I am delighted to finally announce the prompts and dates for Inhun Week: After Dark (Round 2)!

Some notes about prompts below the cut:

Artists, do you ever work on a piece of art and think about the possible worlds or moods or interpretations it could inspire? Writers, do you ever see a piece of art and find yourself imagining stories, dialogue, or even poetry, to go along with it?

If so, you may be interested in a Squid Game (freeform) Reverse Mini Bang!

Artists will submit an art draft along with an optional brief statement explaining “This is what’s happening here.” The drafts will then be posted anonymously for authors to claim.

After claiming, artists and authors will be paired, and the author will create a written work inspired by the art. The extent of collaboration is whatever you both are most comfortable with!

Because artists often have distinctive and recognizable styles, participants who are active in the fandom may be able to guess who created each piece, even though the drafts will be posted anonymously. Artists thinking about trying something new with your style? This may be a great time! However there's no need to try to "disguise" who you are!

The writing requirements for this reverse mini-bang are flexible! Submissions should be at least 2500 words and may include:

A complete "story" fic (with a beginning, middle, and end)

A scene or snippet

Dialogue or internal monologues

A collection of poetry, prose, or both

Another form of creative writing inspired by the artwork

Schedule:

Artists sign-up: Jul 18 through Aug 29

Art posted for claims: Sep 5

Claiming: Sep 5-12

Posting: starting Nov 28

So, at the beginning of Gihun's financial declive, his mom or maybe Eun-ji warn him about it—they're in the process of divorcing already. And Gihun still has some self control about the spending, so he tries to lower his spendings, but it's so hard and there's no excitement coming from it. Not like the one he gets from betting on horses or by going out to drink with friends.

He looks for financial help online. And that key word gets him down the rabbit hole of financial dominance. At first he's really weird out, especially because he doesn't feel well with throwing money to another human being, much less a woman. Boundaries, you know? But he still keeps investigating and... oh! It's not a necessarily a thing only between men and women.

Inho, for his part, isn't the kind of financial dominant that likes people to spend money on him. He already has his own, thank you very much, but he takes enjoyment in controlling how others seek his approval regarding their spendings.

Gihun and him make a connection through one of Inho's old subs, who was also in a similar position as Gihun and recommended him to Gihun as a beginning experience.

The first thing that Inho does is state his boundaries, he doesn't do sex exchange and neither does he needs Gihun to worry about giving him any of his money. Their reward system would be subjected to Gihun's income and how well he manages to obey Inho's orders, like if he manages to reduce his betting: Inho will send him a gift. However, if he doesn't, then Inho will request Gihun to give him something, not money, but it has to be something important enough that Gihun wouldn't want to lose.

They start slow, but Gihun's praise kink speeds things up and soon enough, Gihun is almost giving Inho full control of his finances, waiting for him to tell him how much of a Good boy he was for correctly spending money in things like his mom's medicine, Ga-yeong's gifts, and even his own groceries.

And the rewards have been exceptional, Gihun was doing so well that Inho told him that if he managed to keep doing so well. Inho would take him to a dinner date at a fancy restaurant. This being their first time together face to face, and yeah, Gihun was really expectant to that (he may o may not have already started to develop some crush on his dom).

Except, that not everything can be so good for so long, and Gihun slips up. And it's bad. He goes with out with Jungbae and he loses almost all the money he was supposed to save for the month.

The thing is, before, he probably wouldn't have had any issue giving Inho something. He didn't have much in the first place, so he didn't have many things he had some sort of emotional attachment. Now? Now he's fucked. Because everything he knows Inho could ask from him, were things Inho gave him. And those were his hard earned treasures!

Their restaurant date? Thrown to the trash because Gihun was so, so, so stupid.

The cologne Inho gave him as the first gift for not betting for a whole two weeks? or the nice shirt he'd been using to his jobs and his mom had been praising him for? or even the beautiful designer sweater Gihun freaking knows he'd never have the money to get by himself! Those were all things inho gifted Gihun, and according to their agreement, Inho could be taking everything. Because Gihun did bad, because he wasn't a Good boy, as he should have been.

But who would Inho be if he didn't take his role seriously? as much as it hurt to see his boy so down on his luck, Inho needed to make sure he wouldn't do such silly things again. Inho goes in person to take something back, he figures it would make more of a point if he physically took it.

Unfortunately he hadn't prepared for how pitiful Gihun would look. Clinging to his legs, shaggy hair messy, tears and snot streaming down his face in a way that would make anyone else look ugly, but not him.

