potaytopotahtopotuhto

[raelle-writing]

Dead Friends Forever as text posts (episodes 1-5) part 2

(Part 1)

Bonus:

[spicypussywave]

[tbhimnoteasyonmyself]

On Tee's Lonely Grief

I've seen people talk about New's and Phee's grief, Pimpa's grief but the gang has never been considered that much on account of their guilt. This episode, however, brings attention to that. Especially in Tee's case. Especially in the scene when he finds Non dead.

And I have to say, I fucking love this scene. So I'm here to tell you why.

PS: For the sake of this post, unlike what's normally my policy, the pictures used will not be edited in any way, shape or form unless stated otherwise. I think it would be taking creative liberties with the photography and it would diminish the validity of my analysis.

So:

Tee finds Non's body upstairs with his uncle's goons (dressed in entirely black outfits which obviously invoke death) very suspiciously looming over it.

So he does what capable and strong Tee, who has to support himself and his father and his uncle's business and now Non (as we saw very clearly this episode) would do: He lashes out. He demands answers. He threatens people. Because that's how he learned to solve his issues.

Yet he gets mostly silence. Arguably, the same exact silence he initially offers the 2 other people grieving Non this episode: New & Phee.

And so he argues with his uncle, makes accusations, mirrors New in the present moment so well it's uncanny.

And then he's alone. Everyone leaves, including Non's body. And now there's no one to perform that idea of a strong ruthless guy to. Now it's just Tee. And the contrast between the act of Tee and Tee is remarkable: one moment he's cold, and the other moment he's completely broken.

So he screams, at the top of his lungs, which is interesting. Because we do see Tee cry but not much. Tee's just not a person who cries. Which, besides being very relatable, is also terrible. Why? Because crying relieves you. It helps you cope, it releases the tension from you, at least a bit. Tee not crying here means this (Non dying), unlike the guilt of what happened before with him and the gang bullying Non

(something he is allowed to shed at least a single poetic tear about) Is a burden he can't be relieved of. At least, not at that moment.

So we watch as Tee screams helplessly. And the environment is so telling. GOD, I FUCKING LOVE THIS SHOW

There's an empty space. Virtually nothing is there with Tee. Because, of course, he's alone in the room, we know this, but he's also alone.

No one else knows this story like Tee does. No one else has been with Non when he was a creative student trying to make a film, when there was life to him in all senses of the word and also saw his dead, lifeless body. No one else has been the cause for both Non's problems and Non's death. No one has liked Non as a friend and cared for him and watched him die without being able to do anything about it. No one in Tee's life knows what he's going through, what it feels like. No one in Tee's life is able to share his grief. And he can't escape it either.

You see that weird ass mirror there? Why is it there? There are curtains around it. But it's not a window. That's odd. But while it makes no sense decoration/architectural-wise, it makes so much sense from the point of view of symbolism.

There's no escape. Even when it really feels like there should be. Because Tee, the guy with all the solutions, should be able to find a solution, shouldn't he? Besides... We come to care so much for him and for Non... So how come there's no solution? Because, we, like these teens do to adults, naively trust the narrative. Of course, there's no solution. We all knew this from the start. We're only here because of this: Non is dead.

So, instead of a way out, a hope for something better than what's going on in that room, we get just more of it. Tee and we alike, have no escape. We're both forced to face that scene, forced to accept it. And Tee, if he dares look for that way out, will only have to face himself.

But interestingly, he never does. Tee never looks at the mirror on the wall. He doesn't even acknowledge it. Which, of course, might be a reflection (pun intended) of how he tries to pass the blame of Non's death to his uncle.

He repeatedly claims he didn't know what would happen, that he wouldn't have brought Non back if he did but... Is that true? As Perth's character (BOMBASTIC SIDE EYE, btw) says:

"You already knew, right?" Because, let's face it, it was obvious. Things could only go poorly for Non if Uncle Joe got his claws on him. Tee had to know that wouldn't end well.

So this scene also tells us that, despite deep down his immense amount of guilt telling him he is guilty of Non's death, Tee doesn't want to acknowledge it. He maintains that position, in fact, nearly all the way until the end of episode Ep.11. where he slightly changes his narrative.

He never planned to.

Right now, he's a new person. One that would not make the same mistakes as in the past but that, despite the changes, is inevitably the one who somewhere in the past did make them.

But back to the scene.

