#mod foley

i don’t exactly know how to fully cheer people up, but take the image of 1xazuretime cuddling. Specifically two time clinging to 1x & azure in an attempt to be a "human" weighted blanket

-Intervention anon

yeah a real jerk of blog, I hope that no one else’s headcanons end up in that horrid blog. Anyways,

on it boss! Whipping that image up for you right now!!!!!

And

TADA!

so i know i've yapped about elliot mischaracterisation, and telamon mischaracterisation, and while i havent had a specific yap about it we all know the fandom does guest dirty too (tho that one is also the devs' faults, even though they've kinda fixed it by updating guest's face when he emotes), like look at the ACTUAL guest 1337 and tell me he's some stoic badass or an aggressive war vet with anger issues (i feel like the last one is a harmful stereotype of its own, considering its pretty clear forsaken devs were trying to go for the former. which i have to say, forsaken devs, we ogs all know guest is literally Him but i didnt mean THAT type of Him). but yk whose mischaracterisation i havent yapped about, and whom i havent seen others yap about?

noob.

and in fact, not only does noob receive some of the most BRUTAL mischaracterisation alongside the typical victims (telamon, elliot and guest), their mischaracterisation is actually blatantly ableist, like im not joking when i say noob is genuinely the forsaken fandom's equivalent to papyrus and the treatment he got in the 2010s in particular.

yes you read that right. NO THIS IS NOT A REACH IM ONTO SOMETHING I SWEAR, HEAR ME OUT OK???

people always write noob as this person who's overall the most cowardly person ever, even outside of the rounds, to the point where they have NO personality outside of being constantly scared. like, these writers are making noob, the ordinary robloxian, more hypervigilant and paranoid than the LITERAL WAR VETERAN, or THE CULTIST WHO LIKELY STRUGGLES WITH RELIGIOUS PSYCHOSIS, or hell, THE ACTUAL GUY WHO HAS A REASON TO BE HYPERVIGILANT AND PARANOID AFTER GETTING LITERAL PTSD FROM BEING HUNTED DOWN BY WHOLE MOBS (<- this one is taph 😇).

and the reason all this is so baffling, is bcs theres nothing about noob's lines that would suggest them being like this in the first place, theyre just some guy.

except.. there actually is! but let me get to that first!

ok, so firstly, here are noob's aforementioned lines for reference:

notice how there's nothing that screams 'cowardly' in anything noob says here, these are completely normal dialogues. the only distinction from these and some of the others' lines is that they're just stuttering, which is understandable because theyre scared and under pressure (this will be relevant when we get to the part where i start ranting about fandom ableism in all caps).

oh and also here's an overview of their personality:

(yes, the first line in this picture says it itself: we can infer that noob is scared a lot in rounds, but again, thats not necessarily bcs theyre a coward, its bcs THEYRE IN A DEATHLOOP GAME. the other survivors may have adjusted quicker judging by their lines, but this is because noob is a pretty 'normal' person compared to say, elliot the nepo baby whose coworkers are definitely terrible at cooking and have set the fire multiple times and also had to deal with EXPLOITERS setting the pizzeria on fire multiple times, and chance the gambler who's a huge adrenaline junkie, the admins who've probably dealt with a LOT of painful injuries and death in their lifetime, and guest who was already a soldier of war. noob is the least emotionally prepared to cope with everything going on in forsaken, BECAUSE they're the most average person in their team, who likely didnt even have any near death experiences in their previous life [i highly doubt they fw brickbattler games like a few other interpretations of noob across different games lmao].)

btw, notice how the wiki says noob used to be a really happy and outgoing person? even though things have changed since then, there's still going to be traces of their old self, especially out of rounds (see: the fact that despite them being described as shyer and more withdrawn after their fight with guest 666, THEIR IN-GAME PURCHASE DESCRIPTION [iirc, i think thats where the "whimsy and joy" quote came from. if not that then it'd be their general description you get when you click on them] STILL DESCRIBES THEM AS WHIMSY AND JOYOUS, IMPLYING THAT THEY ARE WAY MORE CHEERFUL OUTSIDE OF ROUNDS. YKNOW, BECAUSE THERE'S NO THREAT OF DEATH).