And, while he's embarrassed, Gihun starts feeling something too. He's never been spanked before, not even by his mother. She resolved to other ways to correct him. But even if Inho's hand lands heavy on his skin, turning his ass red, he's also gentle enough to caress him and whisper soft things to soothe Gihun's sobbing.

Once the spanking is over, Inho cleans Gihun's tears and snot, and gives clear instructions to how he should be taking care of his back the next few days. They hadn't discussed physical punishment previously, which is a flaw Inho takes as his own, but Gihun quickly dismisses because, well, he liked it and it helped his head to focus.

Then, Inho asks Gihun to hand over the first gift he gave him. His cologne. The bottle barely has anything inside, because Gihun has been using it for everything. Reluctantly, Gihun does, but Inho asks for his pillow too.

He doesn't understand what's happening until he gets both things to Inho and watches him spreading the last few drops into the pillow before hand it back to him. Inho promises to give Gihun a new bottle if he controls his wants for the rest of the month, and that the pillow was the last compensation for his past good behavior.

Gi-hun didn't sacrifice players. Gi-hun sacrificed an opportunity.

Gi-hun knew players were going to die in the riot. That would be true whether or not Gi-hun participated. Moreover, he knew there was a very high likelihood that participating in the riot, no matter how hard he stuck to defense over offense, would lead to either or both of him killing opposing players and/or coming out of the riot too exhausted to fight anyone else before the next game began.

If all of the best fighters on team X participated in the riot, and the vote the next day still went in favor of team O, then he would have accomplished nothing except keeping more X voters alive to die in the next game anyway. Not only that, but now the strongest X voters would be the most exhausted and/or hurt, thus the least capable of playing any game that required strength or alertness, and therefore the most likely to die.

However, because the vote had polarized the players who wanted to stay and the players who wanted to leave so strongly, In-ho inadvertently gave Gi-hun an unexpected alternative to participating in the riot - an alternative that In-ho himself would never have considered, because it required being open to the idea that players could fight the guards and overseers who had kidnapped them, held them hostage, and killed them in a series of horrific death games in the first place.

In-ho couldn't see that option, because he has indoctrinated himself too heavily into the idea that the only way to survive is to play by the rules of the System, with joining the System - preferably in a position of power, if possible - as the ultimate ideal goal. Gi-hun, on the other hand, understands that Systems are made of people. He understands that people - whether they are poor and exploited, holding guns and doing the exploiting, or directing all the guns and exploitation from a nice comfy spot at the top - are people, and unlike abstract, faceless Systems, people can be fought. People can bleed, and people can die.

People can be defeated, which means the Systems they prop up can be defeated, too.

They won't be defeated, however, if no one who is willing to fight them is able to fight, because they already spent all their energy fighting someone else that the System threw in their path for precisely that reason.

And thus we return to the crux of the matter: Gi-hun did not sacrifice his morals or his values or the lives of people on his side. Gi-hun gave up the possibile chance to help some players survive during the riot, in exchange for the hope of a more difficult but potentially more meaningful chance to save everyone and stop the games in one go after the riot ended.

Or, to repeat the more succinct version from above:

Gi-hun didn't sacrifice players. Gi-hun sacrificed an opportunity.

in-ho spent the entirety of the 2024 games watching gi-hun experience turmoil at the loss of others, but he couldn't stand there and watch gi-hun mourn jung-bae. he did what he thought the only solution was, as the only other option was killing gi-hun for spearheading this revolt, and he wasn't going to do that. people are watching, just as they were at the cliff's edge with jun-ho. he took quite a risk offering for jun-ho to come with him to begin with. and he is expected to be cold, distant, and manipulative.

season 2 was such a parallel to season 1—people panicking during the first game, saving someone at the very end, the players begging and pleading for their lives, but there's diversions from the script too, because of gi-hun, but also because of in-ho.

in-ho saved myung-gi against thanos instead of allowing the players to discover deaths outside of the games count towards the pot. in-ho saved jung-bae in mingle because he knew gi-hun could handle himself. he tries to discourage the rebellion because he knows it can't succeed, but even still, fires on his own guards to protect gi-hun. he could have left and returned to his position at any time, and still, he wanted to try things gi-hun's way. he only picks up the mantle of the front man again when he's certain the rebellion is at the end of their rope.

yes—he killed jung-bae. but he told gi-hun it was a punishment only for the audience watching, and then immediately turned tail to walk away. he didn't want to see the fallout of that decision. so he didn't have to see true agony on gi-hun again.

compared to the salesman who says he's cut out for this work because it was easy to raise his gun and shoot his own father.