Tee is framed right in front of the blueish-grey curtains and we all know what that means, I do not need to cite the ancient scrolls. But I wanna add that grey is also:

a colour associated with sadness;

seen as a colour of death, as it is literally in greyscale, hence colourless, lifeless AND because it can also be interpreted as a mix of white and black, both of which are mourning clothes colours, depending on the culture;

a reflection of Tee's grey morality because, naturally, while we understand Tee's motivations and background, he did some pretty fucked up things that his good intentions and unhelpful help attempts cannot erase.

And then Tee finds a small paper, written by Non (in vivid blue, properly highlighting not only Non's depression but also Tee's).

And the paper reads: "I'm gonna get out of this place. I'm not a loser." And it hits him even further because Non (at least in Tee's vision, I'll leave Non's death up for debate, I'm sure people will have theories) wanted so bad to be victorious once, to succeed just once. He wanted to get a chance to live normally and it didn't happen.

This, of course, ends up shaping Tee's own path, as he meets White and gets a chance to do things "right" and as he becomes this "new person" and gets away from his uncle. But, in that moment, none of that is relevant because it hasn't happened and Tee cannot know it will, he can only know, with written proof, that he failed. And now Non's dead.

And so, in the last part of this scene, we see a more zoomed-out shot. And Tee's still alone but now we have a more clear vision of just how tiny that space is. And how he's nearly taller than the frame. How his grief is bigger than the space in which it was brought to him. But also how the weight of it, represented by the walls, is nearly crushing him. Another gigantic, and perhaps the biggest of all, responsibility on Tee's shoulders.

Furthermore, as @shannankle has marvellously described and explained in this post about sex scene framing, the framing gives us a level 3 visual gaze which is used to remind us as the audience of just how intimate and profoundly shaping of Tee this moment is: we are not supposed to be here, this moment is Tee's and Tee's alone. Because, of course, he is alone. In all senses. The access we're getting is nearly forbidden. Even to the other characters. Because they don't get to see it, they only hear about it (or we assume they do).

And, to top it all off, the cherry on top of this great scene: all of this happens while Tee is wearing his school uniform. Because, of course, it had to. Because we need to be reminded: this is a teenager. Tee, who's mourning his dead friend whose corpse he just saw and whose death is largely his fault is just a teenager.

[yujeong]

We already knew Tee was poor. We already knew Tee was working for his uncle to support his father. We already knew Tee felt guilty. We already knew Tee wasn't smart and didn't understand he can't really do anything to save Non, with how much he truly fucked him over. What you saw in Ep11 wasn't Tee getting redeemed. It was character exploration. Character development. The episode also shed light to how TeeWhite came to be, which is IMPORTANT to do about one of the 3 main couples of the show. I don't know if people know this, but you can feel sympathy for a character who's a total piece of shit and who made a million mistakes and unforgivable things to innocent people. That doesn't mean the narrative excuses them, it just humanizes them and it's important for a show like DFF. So pls calm the fuck down about Tee.

[vegasthehedgehog]

The face that Tee is making here, looks like how I feel at 1am when I suddenly can’t ignore that big ole’ hole in my chest. Sad boy hours, ya know?

[wavesinlowtide]

Well, hats off to Dead Friend Forever for really improving episode by episode, because Tee's storyline in episode 11 was absolutely heartbreaking. He went from a character I didn't give a damn about to a character I feel deeply conflicted about. On one hand, there are the truly horrible things he has done. On the other, there are the horrifying circumstances he was forced to cope with - things that no one should have to cope with, let alone when they're young, alone and extremely vulnerable.

It's easy to say "oh surely he had other options", but how many of us would have actually done much better in his shoes?

[everytimeigetmoody]

You stated all my thoughts about White. Up until this point he has no stakes in this story. They better do something with his character quick because there are only three eps left and I could not care less about whether he lives or dies right now. I even want Fluke’s selfish crazy ass to survive more than White at this point.

they just aren't giving us anything about white. as far as we know, he's just boyfriend. he has no ties with non and has done nothing to harm him or the investigation. he just doesn't have many ties to the main story with non. let's be honest. it makes him a little boring and bland. i kinda care about him cause he seems nice. he's innocent. there's nothing wrong with his place in the story and i feel like he does have his seat at the table even if he's not involved with non. he plays detective with phee and tan and he does his best with trying to contact the outside world. we see how fluke is going crazy through how he interacts with white. we get to see tee fleshed out a little through white.