"but then, why DO people characterise noob this way? if theyre in no way a coward, and canonically implied to still act more like their cheerful self outside of rounds, why does the fandom make being scared their whole personality?" you wonder.

to which i must say, GEE, I WONDER MYSELF. so lets ask the writers themselves to examine their subconscious biases! fanfic writers, if this mischaracterisation i've yapped about so far is applicable to you, WHY did you write noob the way you did? what did they do for you to make them this one-dimensional character? is it perhaps..

FOR DEVELOPING AVOIDANT* AND/OR ANXIOUS TRAITS BECAUSE THEYRE TRAUMATISED FROM THE GRIEF OF LOSING THEIR BEST FRIEND?

*when i say avoidant traits i dont mean traits of the attachment style, i mean traits of AVPD (tho the keyword here is TRAITS, im not saying noob is AVPD rep js that they have traits of it). search that up if you dont know what that is.

FOR STILL RIGHTFULLY SCARED AND CRYING IN PAIN DURING ROUNDS, EVEN IF THEY RESPAWN FULLY UNSCATHED AFTERWARDS?

FOR STUTTERING BECAUSE THEYRE SCARED?

THINGS THAT SO MANY ALREADY PEOPLE STRUGGLE WITH, AND WOULD STRUGGLE WITH IF THEY WERE IN THEIR POSITION?

DO YOU NOT REALISE THAT YOUR UNCONSCIOUS BIASES SHOW IN THE MEDIA YOU WRITE? THAT YOURE IMPLYING SO MANY OFFENSIVE THINGS ABOUT REAL PEOPLE WHO RELATE TO NOOB'S CANON CHARACTERISATION BY MAKING THESE ASSUMPTIONS INSTEAD OF ACTUALLY STUDYING THEIR FUCKING CHARACTER?

THAT YOU'RE IMPLYING YOU SEE PEOPLE WITH SPEECH IMPEDIMENTS AS ONE-DIMENSIONAL PARANOID COWARDS BY DEFAULT?

THAT ITS OK TO TREAT COMPETENT ADULTS IN MEDIA AS CHILDISH BECAUSE THEYRE SHY AND CLOSED OFF?

HELL, DO YOU REALISE THAT EVEN IF NOOB THEMSELF ISNT PARANOID, THE WAY YOU WRITE AND INFANTILISE PARANOIA IS SO FUCKING INSULTING AND ABLEIST TO THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY STRUGGLE WITH IT?

SERIOUSLY???? DO YOU THINK CHARACTERS WHO ARE AUTISTIC REP (LIKE PAPYRUS) ARE CHILDREN TOO? DO YOU LOOK AT THE SHY PEOPLE YOU'VE MET IN REAL LIFE AND THINK "awww little baby bean who can do no wrong and who should NEVER learn about swear words 🥺🥺" AS IF THEY ARENT YOUR AGE?

DO YOU JUST THINK WE'RE FUCKING INCOMPETENT? DO YOU EVEN DO YOUR RESEARCH, OR DO YOU ENJOY SPREADING MISINFORMATION AND BEING ABLEIST WHILE YOURE AT IT?

tl;dr for those who didnt understand the all caps ranty part of this ask (which was where i go into WHY noob's mischaracterisation specifically is ableist) btw: people mischaracterise noob as a one-dimensional coward is literally because they decided that noob stuttering and being the most fearful in rounds out of all the survivors means theyre paranoid. this wouldn't be so bad, except these same writers INFANTILISE them for experiencing paranoia that the actual character doesn't even have, treating them like a poor little uwu baby bean who has to be comforted every second (think like how the undertale fandom used to mischaracterise papyrus, or worse.. blueberry sans [yes like the 'fanon' version of underswap sans who was somehow infantilised and sexualised at the same time]). and the worst part is, the part that makes it ableist is that by doing this, you're giving a person to every single introvert and neurodivergent and/or shy person and whoever else who hasrelated to noob, and that message is "you are not a competent teen/adult, you are just a small baby child and will always be one. also everyone has to walk on eggshells around you" (<- that last part isn't necessarily implied but is very easy to infer from these kinds of characterisations). and that takes autonomy from us on SO many levels.

