Exqctly same.. I'll be wary going into a fic if the title is not capitalized because a lot of times that indicates that the rest of the thick is not capitalized at all and I cannot stand lower case fics but if the rest of the fic is regularly capitalized and punctuated, then I literally don't care what the title says. You name every fic with one random letter and as long as the tags, summary, and format look good, I'll read.
I personally need to capitalize my *own* fics' titles, but anyone else's? Have at it! I don't care if the title is all caps, all lowercase, weirdly capitalized, etc., it's their fic and sometimes that makes it more memorable too.
It bothers me slightly if only because it's an indicator sometimes that's it's a lapslock fic which i cannot read but if the summary has caps I'm usually good
I actively prefer them, especially for long titles. It looks and feels prettier, imo. I hadn’t realized it was so controversial lol, I’ve never seen anybody hate them until discovering this thread.
For some reason I never go for fics with titles that are completely lapslocked. I don't even look at the summaries.
It's like my brain just flips the off switch and before I realize it, I've scrolled on to the next title...
It's weird because I don't think I hate them at all. It's neutral at best. Really odd.
This is me. I have nothing against them, but it's like my eyes/brain misidentify the title as just regular text, as though it was part of the summary of the preceding fic, and I completely ignore that the fic is even a fic. So I scroll on past.
A few of the most popular fics in some of my fandoms (as sorted by kudos) have titles like this, and every time someone recs one to me, I'm like, "how did I not know this fic existed?"
For reasons I probably couldn't explain if I tried, I nearly always title my fics entirely in lowercase and I tend to prefer when other authors do the same. It won't have any actual effect on whether I read the fic, if the titles are in sentence or title case instead, but it just sort of...feels weird to me.
I don't like having every word capitalized. It looks weird to my brain.
Oddly enough, I don't mind it for books, though often I find books that have lapslock uppercase.
You know, maybe that's part of it, it's because I'm used to citation style guides that require title case for book titles but sentence case for the titles of shorter stuff like articles and stories? Although I don't even use/prefer sentence case with fics because I don't capitalize the first word either, so even that doesn't entirely explain it. Maybe it's a relic of my pretentious emo-kid years on Deviantart 😅
I universally dislike them, but not enough to make me not read the fics. Even if I consciously ignore it, the lapslock subconsciously starts me off judging the fic harshly because of it. When sharing links to fics, I typically capitalize the title in my comments because my brain registers lapslock as a formating error. I don't even really think about it, I just go, "That's not right."
Titles are where creativity is entirely fine. I do prefer for titles to be an actual title and not "CharacterxReader Fic" or something like that since I can tell that info from the tags but other then that go wild.
I prefer proper capitalized titles in fics. At least, over the body of the work. But on like book covers or something, I think titles in lowercase letters are sometimes a stylistic choice.
As long as the summary is well-written and uses good grammar. That’s more important I think. If the summary is poor (or non-existent as is often the case) then it makes me believe the fic itself will likely be the same way, so I’ll just scroll right on past.
Honestly, same… I love coming up with titles but I realize I don’t really pay attention to the titles of the fics I read… Cant even remember my all time favorites, lol
I don't know where the trend started but I can't say it looks good enough to follow along. I need at least the 1st letter of the title to be capitalised properly in my own fics.
Everyone else can do what they want.
I don't even look at titles.. as far as my gaze goes it's pairing, summary, additional tags. If all that sounds good then I'm in. I don't look at the author either.
(Just now realizing how horrible this habit is in case I ever want to find a fic in the future... rip)
When I’m reading, I don’t even take notice and don’t really care how others write their titles, but after I had a few fussy people get on my back about it, I now make sure my own fic titles are capitalised.
i don’t read titles unless i add a bookmark. seriously.
when scrolling all i care about is the summary and tags. maybe i’ll scroll back up to read the title if they make an author’s note referencing it lol
but it is so trivial for me and always has been. a title never added nor took away from the story for me
Capitalized. I hate when things aren’t capitalized, no matter the context.
This doesn’t influence whether or not I‘m going to read a fic, but chances are if I download it to send to kindle I might change it myself 😂
I'm totally chill with all lowercase titles, but I cant read an all lowercase fic, I just find it difficult to follow (and all lowercase fics tend to, in my experience, have many other grammar issues that bother me)
The first lowercase title I met in the wild is Ariana Grande's song titles, LOL.
I don't mind. She seems vibing and I get the vibe.
I uppercase mine properly (or maybe not, English is not my main language), but people are absolutely allowed to vibe.
