#new dff

[spicypussywave]

Mio Athens as Tan/New & Ta Nannakun as Phee

DEAD FRIEND FOREVER

↳ episode 9

[sherrymagic]

Tan/New being iconic in Episode 10 DEAD FRIEND FOREVER (2023-2024)

[srnileforme]

miobump being inseparable in the DFF Behind the Scenes.

[fracturediron]

I haven't really had any standout favourites amongst the DFF characters and I don't really ship any of the canon ships in the usual sense (i.e. no obsessive brainrot, although I'm enjoying them all from a narrative perspective). But the bombshell that was ep 9 has finally made me latch onto a character. This guy:

Although not I think for the most common reason that has caused Tan/New's surge in popularity i.e. being Non's avenger. Because man, New is so much more than that. This kid is a hot mess who's lost everything he holds dear, filled with guilt for failing Non and then his family, seeking answers, revenge, redemption and now has nothing left to lose. I'm so here for it. New's character and his arc is just fucking fascinating to me. Kudos to Mio for playing it so subtle until now and then knocking it out of the freaking park for ep 9.

This kid was the golden child of his family and favoured at least by his mother, and yet clearly felt the pressure of those expectations.

And then! And then! His and Non's whole deal makes my brain buzz. I love me some tragic siblings with a yawning emotional gulf in understanding between them; of a relationship lost or a closeness that never quite made it, of a relationship of two brothers endlessly set against each other and damaged by their parents. A relationship where he failed Non in a litany of little ways by not being there for him, and one always inevitably overshadowed by the comparisons their parents made between them both.

And when Non disappears, New is overcome with guilt! For failing him, and for not being able to be there for him, and so he resolves to find out what happened to him. And he fucking commits to it! This guy throws away his scholarship, his life in England, to fucking redo highschool and infiltrate the gang of kids who bullied his brother! For two years, he hung around with these people pretending to like them and lied to his parents, only to have nothing to show for it and to lose even more when his mother kills herself, his father disowns him and then does the same! This shit would break the strongest of people (and I'd argue something in New is broken now) but he still finds it in himself to kickstart the plan that will bring hell down on these kids.

This kid has lost everything, and is clearly at a place of desperation and despair. But he's still not giving up. Even in the face of ruination and perhaps his own destruction, I feel like New will keep going on regardless if it means finding out what happened to Non. He'll do whatever it takes, burn the world, immolate himself, if it means making that happen.

I think ultimately, I love that New's a tragic, complex character who's been ruined by life and by his own doing, and through ruination, has come out of it unhinged, perhaps even something worse. Someone haunted by the ghosts of his lost family, by his failures and his guilt. Someone with so much potential for further tragedy, who'll likely destroy themselves relentlessly chasing his end goal and end in misery.

TLDR; I love me a haunted, broken, unhinged, fucked up li'l guy.

[miss0atae]

Don't tell me it's not what he was thinking when he answered Phee's question.

[everytimeigetmoody]

okay all of y'all are so angry at phee at let's be so fucking for real what were his other options in episode ten? did you want him to murder jin as soon as he found out that jin thinks he posted the video (i don't think he did. look at my last post for more)????? did you want him to leave Jin (who is injured and can't fight) while phee knows a murderer is actually out, while knowing jin is still probably feeling a little bit out of it because of the drugs??? sure, you can be angry at jin, but it's a real fucked up move to leave jin alone and defenseless. we can see that phee is a good guy, but he makes some fucked up choices because he's young, and stupid, and (PLEASE FUCKING REMEMBER) he is under an immense amount of stress. is phee so wrong as to want an ally in all of this??? jin is honestly the only other person who has his head on straight and isn't a murderer. it makes sense for him to compartmentalize.

did i love that he was so buddy-buddy in the woods??? no, not at all. that was kinda fucked up. but also phee is fully in survival mode right now. he is just trying to get himself and everyone else out alive. he feels guilty about leading everyone to their deaths. he knows he and Tan shouldn't be judge, jury, and executioner. he knows that's morally and ethically wrong.

some of y'all are a ittle too gung ho about tan killing them because y'all love passing judgement on character and deeming them deserving of death. it's a little disconcerting, but whatever, it's fiction.

[random-crap-i-like]

It was at this moment I knew, that Tan/New was NOT to be f*cked with. Careful Phee...

