#it’s okay hun :(((

[overalostpenny]

I still trust you. I’d like to play the game with you, if that’s okay?

[lyxchen]

His gentle hands are covered in blood

(Had some fun with the colors on procreate so more versions are under the cut also if you like my art then please reblog it, thank youu)

[usernose]

Guys, please hear me out on this one

Jung-Bae can be Fiddleford

[journen]

Okay so I saw this post on Twitter , and went...okay I kinda wanna draw that ... 🤣

I've been so entertained by the shipping memes of these two from the second season of the show, I was kind of like, I gotta draw something for them now. The brain rot is kinda real I CANT LIE BAJAJDHKADKAAJJ I unironically really enjoyed season 2.

[linusbenjamin]

Why'd you come? You knew you should have stayed I tried to warn you just to s t a y a w a y

[mushyfart]

OHHH MY GOD,,,, MY SHAYLA😭😭😭😭MY SHAYLA😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I hate this man, blow him up with a nuclear bomb

[bebx]

[arkeresia]

how you lost your smile ❌

[diamantdog]

something i noticed during my squid game 2 rewatch is gi-hun isn't seen eating at all. smoking? repeatedly. consuming medicine? yes. (speaking of, what kind of medicine is it? is he sick? is he okay?) but eating real food? in episode 1, it's almost midnight when mr. kim comes to the motel and brings him "food and medicine" in a plastic bag, but no actual food is seen. later on, during the game, jung-bae asks him why he's not eating and tries to feed him a fried egg (it doesn't work). he's seen opening the kimbap's aluminum foil, but only to stare at the fork. what makes me more insane about this is the fact that gi-hun's very first ever scene on the entire show is literally of him eating a tray of food.

[spaceorphan18]

Favorite Rogue Panels : Gambit (1993) #1

While not at all related, XMen 97 got me thinking of this panel. The first time Rogue says that she loves Remy out loud. (If I'm remembering correctly, forgive me it's been a while since I've read the early stuff.)

She's so unsure of herself, in a way, holding herself close because just saying it, admitting it makes her feel vulnerable. Rogue always kind of holds herself close. She can take hits from the heaviest of hitters. But breaking through and getting to her heart? It's like she has to physically comfort herself, shield herself, from what that statement means. But she is sure of the words she's saying. She is sure of what her heart is telling her as much as it scares her.

And the statement is so simple. Just a simple declaration of how she feels. Something, like touch, that can be so easy for other people, but not for her. But at this point she knows. She longs, she wants, she's deeply, deeply in love with Remy even here and it's just this fantasy that she doesn't think she'll ever have. Not with her situation. Not with him having a wife... Just a mockery of a dream despite her heart.

This panel is so melancholy and beautiful and just packs a lot in a very simple moment.

I love this moment so much.

[queen-morgana91]

"i can't believe that the front man betrayed them"

"the front man clearly cares about gi hun"

"why did gi hun join the games again??"

"wait 001 and the front man are the same person?"

"i don't understand why jun oh didn't reveal his brother's identity"

"omg the front man shot his own guards??"

......

this is starting to be weird, i think i've watched a different series

[justascrollingghost]

Tamlin: we’re so in love that even after a week away where I believed you were being tortured we need to sit down and discuss absolutely everything that you saw at the night court so we can strategise

Rhys: you’ve been away for 3 hours on a key mission to gain information we desperately needed but can you tell me it later because if I don’t hug you in the next 5 seconds I might cry

[princessdreamss]

i am politely asking squid game writers for more “you joined gi-hun’s rebellion but in-ho couldn’t find it in himself to kill you like the others because dammit he’s genuinely grown fond of your dumbass and the last thing you remember is being knocked out by a guard and now you’ve woken up chained to a luxurious fancy bed trying to figure out why player 001 is sitting there staring at you and whether you really saw what you thought you did before you blacked out”

ok thanks tag me if you write anything similar i need it

[everlongasting]

one loss and it’s the end of the world for them

[strze-lec]

i'm gonna say it cause it's giving me brainrot, please please please please somebody fic it because i can't

someway, somehow, the police actually get the hint of the games during the revolution inside and they cannot resume the games right away. Everyone gets put back to their old lives, but no money is given (so they can have an incentive for them to come back later) and all the vips and organizationall staff needs to lay low. Gi-hun does learn of In-ho's or rather Young-il's dayjob as a Frontman before he loses consciousness by the gas they put the players to sleep by.

So Gi-hun ends up back in his hotel with no new evidence and only a fresh memory of more people dying, of his best friend dying and being betrayed by another he started calling his friend. He's tethering on the edge of anger and depression and regularly falling on both sides.

