A DOG IN CHAINS

Night Glow - Daniel Ablitt

British , b. 1976 -

Hwang Inho, player 132.

The VIP quarters are directly connected to the Frontman’s. No guards between them. No cameras. No locks. Just a private hall, intentionally designed for easy access—straight from the guests to Inho. It’s something we, the audience, are shown in the first season. It’s deliberate. It’s not about convenience. It’s has to be about ownership.

The message is clear: the Front Man is available to them. When they want. How they want.

Gihun doesn’t know any of this. Not yet.

So fast-forward to the second rebellion—this time it works. The games collapse. The players rise up. Systems are torn down piece by piece. And Gihun gets lucky. He tracks down Inho before anyone else does, makes it into his private quarters—alone.

He’s expecting a confrontation. A power play. Maybe even some smug final words. He’s got a gun in hand and a thousand accusations on his tongue. He bursts in, ready to deliver all of them. He’s ready to drag him out, hold him at gunpoint, interrogate him, whatever.

But what hits first is how quiet the room is. The mask is on the nightstand. Inho’s half asleep, lying on his side in bed. No guards, no escape plan. Just… a man. For a second, Gi-hun falters, but then he raises the gun and yells—something like “Don’t move” or “Get up.”

And Inho shatters.

Not like someone caught. Like someone reliving something.

He jerks awake with a choked gasp, eyes wide but unfocused, pupils blown and darting—not seeing Gihun. Not recognizing anything. His whole body seizes up, then folds in on itself like he’s trying to disappear. His hands go up—not to fight, but to shield his face, his head, his chest. He scrambles backward into the corner of the bed, legs pulled to his chest, trembling so hard the mattress shakes.

And then he starts talking—no, begging

“Please not tonight. I was good last time, I didn’t fight—please not again. I can’t. It hurts, it hurts so much—”

Gi-hun just… freezes. The gun lowers slightly, his mouth open but no words come out. He doesn’t know what he’s seeing. At first he thinks it’s another performance, another twisted act meant to deceive him—but then Inho’s voice cracks. And then he says something Gi-hun can’t unhear.

“I did what he asked, I didn’t say no, I didn’t bite. I won’t cry this time. Just please not again—”

That’s when it hits Gihun.

Not all at once. Slowly. Like watching someone bleed out and not realising until the red’s all over your hands. Gi-hun looks at Inho—at how small he’s made himself, at the way he’s covering his head, the way he flinches at even the slightest shift. And he realises—

The connected rooms.

This pitiful, desperate script spilling from Inho’s mouth like it’s been rehearsed through tears and pain and blood. Like he’s learned how to beg.

It’s not guilt. It’s not remorse. It’s terror. Conditioned, helpless terror.

This isn’t some power-hungry mastermind. This is a man who’s been violated so thoroughly he doesn’t even recognise when someone’s pointing a gun at him anymore—because the nights that came before were worse.

Gihun’s stomach flips. Something cold and foul coils in his chest. He thought he was coming here for vengeance. Thought he’d get the satisfaction of seeing Inho afraid. But this?

This is something else.

This is sick.

And now he’s just standing there, gun lowered, heart pounding, face burning with rage he doesn’t even know where to aim anymore.

In-ho tries so. hard to remain intimidating, even when he's with Gi-hun. He's still the Front Man, except that Gi-hun finds him cute and adorably annoying now — which bothers In-ho greatly.

In-ho still calls Gi-hun 'Player 456' when he's wearing the Front Man mask, in the Front Man persona (something something about him being scared of intimacy and this tenderness he now shares with Gi-hun).

Gi-hun knows exactly how to deal with him when he goes 'Player 456' in the Front Man's distorted-by-the-mask voice on him, and the trick is to just. take In-ho's mask off. Just like that.

In-ho, wearing the Front Man mask, in the Front Man voice, trying to remain scary: Player 456 —

Gi-hun, a bit annoyed, takes off In-ho's mask with one hand, the other holds his coffee cup.

In-ho, now maskless, immediately goes 🥺, in a very small, very childlike voice: Gi-hun-ssi 🥺

How should I deal with blogs like that? Do I report them? Block them? Should I do anything at all?

Because I commented on the first fic asking if its ai and they blocked me so I cant even protect anyone else from reading that because I forgot their name

And on the second fic I commented I asked the same thing and they suddenly deleted all of their post but they had a full ass masterlist

Is asking about ai an insult now? Cuz i dont want to blame this people out of the blue Im asking, but they are quicker to get offended then to defending "their" work..

Am I the crazy one??

can I be honest? you are in the wrong here. I stand with the two authors, and I’m glad they blocked you.

you said you “asked if their works are ai” which means the authors did not specifically said their works were ai-generated, meaning you guessed, based on vibes, and then you threw an accusation at them. I have already talked about why it’s rude, entitled and insulting for someone to ask a writer if their works are ai-generated here, here and here.

and I have said time and time again that “ai witch hunt, speculation and accusations harm the writing community as much as ai does, if not more”.

so whether or not you know it, you are harming the writing community — just like ai does, if not more — by going around asking random writers if their works are ai, as if writers owe you anything (fun fact: they do NOT owe you anything).

every “ai telltale” is something human writers write. what do you think ai was trained on? what do you think it was trained to mimic?

“how do I deal with this?” by curating your own internet experience. block them if that’s what you want (you can block anybody for any reason). it’s not your problem or your business how a writer writes, whether or not they use ai.

no, I am not a fan of ai, but I can accept that if someone chooses to let ai write everything for them, then that is their business. do I agree with them? no. will I harass them for it? no. will I call them out? no. what they do is literally none of my business.

also no, it’s not your job or your business to “protect anyone from reading their works”. you are not their parent. if someone reads their works and if they think it’s ai, then they can make their own decision on whether or not they will continue reading it.

if you think their works are ai, you can choose not to read them. you can block them if that’s what you want. but

1. writers do NOT owe you anything

2. yes, it’s absolutely valid for a writer to NOT want to be asked if their works are ai — them deleting their works after you asked them if their work is ai is NOT proof that they used ai. they could very well be devastated that something they worked so hard on was accused of being something it’s not, and if that’s the case then you should be ashamed of yourself. (if they did use ai then that’s still their choice, their business and something they have the rights to do — even though I don’t agree with them, I will never condone harassment.)

3. I have already seen enough writers step away from posting their human-made works online BECAUSE PEOPLE KEEP ASKING IF IT’S AI. and it can be very disheartening for them. (me personally I don’t care if someone asks me this, because I know I don’t let ai write for me and I never let strangers’ negativity affect me, but I understand why some other writers care.)

3. no, you cannot know “for sure” if a fic is ai-generated. unless the author says so themself, you can only guess based on vibes. as I’ve said before, every ai telltale is something human writers actually write, otherwise ai would never have been able to mimic it at all.

4. harassment will never ever make you the good guy.

also you cannot report them for being ai, let alone because you personally suspected that it’s ai, because ai-generated works are allowed. it’s allowed on ao3 (here’s what ao3 said about ai-generated works on their platform), and since tumblr as a site itself, just like every other social media platform, also promotes and uses ai to help them run the platform, I guess it’s fair to assume they allow ai-generated contents on their platform too.

again, I am not a fan of ai fics, but I condemn harassment, ai witch hunt and speculations more.

respectfully, do better.

It literally flagged Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein as AI. (X)

The only way you can know if a piece of writing is AI is if the author themself says so. Otherwise you’re just guessing. And for the hundredth time, “AI checkers” NEVER WORK. It’s flagged human-made works as AI and AI- generated works as human-made so. many. times.