[the-pink-quill]

Now where have I seen this face before...

Aha!

See also:

DFF (2024) inspired by The Nanny (1993)

[raelle-writing]

Would Non want this?

This question has been echoing in my head, ever since I made the post about New disregarding what Non might want. To me, that was a really damning moment in the narrative for New, because it puts him in a long line of people who have used Non for their own ends, for their own gain. It shifted his goal from "righteous revenge" to "selfish revenge" and since that put him in line with everyone else who didn't care about Non's agency or his desires, to me it marked him for death.

I've heard a lot of responses to that, including "revenge is always inherently selfish so that doesn't change New's character" and "Non is dead so what he'd want doesn't matter." And I disagree. Because narratively, what Non wants does matter. It's half the point of the show, that Non wanted to stay involved in the movie, didn't want to give up his script, that people pushed him around and framed him and coerced and manipulated him - stripping him of his agency at every turn. Even the people who thought they wanted the best for him (Phee, Jin) pushed what they wanted onto Non.

So even if Non is dead (and I'm not convinced he is), yes his agency and what he'd want matters. The problem is, of course, that we don't know what he might want.

We can speculate. Because of course, Non wrote the script, condemning everyone to die. He brought a knife into the woods, intending to use it to murder Por, Tee, Top, Fluke, and Jin.

But despite this, when push comes to shove, Non backs down. When Jin darts forward to apologize, Non lowers the knife. Despite the fact that Non wrote Jin's death into the script, and crossed out his face along with the others, Non couldn't kill Jin even in the midst of his psychotic break.

Yes yes I know Non didn't know what Jin did to him, but despite that, Non had clearly decided Jin was guilty by association, but he couldn't pull the trigger.

In the further flashbacks, when we see Non working with Tee to repay Uncle Joe, we also see he has a note that he keeps nearby to motivate him. And that note says nothing about revenge. Non simply wants to get out and move on with his life. He also has Tee right there in front of him, and doesn't try to kill him. He hits Tee's chest, but even that is pathetic in comparison to pulling a knife on him before...

So all of that leads me to believe that Non didn't want revenge. He wanted to move on with his life. He didn't have that kind of violence in him. He was a gentle kid at heart, pushed to the breaking point.

But for the sake of argument, let's say Non DOES want revenge. Let's say that he wants the group of friends to die for their crimes. Because he very well might.

I think some people are missing some crucial pieces of information here. Because while Non might want the group to die, I don't think that would extend to Phee.

Non loved Phee. They broke up. And even if Non viewed Phee sleeping with Jin as a betrayal (and he might not, since they broke up AND there's some muddiness there because of Non sleeping with Keng - don't come at me, it's coercion, but the narrative establishes that Phee views it as cheating, so that's why I mention it) - he might not want Phee to die for it!

Non might not want the person he loved to die a bloody death because of his mistakes. Even if he hated Phee for sleeping with Jin. That might very well be too far for the boy who hated feeling like a burden on the people he loves.

But okay, let's assume Non DOES want Phee to die along with the others. He might not want his older brother to be the one doing it.

As I said above, Non hated feeling like a burden. He hated the idea of people inconveniencing themselves because of him. Do you really think he'd like the thought of his older brother throwing everything away, his entire life, and now his future? Non might not want New, the last member of his family, to destroy himself that way. There's no one else to carry out that revenge for Non, but if Non weighed the choice between his brother having a successful future vs revenge...? I'm not sure what he'd choose.

There's a lot of complexities to the question of what Non might or might not want. And while I personally think he wouldn't want revenge, because Non was at his heart a gentle person until he was pushed to the absolute brink... I think there are layers to the revenge that he may or may not want. And I think that desire matters, and it frustrates me that people are once again taking Non's agency out of the story.

[hopemang7]

While everyone and their grandma´s second cousin´s dog´s ghost are hating on Jin, I am tired of Tan/New or whatever he goes by these days!

Him bitching at Phee for "getting a new partner" made me WHAT?!

If Phee got himself a new partner, New would not be in the middle of fucking nowhere getting high as a kite lamenting his pathetic life!

If Phee got himself a new partner, they could all live happily ever after and could have solved this shit a long time ago.