At some point, he realizes he's not alone in the hotel, but the signs are subtle. It takes him a while. Eventually, he meets the self-invited guest, the last person he wants to see: In-ho. He's smirking when he tells Gi-hun his security protocols are laughable. Gi-hun doesn't waste time talking to him and throws himself at In-ho, trying to off him, but after a rather lengthy fight that In-ho is mostly just blocking his advances, they separate and out of breath Gi-hun spats the question of what he's doing here. In-ho's not even winded and tells him he needed a place to lay low for the time being and there's probably no place lower than this hellhole. Of course, they get into a fight of words this time (or more so, Gi-hun treats this encounter as an argument) and Gi-hun says he's going to go to the police and In-ho's like "you do you, but you have no proof, and don't forget you have a stack of illegally aquired, no-tax-paid money and when push comes to the shove, between the two of us it's you who look more like the Frontman" and literally walks away back to the room he claimed as his

then there's some shouting and threatening on Gi-hun's part about you know, offing him in his sleep or sending someone to do it for him but In-ho's really not concerned with that

so it ends up with Gi-hun deciding he's going to use In-ho's presence to either successfully take him off the living plane or gather evidence to jail him. At the same time, In-ho is just having a great time being a bother, watching his favorite human go mad and generally giving "the game's off right now so i'm just gonna relax and be obnoxiously myself"

In-ho makes the long-forgotten hotel's kitchen clean again and likes to spend time there making good food (he offers it to Gi-hun but he's suspicious he'll poison him), taking relaxing baths and walking only in a towel afterwards, pissing off Gi-hun ("you jump at every sound. Who traumatized you?" or "relax, if I wanted you dead, you'd be dead") and catching up on reading and TV shows ("do you have any idea how much preparation goes into these games? I didn't spend the last three years dilly-dallying like you did").

At some point, Gi-hun begins to follow him when he notices In-ho going out regularly and realizes that he's helping in a shelter for troubled youths - helping them study, cooking with them etc. When Gi-hun confronts him about recruiting new players, In-ho points out that they still have a chance to get out of the lowlife status their parents brought them up in and it's a logical part of his worldview of cleaning the streets. Asks Gi-hun how actievly he puts his hero mentality into usage to be judging his choices. And then questions if it's easier for Gi-hun to demonize him, see him only as a monster if he doesn't know he likes fried rice and teaches at risk teenager's how to budged. If he feels better with himself not knowing In-ho shops his vegetables and fruits from old ladies like the player 149 and had too many "this is your life, you need to decide what's best for you" talks with girls like player 222.

Gi-hun takes a long route to the hotel and when In-ho offers him fried rice this evening, he sits quietly across from him and eats it. He's still fuming about everything In-ho did and does and will do once the game is resumed but still needs to come up with a plan how he's actually going to achieve his goal in In-ho's case and he reasons that pretending a truce - somewhat like In-ho did during the game - is the best option.

So he forces himself to relax and accept In-ho's current presence in his life and pretends he's able to talk to him like he was a human too.

This action will have consequences.

[geekynotfreaky]

The Front Man's Worldview

I posted this Front Man analysis on Reddit the other day and it didn't get much traction, so I thought I'd post it here too!

Squid Game Season 2 spoilers below the cut.

(And yes, proper capitalization, because this shit's serious!)

While watching season 2, I had the basis for the rivalry between Gi-hun and the Front Man simplified into the following: the Front Man believes in peoples' inherent flaws, whereas Gi-hun believes in peoples' inherent capacity for good. But there's a lot more to it than that!

This article recently got me thinking about how interesting In-ho's worldview is: https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/squid-game-season-2-lee-jung-jae-lee-byung-hun-spoiler-breakdown-1236258362/.

"In-ho is a character that no longer has belief or hope in the outside world. So it’s almost like he has nowhere to go, because that is not really a world that he feels like he’s a part of anymore."

The Front Man has no hope in the world and feels almost completely disconnected from it. So he clings to the games because the world outside is dire and beyond saving, and the world of the games just makes more sense to him than the world outside. This explains his spiel about fairness and equality in season 1. Under this perspective, it’s true everyone who plays the games is given one last chance to "fight fair and win." Because there is zero hope for them in the outside world, whereas the world of the games is a world of opportunity.

Granted, the rules of the game are not entirely fair OR just, but it's a system that makes more sense than the world outside of it. Knowing the Front Man's backstory as In-ho, you might say the real world disappointed him so much he had to become the leader of his own world.

"In the process of these really grueling and violent games, his feelings faded. Feelings of hope and joy are long gone in the In-ho you meet in Season 2."

Similar to Gi-hun (and they do seem to be foils of one another), the trauma of playing through the games and winning contributed to his shattered worldview. Notably, though not discussed in the article, they both also lost someone close to them despite winning the games (for Gi-hun, his mother; for In-ho, his wife and unborn child).

In-ho is so cold-hearted and impassive as we know him in the present day...he has no joy, no hope. He is what Gi-hun has the potential to become. Throughout season 2, when he’s not putting on that act as Young-il, he's often staring into space with a sort of deadness in his eyes. There’s zero warmth there, and the betrayal in the end serves to remind the audience of that. And yet!

"You do find him almost momentarily enjoying the situation. And I think this is just a very small glimpse of his past self.”

...there are moments where he DOES seem to be genuinely enjoying himself, like during the relay race. And as the article explains it, these moments are like little, miniscule glimpses of his past self. So when he's having a laugh throwing that spinning top incorrectly (three whole times with his non-dominant hand, just for fun), is that something the In-ho of the past would’ve enjoyed? Playing a little joke without the others knowing? How much of that tiny light in his eye is just a remnant of something that has long since faded?

The fact Lee Byung-hun paid such deliberate attention to the details of his character really makes season 2 all the more interesting to watch! Every scene with him in it is captivating because you’re almost forced to scrutinize every aspect of his behavior in order to figure out who he is at that moment: is he the cold and cunning Front Man, the supposedly innocent Young-il, or his true self Hwang In-ho? And that's what makes him my favorite character!