i mean most survival shows kind of necessitate that you prioritize your one pick over any thought of group composition or harmony and of course everyone watches survival shows differently but in the end even if you’ve been considering the composition of the overall group over the course of the show, it still comes down to your one pick. there’s that saying that’s like the second you start worrying about your second favorite, your bias dies. so even when you are considering it, you’re 1) probably considering it based around your one pick and who would suit them and 2) not necessarily going to be in agreement about any of that with the thousands of other people voting with THEIR one pick in mind. so it doesn’t matter if the group is oops all dancers and there’s no one who can sing or there’s someone who is kind of just there on visuals or whatever the case may be because the priority is carrying your one pick until the end.

that same fostered loyalty throughout the show is also why a lot of times survival show groups struggle to create a unified fandom in the aftermath as well because it’s hard to put down the mentality of fighting for your bias in everything even after the fight is over and especially with temporary groups there IS the looming knowledge that you are probably, in at least some capacity, going to have to do it again when the first contract is up so it often remains a “every man for himself” vibe.

with created groups there tends to be more thought put towards the overall group vs the individual. obviously this is not always true, but in comparison to survival show groups overall group composition is weighed more heavily than the individual parts that make it. even when a created group is crafted around debuting a specific trainee.

there are typically specific roles a company will look to fill depending on the goals and image they have in mind for the group. honestly you can see that even in the way groups get rigged (or in the case of bp where voting could not be rigged explicitly, through editing and other means).

honestly idk i think both methods have their pros and cons and there are groups that were made via survival shows that have successful compositions and groups that were created solely by the company that don’t. but i think in general the format of most survival shows makes it more difficult to create a harmonious group composition vs a company curating and pulling from a specific pool of trainees to create a group that way.

there was but that wasn’t in hanbin’s room and technically it was on jongwoo’s bed! so maybe since taerae said this happened in a room that wasn’t originally his maybe they switched around. the thing is taerae doesn’t use “friend” to refer to non-same age friends like he’s usually quite strict about that so our options of who it could’ve been are quite narrow. he didn’t become close to matthew until later so he’s out. the same age friends he was closest with at the time would have been hanbin, leejeong, hiroto. so basically if it was another switch team member…… but he doesn’t specify that part. anyway it seems very likely it would’ve been hanbin.

thinking about that time the thing that always strikes me most is just how much he must have trusted hanbin to have done any of that at all. like he knew it was absolutely a huge risk, they had no time to get it together, all they really had was hope and faith in each other. and y’know even though they lost they DID get it together. that choreo was so drilled into taerae he was still doing it months after debut.

anyway as hard as it was i think regardless of the results it was probably somewhat of a relief for it to be over 😭 also by that point they were probably deliriously tired too and i think everyone was trying really hard to push through it but like…yknow how taerae said hanbin was the only one who didn’t struggle and then hanbin cried after they finished and later said he was struggling a lot but his sole focus was on wanting to help taerae…lol…anyway…switch

i don’t have any interest in them as a ship but i DO find their friendship really interesting and their to my youth cover DOES make me want to cry like when they talked about why they wanted to do that song specifically they really have spent (and continue to spend and hopefully continue to spend after that) their youth together

i think what makes them interesting to me is i don’t know if they would’ve become friends under other circumstances (something that is similar to jeongbin in a way) but under the given circumstances they’ve developed this really unique bond and do depend on each other a lot (also the same age friends aspect, have to always love a same age friend dynamic)

also back to the cover i loooove their voices together i would love if we got another cover from them or another one with them and hanbin too

i love talking about jeongbin so literally any questions you have please ask!!

lol yeah the other members are also all big jeongbin supporters ESPECIALLY jihoo, but keita also i feel like gets really into it, but that’s jihoo’s otp fr

there’s not really a lot of evnne fic in general but i will rec some of my fave jeongbins!

♡ solving methods - starcreator
♡ beer goggles - starcreator
♡ give for the knife - anonymous
♡ stasis - lighttheway
♡ we remain blue - deinde - this is a link to an epub because she abandoned us and purged all her accounts but one of the best jeongbin fics ever written it’s part of a broader series about hanbin’s relationships and largely framed around his relationship with taerae but this is the leejeong focused portion and just…so good and classic

that’s all i can think of off the top of my head but there’s more in the tag as well that have been good!! and maybe one day we will have a jeongbin renaissance and people will write them again..