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[kradeelav]

you know in the era of boss/employee bodice rippers and our stage of ~capitalism~ i'm shocked that there's not more board/employee as a genre (as in, boardroom member-employee relationship stories).

since knowing somebody on the board is a v e r y reliable in for favors so to speak, and the skewed power dynamics are even more a thing if possible.

and there's already a fun little saviour dynamic you could write in with a pissbaby CEO being an asshole to our main protagonist who's been having a secret fling with an old rich philanthropic board member who's pissed at said baby CEO and basically takes him down at the behest of said protagonist with evidence they got lol.

of course the eventual answer to that might be 'they're all [perceived as] boring old dudes lol'

Comments

[airlock384]

in general I have a feeling that the age of disillusionment with the extent to which bossmen care about you as a person whatsoever and the general viability of life in capitalism... either doesn't make for a great variety of boss/employee bodice rippers, or promptly produces the most extraordinarily hyperactive printmill of them

(funny enough, just today I was getting through the section of my german coursebook that's all like "here are some tips for how to ace a job interview! what are your tips for acing a job interview?" and I'm just over there like "your interviewer probably thinks he clocked your competence within 5 seconds of meeting you, just don't tell him too much & get ready for the next one")

[neotula]

filing this away as the fanfic writer i am as there's something there for corrin/gunter. corrin as the bastard daughter of the ceo? gunter as board member? it's a stretch, but still. compels me. tossing it in the prompt doc.

really wanna do a modern au for something fe with this, though.

[kradeelav]

given how he crowns xander in CQ on second thought, not even a stretch given how the boards have a hand in kingmaking for CEO's. :P great idea you have there. the irony with the backstory and how enmeshed the nohrian royals especially are is something else. i feel like camilia would also shine with showing how cutthroat that world remains too.

[kradeelav]

you know, good point with the variety bit - i admit when i was looking over the shoulder of somebody dabbling in the kindle erotica side of things that i was shocked at how common the 'bad boy CEO' fantasy romance was, but it did all feel fairly generic rather than going into the nuts and bolts of different flavors of power dynamics. more a symbol than actively engaging with the flawed system.

LOL at the last bit... you're not wrong.

[armaina]

Unfortunately, most the romance you are referring to, the goal is often related to being able to live in the fantasy of being the special that makes even the bad person cave with just the effort of existing and indulging in fantasy of cosplaying being rich while in a framing that makes it guilt free. It's rarely about the actual power dynamic of capitalism.

that and especially the deluge of kindle unlimited pandering authors these days, they rarely have the time or motivation to research a large scale company's inner workings and what a board entails and what their responsibilities, are. Mind you, I specifically calling out the The Kindle Unlimited author crowd, not so much romance as a whole. The KU culture is very... chasing the beats that people want more than pursuing a thought-provoking dynamic.

I would be much more interested in any of them even remotely if they approached the issue of power and autonomy with any seriousness, at all. I'm sure there's got to be something out there but I'm certain it's not going to be easy to find.

[kradeelav]

that's a good point about the fantasy of it all; I laugh a little in knowing exactly the beat points you're mentioning with the KU crowd since there's a number of templated handouts/pamphlets that mention the same thing. (if it were to simply get better at writing that'd be cool, but so many of them are specifically built around "what's most likely to get clicks".

in a weird way some fanfiction feels so much more thought-out about this angle since there's at least some affection for the worldbuilding as well as the characters.

[cmdonovann]

honestly yeah, i'd prefer employee/board member to employee/CEO, if only because the stereotypical CEO is like 30 and into crypto, and the stereotypical board member is like 50 and into boring old dude stuff. 😅 (well, stereotypical as far as media portrayals, i don't know the actual demographics of either of these job categories.) like, all of my recent thirsting has been over dudes who like talking about taxes and birds and the weather. never underestimate the power a "boring old dude" can have over a horny autistic weirdo! 😂

[kradeelav]

haha SOLIDARITY there <3

it is kind of funny/interesting seeing the stereotypical differences.... i've only known a handful of board members but they're pretty much as you said, more interested in real philanthrophy (funding butterfly centres etc) than anything trendy. they ain't saints but that alone puts them over ceo's by a large margin lol