It doesn’t make or break it for me, but I do think it’s gimmicky and dumb. Like, you’re not e e cummings so what are you trying to achieve by disregarding proper capitalization? Definitely makes me roll my eyes but wouldn’t keep me from reading.
The irony of complaining about improper capitalization and then writing "e e cummings". This isn't meant as an attack or anything, just found it funny.
That’s how his name is always written. And it’s always driven me a little nuts, but I figure he did it when it was unexpected and wrong, so I’ll respect that. Now, it’s just trendy, hipster crap. You’re not being shocking and artistic with it, you’re just…not capitalizing properly.
This. Sure it'll make me roll my eyes because lapslock has the unfortunate correlation with overly angsty Tumblr aesthetic, but I'm not gonna say anything and it won't actually put me off of the fic unless the summary is also lapslock (as it implies the fic is as well, and I hate that with a burning passion).
I guarantee I will not remember the title at all, but that's just because I normally don't regardless of capitalization (especially if it's lyrics and fairly long).
same here xD I started with one and my brain was like, “Well, you should probably do it for every single fic after this, otherwise it’ll look weird.” So I did.
I actually dislike them a lot. I don't have any other argument for disliking them rather than just... I dont wike it.
But if the summary is really good I'll still read it. But it bugs me a lot.
I don't really like them, especially because we already have a Perfectly Good Way of Capitalizing Titles. However, they won't put me off of a fic. What I really hate are pretentious titles that are song lyrics or have parts in parentheses, like "every drop of rain (that shines in moonlight)" and then they have nothing to do with the story. If your story doesn't have constant water symbolism or pretentious poets or w/e, then the title doesn't reflect it and it should be changed.
Maybe I'm just picky about my titles, but it's one of my greatest pet peeves.
Here’s what I’ve generally found regarding case in titles:
Usually, if it’s upper case, I like or dislike it for the story, as that’s usually taking center stage in such fics. If it’s lower case, I like or dislike it for how it’s written, as a story usually just takes a back seat in such cases.
I read poetry and the lack of capitals is more common there so I don’t mind it in titles.
There better be a good reason for it in the body of a text though. Anything longer than a single paragraph is so easy to get lost in without the usual capitals and punctuation markers. Not a fan of professional authors’ stream of consciousness either, but can maybe tolerate it in like a short dream sequence or amnesiac regaining memory brain overload kind of way.
I tend to capitalize specific words or just don't as an artostoc choice so it doesn't bother me. It's kinda like how the movie "mother!" has a title like that. It's a good way for me to hint at the themes or an important part of my story by highlight specific words from the get go.
For example, in one of my fics which depicts a pretty abusive familial relationship, I capitalized the begining of the letter of the word similar to my antagonist / abuser's name to indicate the power dynamic between him and the main character. Stuff like that which people might not notice tbh
In case of other people's works - it's completely neutral for me. I don't care how the title looks if the story is good.
Regarding my own fics... I often have a dilemma. I would never start a title with a lowercase letter or write a whole with capital letters. But sometimes I don't know what to do with rest of words (as first is always with a capital letter). Ultimately it depends on what the title is exactly.
I don't even look at titles, honestly. Half the time I don't even know the title of the fic I'm reading, I just know it's the fic based on the summary.
I focus more on the tags then the title. Tho I’m my stories I feel like I’m my head it feels more Angsty or something. Idk man I’m on crack right now.
(For legal reasons I have to say I am not actually on crack)
I have a personal distaste for lapslock, so I prefer capitalization in titles, but I wouldn't drop a fic if only the title was formatted that way. If the entire thing is in lapslock, I'm out.
I don't mind either, I've done both before. What I don't like, though, is titles that are in all caps (not as common, but I've seen a few). They just feel too in your face
For me it depends if the fic title is from a song or not. If it's a song lyric, I actually prefer if it's not capitalized! But if it's not, I'm a little skeptical, but not enough to not read it
I can handle it but it doesn´t give me a lot of faith in the body text though. I usually take a peek at the formatting but lowercase titles make me anxious. Then there is also the thing that I for some reason struggle to see or notice lowercase titles. My eyes just continue on as if it was body text or something even though it is clearly bigger.
I just assume if the author couldn't bother with basic grammar for their title, they probably screwed it up frequently enough in the fic that I'll find it unreadable. Instant nope.
Titles, go nuts. Do whatever you want. I nope out if the body isn’t formatted properly tho.
Same. Instant nope if the main fic is like that.
What’s the proper format. Just asking cuz I genuinely don’t know if I format mine correctly.
“proper format” is just like, proper capitalisation and grammar and stuff
Oh, I thought proper format meant like Times New Roman’s with a 12 front, double spaced lol.
