#upon request

I have a big tender place in my heart for Bang Chan, mostly because of the role JYP cast him in during the reality show, which is that of a parentified eldest child with a gaggle of dependent younger siblings, who both rely on his protection and care but at the same time want to make sure he knows he isn't dad, not really. Was this my life? Yeah. And it was not fun. It was all cost, no benefit. Whenever I get compliments on my responsibility, my maturity, blah blah, I want to pitch a fit and go NO I WAS EXPLOITED AND I WANT TO BE FREE.

It's a ROLE they cast him in, but at the same time, Bang Chan really seems to have adopted this parentified-big-bro role for himself, vis a vis the Stays, long term. And given how massive Stray Kids are worldwide, this is too much work for any one person.

The happiest I've seen Bang Chan is when he's producing - giving direction to his members and putting music together. The second happiest is when he's recording as a singer /rapper himself. I feel like he's a composer-producer who's forced to be an Idol, by being excessively talented at things that don't make him particulary fulfilled - singing, dancing, being a star. It's like he set this dream for himself as a little kid, and if it had been any other dream he could've honorably discharged himself from the parts that don't really fulfill him, but because this is Idol life we're talking about, he had to see this thing through to the end.

Bang Chan's themes as a songwriter/ producer seem to not have changed since Day 1. It's the same story over and over: He's all alone. He's surrounded by coldly indifferent enemies. Nobody understands him. While his goal is clear and the consequences of failure is clear, terrifyingly, there is no visible path forward as well as nobody to help him. He's so so alone in his songwriting self. There's a very powerful, dark anger that he's keeping just barely under control, because if he lets it out, he knows he might despair. ... Jesus take the wheel, someone help the boy!

Bang Chan's themes are so, so dark, but he's in a group with wordsmith jesters like Changbin and Han. I wonder if he feels understood or accepted by either of his co-writers.

I felt a weird tension between Lee Know and Bang Chan all the time, which made me uneasy. Bang Chan wants to be bossman, and be the leader that gets obedience, but it's lonely to take on a role like that, so he also wants a helpmeet-partner. This is where Bang Chan is much less fortunate than HongJoong, who has both a Seonghwa and a Mingi to partner up with for different aspects of his job. Lee Know just didn't seem to want to play. The narrative that I saw them enacting before I switched to Ateez was that Bang Chan endlessly reached out, inviting Lee Know to be a twosome, an equal, a helpmeet, something, and Lee Know just froze up as an act of passive aggressive rejection. I wondered how much fun it could be for Bang Chan, who objectively is a very charismatic, sexy man loved by millions, to have to constantly act out begging someone to be his friend and being rejected.