ok sorry for getting a bit heated there, but hey, i think i got the point across, no? let's stop infantilising adult characters in general, because infantilisation in general pretty much always happens to a character who's implied to have some level of neurodivergency, and again, as a neurodivergent person, we're already seen as 'immature' and are disrespected + have our autonomy challenged because of that, and anyone who writes noob this way is not fucking helping.

the worst part is that i know so many people in fandoms (especially fanfic writers) are teens who are introverted and/or struggle with similar traits irl, so really, i thought they would know better. i mean, noob literally struggles with things so many of us normal people do (socialising, getting closer to others, stutters, etc.). they're the average joe of the survivors, they were MADE for us as the audience to relate to them. but noooo! noob is a little uwu baby! guys, please get a fucking grip.

before i bring this ask to a close though, here are some other tropes in the forsaken characters that seem ableist to me:

PTSD =/= anger issues =/= being a dick, stop making guest, who is literally the kindest guy ever in source material and has a very normal sense of temper/emotional regulation btw, a fucking douchebag, it says a lot about what you think of actual war veterans. even though the forsaken devs also mischaracterise guest heavily in his dialogues and old emote face (mainly the latter, the dialogue CAN be seen as in character if you've seen source material and try hard enough but most people don't get the right idea of said character), i'll take their 'stoic badass' take over the fandom's mischaracterisation any day.

two time's religious psychosis. this is a heavier one that's way harder to write rep for correctly, and i understand that most forsaken fans are minors who have never experienced ts (i am too), but please, if you can't do it, then just don't. two time's religious trauma is a subject i don't see enough writers respecting or taking seriously enough (<- like if you go to the general two time or azuretime tag then yes, the fics are good, but if you don't filter for those specifically then chances are you're gonna come across a fic that handles this topic really insensitively).

i actually don't have any complaints for most 007n7 writers... most. js remember he doesn't ONLY feel remorse, self hatred and such, he has other emotions. like he's still gonna have anger issues beneath it all, he's js actively repressing them. again i love it when The Character is a sad soggy wet cat facing the consequences of their own actions but you guys can overdo it too much, plus the survivors aren't heartless enough to leave a clearly struggling man alone, especially in a place like forsaken. so remember to sprinkle some angst in there!

if youre the kind to write noob as a one-dimensional coward, at least give the paranoia to taph who literally got hunted down by a mob smh smh (but again, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT FUCKING INFANTILISE THEM OR REDUCE THEM TO A ONE DIMENSIONAL COWARD LIKE I'VE SEEN WITH NOOB, PARANOIA IS A GENUINE ISSUE MENTALLY ILL PEOPLE FACE. anyways for good taph characterisation that kinda covers this [iirc anyways lol] i'd check out NoNameExistance's series of taph fanfics btw :P)

anyways i may or may not make a non-ranty version of this ask where i articulate myself better and go into noob's personality in more detail later idk (i will be projecting a tad bit bcs again. noob and i are literally fraternal twins atp im not even joking. i used to be super outgoing too, tho instead of me falling out it with my bff, suspected personality disorder [<- i still need to talk to my parents abt ts so i can get evaluated for it btw bcs i heavily relate to one of the 'types' of this disorder. so everyone pls hype me up and/or yell at me so i can actually talk to them abt ts cause im scared as hell but also the lack of closure is KILLING ME 💔] grrr)

— f0rs4k3nbyth3sp4wn

(also i started writing this ask in the 1 hour timeframe before chancer's exams, so while i know chancer is probably definitely done with their exams by the time i send this 2 hours later, and that this is likely gonna be answered EVEN LATER than right now, im still gonna say it again lol: GOOD LUCK VRO 🫡🫡7️⃣7️⃣7️⃣🎰🎰🎰 [the gambling emojis are for sillies.. multiple choice questions can be gambling if you think about it])

I'm gonna add the ask before this as well since it connects rq

Anyways I do agree that Noob shouldn't be characterized as an overly cowardly character. It's reasonable why they are scared, like you said yourself , they are just a normal person being dragged into a death game where they get killed over and over again. It's reasonable for them to feel like that. I would probably be scared as hell too if I was in that position and I'm betting most would be too.

I don't really get why people treat characters like children even though they are adults. Sure they could be shy and quiet but that doesn't automatically make them a soft person that shouldn't be able to swear or what not.