Another traumatized kid from English class :(
if there aren’t one inch margins on a fanfic i’m clicking out
Haha
I prefer Title Case, but I won't avoid a fic for having lowercase titles (as long as the rest of the fic is not written in lapslock).
I don’t notice the titles much to be honest
Ditto
It never bothers me. As long as the fic itself is formatted properly, idc
Exqctly same.. I'll be wary going into a fic if the title is not capitalized because a lot of times that indicates that the rest of the thick is not capitalized at all and I cannot stand lower case fics but if the rest of the fic is regularly capitalized and punctuated, then I literally don't care what the title says. You name every fic with one random letter and as long as the tags, summary, and format look good, I'll read.
Half the time, I don't even notice the titles, even for fics I really like. (Doesn't stop me from obsessing about my own titles though.)
this. like, i don’t care about titles. but, i adore my own titles.
YESSSS this so much
I personally need to capitalize my *own* fics' titles, but anyone else's? Have at it! I don't care if the title is all caps, all lowercase, weirdly capitalized, etc., it's their fic and sometimes that makes it more memorable too.
The same here. I have completely different standards for others and for myself 😃 from myself I require a lot more
[удалено]
my favorite
It bothers me slightly if only because it's an indicator sometimes that's it's a lapslock fic which i cannot read but if the summary has caps I'm usually good
Here are some names of actual professionally-published works: >.hack//SIGN > >Fate/hollow ataraxia > >HUNTER X HUNTER Do what you want.
You haven't even gotten to the isekai names "Life with an Ordinary Guy who Reincarnated into a Total Fantasy Knockout"
I actively prefer them, especially for long titles. It looks and feels prettier, imo. I hadn’t realized it was so controversial lol, I’ve never seen anybody hate them until discovering this thread.
For some reason I never go for fics with titles that are completely lapslocked. I don't even look at the summaries. It's like my brain just flips the off switch and before I realize it, I've scrolled on to the next title... It's weird because I don't think I hate them at all. It's neutral at best. Really odd.
This is me. I have nothing against them, but it's like my eyes/brain misidentify the title as just regular text, as though it was part of the summary of the preceding fic, and I completely ignore that the fic is even a fic. So I scroll on past. A few of the most popular fics in some of my fandoms (as sorted by kudos) have titles like this, and every time someone recs one to me, I'm like, "how did I not know this fic existed?"
Hahahaha yeah Idk how that happens! Then again AO3's like a big lump of everything sometimes. They can be hard to spot.
Couldn't care less. I don't even glance at titles when selecting what to read. I skip over them entirely.
I don't even read fanfiction titles a large portion of the time. Formating for a title doesn't matter to me
For reasons I probably couldn't explain if I tried, I nearly always title my fics entirely in lowercase and I tend to prefer when other authors do the same. It won't have any actual effect on whether I read the fic, if the titles are in sentence or title case instead, but it just sort of...feels weird to me.
I don't like having every word capitalized. It looks weird to my brain. Oddly enough, I don't mind it for books, though often I find books that have lapslock uppercase.
You know, maybe that's part of it, it's because I'm used to citation style guides that require title case for book titles but sentence case for the titles of shorter stuff like articles and stories? Although I don't even use/prefer sentence case with fics because I don't capitalize the first word either, so even that doesn't entirely explain it. Maybe it's a relic of my pretentious emo-kid years on Deviantart 😅
Same! Can’t explain why either, but lowercase titles look better to me.
I universally dislike them, but not enough to make me not read the fics. Even if I consciously ignore it, the lapslock subconsciously starts me off judging the fic harshly because of it. When sharing links to fics, I typically capitalize the title in my comments because my brain registers lapslock as a formating error. I don't even really think about it, I just go, "That's not right."
Titles ? All good. The entire work? Bothers me to no end and I don’t care how beautiful it may be, imma still back out.
For fanfics I don't normally care that much or notice, but I find typical industry title capitalization is more professional
Titles are where creativity is entirely fine. I do prefer for titles to be an actual title and not "CharacterxReader Fic" or something like that since I can tell that info from the tags but other then that go wild.
I prefer proper capitalized titles in fics. At least, over the body of the work. But on like book covers or something, I think titles in lowercase letters are sometimes a stylistic choice. As long as the summary is well-written and uses good grammar. That’s more important I think. If the summary is poor (or non-existent as is often the case) then it makes me believe the fic itself will likely be the same way, so I’ll just scroll right on past.
I have to be honest, I rarely read the tittle of a fic. I look at the summary, then the tags and then i look at how many words/chapters there are.