However, Phee did not get himself a new partner, he has been hoping to get some answers about his ex-boyfriend and pining after Jin for over 2 years!!! (that ass must have been delicious), and now here we are in this mess!

Tan/New lost his marbles... and this is why you should not do drugs, kids!

[blu-eyed-freedom]

So much to absorb from that finale.

First off, how much was hallucination and how much was real is so blurred that if there is a special episode (like I thought I saw Pond or someone mention one) they could easily do anything. Seriously, if they wanted to they could retcon, change or shift almost every 'fact' from the episode.

So that means everything can be taken with a pinch of salt. And, while I figured some questions would be unanswered, some surprised me and I've been thinking on that-

*That we never got an answer about Keng's investigation and identity. But the more I think about this, the more I wonder if that's the point. It's like real life in that they never get all the answers and how could that have been found out by some angry teen/early twenty somethings with hallucinogens in the woods?

* That the ninth person wasn't revealed. Surely there had to be one because Tan seemed to see a dark hooded figure as it moved through the house at one point? I suppose if everyone was tripping balls in ep 12 (New/Tan may have trusted that gas mask he'd rigged up but I kinda doubt it was as effective as he presumed) maybe no one was aware of the ninth person so the audience wasn't shown but eh. I am mostly ??

*Linked with above thought. Like many, I wanna know who was groping Tee in episode one. I highly doubt it was Tan and they seem to show it wasn't a hallucination.

*Non's death in ep11 felt like an afterthought. To the point that part of me was sure it was a fake out. Part of me still hopes that as I'd have loved to watch it and like I said who knows with the special episode, but the other half is thinking that maybe an unceremonious death off-screen fits thematically. Non had fallen so far, he becomes just another casualty of organised crime. Another statistic.

* Unlike some, I had a feeling White was going to be the innocent/bystander victim to highlight how far New had come from simply wanting to know the truth. It would have been nice to know more about him (like with the hallucinations, why his anxieties where largely about being accused of cheating, disfigurement from STDs and sex=filthy) but not knowing does add to the just a bystander. Just another casualty just like Non.

If nothing else, the variables give material both for this potential special episode and for fanfiction etc to play with.

[spicypussywave]

New in Episode 11

DEAD FRIEND FOREVER

[7ringzsidetoside]

My LITERAL dff roman empire

Okay before i yap for a bit, i'm just warning y'all that this theory is kinda not logic-based, it's just like kinda (ik I'm kinda unstable) what I want to happen??

So basically imagine this: the end scene and everyone's dead except for white. He's holding a gun or a weapon or something. He goes over to tan/new and kinda shakes him and is like "wake up, everything you wanted has happened". And then he doesn't wake up cuz he's dead. So then, he goes over to Tee and shakes him as well. But now he's CRYING and is like "i didn't mean to hurt you, i think i actually love you". like it took him a while to realize he actually is in love with Tee, only realizes it once he shoots him. Then, when he realizes EVERYONE is dead, he kinda laughs in disbelief and is like "I finally did it, ---" (whoever his motivation for revenge is for, idk yet ngl). And then he goes mad. and then the series ends.

OKAY I'm sorry to everyone who is like "what the actual f" but to everyone who somewhat enjoyed UR WELCOME, and ik i should totally be an author (someone stop me).

[demiromanticmickey]

Continuing my reread of She Who Became the Sun, and...

Why is everything I'm reading recently make me think of Dead Friend Forever? lol

New has lost his whole family. What could a person want after everything has been taken from them? What would they do to get it? Would the outcome be worth the risk? And what would happen after? Assuming New achieves his revenge, what then?

[fracturediron]

You ever just think about how New has no one left to call him 'New' anymore. Even Phee calls him 'Tan' in private now.

[yellow-ok]

Thoughts on Ep 12

! SPOILERS !

Where to beginn .. first , I'm sad that New died but he finally is with his brother again so that's great !

I'm a bit mad that Phee , Jin and Tee survived but the end ? Does that mean there will be special episodes or something similiar ? It was an open ending for sure but was that it ?

So sad that White died , he was so innocent he deserves better .

Ngl Jin's hallucination scene made me so uncomftable I cringed .

Besides that I don't know how to feel . It's finally over but at the same time it's over Lol .

It was a great show and I'm not sure if I want to let it go :(