#Ming wants to own Joe/Tong and everyone that reminds him of them

[dummerjan]

Ming keeps getting compared to Vegas but I think he and his treatment of Joe (and other people) is much more similar to Kinn and how he treats Porsche

[bunnakit]

my stand in final thoughts, feelings, etc.

what an absolute ride of a show. what a series of ups and downs and downs and downs and up.

i think what i find so charming about this show is that it really exemplifies what it means to be human. each character was flawed in their own way and each made mistakes that at the end of the day were just human mistakes. no one felt like a mustache twirling villain but rather a flawed human being that got caught up in something bigger than themselves, or caught up in their own ego, hubris, etc.

in a show that was clearly framed to be about second chances i really did not expect the wide array of examples of different second chances in life - the obvious being joe and ming, but then there was joe and new!joe's mother, ming and his mother, tong and may, joe and sol, etc. almost everyone experienced a second chance of some kind with one another. almost all second chances worked out towards a positive outcome but i respect that some were neutral outcomes at best; a total reset. a second chance doesn't always mean total forgiveness and absolution but rather a new slate to try again and i really appreciate that MSI made it a point to showcase that.

i am also once again grateful that the show did not fall into the evil mother trope. i was gritting my teeth waiting to see what became of ming's mom and in the end both she and joe's mom were parents doing their best, wanting the best for their children, and stumbling along the way - another perfect example of humanity.

i couldn't even come to fully hate tong by the end. the industry inflated his ego, he felt indestructible, he was able to get anything he wanted with his connections, and he allowed that confidence to turn to hubris and got involved in something far bigger than himself. a scared, cornered beast will almost always lash out and at the end of the day tong was lashing out for any chance of survival. he needed a wake up call of catastrophic proportions to get his head on straight but throughout the show they did show us reminders of how much he loved may, little glimmers of who he was behind all of that, and by the end when he was able to find peace those traits shone through again.

and with ming i appreciated that he still felt like the same person. he was still an asshole, still rough around the edges, still who he was at the beginning of the show but his efforts were channeled elsewhere, his priorities changed, and he learned what he truly values out of life. joe didn't magically change ming, but he did alter his perspective and give him so much to consider.

i still cannot fathom the pain joe has to go through every day looking in the mirror and knowing he will never see his face looking back at him. the show teased little peeks of the affect this would have on his mental health and i wish it had maybe delved into that more but mental health is always a slippery slope.

for the grit and darkness of the show the ending felt a little too fairy tale for me but i was also kind of hoping joe didn't come back. i know, horrible of me, but if i was him? i don't think i would've come back. he had to be so, so tired and he'd been through so much, that part of me wanted to see that happen as a final nail in the coffin, a message that sometimes death comes for us no matter how hard we try to run from it, and sometimes death is a kindness at the end of a long and painful journey.

idk i'm also a slut for angst so ignore me.

i wasn't mad at the ending by any means, i enjoyed the little nods to potential side couples, i loved seeing things come full circle, loved joe's realization that while HE always saw himself as a stand in or someone overlooked everyone else remembers his past self fondly and he made an impression on them. in the end, so much of joe's self worth issues were his own insecurities exacerbated by ming's emotional abuse.

that being said, don't forget to tell people in your life how much they mean to you. it can mean a lot more to them than you can imagine.

definitely think MSI is my fav bl of 2024 so far, it was something unique and a little darker, more mature, all things i've been craving for a while.

[poetry-protest-pornography]

Okay, MSI episode 3 ramblings, mostly copypastaed from me yelling at @hotasfahrenheit while I watched:

MING STOP BEING MEAN ON PURPOSE CHALLENGE

Let Joe buy cute mugs ffs you jackass

"if we keep living together, you wouldn't want me to be your boyfriend"

AT LEAST HE'S HONEST AND A LITTLE SELF AWARE

If these couple mugs were accurate, the one that isn't a black cat would be a big puppy.

Mia: Ming is mean when his emotions get too big and he doesn't know what to do with them. Like a little kid.

Me: I know, but it makes me want to punch him

AND THEN he has the audacity to be sad about it five seconds later. My dude, you were the one being a dick.

