Dha_Zai

EP 11
Tong has his knees as well as his precious self severely bruised.
Put some ice to both, honey.

Oh, thank you for your patiently ploughing through those monumental drags of mine.
And I'm painfully aware of my being hilariously serious about the series which is meant to be some kind of light entertainment.

You said, "Clearly the way I'd been looking at it wasn't what the author intended." I don't know what were the author's intentions - I've never read the book. It's my try to "lend you my eyes".
As far as I've caught it, today's episode is going to serve us Ming confined to his bedroom. Then, how are the actions of the head of the family different from the actions of enforcement officers who - in a bunch of countries - are given a full licence to apprehend homosexual individuals with the aim of “counseling” and “educating” them in order that they “return to the right path”?
So, Ming can with the connivance of his family carvot with whoever he wants whilst he's keeping it "between the sheets", and will end up married to a good catch of the opposite sex.

You say, "He just had so much power over Joe..." What kind of power? Fully emotionally attached, enchanted with Joe's body, giving him all his orgasms, willing to give even more, actually, whatever Joe would ask him for, yet Joe has never done it because he believes that there's no virtue higher than loyalty - it's not a bargaining counter.

Ming is weak. Him assaultig Joe could've been ludicrous if it hadn't been so hazardous. How long do you think Ming could keep Joe under lock & key until everything were brought to light resulting in a huge scandal? Do you really believe Ming's words, "Forever!"?

You know what Ming and the oyster have in common? A hard outer shell with a soft chewy centre. All Ming's haughty & rude façade crumbles immediatly whenever Joe says that he needs nothing but Ming.

Have you ever wondered what would happen to Ming, provided that Joe2 had never been pulled onto his orbit, I mean if Joe drastically altered his life - no show-up again? My answer: two orbituaries as soon as the Joe's body was found and the identity confirmed.
"The beloved younger son of nobel Akarayota family went to dance with abandon on the streets of heaven..." oh no, my bad - that's too frivolous, "...made his final transition to..." sounds much more dignified.

You simply look at the entire situation in a different way than I do. What is there in the background of Ming's story?
Expression and conduct that fall outside of a heterosexual, cisgender norm are not allowed. I mean that, he can't introduce a guy to the family as a partner or appear officially together in public; Mings mum takes futile attempts to coerce him into a heterosexual marriage; the elder brother fixes issues regarding voracious boy-toys; Tong judiciously keeps him on a leash (until Joe's disappearance) nipping in the bud all Ming's displays of affection, at the same time tantalising him with gentle, soft gestures, encourages Ming to confine in him & perceive as an elder brother & figure of authority.
That's Ming's world. It makes me feel nauseous.
He has to curb his emotions, his true self & follow "the right path" marked out by the head of the family. So, now he's taken a desperate step which made the whole foundation of the moral values instilled and preserved for generations quake.

Ming was weak. The penny dropped when Joe disappeared - Ming got stuck in bereavement unable to cope with the anguish. Actually, I'm sure that it dawned on Ming that Tong is a scumbag as he attempted to devalue Ming's loss cartoonishly trivialising his emotions. Ming was devastated, unable to lean on the family, bezzeled into numbness... Perhaps Mike interfered just in the nick of time.
Ming came to his senses and found consolation in building a memorial to his love: maintained Joe's house, kept his personal belonings & these silly couple pillow cases & pj's, repaired those cat cups; got involved in advertising that watch brand... He lurched from one extreme to another without a coherent strategy.
Having convinced himself that Joe is alive wasn't a step to recovery, his mental state worsened, that precarious equilibrium was illusive, and it was only a matter of time before he went into the final tailspin.
When Joe 2 shows up, Ming is again wrestling with a host of conflicting emotions - profound despair, guilt, regret and anger. Anger is prevailing. How dare you to be like my love, induce the same feelings of comfort & anchoring safety; and how dare you to revolt?!

I've never expected this series will become my "meal of gall and wormwood, accompanied by fine vintage vinegar".

