#but he really brings out ming's worst and it's soooooooo interesting that ming is afraid for TONG to know what he has with joe

[vegaseatsass]

Rewatched My Stand-In eps 2 and 3 tonight, and I'm definitely newly fascinated with Ming POV/Ming's internal concept of what was happening between him and Joe that entire time. I forgot just how much we got of Ming's home life and family in episode 2, and my brain is abuzz trying to connect all the dots. His relationship with May is so interesting. She clocks that he and Joe are together on Christmas, and is immediately careful to conceal it not just from their parents but from Tong. May and Ming have this "us against the world" vibe where they protect and cover for each other, going back to May giving herself pneumonia saving Ming from drowning. I absolutely believe there's more going on in their family than mom pressuring Ming to marry women any time he goes home - I actually suspect things about his family are being obscured for future painful reveals - but May is a safe space for him. Until Tong is added into the picture, and Ming has to flee the country for four years to get away from his big feelings. It's just kind of bonkers to me that he had this intense, safe and presumably very grounding relationship with his sister, but made his obsession with a random movie star the centerpiece of his world instead. Why did he imprint on Tong? Is it really just Joe's sexy back muscles that drew him in? Did he think if he could land a famous movie star his parents would accept him being with a man? Was it subconscious self-sabotage of his only safe relationship lol? I genuinely have no idea!! What I am stuck on though is when he told May he was working through something, and would tell her when he was ready, but he promised he'd get through it. On rewatch, it seems very obvious that what he's talking about is the torch he's carrying for Tong, so to me that's a reveal that he's deliberately trying to move on with Joe - not using him as a sex doll replacement, but throwing himself into something real. (What's messy obviously is that Ming started this for the proxyfucking, but I think overhearing Joe confess his love for Ming to Sol is when Ming started making a determined effort to choose Joe.) There's also his reaction to Joe's Christmas gift where the watch becomes a metaphor for Joe himself (vs. Tong): Ming doesn't need the "top" one, why can't he want the "normal" one?

The first time I was watching this, I assumed that Ming just has no internal awareness of how important Joe is to him, he just feels pure need and acts very very normal when his emotional support stand-in is ripped away. I assumed Ming believes he's in love with Tong and thinks he's just passing some time with Joe. It doesn't help that every time Joe presses him on anything emotional Ming shuts him down or outright negs him lolllll

But like for example, in the scene where they're shopping together and Joe gets excited about the couple mugs, first Ming snaps "What makes you think we're a couple?", then he tries to mitigate his slip by playing it off: "after living with me, you'll realize you don't want me as a boyfriend." His kneejerk impulse to shut Joe down and say cruel things is imo a defense mechanism, a really maladaptive one that helps convince Joe later on that there was never any love there, but I'm starting to think it's triggered in response to actually wanting the intimacy and primacy that Joe is pushing for, and being terrified of that.

It would make so much sense for somebody who is terrified of needing anybody else, of being vulnerable or feeling anything real, to decide they're in love with a complete asshole movie star who uses their family for money and them personally for favors, and shape their life around that. Especially now that I understand how young Ming was when he first fixated on Tong (17ish??), I just feel like that entire imprinting is your classic teenager-who-is-not-ready-to-be-in-a-real-relationship parasocial spiral. I used to do it with male celebrities too!!! (I am a lesbian. lmfaooo)

It's interesting because while there's something conceptually romantic about the back Ming first got obsessed with being Joe's all along, it ultimately doesn't really matter to me WHO the onscreen person that he fixated upon was. What matters is how ill-equipped Ming has proven to handle real feelings for a real person in front of him, and the journey he has from here to learn how to human. I can't wait. P.S. Other thing I forgot happened in episode 2: - Ming made drunk!Joe sleep on the floor of Joe's own home - BEFORE Ming moved in or had any claim to the space - AFTER Ming told Sol he would take "really really good care of Joe" as a way of trying to claim Joe in front of the competition His journey to human is going to be a loooooooooooooooooong one, methinks... 😈