You emotionally bereft idiot

Mia: No one ever taught him emotional regulation. They taught him feelings were bad so that when he has them and gets called out on them he gets snippy

Mia: I really wonder what his dad is like

Me: I am actively afraid of what his Dad might be like

Mia: We've only met his mom briefly and she was trying to control his life

Me: And unaware he's gay. Or actively ignoring it

Mia: Staying with Joe isn't just about their relationship, it's also about getting away from his family.

Me: oh 199%

Mia: Even if he doesn't know how to process them or express them, when he's with Joe he's allowed to have emotions

Me: Oh, for sure. You can see him start to allow himself to feel things in teeny tiny doses, and then he panics and lashes out, and then he feels bad. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Oh gosh

This reaction to the real estate brochure

Like, Joe brought a reminder of the life he's actively running away from Indy the little bubble of self determination and someone who actually likes him, and he got so smad

And then cute-manipulates Joe into forgetting about it

Joe: what do you think about crypto?

Yin: buddy you are too stupid to even try that, please do not

Mia: I feel like..... I feel like part of why he's latched on to the being in love with Tong for so long thing is because while it hurts that he can't have Tong because Tong is with May, that also makes it safe to have those emotions because he doesn't have to fully deal with what they would mean in a relationship

Me: Oh, 10000%! He doesn't know how to feelings, so he puts all his positive ones into his relationship with Tong, because they're safe there, where they are frozen and useless and can't go anywhere, so he didn't have to worry about dealing with them

Mia: He's never been in a relationship, he doesn't have friends, he doesn't know how to deal with another human's thoughts/feelings/interests/tastes/preferences/emotions/anything in conjunction with his own, and being attached to Tong means he doesn't have to

(I fixed a very funny typo for clarity lol)

Me: Oh, the foreshadowing about the production where Joe dies. Oh no

Does he take that job to make money to get away from Ming? Or to try to win him over (not that that's necessary, but drama logic is "I need to be more successful to earn love")

I think Joe starts to break this down really early, the things where Ming is like, disconnected from how other people feel/think) etc. Where Ming recognizes what Joe feels, and he latches onto him initially because Joe clearly likes him (and a little because he can be a huge dick to Joe and Joe will allow it), and he is just reveling in being so openly adored.

But then he notices little details about Joe, and sees when he's upset him, and sometimes makes an effort to fix it, and he starts to care about the little details, and he's already holding onto Joe *so tightly*, even before it goes to the inevitable cuckoo-bananas level of possessive that I know is coming

Ugh, Tong is SUCH A FUCK NUGGET

I want him to die painfully

I want everyone to take turns hitting him with a car

And then spitting on him and lighting him on fire

I love Mek, I want Tong dead

Oh no.

More foreshadowing and I want to throw myself into traffic

THEY'RE IN A BOX AND THERE ARE HORIZONTAL LINES CONNECTING THEM

I AM NOT OKAY. NARRATIVE BOXES ARE HAPPENING.

Joe's little taps on his chest 🥰

Wut: oooh, is he your booooy-friend? He looks faaaancy

I keep remembering the wet sheets and screaming internally

Aw, Wut really cares about Joe (she said, in episode 3, before she understood how right she was, and now she cries)

SHRIMP PEELING IS A LOVE CONFESSION, MING! DON'T YOU WATCH DRAMAS?!

(Ming would 100% percent be like "what do you mean I never say I love you? I peel your shrimp?!?)

Look at Ming, showing interest in another person! And smiling not like a serial killer!

Growth.gif

(there was a small discussion on the luckiness of shrimp and the too many leg-ness of those giant prawns)

"these are yummy, I want more"

"Fine, but this is a one time only offer, from now on, you're the shrimp peeler"

"Okay then, for today I will enjoy the endless shrimp for no.99"

Oh shut up, Ming, you love how cute Joe is being right now. It's okay, you're both the princess, it's fine

The crew: it's too bad we never got to see the director kick Tong's ass. Hashtag RELATABLE

Everyone fleeing when Tong shows up when they were trying to shit talk him 🤣

Ming, get your shit together

I'm trying to process Ming's face when he sees Tong at the table with Joe

He is definitely not happy to see him? Almost nervous for the two of them to be in the same place?

He's obviously confused

But it feels a little like he's partly confused about why he isn't happy about Tong being there

He kind of smiles, but it's delayed?

