A histrionic kid has a meltdown and I have to explain to them how to block people because…
“How I’m reading your arguement, I keep hearing you telling me to stop writing anything.”
The review, for reference:
Read this: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/55376155/1/Capitalization-Thread
You wouldn’t capitalize animal or mouse or dragon, so you shouldn’t capitalize words like pokemon or pikachu or charizard. The only time you should capitalize it is if you’re using it as the pokemon’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. Or branch chief. Before you message me about this, please check the thread to make sure your argument hasn’t already been addressed.
You’re formatting dialogue incorrectly. Dialogue is written as [“Hello,” she said] or [“Hello!” she said], never [“Hello.” She said] or [“Hello”, she said] or [“Hello” she said]. This is because dialogue and speech tags are considered to be part of the same sentence, so they have to flow together. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb. In that case, the second part iis/i considered a separate sentence, so it’s written as [“Hello.” She grinned], never [“Hello,” she grinned]. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like “laughed” or “giggled” is in the second category. (“Speak” is also not a speech verb.) Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s [“Hi,” she said. “This is it.”] not [“Hi,” she said, “this is it.”] or [“Hi,” she said “this is it.”] And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s [“Hi. This,” she said, “is it.”] The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks (or single quotes) with thoughts. This is because quotation marks for thoughts make it look like your characters are talking out loud, which is confusing to the reader.
[The Decidueye used the move obediently, preventing the worker’s Kadabra from switching out and dealing damage at the same time. Sierra barely smiled as she barked the next command, “Shadow Ball.”. Decidueye shot a Shadow Ball at it’s opponent, fainting it with ease.]
This isn’t a visual medium. Just saying that a move was used is really boring. Try to break out of the mechanical nature of the games and describe battles more dynamically. This thread explains more on the topic: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/143300790/1/Battles-Are-Boring
Also, you want “its”. “It’s” always means “it is”.
Well, that ended abruptly. This is far too insubstantial for a first chapter. Remember that your first chapter is your opportunity to hook your reader – in other words, to show them what makes your story unique and worth reading. This is all summary and backstory; you haven’t even shown a single real scene yet. See here for more information: fanfiction (d o t) net/topic/11834/142411850/1/First-Chapters
How exactly is she so unaware of what’s going on? She supposedly has the same rank as Faba and has access to the secret labs, yet she never read the years’ worth of notes until now? If they were trying to keep her in the dark, they shouldn’t have given her access to the research notes in the first place.
People are their own worst enemy.
Arc-Fire115A response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/12540908/
If that’s what I am. So I’m supposed to delete this story because it’s shit?
I would prefer you don’t, but the decision is up to you.You don’t play the Pokémon games, do you? Pokemon’s names are capitalized all the time. So you were wrong about that.https://www.fanfiction.net/topic/11834/55376155/1/Capitalization-ThreadI go by how the games and other Pokémon books I’ve read go. Nobody’s perfect, and no one is the same as someone else. So let me write how I want to write.18h ago[Nobody’s perfect]
Especially not Pokemon’s writers, no. This is not a matter of writing style. Common nouns should not be capitalized. This is because capitalizing Random Words is very Disorienting and Confusing to the Reader.
Pokemon is a name. Pikachu is a name. Mouse is a noun that doesn’t need capitalization. Now STOP telling me what to do. This is MY fanfiction. MY writing. It’s not yours. Do I make myself clear? Now stop trying to take over my fanfiction.14h agoYou still don’t understand what I’m saying. This has nothing to do with your story. This is grammar.
Language has rules. If you refuse to accept that, I can’t stop you, but don’t be surprised when people complain about it.
Some rules are too restricting. How I’m reading your arguement, I keep hearing you telling me to stop writing anything. We wouldn’t be arguing if you hadn’t come along and made me feel this way.13h ago[How I’m reading your arguement, I keep hearing you telling me to stop writing anything.]
Then you’re reading it completely wrong. I don’t want you to stop writing.
This whole time, the only person who has been saying that you’re stupid, your story is crap, and you should stop writing is you. I don’t believe any of those things.
This isn’t the end of the world. Calm down and be kinder to yourself.
1h agoA response to your review at https://www.fanfiction.net/r/12540908/
3 people like my story. Now get the hell away from it. I will not tell you again.
Do you not know how to block people?But seriously, get a therapist. Your behavior is neither normal nor healthy. You need help.Get. Away.Block me. I won’t remember you by the next time I encounter you again.And so they did, finally. They also updated their story with a chapter that was just guilt-tripping martyrdom, which got them the 3 positive reviews they’re talking about.