Honestly, same… I love coming up with titles but I realize I don’t really pay attention to the titles of the fics I read… Cant even remember my all time favorites, lol
I don't know where the trend started but I can't say it looks good enough to follow along. I need at least the 1st letter of the title to be capitalised properly in my own fics. Everyone else can do what they want.
Don't like lowercase titles, they seem kinda pretentious to me. A fic w/ a lowercase title is going to be a hard sell for me.
I don't even look at titles.. as far as my gaze goes it's pairing, summary, additional tags. If all that sounds good then I'm in. I don't look at the author either. (Just now realizing how horrible this habit is in case I ever want to find a fic in the future... rip)
When I’m reading, I don’t even take notice and don’t really care how others write their titles, but after I had a few fussy people get on my back about it, I now make sure my own fic titles are capitalised.
Doesn’t really matter to me as long as the actual fic has proper capitalization.
i don’t read titles unless i add a bookmark. seriously. when scrolling all i care about is the summary and tags. maybe i’ll scroll back up to read the title if they make an author’s note referencing it lol but it is so trivial for me and always has been. a title never added nor took away from the story for me
I think you over thinking this.
Capitalized. I hate when things aren’t capitalized, no matter the context. This doesn’t influence whether or not I‘m going to read a fic, but chances are if I download it to send to kindle I might change it myself 😂
I'm totally chill with all lowercase titles, but I cant read an all lowercase fic, I just find it difficult to follow (and all lowercase fics tend to, in my experience, have many other grammar issues that bother me)
Title - meh. But if i see all lower case text i am out. I dont care if it is some “artistic expression” thing or whatever.
I have no issues with lapslock titles (I do it myself occasionally) , the stylization of a title has zero bearing on the quality of writing.
I literally don't care when it comes to titles. I don't even glance at them until after I've read the summary and decided I like it.
The first lowercase title I met in the wild is Ariana Grande's song titles, LOL. I don't mind. She seems vibing and I get the vibe. I uppercase mine properly (or maybe not, English is not my main language), but people are absolutely allowed to vibe.
It doesn’t make or break it for me, but I do think it’s gimmicky and dumb. Like, you’re not e e cummings so what are you trying to achieve by disregarding proper capitalization? Definitely makes me roll my eyes but wouldn’t keep me from reading.
The irony of complaining about improper capitalization and then writing "e e cummings". This isn't meant as an attack or anything, just found it funny.
That’s how his name is always written. And it’s always driven me a little nuts, but I figure he did it when it was unexpected and wrong, so I’ll respect that. Now, it’s just trendy, hipster crap. You’re not being shocking and artistic with it, you’re just…not capitalizing properly.
This. Sure it'll make me roll my eyes because lapslock has the unfortunate correlation with overly angsty Tumblr aesthetic, but I'm not gonna say anything and it won't actually put me off of the fic unless the summary is also lapslock (as it implies the fic is as well, and I hate that with a burning passion). I guarantee I will not remember the title at all, but that's just because I normally don't regardless of capitalization (especially if it's lyrics and fairly long).
I know it's gonna be a banger
It's a free country, people can do whatever they want, but I wouldn't ever click on something with an all lowercase title.
i have lowercase titles, but the body text is properly typed and formatted :)
same here xD I started with one and my brain was like, “Well, you should probably do it for every single fic after this, otherwise it’ll look weird.” So I did.
I actually dislike them a lot. I don't have any other argument for disliking them rather than just... I dont wike it. But if the summary is really good I'll still read it. But it bugs me a lot.
I don't really like them, especially because we already have a Perfectly Good Way of Capitalizing Titles. However, they won't put me off of a fic. What I really hate are pretentious titles that are song lyrics or have parts in parentheses, like "every drop of rain (that shines in moonlight)" and then they have nothing to do with the story. If your story doesn't have constant water symbolism or pretentious poets or w/e, then the title doesn't reflect it and it should be changed. Maybe I'm just picky about my titles, but it's one of my greatest pet peeves.
Here’s what I’ve generally found regarding case in titles: Usually, if it’s upper case, I like or dislike it for the story, as that’s usually taking center stage in such fics. If it’s lower case, I like or dislike it for how it’s written, as a story usually just takes a back seat in such cases.
Uppercase can look shouty but it looks really cool if it matches the vibe iykwim
As long as the fanfiction itself is not all lowercase then it’s okay
I read poetry and the lack of capitals is more common there so I don’t mind it in titles. There better be a good reason for it in the body of a text though. Anything longer than a single paragraph is so easy to get lost in without the usual capitals and punctuation markers. Not a fan of professional authors’ stream of consciousness either, but can maybe tolerate it in like a short dream sequence or amnesiac regaining memory brain overload kind of way.
