For those who write Pokémon fanfics, have you ever gotten this 'review' before: "You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like Pokémon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the Pokémon’s name, ie, Ash’s pikachu is called Pikachu. This is because you only capitalize when it’s a proper noun, which are the names of places or things. Similar reasoning should be applied to any other words you’re thinking of capitalizing, like telephone or trainer. Or professor. Before you message me about this, please look at fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/55376155/1/Capitalization-Thread to make sure your argument hasn’t already been addressed." Is this a legitimate criticism? I have tried it both ways and not seeing things like Professor or Pikachu capitalized looks weird, though I can easily see why this makes sense in the 'real world'. Even the games capitalize these things, and they're as close to a primary source as you can get. How do you handle things like this? Personally, it irks me - not because of the advice, which in other contexts would be legitimate, but because they didn't bother to critique the actual story.
I've seen that review before, copied and pasted by the same guy (St Elmo or Farla?) on several stories. I haven't received it myself, but I'd personally just ignore it if I ever do. My opinion is that it would be too jarring for me to implement and as a reader it puts me off a little. Having said that, I don't think his criticism is legitimate or invalid, merely subjective. While I think it's correct from a technical standpoint, I have also read a couple of books that have done exactly what he is forbidding, although to a lesser extent than Pokémon media. Additionally, no other reviewer apart from him brings the capitalization up to critique. So I personally see his criticism as one reviewer's pet peeve and by no means a rule that has to be followed when writing. Could be wrong though. Plus, it's the only thing he addresses for every story he reviews and a very narrow issue to quibble about when considering other aspects of storytelling that might need to be improved on. So yeah, I don't see much merit in listening to someone who probably hasn't taken the time to read what he's critiquing and probably wouldn't be coming back regardless of how I take his criticism. tldr: I'd just write how I feel and move on.
Professor I can see not being capitalized when you don't call them by name, but Pokémon and the names of Pokémon? Definitely capitalize. Even Word capitalizes Pokémon, and you call a Pokémon by it's name when 1) it's a wild Pokémon 2) you don't know it's nickname or 3) that's name you decided to call it if after you've caught, received, or hatched it.
I have seen it on some stories, but as far as I am concerned it is just someone that doesn’t have a life nor the ability to be original seeing as that review is the exact same every time I see it. It is subjective as hell and I don’t think it is a review at all.
I've never seen that review before, but the way I see it is that if its capitalized in the source material (which it is) then it should be capitalized in fanfics.
Considering that most of the characters in my Pokémon fanfictions have the same name as their species, I capitalise their names. For example I have a shinx character named... Shinx but if I were to write it as 'the shinx' or 'a group of shinx' I wouldn't use a capital letter. While from a grammaticle aspect I say it's worth pointing out, but not enough to criticise the story itself.
I've seen it before. Even got it a couple of times. As far as I'm concerned, they're just a bunch of trolls in Anytown, USA who get triggered every time they see something like that. If you're not comfortable adjusting to their whims, just ignore or block them. I've also noticed they are most active around the months of January and February, usually putting them into newly published stories. If you want to avoid them, just post outside those months and your chances of getting that will be much lower. From a grammatical standpoint...yes they are correct. You're not supposed to capitalize animals and it goes over to Pokémon. The only exceptions are if that's referring to a particular member of the species or at the beginning of the sentence. But it's a bit odd at the same time. You wouldn't name your dog "Dog" (Maybe you do, I don't judge ) It's going to look weird because we're used to seeing the names of Pokémon capitalized regardless of where it's used. While I was at first opposed to this (I did get this kind of review when I started writing fanfics) it's started to make more sense and once I got into it as a habit, it cleans up the fic much nicer. That would be what irritates me too. Giving me the advice is perfectly fine, but that review is simply cookie cutter and it doesn't really help me in any aspect other than the tirade. That's why whenever I review a story, I make sure to put some thought and detail into it. Each one I give is unique and tailored to that specific chapter or fic itself. To me it seems that all this person does is find a place where a Pokémon's name is capitalized and then slap that factory wall of text in there. When I see something like that, unless it's uniquely crafted, I won't bother to even give it a second glance. Chances are if I receive that review again in the future, I'll ignore it. I'm not changing my entire fic to suit their standards nor are they going to tell me how to write.
Like I get that they are grammatically correct, but I follow the convention of the Pokémon franchise. And that is my choice. If they have good constructive points I might be willing to listen, but if they post it on chapter one while I have multiple chapters up, chances are they haven't read anything and are just looking for attention. I did go briefly to the forum that was posted in the first post and I mostly just laughed myself silly looking at the dumbest OC I have ever seen. While they make a point regarding correct grammar, they aren't worth listening to.
In all of my stories, even the ones on Wattpad.net (yes I do have a wattpad account), I have never seen this review before. While I'm not that good on grammar, I always think about my Capitalization. That's one thing I hate about some other fanfictions where the Capitalization sucks and it really bothers me.