I’d really like to know why this is so prevalent. This is definitely the worst example in a while, but this behavior keeps popping up. This goes beyond a simple inability to take criticism — they actively hurt themselves by making up things that aren’t there. How have they not run into problems on the internet before? If they have, why do they keep making the same mistake? Who is enabling this? Why?
As a culture, we really need to do a better job of communicating why this is a problem and how to cope with it. The push for safe spaces is a step in the right direction, but like all things Tumblr that may have hurt more than it helped; people assume that this is normal behavior so everywhere has to be a safe space for everyone all the time, and have no way of handling the situation when they discover that’s impossible.
For those interested, this is the other reason why I don’t sugarcoat. This is one case where I can be 100% confident that if I don’t set them off, someone else will. The only solution here is for them to realize the website is not for them and move to a safe space or disengage entirely. Enabling them is just going to make the inevitable meltdown worse.
My theory is that some people are so used to sugarcoating (as in recieving sugarcoated criticism) that they think that if someone says something objectively critical it must mean they irrediemably suck balls.
I had the most baffling conversation once with a girl (college aged?) That i reviewed. I said her story was interesting (made me wonder about stuff etc.) but didn’t go enough in depth. She understood that i hated it because “interesting is polite for boring”. And i was like ‘okay, wtf do i say if i find a story interesting??’
That’s the working theory, but this goes so far beyond that, and if you look at the reviews it’s not like they were getting very positive responses before this. The way they so determinedly make up this persecution fantasy makes me think there’s something more going on.
0
Could be (and it’s better imo to err on the side of taking people seriously). It could also be that they’re overreacting in writing out of frustration but they won’t think twice about it IRL once they’ve cooled off. It makes me think of my 12yo cousin who’s very quick to say ‘I’m stupid, I’ll never get anything right’ when he’s frustrated with his homework, but if you sit him down at a good time, he agrees that he just needs to study more and be more patient.
That’s a really interesting parallel. Makes me wonder whether attitudes like this are a side effect of the increasingly high-stakes pressure kids are being put under in school and extracurriculars. If you’re expected to be perfect in everything, and then you start writing fanfic as an outlet to distract yourself from not feeling like you’re perfect enough, and then someone comes along and tells you about something in your fanfic that’s not perfect enough… the overreaction makes sense, theoretically speaking.
Practically, it becomes a lot more difficult to come across as genuine. However, I’ve found you can do it pretty reliably if you give specifics and or elaborate. So you might say “I hadn’t considered how X’s self employment in the past would affect how they react to Y’s dropping out of uni, so it was interesting seeing that brought up. I was disappointed in how little screen time it got and how you didn’t mention any other effects it would have on blah.” Something like that is a lot harder to read as “That’s…interesting. Were you planning on doing anything with this fic?”
Sadly this type of comment takes longer to write, so I don’t comment as often as I used to because I can’t always be bothered.
If you want to see the end stage of this, look at gift exchanges! It’s a (sometimes unwritten, sometimes explicit) rule you have to comment and do so politely on your gift, because even if the person messed up, they messed up trying to write what you wanted rather than what they did, and their effort should be acknowledged. This means people who got something they hated go with “Uh, what an…interesting look at things!” Which means people knew that meant “Holy shit, how did you fuck up this hard.” Which means people who thought their gift was interesting cast about for a way to say that. Which was then copied by the people trying to be polite. Which made it mean holy shit how did you fuck up this hard, which…
Meanwhile other people tried approaching in the opposite direction and focused on being SO OVER THE TOP IN LOVE OMG PERFECT!!! with the idea that this would make it clear they really did find it at least decent.
At which point the trying-to-be-polite realized that this was the best way to hide their own disgust. Now both muted praise and over the top praise mean holy shit how did you fuck up so bad.
The push for safe spaces is a step in the right direction, but like all things Tumblr that may have hurt more than it helped
The key thing here is that Tumblr bastardized the whole idea while popularizing it, which was the worst way to bring the idea to the mainstream. The idea of a safe space was never, “You should always feel loved and be immune from criticism,” it was the complete opposite — to give people with criticism the safety to express it without fear of retaliation stemming from homophobia, racism, etc., thus giving more people a voice. It’s not being safe from anything that could challenge the way you think, it’s literally the opposite.
It’s the same thing with trigger warnings — they are supposed to allow subgroups to participate in discussion more freely and thoughtfully, not stifle what can be said.
The ableist-ass way this stuff is used now for every little thing that could make someone have a sad is infuriating as someone who actually needs them.
(Tumblr has done a similar hackjob on the idea of intersectionality that’s really damaging.)
I did not know this! My concept of safe spaces has always been “place where we don’t say anything that could upset people”, but it actually makes a lot of sense that it was supposed to be the opposite.
