#i'm still kind of hoping it's all smoke and mirrors and sleights of hand

[pharawee]

I think I finally figured out why I don't really vibe with so many takes on DFF (not the speculation and meta posts, mind you, those are brilliant!).

I think it's because I get no catharsis at all from revenge plots and seeing characters die - even characters who might "deserve" it. With DFF, I'm more interested in character backgrounds and dynamics and how things went wrong (and imo the series spends a lot of time showing nuances when it's plausible).

I know, it's probably not the right way to approach anything in the slasher genre but I like horror and I like BL so here I am, watching. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And the reason why Jin is my favourite character is because it's so interesting to see how much can go wrong between meaning well and feeling genuine affection for someone. What Jin did he didn't predominantly do out of mean-spiritness (like Por and Top) or apathy (Fluke) or selfishness* (Tee), yet his insecurity did play a part in Non's bullying and disappearance. Jin is a flawed character and I really, really like flawed characters.

(*Is it selfish to want to keep someone close because you like them? Sure. But certainly there is a difference here between this and Tee utilising Non in his very illlegal and dangerous schemes.)

Plus, I'm not really on board with punishing even the most awful of children for something that the adults (Keng, the police, Por's parents, Non's parents, Tee's uncle, their entire school...) fucked up. I'm not saying they don't belong on trial etc but I do draw the line at impaling someone on a sharpened stick and letting them suffer for days whilst in the care of the worst medical student ever.

And. Whoever is behind the mask (probably? Never say never with this genre) killed an innocent uncle who was just trying to do his job. Wow. Revenge sure is nice.

That being said, obviously catharsis is a super enjoyable and important way of watching things so hate away. I mostly just wrote this for myself to better understand why I'm so squicked. I promise I won't get mad when everyone but final girl is killed off in various gruesome ways. 🙏