i just don't think it would be satisfying to leave him as final girl. i mean, it's just too cookie cutter to leave the "innocent" one alive. this doesn't really seem like a story that's so rigid in its sense of morality. a lot of the characters we see are very much not black and white. you have phee who cares very much for non, but sleeps with jin and, at least the way i see it, kind of likes him too. he's on his mission to seek the truth about non or kinda get revenge but he gets distracted and veers off course. we have tee who is a major bully and does fucked up things to non which could have landed him in jail and did land him into deep shit with his uncle, but he also ultimately asked for mercy for non and tee is dealing with a lot of shit at home. i mean, he has the health of his dad on his shoulders (if i remember correctly) and his uncle was stepping on his neck threatening him with money or the lack of it. i am a tee hater but when i really think of his situation, i can't help but feel bad for the guy and everything that he's going through. and i love phee, but man was it fucked up to sleep with jin without knowing the full story.

with all of these complex and interesting characters to really dig into and analyze, white just seems bland in comparison and i feel like that's probably the point of his character. i mean, maybe i just haven't caught onto any foreshadowing, but white isn't going to turn out to be some great mastermind or part of the conspiracy with phee and tan in the end. that would feel like such shitty writing. i think this is more or less confirmed by white getting the hallucination of boils on his skin. he's not in on the plan and he didn't use this to throw off suspicion like tan did.

i think he works best as a tragic death. he would work best as collateral in the end. he has done all that he can and that is still not enough sometimes. you can do all the right things but circumstances get you sometimes. that's just what life is.

white is not final girl material. this story ultimately isn't about him, and i think that's what seals his fate. no part of seeing him coming out of the woods bloody and crying would be satisfying as an ending and would honestly create the most basic ass theme. it would make me actually angry if the "innocent" one got out alive. in a show that works so hard at being morally complex, that is such a slap in the face as an ending. it sends the most basic theme of "if you do bad things, bad things happen to you, and if you do good things, good things happen to you." the story would say nothing interesting. it is such a tired theme that doesn't take into acount the cemplexities and nuances of life.

i believe dff will do better than that. i think it will give us a story that leaves all of us speechless and satisfied. white being the final girl will not give us that.

sorry anon that i unloaded all of this on you. i never really got into it in my original post, and i still didn't fully get into it here but this was getting long.

[miss0atae]

Saturday is so far away so I do silly memes for fun.

[the-pink-quill]

Need more Tee x White

Tee regretting what he did, maybe in jail, in a psych ward, heck, remembering all the good times and flinging himself off their a balcony... I just need about 30-something fics about the immediate aftermath of this scene:

from Tee's POV. Please and thank you.

[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.

[raelle-writing]

Hey 👋

What do you think about tee's character?! This character is so confusing he cares for white a lot and protects him but he did worse things to non. We know he also needed money for his father. What do you think about him and how white and tee met and fell in love. Tee only listens to white and also what you think about white ? Is he only related to the group because he's tee's boyfriend. Tbh I'm loving their couple,their chemistry is so good. 🫠

Thank you so much for this question!!! I actually find Tee's character entirely fascinating tbh - he's a bully but he shows these moments of complete and utter humanity that I find really sympathetic and compelling.

Like I'll never justify what he does to Non - framing him for breaking the camera and then using that debt that he manufactured to pull Non into money laundering isn't exactly excusable. But I find it so interesting that while we see Tee doing all of these insane things, we also see these little moment of humanity throughout. Like when it's made clear that Tee is mostly working with his shady uncle to help get money for his dad - we don't know what kind of medical treatment his dad is undergoing, but clearly something severe that costs a lot to treat.

Tee is in arguably just as desperate a position as Non (if not more desperate). He's stuck needing money, dragged into illegal activity by his uncle, in too deep to get out. Does that excuse him being a manipulative bully? Of course not. But it's fascinating to me because it would've been SO easy to make Tee a non-sympathetic character, and yet we see all of this depth to him.

We're also shown that he didn't want to get any of his friends involved in the money laundering, including Non. He knew it was bad and illegal, and he didn't do it until he was completely and utterly backed into a corner, until he'd exhausted literally every other alternative and his uncle gave him an ultimatum.

Which is interesting because you think he wouldn't hesitate to pull in Non even before that, since he doesn't like Non. But he does hesitate. It shows that he has some ethics, and some sense that what he's doing has the potential to ruin whoever is involved. And he doesn't want to ruin Non, despite disliking him and picking on him at school.

