...not even into skz but this made me wish for some meta of them😭😭 especially bangchan, that has been just. constantly getting canceled for stablishing boundaries for probably a month by now??? anytime i look at these men they are going through something bad fr
(but what could be your thoughts on him? :o i dont know him that well, but the way he portrays obsession in red lights? hit too close home. because ive felt like that for... probably a good chunk of my life. im autistic so i get too caught up in my special interest enough that i just want to talk about it forever to keep my nerves in check).
Are you sure you want me to go into Bang Chan headcanon? Because I stopped paying close attention to Stray Kids once my Ateez fixation began in earnest. I did see posts and youtube video titles go by about Bang Chan being unfairly pilloried for something but I didn't have enough mindspace to pursue those.
So, every kind of disclaimer as per usual, but more, because I am just not aware specifically of anything going on with SKZ or Bang Chan. But when I consider Bang Chan, this is what I think:
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.
Again - I am very out of date with Stray Kids. They got me into Kpop, I have an affection for all the members, but I never finished the process of becoming a Stay because I got enticed by Ateez. The above is where I was in my thoughts about Bang Chan as of October of 2024.