I do still think we need places like that for people who are this emotionally vulnerable, but the whole conversation is going to require a ton of untangling at this point.
Yeah there are definitely feminist/intersectional spaces that have rules about “hey, let’s cool it on the potentially violent/abusive/ableist/sexist language aside from the rant/venting forum” so it’s easy to conflate that with the Safe Space that Act defined above. (And there are forums that IMO take it too far, where you’ll be warned or have your comment edited by a moderator for saying “stupid” or “lame”, which, I get it, but. Anyway, not for me.)
stupid
This drives me up a wall because “stupid” has no history as a medical term; it’s from freaking French via Latin (the Latin word is literally “stupidus”, meaning “numb” or “astonished”) This kind of concern-trolling is a) really fucking willfully ignorant and b) loops back around to being ableist, because you’re basically saying any disparaging of another person’s ignorance is offensive to the mentally ill, which, no, we’re fully capable of being informed and intelligent, thanks.
But yeah the people being told not to talk in safe spaces are people spewing hate who then obviously throw tantrums about it, which is how you end up with the pop definition we have now.
It really grinds my gears when people say “stupid” is ableist. I use it only to mean WILLFUL stupidity and ignorance, and almost everyone else uses it that way too. I haven’t heard anyone use it as an insult for disabled people since I was in early elementary school. Lots of disabled people aren’t stupid in any sense of the word, so isn’t more ableist to connect “stupid” to disabilities?
Used like that, where anyone can stop anyone else from saying something because they don’t like it, the concept of safe spaces become nothing more than a tool for silencing; especially since when it’s used like that, it’s most often in places that aren’t actually meant to be safe spaces in the first place. And that’s how Tumblr uses it. Tumblr’s idea of safe spaces has recently started to look more like self-segregation than anything else, honestly.
I think a lot of tumblr’s issue is that they really don’t get the idea of there not being a pure and single form of rightness. If it is good to allow trans people to complain about cis people without cis people barging in to sealion them about how NOT ALL CIS OK??? then it is good to record those complaints, hook them up to a bullhorn, and blast the cis scum until their ears bleed. None of the complaints will be petty or mistaken or just incomprehensible to outsiders. All of them are The Pure Truth. And if any of them are NOT, then it must be destroyed and silenced at all costs while another voice gets the bullhorn.
Safe spaces can’t be part of a transition. They can’t be good in some contexts for some purposes. If something’s good, it would be good for the entire world to work that way 24/7, and it is only the sinful nature of others that keeps it limited to smaller areas at the moment.
I went to check out the story in question and it now appears to be deleted. It appears your tactless reviews have discouraged yet another author. And I hope you don’t take offense to ‘tactless’, as it is the most accurate word I could use to describe your reviews, objectively pointing out errors without regard to how your comments will affect the author.
A question. Do you review any other categories of fanfiction on FFN? As a person who doesn’t seem to enjoy Pokemon, it seems a odd place to hold your crusade against poorly written fanfiction.
If you had visited the profile of this author you care so deeply about, you would see that they have published two stories in the three days since I reviewed.
I’ve been there, long before Tumblr, and not only as a “kid,” although not on the internet. I had depression, and in some forms of that or BPD things feel worse than they are. People definitely can be their own worst enemies.
Well, I’ve seen many people thank you for your reviews, but I wouldn’t say those that take any criticism as personal offense are on the minority.
I use to sugarcoat it, but seeing how it might hurt more than help I may change my approach. For instance, in a certain week I tried to make reviews honestly without trying to mild my opinion, not all of the authors that I reviewed answered but the ones that did were actually thankful, to me surprise.
This goes beyond a simple inability to take criticism — they actively hurt themselves by making up things that aren’t there. How have they not run into problems on the internet before? If they have, why do they keep making the same mistake? Who is enabling this? Why?
I think your mistake here is thinking people are acting truthfully and/or rationally. You need more hate.
When encountering this level of wailing, it’s generally someone trying to manipulate you with the story of their agonizing pain at your actions.
1) “If I say I am wounded unto death, I can force them to apologize and tell me I’m actually awesome and the greatest.”
2) “If I say I am wounded unto death, I can put all the work of processing this on them. I don’t have to figure out how to handle my own feelings, it’s their problem now!”
The second one can happen subconsciously if they’ve not very self-aware and just learned that the moment they feel bad, they should scream it from the hilltops and shortly they’ll feel better as people rush in. And since they’re going to do this, there’s no point in actually reading what you said. Your hurt their feelings, so it’s your job to make them feel better now. What you were talking about is irrelevant.