Help, I've Fallen Into a "Squid Game" Slash Art Hole - INTO
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Help, I’ve Fallen Into a “Squid Game” Slash Art Hole

Henry Giardina

SPOILERS FOR “SQUID GAME” BELOW!

Last night, I was simply minding my own business and being a professional homosexual on the web, when I made a startling, wonderful discovery:

I’m not the only person who is shipping Sang-woo and Gi-hun from the bloody Netflix hit “Squid Game.” There are, in fact, several others who are doing this, and some of them happen to be fantastic artists. 

Full disclosure: because I’m deeply mentally ill, I no sooner finished watching “Squid Game” for the first time a few weeks ago than I began to obsess about how soon I could watch the show for a second time. I love violence, and this show really, really leans into the copious violence in a wonderfully visceral way. The sound the bodies make when they hit the floor after the Tug of War scene? Wow. Sang-woo’s final sacrifice? Damn. I’m in awe, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted. But also, as with most art I enjoy, it didn’t take me long to start wondering, once Sang-woo and Gi-hun are revealed as the last men standing, “hey, what if these two school friends…kissed?” 

I’m into all the big M4M fandoms, and a few of the more salient WLW ones. During the Tumblr years, I shipped Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock and Martin Freeman’s Watson to my heart’s content, courtesy of the many excellent fan art offerings showing the two men in a cozy, naked embrace. I shipped all the “Doctor Who” doctors with each other, and I shipped the absolute fuck out of Rizzoli and Isles, just as the show wanted me to. But for some reason, I wasn’t expecting others to share my excitement about the prospect of Gi-hun and Sang-woo getting it on amidst corpses and blood.

And yet: where there’s an Internet, there’s a way, and where there are two handsome male leads on a TV show, you can be sure there’s a fandom lurking close behind. Lo and behold, I entered the world of “Squid Game” slash art, and my world has been utterly ROCKED. 

Like, it’s a THING.

I really enjoyed this portrait of the two friends staring hopelessly at the stars together:

To be sure, #Sangihun is a hashtag that you can 100% search on Twitter if you so desire, and it will deliver RESULTS:

There’s even a slash fic story that involves Gi-hun getting married and Sang-woo being very upset about it:

Honestly, thank GOD for this fandom:

This romantic supercut is really giving:

Things are HEATING UP:

Oof, that’s just about all I can handle for today. If you need me, I’ll be taking the world’s coldest shower and thinking about my life decisions up until this point.

Henry Giardina (he/they) is the editor of INTO. He lives in Los Angeles. Past publications include the New York Times, The Believer, The New Yorker, The Paris Review Daily, The Atlantic, Film Comment, and Gizmodo. He is @punkgroucho on Twitter.

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