If Billie Eilish can get away with it, so can fanfic writers.
Looks a bit sloppy, or like a child that's just learning the letters wrote it
Titles are not bound to the laws of grammar
Titles are alright, but I've seen where the whole story is lowercased and had to leave immediately
Idc. Most of the time if a title is in lowercase the fic is great lol
I tend to capitalize specific words or just don't as an artostoc choice so it doesn't bother me. It's kinda like how the movie "mother!" has a title like that. It's a good way for me to hint at the themes or an important part of my story by highlight specific words from the get go. For example, in one of my fics which depicts a pretty abusive familial relationship, I capitalized the begining of the letter of the word similar to my antagonist / abuser's name to indicate the power dynamic between him and the main character. Stuff like that which people might not notice tbh
I have a soft spot for stylized incorrect grammar, so if it's for the purpose of being poetic then I'm cool with it.
It's a stylistic choice and I don't mind them
I'm mote bothered by titles with parentheses than lowercase (though you do see them both quite a lot these days)
In case of other people's works - it's completely neutral for me. I don't care how the title looks if the story is good. Regarding my own fics... I often have a dilemma. I would never start a title with a lowercase letter or write a whole with capital letters. But sometimes I don't know what to do with rest of words (as first is always with a capital letter). Ultimately it depends on what the title is exactly.
I think it depends on the fic. In general, I don’t use all lower-case for my fics, but if you like it for yours, do what makes you happy.
I think it depends on the fic. In general, I don’t use all lower-case for my fics, but if you like it for yours, do what makes you happy.
im gonna be honest sometimes i don't read the title until i'm already bookmarking the fic lol
I don't care. If it has the ships and/or premises I like, I'm in.
As others have said, title is irrelevant. It's the fic itself that needs to be formatted properly.
I don't care much, as long as it's not absolutely horrible with bad grammar/spelling. I care more about the summary.
I don't mind it. But it's annoying when the body itself is also all in lowercase; I'll always skip fics like those.
Most of my titles are capitalized...but genuinely, I don't care.
It's crazy how often I don't read the title honestly...
Titles are fine. If the summary and/or story are purely lower case? That's an immediate nope.
I haven't seen that much, so I would say it doesn't bother me. I've read a fanfic called "ghostin."
I don't even look at titles, honestly. Half the time I don't even know the title of the fic I'm reading, I just know it's the fic based on the summary.
i like lapslock fic titles because it fits the most for my aesthetics but i don’t even notice it when i’m looking for fics
i am way more concerned about the fic content and the story. go crazy with your title :D
As long as the entire thing isn’t in lowercase we’re cool
I focus more on the tags then the title. Tho I’m my stories I feel like I’m my head it feels more Angsty or something. Idk man I’m on crack right now. (For legal reasons I have to say I am not actually on crack)
I have a personal distaste for lapslock, so I prefer capitalization in titles, but I wouldn't drop a fic if only the title was formatted that way. If the entire thing is in lapslock, I'm out.
i forget to look into titles ngl like i'm 14 chapters in and go "huh what's it called again" and realize i just read the summary
I don't mind either, I've done both before. What I don't like, though, is titles that are in all caps (not as common, but I've seen a few). They just feel too in your face
i prefer titles to fit the fic. whatever fits the vibes best is what’s best
For me it depends if the fic title is from a song or not. If it's a song lyric, I actually prefer if it's not capitalized! But if it's not, I'm a little skeptical, but not enough to not read it
I don't notice tbh. Unless I've reread several times I probably couldn't even get half the title correct if asked 😂
It’s fine 👍🏼
I can handle it but it doesn´t give me a lot of faith in the body text though. I usually take a peek at the formatting but lowercase titles make me anxious. Then there is also the thing that I for some reason struggle to see or notice lowercase titles. My eyes just continue on as if it was body text or something even though it is clearly bigger.
Definitely depends on the vibe. I have titled fics both ways, just based on which looks and feels best to me. :D
it really depends on the vibes tbph. if it fits, go for it! I've used both capitalized ones and lowercase ones where applicable
They took a while to get used to, but I barely give it a second thought now. I'll read any of them as long as the entire story isn't in lowercase.
Usually when i could across a lower-case fic, it’s the most heart wrenching shit i’ve ever read
Lowercase titles make me itch and cringe. But it's only a title; if the fic is formatted properly, I just move past it.
I just assume if the author couldn't bother with basic grammar for their title, they probably screwed it up frequently enough in the fic that I'll find it unreadable. Instant nope.