What, if I say that it was obvious from the very beginning? Ming, even if he has certain assets to maintain himself & Joe, has two ways out - sever his ties with the family (it's a step into the abyss, nothing will ever be the same, nothing can be rebuilt) or try to get them to condone his choice.

Sorry, very sleepy.
It's about Ming delivering a formal declaration of his intentions (of war) to the head of the clan. Joe is the reason why Ming decided to swathe through “traditional family values” put at the cornerstone of this grandiose mausoleum of pretence.

Since Ming rebelled against the force which can smash him like an empty shell, he is incapable of protecting either himself or Joe.

Could you let me know if this piece of info was of any use to you? Shall I continue? I mean, the next part is going to shed some light on what happened to Joe from the moment of him losing consciousness up to coming round in Ming's house.

The reasons why Ming shouldn't have hit Joe to the back of the head with a baseball bat.
Warning: medical humdrum. Mostly. I am not your doctor and all that jazz.

Strikes to the back of the head can cause brainstem injuries.
The brainstem sits at the base of the skull, at the bottom of the brain; it connects the brain to the spinal cord.

You can consider the brainstem as a complex relay station that passes messages throughout the body to and from the cerebral cortex.

The brainstem looks like a flower stalk 2 to 3 inches (5 to almost 8 centimeters) long & contains 10 of the 12 cranial nerves (nerves that start in your brain).
Without the brainstem we would be dolls – head and body apart equally lifeless.

The brainstem does not perform higher brain functions like those associated with cognition or memory.
Instead, it regulates many involuntary actions — functions your body performs automatically; i.e., balance, blood pressure, breathing, eye movement, facial movements & sensations, hearing, heart rate, sleep & wakefulness, swallowing & taste.
Thanks to brainstem reflexes (your body’s immediate and involuntary motor responses) you can survive and adapt to changes in your environment.
If you sustain an injury that damages your brainstem and still alive & kicking, you might have the following symptoms: difficulty breathing, swallowing, coughing or gagging; dizziness or vertigo, feeling off balance; heartbeat irregularities; trouble sleeping; changes in consciousness; double vision; weakness and sensory changes; impairment in hearing; problems with coordination and walking.
Brainstem death means the permanent blackout – death, as blood & oxygen supply is cut off irreparably for ever.
Minor damage to the brainstem can cause loss of consciousness for a few seconds to a few minutes; severe headaches, nausea or vomiting, fatigue or drowsiness, problems with speech, difficulty sleeping, or sleeping more than usual; a person can be dazed, confused, and disoriented.

Severe brainstem injury can lead to death, paralysis or locked-in syndrome.
Locked-in syndrome is a condition in which a person is fully conscious but trapped in the body unable to move or communicate, except through eye movements or blinking.
If you'd like to fully grasp what locked-in syndrome means - I won't paste any links here - but you could do some search for Prichard Colón vs Terrel Williams.
The inappropriate referee & ringside physitian's actions led to a catastrophic effect. There's a shedload of visual material on YouTube - snippets of the boxing match when multiple rabbit punches were delivered & what followed, i.e., symptom severity, emergency surgery; coma; locked-in syndrome; various stages of rehabilitation & progress until now.
As I've previously mentioned, strikes to the spine or the back of the head are stricktly prohibited by the Unified Rules of MMA (Mixed Matrtial Arts) – foul & disqualification.

A strike to the back of the head or neck is often called a „rabbit punch” in boxing or MMA. The term comes from a specific hunting technique when a quick, sharp strike to the back of a rabbit's head is delivered to ensure a swift kill so as to avoid damaging its fur.
The bottom line is this: not only a rabbit punch but any strike to the back of the head can cause severe & irreversible injuries of the brain, spinal cord or death.
TBC

Joe's known perfectly well what kind of force he faces since EP 3 when Tong revealed Ming's family name to him. Actually, since that point Joe started emotionally distancing himself from Ming.
And in EP 8 Joe said to Mike, "Your kind of people..." with so much pain that it was enough to make the angels weep.