Fighting other players during the riot is literally part of the games. The game makers call the riot the "Special Game," and S2 even uses a timer for it like several of the other games. Engaging in the riot is what the players are expected to do.

Gi-hun's rebellion, on the other hand, would be much more analogous to the strike he participated in several years before S1 began, than to anything In-ho, his underlings, and/or the VIPs orchestrate for the games. The rebellion was a case of collective action organized and engaged in by those at the bottom against the people at the top who were pulling all their strings.

(also just fyi it's almost 5am where I live but I feel the need to make this post now instead of tomorrow, if there are any spelling mistakes in this post or something is worded weirdly, that's why)

So let's go!! First book:

So book number one is the one I'm most uncertain about. The book here is titled "René Magritte, l'empire des lumières" (empire of lights) and online I found this book with the same title but a different cover. You can even read or download it here if you want. But what I also found out is that "l'empire des lumières" is a series of 27 paintings that René Magritte made over the years and they're always of a landscape at night (often a house lit by a street lamp) while the sky in the background is a sunlit sky by day and In-ho seems to like this series a lot. We can assume that because he has both a small print of it taped to the desk and again a bigger print of it framed hanging on his wall

I'm pretty sure the framed one is this one but I can't be fully sure:

Second book:

Book number 2 is "Picasso, The Blue and Rose Periods". I have to admit I didn't find out anything specific about this book, I think it's just a book about Picasso's art. If I'm wrong please correct me. Also the picture of the book I put here isn't the same cover as the one on In-ho's desk but it should still be the same book

The third book is about Monet/his art and if I'm correct it's the one by Christoph Heinrich. Again I didn't look up too much information about this one because it's just an art book.

The fourth book is "Van Gogh, The Complete Paintings" by Ingo F. Walther and Rainer Metzger. Again art book about Vincent van Gogh's art

So for book number 5 I couldn't actually figure out which book specifically it is. From what I can read it's called "Campus Life" and I tried looking that up but there were multiple books with that title (one of them was gay tho sooo...). Also maybe that's just me but it does kinda look like it could also be a notebook?

Lastly book 6:

It's called "The Catcher in the Rye" by J. D. Salinger and it's a novel from 1951 and it's about a 17 year old boy looking back on three specific days from his past. You can find the description and what it's about online. I'm gonna read through that tomorrow I think

Bonus book but I couldn't find the exact one:

This one, which is on another shelf on In-ho's desk. It's probably an art book on Picasso

As Holden watches Phoebe on the carousel, engaging in childlike behaviour, he is so overcome with happiness that he is, as he puts it, “damn near bawling.” By taking her to the zoo, he allows her to maintain her childlike state, thus being a successful “catcher in the rye.” During this time, however, watching her and the other children on the carousel, he has also come to accept that he cannot save everyone: “If they want to grab for the gold ring, you have to let them do it, and not say anything. If they fall off, they fall off."

And that Mingle game has strong carousel vibes. But yeah, wow, I didn't remember a lot about that book but hoo-boy is it In-ho coded as fuck.

Also, I wonder if his enjoyment of those Rene paintings is because they (at least to my view) have a sort of "on the outside looking in" vibe. We all know In-ho loves to watch, lol.

Looking up Picasso's Blue period gave me this info:

"In choosing austere color and sometimes doleful subject matter—prostitutes, beggars and drunks—Picasso was influenced by a journey through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carles Casagemas,"

And the blue period is also when Picasso sank into a deep depression. Then this:

"Following his Blue Period – which depicted themes of poverty, loneliness, and despair in somber, blue tones – Picasso's Rose Period represents more pleasant themes of clowns, harlequins and carnival performers, depicted in cheerful vivid hues of red, orange, pink and earth tones."

Hhhh, there's so much to think about here. In-ho going from his "blue period" before Gi-hun, and entering his "rose period" after. Again, that Mingle game matches up with the themes of Picasso's red period.

And: "Picasso was happy in his relationship with Fernande Olivier whom he had met in 1904 and this has been suggested as one of the possible reasons he changed his style of painting."

Ohohoho... The implications! Call me delusional, but I refuse to believe all of this is a coincidence. Like, I believe the shot of these books is from season 1, right? So I wonder just how much the director had planned for In-ho from the start...

Me right now:

From guilt to light: his sacrifice was his redemption. He died in the heart of his own personal hell, but as he burned, he consumed it all so that others could live. His peace wasn't the place; it was the act.

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