Of course, he reverses this action by proceeding to get Non involved. And then, when Non goes to get the rest of their friend group involved, he backs Non up. But not because he's greedy, but because his uncle is shorting him left and right and he still doesn't have the money for his father's medication OR to pay Non.

Tee's position is parallel to Non's. He needs the money. He's into illegal shit he doesn't want to be in, but is forced in deeper every day by the people pulling the strings. And he, like Non, is just a kid. He shouldn't have to be discussing money laundering with his uncle at 17 years old to help pay for his father's medical bills.

And even though Tee continues being a dick to Non throughout the past (even going so far as to help his uncle make Non disappear), he shows hesitance at every turn when his uncle demands things of him, and he tries (weakly) to defend Non when his uncle starts saying Non is a police spy.

And after he brings Non to his uncle and Non "disappears," Tee can't stop himself from asking what happened to Non. Tee doesn't even like Non, and yet he still shows clear signs of fear and upset at the thought that Non might be dead. Because he knows he'd be complicit? Maybe. But he's also a teenage kid caught up in illegal things against his will. He might genuinely feel bad about it. His expression certainly conveys more than just guilt...

Does any of this balance out the bad things he does throughout the past? Of course not. He's still a shitty person and should be in jail for the part he played in Non's disappearance. But he's also fascinatingly sympathetic in the way he's forced into all of these actions. He clearly doesn't want to be doing any of the things he's done, but feels as though he has no choice. Either because his uncle will hang him out to dry for the police, or because he still needs the money for his father's treatment.

That said, I don't find Tee's treatment of White in the present dissonant to his character in the slightest. To me, it's clear that Tee is the type of person who cares deeply about those close to him, he just doesn't let a lot of people get close because he's experienced far too much pain and manipulation at the hands of his family. Tee is soft with White, but more than that, he's devastated when he learns that Por has died.

Tee cares. He cares a lot. He cares about White, he cares about Por. He arguably cares more about himself since he often abandons White during stressful situations, and is more concerned about what White will think of what they did to Non than he is about what he actually did to Non. But I think that he knows he had no choice (or at least, in his eyes he had no choice) in what happened to Non.

Anyway, this got long ahahaha I just find Tee's characterization to be so interestingly done. He's one of the most deeply complex characters in the entire show, and shout out to JJay for conveying all of his complexities so well, he's an amazing actor.

As for White... well. White is still a question mark for me personally. I wrote a theory previously that White could be Non's brother New, and I still think that's a possibility. I've also seen a wild theory floating around that White is actually Non himself, he's just gotten plastic surgery.

It's possible that White is exactly what he appears to be, a mostly-innocent bystander. Especially since White defends Tee when the others talk about thinking Tee did something bad to Non, and shows clear horror when Tee talks about burning Dang's corpse.

I'm not sure exactly how Tee and White met, but I think they're pretty compatible. White wants someone to take care of him, and Tee likes having someone look up to him. Tee also has a lot of love and care to show, he just doesn't/can't do it easily because of his history.

Because I find Tee sympathetic, I kind of hope that White isn't using Tee as part of the revenge plan (though I know a lot of people want that) because I find the idea of the one person Tee has opened up to turning around to betray him that way completely heartbreaking. But I also know that within the narrative, Tee is the villain. He's the main catalyst to everything bad that happened to Non, so it wouldn't surprise me if the story has set up exactly some twist like that happening to him for revenge. We'll have to see where the story takes us but personally, I think they're cute together right now!

[popontomarnie]

[fandork]

TeeNon, 2.5K, Rated E (canon flashback high school ages/underage warning ⚠️)

Tee swallows and the metallic tang clings to his teeth and the back of his throat. “Let me suck you off.” He looks down at the gravel underneath his knees and the detritus strewn about the rooftop. Is this a way to assuage his guilt? And if so, is it absolution when Non works his fingers in his hair and grips hard?

[ancestor-qirong]

I really can't look forward to DFF at all now as a Jin biased person😭 wasn't it supposed to be a show made for him to be the main character 😭 but why then did it turn out like this. Either they should have made him the main villain or the main villain. Why is he stuck in the middle now with no backstory or characteristics of his own

[vegasthehedgehog]

Okay. Two facts that are on my mind:

1. I would personally punch Tee if I had the chance.

2. Non be getting b*tches.

[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).