That's not only about the money, it's about severing ties with the family, about not deserving to bear the name of Akarayota, about him being worthy only wearing - actually, being strapped inside - the straightjacket of social and cultural correctness - a restraint imposed on him at birth, about his right to be himself instead of hiding behind a persona.

Now it's not only about Joe & Ming any more.
No matter if Joe supports Ming or not, it's high time Ming fought his battle and resolved whether he will tailor himself to his family's expectations or stand his ground.
Ming is likely to be showered with „How dare you?!”, “I'll disinherit you!”, “You won't get a dime unless...”, “You'll come crawling back!”

I wonder, if Ming hasn't faltered under the stream of vituperation and menaces, will daddy use a crop or whip, or a golf club to teach him what filial obedience means?

I'm completely aware of the fact that evolutionarily parental homophobia is a no-brainer: gays do not reproduce... which is an obsolete conception nowadays - a little bit of contrivance and your gay off-spring will contribute to the family's overall genetic success.

A crucial issue slipped by me. The family can't publicly manifest that there is a homosexual off-spring dangling on their magnificent family tree! That exposes the family to disgrace & ridicule... tarnishes the reputation.

Does Ming's family know other methods of communication apart from mum's fulmination, brother-in-law's manipulation, threats, bribery & abuse?

The bottom line is this: the family would rather Ming maintained the public persona of being heterosexual while having hush-hush homosexual liaisons on the side, since conjugal infidelity is venial whereas having a gay off-spring leapt out of your loins is a cardinal sin.

My bad. Edited. Ming's elder brother's name is Mike.

In EP 11 we are going to get more of Mike.
A totally one-sided dialogue.

What are you, enigmatic Mr Fixer? A noble fighter with cold demeanour or another elite enforcer? Are you the one who handles family problems with consummate ease?

When you decoyed Joe into Ming's condo, you threw a following remark, „You don't seem a golddigger I used to meet”.
Oh, Mark, really? Do you imply that Ming was prone to get involved with pintle-bits who tried to use him as a social trampoline or without long preludes literally sucked money out of him, or perhaps dared to blackmail him? And then you unceremoniously intervened, didn't you?

Judging from Ming's snapping at you he didn't feel chuffed to bits when he saw you talking to Joe.

So, you used to hover somewhere in the shadow, always on standby, so as to interfere if trouble loomed on the horizon.

I need more of you, Mr In-between. I need you shielding Ming from the family as efficiently as you would shield him from those leeches. It hurts to see him thrashing & suffocating in the confines of the family mausoleum, doesn't it?
I beg your pardon, but your family is nothing more but airs and graces - „ruffles on the ruins”.
Farewell till Friday, Mr In-between.

I bet, Tong is going to show us a Houdini-style escape from justice.

EP 10
Tong has eventually ended up as „a superior weed amongst a field of chaff”.

Rapaciously ambitious, striving for wealth & power he has to cajole capricious Ming into giving him money. How humilating! Ming's involvement with Joe put a clamp on Tong's umbilical cord with the Akarayotas' finances.

As a last resort he started an insidious game of getting rid of Joe. He so elegantly set Ming's mum on Joe by having expressed his utmost concern about a pintle-bit who's scrounging off her naive gullible Mingie.
But Tong seems to be losing his grip, because that intricate intrigue blew up right in his face.

The next part is going to be about a concussion. But I'm afraid not today.

My fault. I should've started with Glossary part (3). If you follow "in front of the mirror directions", you'll get the hang of it quite easily.

I haven't read the novel.
I'd rather they didn't end up together. I don't have faith in Joe. I guess I'm the only person on the page who is tiptoeing around Joe.
Ming went against the flow & he will eventually fight his way out of the family - it's going to cost him shedloads, yet, he won't knuckle under.

But Joe... When an issue arises and it's necessary to face it, he starts wallowing in his resentment deaf to any reason & puts to flight.

I don't doubt that Ming's dick spoke life into him: when you reach orgasm, dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin surge and course through your body furthering the “high” and building that sparkly bubble of joie de vivre, but when it bursts there is no deep feeling binding you together. No real "gold joinery" but synthetic glue.

I assume I should've started with (3).
Would you like me to continue?