+ Bonus Inhun!

Shout out to all the Black ppl that can no longer participate directly in the fandom they love because of the stresses of racism 👍🏾 you contain multitudes of value and I'm sorry that the color of your skin and the power of your voice makes people not want to acknowledge that.

HIMMMMMMMMM

oh, but can you imagine what they could have had?

a starmaker bubbling over with joy, a demon questioning god on the walls of eden. a being who fell in love with an angel, fearing heaven and hell but fighting them anyway because that's what is right, what is decent. because that is who he is.

that demon would have spoken 'i love you' out-loud to his angel as soon as he heard humans using it. that crowley would have loved openly, unashamed, willing to stand between aziraphale and their worlds.

but aziraphale couldn't do any of that, and so he carried the weight of his silence on his shoulders because there is nothing worse than loneliness, is there? i love him, we're not alone, it has to be enough.

eventually, he thought, he will be able to stand hearing me say it. that day never came, and what happened?

a demon who hides behind sarcasm and pretence because he learned that is how the world, how aziraphale, wants him. a demon that never speaks of his true feelings, a demon that never admits to love, a demon that submits to an angel's will because he cannot lose him, because he refuses to lose him, no matter how high the price.

finally, he thought that day. finally i can tell him. finally we can stop pretending, finally I can stop hiding.

then aziraphale accepted an offer and after six thousand years of hoping for more, he lost it all instead.

who are looking at?

the 2024 nuclear family 😔

BRO???????????😭 explain yourself Gi-hun 🤨🏳️‍🌈

Source

Why 457 is actually valid af and not just a "joke" ship

I wanna start this by saying that I'm in no way, shape or form convinced 457 is canon nor I think there will be anything remotely romantic between the two of them in season 3. But people seem to think it's just a joke inside the fandom, while actually, their dynamic is pretty fucking valid and I want to analyze that in this post.

One of the most discussed things (if not the most) when it comes to this ship is the stares.

Some think this is the stare of love, others think In-ho just enjoys seeing him suffer. Well, let me tell you it is neither.

But before we delve into the way In-ho stares at Gi-hun, we first have to go back to talk about Hwang In-ho as a character.

As we know, Hwang In-ho is the Winner of the 2015 Squid Game. He went into the games so he could have the money to treat his sick, pregnant wife, much like Gi-hun who did the same for his sick mother. Both of them won the game, but both of them were too late to save the person they loved from a sad fate.

This lead to In-ho becoming the Frontman. We don't know exactly what happened in the timeframe between him winning and him becoming the Frontman, but we can safely assume that after loosing his wife, In-ho lost faith in humanity. The games have destroyed him, they turned him into the villain he is today.

And the thing is, when he looks at Gi-hun, he sees his past self in him. This was confirmed by both Lee Byung Hun (In-ho's actor) and the director of the show himself.

Or to be more precise, he sees his past self. He sees who he was before the games changed him. And this is what led to his fascination and obsession with Gi-hun, because here's the thing; the games traumatized Gi-hun, but they didn't break his faith and hope in humanity, like they did with In-ho himself.

And this is the thing that, in my view, both fascinates and deeply angers In-ho. Deep inside, subconsciously, he is thinking, "Why were YOU able to retain your hope in humanity? Why were you able to remain a good person when I couldn't?"

In-ho was genuine when he told Gi-hun he wished he'd try to be happy after winning (or to better say, surviving) the games. I find it especially interesting when he tells him "Just pretend it was all a dream."

In-ho wishes he could pretend it was all a dream, but he couldn't. Think about it: he's a billionaire, but he lives in a shitty, small apartment. He doesn't talk to his mother, he doesn't talk to his brother, he doesn't even go visit his wife at the cemetery. Pardon me for borrowing the phrase from The Hunger Games, but he's not living the life of a victor. whether it's because he feels guilty or something else, I guess we'll find out in the next season, but that's not the point. The point is, that In-ho wants Gi-hun to do what he wasn't able to do after he won. He wants him to be happy because he sees himself in Gi-hun.

This is the most important point in this post.

Now I wanna focus on these moments. During the second game, during mingle, and during the lights-out massacre, we see Gi-hun being absolutely destroyed over the players that were killed. He's undoubtedly blaming himself for it. And here we see In-ho staring at him, not with the look of love, not with joy at his suffering, but with sorrow. He's sad for Gi-hun, because he could have spared himself further suffering if he didn't stubbornly decide to go back into the games.

What In-ho is thinking right here, in my view, is; "See? There is no hope. There is nothing you can do. Stop torturing yourself, just give it up already. How much more pain do you have to go through before you give up? Accept you can do nothing and go on with your life. Try to be happy."

Now you might be asking, okay, but what does that have to do with romantic love?

Well let me tell you that these feelings I just described can easily and quickly turn into love.

Many philosophers over the centuries have come to the same conclusion; we see part of ourselves in the people we fall in love with.

"The Front Man believes that Gi-hun is wrong in his way of thinking, but perhaps, he reflects on himself through Gi-hun. He does want to destroy Gi-hun's belief. I felt that a small part of him, unknowingly, might be hoping for Gi-hun's thoughts to be right. And rooting for him in some way."

These words Lee Byung Hun said about In-ho, makes me think of Jacques Lacan's theory in particular (which is a rather complex topic and I will try to summarize as shortly and as simply as I can).

For Lacan, love, at least in the beginning, is essentially a form of narcissism. When we fall in love, we're also falling in love with ourselves. We see ourselves in the other person, but we also see in the other what we subconsciously think we are lacking in ourselves. Which doesn't mean the other person will fix us because, at least according to Lacan, this lack is something that can never actually be "fixed".

And I think that's exactly was is happening with In-ho. He sees in Gi-hun what he's lacking in himself. They were traumatized the same way, but reacted in two completely different manners. In-ho became cruel and disillusioned with humanity, while Gi-hun still believes in humanity and wants to save everyone.

I know that this way, 457 seems like a one-sided kind of love, but that's honestly my personal interpretation of the ship. I think Gi-hun could have fallen for Young-il, for the person In-ho was before the games, if they had more time. But the Frontman In-ho? The person he became after becoming the Frontman? There's no way.

Not all loves are meant to happen, not all lovers get to be lovers. Some are meant to just leave us wondering what could have been. Which is what makes transformative works so fun and interesting! From the canonverse toxic fics to the wholesome alternative universe flower shop fics, I think their dynamic is valid as fuck.

I rest my case.

nothing gets me more than watching s1 gi-hun be happy and smile and ALWAYS trust sang-woo like even when sang-woo didn't tell him about dalgona gi-hun wasn't even mad and then season 2 happens and he's such a shell of what he used to be and is all sad and traumatised and THAT'S the REAL reason we needed jung-bae bc he brought the real gi-hun back if only for a second 🥲

Gihun - me and the bad bitch I pulled by being so pathetic and incompetent that they had to take pity on me

(if I had a nickel for every time an intelligent ruthless character fell for this dumb/cute himbo man child (and sad sweaty meow meow), I'd have two nickels? Not a lot, but still weird that it happened twice in one show.)

I don't know if anyone has pointed this out yet, but in the pub scene when aziraphale tells Criwley he told tge angel's he made Nina and Maggie fall in love- criwley suggests he just do a miracle to fix it. Aziraphale says it doesn't work that way. To me this implies that criwley has never tried to make someone fall in love but aziraphale HAS.