It's after he says hello, not when he sees him, and it's really small and reflexive

Mia: He also doesn't want Joe to figure out that Tong is the reason he was into Joe to begin with and I think he knows Joe might start connecting dots if he's not careful

Like I think by this point he's genuinely into Joe for real real

Me: oh, absolutely

But he isn't really sure what to do with that, the emotionally repressed idiot

Mia: But as with LITERALLY ANY DRAMA where someone gets interested in someone else for the wrong reason, he knows it was the wrong reason even if it's real feelings now

Me: yeppp

Oh good, Sol and Joe are hugging, so Ming can come and be jealous and mean

Yep, there it is

Joe is trying to set a boundary, good job, baby

Ming is absolutely ignoring it, and he kinda gives up, but like, the effort was there

Oh Ming, you stupid little hypocrite

"let everyone see and know you're mine... Oh no, not him though"

"only I'm allowed to be in the same place as another man"

Joe, close and lock your door, I'm so serious

Ugh, too late

Mia: I feel like Ming's possessiveness is understandable (NOT excusable) when you consider that he cannot be possessive of Tong because Tong is his sister's boyfriend? So he's like extra over the top with the "this one is MINE" because he couldn't have Tong

Like he finally has someone that's his and only his and he wants to keep it that way

But since he isn't good at relationships or emotions he just goes too far

Me: Absolutely this. He doesn't know how to not hold on too tight, because he's never had someone he can hold onto at all

Mia: He expects other people to try to take Joe from him because he wanted to take Tong from his sister (even tho he never really acted on that in any direct way)

But that was because he loves May, where people like Sol have no reason to not try to take Joe

Me: Exactly! And he knows for a fact that Sol wants Joe, and he also knows that he's not a good boyfriend

Mia: And sure yes theoretically he should trust Joe but Tong's interest in him was never deep enough to pull him away from May and make him go to or stay with Ming so why would Joe's interest hold either

Like Tong didn't choose him when he had another option so he thinks if Joe has other options he'll also choose someone else

Me: So it's a real threat, and that that is to the tiny bit of happiness that he's clawed out for himself, away from his family, with this man who thinks the world of him (and like, none of this is healthy or good, but when you get a little glimpse of what you could have if things were different, you tend to hold on as tightly as possible and see everything as a threat)

Mia: I KNEW YOU WOULD BE ON THE SIDE OF MING IS A PROBLEM BUT I LOVE AND UNDERSTAND HIM

Me: He is absolutely the problem, but he is *my* problem and I will make excuses until he is either better or worse

-- you have no idea how on this side I am. I was ready to love him when he was just a straight up toxic ass red flag armada. Now that I know he's a sad, lonely man who didn't learn how to have feelings? That's my man, I love him and I will wrap him in a blanket and take him to do much therapy, and pat his head when he expresses an emotion --

Tong: hey, bestie!

Joe: who are you?

Mia: Ming is so so SAD of a character and I just wanna hug him and drop him off at his therapist appointments then pick him up and take him out for milkshakes

Me: Yes!

It really reminds me of everyone picking Ray apart, and we were like "oh, you don't know any alcoholics"

But it's "oh, you don't know anyone why was emotionally neglected and have a decent relationship with your parents"

Mia: Also they don't convey it well in the show but apparently Ming is supposed to have been only like 17ish when he met Tong, so he's like 21ish when the show starts

He's a BABY

Up is obviously older than that

But the characters are supposed to be fairly young

Me: All twenty somethings are stupid and bad at relationships, we need to give them a break

Oh Tong, you could not be more wrong about Joe, or more punchable

This is that thing where you accuse other people of doing the things you are doing, you gold digging piece of shit

Every time someone says the word "stand in" to Joe, it hurts my heart

They're snuggling and watching a movie and they're so cute 😭

And soon, Ming is going to kidnap Joe.

The duality of man 😆

Look at our boy, noticing how someone else is feeling!

"are you happy?"

"What's that?"

Oh, Ming...

The smiiile

I'm gonna cry

Careful Ming, you're starting to sound like a mildly competent boyfriend

The puppiest eyes a grumpy cat had ever made

Oh man, this is literally only like, half the episode.

To be continued, this is already so long

Continued here