaimed Fandom: Certain sections of the Fan Dumb 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: Molly
    • Pretty much all of the girls at some point.
  • 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.
  • Ron the Death Eater: There is a portion of the fandom that says Lucy is a complete and unrepentant Jerkass. Mike gets the exact same treatment from his detractors. There are also those who say Tess is evil, in spite of her constant efforts to avert her past status as a jerk. This has also occurred with Sandy in at least one fanfic where she is shown to be vengeful, jealous and murderous, due to the author disliking her.
  • Toy Ship: "Adventure Shipping" with Molly and Justin
    • Mike and Sandy in 3rd grade before Sandy moved.
    • Paulo and Lucy in 5th grade.
  • True Art Is Angsty
  • Uncanny Valley: If Carter actually is a cat, his family provokes it.
  • Values Dissonance: Much of the strip's fandom wishes the same things on certain characters that they'd be unhappy to see happen to others. Quite common in Die for Our Ship situations.
  • The Woobie: Pretty much everyone but David has gotten woobie time in the main cast. But Wynn from Out Of The Frame deserves special mention.