I have gotten that review before, but I shrugged it off after I got the exact same one on another Pokémon fic of mine. It was obvious that the writer wasn't paying attention to who they were reviewing or took any time to think about the actual content of the fic. Honestly, I don't really care; capitalize Pokémon names however you'd like. I capitalize my names because, as has been said above, if a Pokémon does not have a nickname, its species is used as a placeholder (or permanent name). So if I encounter a wild Shinx, I will capitalize Shinx, because since it doesn't have a name, I'll use its species as that name until it gets another (if it does). Others don't do that, and that's fine. It's such a narrow topic and it has good arguments on both sides; I'm not going to yell at you if you treat Shinx the way you treat giraffe. That's actually the main reason I don't like this review - it's like writing a review just to say "you missed a comma," which is a total waste of space, time, and shows you didn't put any thought into what I was writing. Maybe if they switched the phrasing of that review up a bit each time and added something else constructive to each fic (that shows me they actually read it), I would have more respect for it. But they don't, so I don't.
I haven't seen it before, but from what I've read, it sounds more like that person has an agenda to get other people to conform to his style of correct punctuation. It really ignores the story. Seeing how wide spread it is, how about we follow his(or her) advice on "not messaging him" about why he's wrong and instead message him(or her) with something along the lines of, "Thanks for the review. I'll take what you said into consideration, so what else did you think about my story? Did you feel as though you could relate to my character's struggle when her mother died?" Also, I don't mean just one person send this reply. Everyone who has recieve this person's review should respond with the exact same message. Just my 2 cents...
As others mentioned before, I do capitalize the names of Pokémon if they don't have a proper nickname. But, the culprits of those reviews are indeed Farla and St. Elmo's Fire. Both are trolls who pretty much harass users with the same exact review. I've gotten it on one or two of my stories before, but I ended up just blocking them, so take it with a grain of salt. On a couple of my OC submission stories they created 'OC's' that were actually just characters like Frisk from Undertale or Ciel from Black Butler, just with Pokémon and different names. It's incredibly irritating, honestly, but they're fairly easy to ignore. I honestly wonder if they're the same person...
Yes you should capitalize. They should know this. examples being: "Go Charizard!" "Squirtle use bubblebeam!" Pokémon names are proper nouns even if it doesn't have a nickname
I think critiquing a person's grammar is just as valid as critiquing the story itself since either could improve a person's writing ability. As for this specific review, I'm not so sure. I don't think it's really applied to my stories before since all of them are Mystery Dungeon based and more often than naught it IS referring to a Pokémon's name when I use their species name, so I've never gotten this review before. I used to use lowercase when referring to the species as a whole, but stopped doing it that way because canonically people in the games do capitalize the names when just generally referring to the species. Even in the Mystery Dungeon games when Pokémon refer to other species of Pokémon, they capitalize the names when just speaking about them generally. The criticism about not capitalizing "Professor" is slightly more valid, but if using a noun in place of a name, you would still capitalize it, like how you would capitalize "Mom" or "Dad" but not "my mom" or "my dad". If you were referring to a professor as "Professor Oak" then Professor should be capitalized since it's a title. If you shorten it and just refer to them as "Professor" it would still be capitalized since it's used in place of their name. If you're being more general and saying something like "the professor" then it wouldn't be capitalized. The thing that really bothers me about that review is the ending, "Before you message me about this, please look at fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/55376155/1/Capitalization-Thread to make sure your argument hasn’t already been addressed." That just sounds so pretentious and either means that people have been paying attention to their grammar and are trying to defend it regularly enough that it's become an issue for this person, or that they just can't be bothered to engage in an actual conversation for the sake of constructive criticism. If I were you, I'd reply anyway just to troll them.
I haven't had this review come up, but I can tell you just by reading it once that it is a manufactured troll and I'd ignore it immediately. As for what I think on the issue of capitalization...I'm not the one to ask. Ever since childhood, my grammar has been shaky at best and I have always struggled with the English language. I don't actually remember what I did for my fanfic. All I know is that I try to slop what ever I can manage onto a page and edit later. Capitalization of Pokémon is very low on my list of priorities to keep in mind while editing and it is often forgotten. I'd say write the way you want to write and since this is a fictional world with no clear right answer, you can make up the rules to work however you want. Capitalize if you want to or don't, I don't think there is a wrong answer either way.
I honestly wouldn’t pay any attention to what they have said in that review. Like I said before they have no originality and it is just a copy paste review. They don’t actually read the story, so comments like that shouldn’t be taken into account. I actually looked at the forum, and they have a 14 page list of OC like that. It is ridiculous.
Tbh it doesnt matter to me as ive grown numb to this argument after so long augh. I personally prefer it when its capitalized as the games do it Gen5 onward but to each their as i cant really give a heck anymore. the only thing that ill never miss about reading these arguments is how some people sound like asspringles like chill out youre not better than anyone because you dont want to hit the caps key geez
Yeah that type of criticism is complete bullshit. The way someone capitalizes those words is completely up to personal preference, and people shouldn't say that the writers' way is wrong just because they do it that way. That just makes those people look like they are being assholes for the sake of being assholes, which will lead to a quick block and potentially a report. I get being a grammar nazi (I'm one myself), but this shit just takes it a bit too far.
