Translation projects

Translation projects make Bittersweet Candy Bowl available to readers in other languages. All of them have been fan efforts, run by volunteers and given the authors’ blessing in the form of a link on the Extras page of Bittersweetcandybowl.com. Two have been listed over the years, a Spanish translation called Caramelo Agridulce and a Russian one called Кисло-сладкая конфета. As of the Extras page’s August 2024 update, only the Russian project is still linked.

Caramelo Agridulce (Spanish)

The Spanish translation is the older of the two, and it lived a rather eventful life. The Extras page was already listing it by December 2010, with credit given to a translator named Pchan. By August 2011 the listing had been amended with a candid postscript: “(Now abandoned, as it was the product of a now-failed relationship—how poignant!)”

The name didn’t stay retired for long, though. By October 2012 the Extras page was advertising a “new Caramelo Agridulce” as “full steam ahead with a rapidly growing translated archive” while the previous attempt lay dormant. By early 2013 the blurb was inviting readers to “Pick your poison” between the old archive and the new. By March 2015, the link had come off the Extras page. When a reader pointed out the suspended WordPress site the following month, Oliver took the loss in stride, saying “At least we have our Russian friends!” A few months later, Veronica noted that the translators had been volunteers working unpaid in their spare time and added that she hoped they were doing well.

Кисло-сладкая конфета (Russian)

The Russian translation was listed alongside the revived Spanish project by October 2012, already “over a hundred pages in”. It is hosted on the Russian-language comics portal AComics (acomics.ru). The translators went well beyond the main comic, too. Oliver noted in 2015 that they were “working incredibly hard on reproducing so much of BCB.. even Ask Roseville High: and our Candybooru instructions”.

It’s also the project that stuck around. As late as 2026, Veronica was still thanking its team directly for having “stuck around with the comic for so many years”.

Its host, however, had a rough start to 2026. On 23 January, AComics announced that Roskomnadzor, the Russian communications regulator, had blocked the entire portal; the regulator gave no official reason. Shortly before the block, AComics had fielded complaints over comics said to promote what Russian coverage calls “the extremist organisation of four capital letters”, a euphemism for LGBT content following Russia’s 2023 designation of the LGBT movement as extremist. Кисло-сладкая конфета was one of the comics they noticed, for the LGBT content on some of its pages. Roskomnadzor took AComics off its register of banned sites that July, though readers in Russia still needed a VPN to reach it.

The authors and fan translation

Neither project was ever run by Veronica and Oliver themselves; their role has been to cheer the translators on and link the results. When a fan mentioned in 2026 that they had translated the comic into Russian for their own benefit, the comic’s Tumblr replied, “I hope people with other languages are emboldened by your efforts and translate BCB!!” As it happens, Veronica is a native Spanish speaker herself, though she has said that years of living in English-speaking countries have cost her a lot of confidence in the language.

Trivia

• Both translations got a turn in the site sidebar’s “Look!” feature spot, the Spanish project in late 2012 and the Russian one by early 2013.
• Oliver noted in 2015 that Google Translate kept rendering the Russian version’s title back into English as “Sweetie”.