#BOSS EMPLOYEE DYNAMIC

[bl-bam-beyond]

YOU ARE MINE (2023, TAIWAN)

Episode 5

Yao Shun Yu (HSIAO HUNG) is safe in the arms of the General Manager (President, if you're watching on Gagaoolala) Xia Shang Zhou (PARKER MAO) since he rescue from last weeks bumbling kidnapper.

A nightmare causes the General Manager (President) laying on top of Shun Yu.

A modest Shun Yu offers to leave but Shang Zhou will have none of it, besides it's 2 am.

So boss and subordinate share a bed...innocently though the General Manager (President) holds his precious Shun Yu very close.

Though he hasn't kept his desire hidden, Shang Zhou hasn't made Shun Yu clear of his intentions. But now he's trying to be very clear. YOU ARE MINE!!!

@pose4photoml @lutawolf

[kissablelips-desireslure-vol1]

THE NEW EMPLOYEE: THE MOVIE (2023)

KWON HYUK (as Jong Chan)

&

MOON JI YONG (as Hyun)

[madeinchinataiwanhk-blbambeyond]

MADE IN TAIWAN

PARKER MAO

HSIAO HUNG

[wenningfanclub]

Antis will be like “Jiang Cheng never viewed Wei Wuxian as family, he was treated like a servant!!! 😠😠😠” but like… if I showed up day-drunk to work, stopped performing my basic duties, kept skipping out when the most support was needed rebuilding, escalated fights during diplomatic events, and refused to tell anyone why I’d started behaving like this, I would definitely get fired. But instead Wei Wuxian has to quiet quit and then actually quit when even that doesn’t work, because as far as we can tell Jiang Cheng would've let him stay as first disciple forever no matter what. So like, if Jiang Cheng thinks of himself as just Wei Wuxian's boss, he does a pretty bad job of treating Wei Wuxian as just an employee.

Are there complicated class dynamics and internal senses of responsibility and debt and duty and obligation fucking both of them up? Absolutely. But Wei Wuxian is definitely not just a servant or a debtor, it’s much, much messier and more complicated than that--which is kind of the problem.

[mutodaes]

Comic WIP of Ofris getting on Aestus's last nerve

[riddlerosehearts]

okay, i've got some things i wanna say about twst EN's translation of scarabia's story that i was originally typing out as part of a response to an ask, but then i realized i was going off on a bit of a tangent and was like "this could basically be its own post"--so now it's going to be its own post!

i'm a twst EN player, and for the most part, i do really like the localization. i don't speak japanese but i love learning about language and the process of translation and localization, so at one point after finishing books 1-5 i went and reread them all (and 6 as well, once it was fully released on EN) with a fan translation and the localization side by side to compare them. and from what i could tell as someone who isn't a japanese speaker, i honestly thought it seemed like they usually did pretty well? sure, there were a few mistakes like cater claiming to be an only child (this one, i think, has actually been fixed recently), or how in book 2 they removed a small mention of falena making it seem like he's never mentioned at all until leona's flashback and they also removed the numerous times that he said "be prepared" (at least they finally properly translated it in book 6, though!!). but i thought most of these mistakes were somewhat minor and could be forgiven... until book 4 (well, and book 5, mostly in regards to vil and epel's conflict and i'm not talking about them here, so).

see, i actually realized that something was off about the localization when i first played through book 4, because i have a weird memory and have picked up a bunch of random words and phrases from being into japanese media and reading so much about the localization process. and i also play twst with the sound on because i love to hear the voice acting. so sometimes i would hear jamil speak, i'd pick out the words "shujin" and "juusha" for "master" and "servant", and then the subtitles wouldn't include them at all. so i'd guess certain things about the actual intent behind the story based on that. take this message i sent to my friend when i was sharing my blind reactions to the game:

and she ended up telling me that apparently, what i thought he should say essentially IS what he originally said!! according to the fan translation on wiki.gg he said this instead:

i had wondered if maybe i was reading into things and assuming too much, but it turned out i was completely spot on! but most people who play EN would not be able to pick up on this and realize that jamil was born into servitude to kalim and has no escape, because as i later discovered almost every single mention of him being a servant at all was removed, in events and vignettes as well. which is actually really weird to me because they don't remove it entirely, they do in fact bring up the fact that jamil has to test all of kalim's food for poison during book 4 and they also left in a line where he says he "works as kalim's servant". but they only really mention these things once or twice and then they try to sort of play it off as jamil being a paid employee or something most of the time... seriously, during beanfest there's dialogue where jamil says it would be rude to refuse an order from his boss but i've read that that line was originally him saying a servant couldn't disobey his master. and in the scalding sands event he calls himself "a dedicated employee" of kalim's... what, am i supposed to assume he works as a butler by choice or something? yeah, no. also, one of his birthday vignettes, which are fully voiced so i could TELL he said, with a devious smirk on his face, that if he had a parrot the first word he would teach it would be "shujin-sama". "master". what did EN change this into?

the person i was originally writing all of this in response to said that sometimes people's takes on jamil make them wonder if people are reading a completely different story but also that part of that can probably be blamed on the way EN completely changed the context of his situation with these translation choices. and yeah, i fully agree with that assessment: more casual fans or people who just aren't that interested in the scarabia duo could be said to be reading a different story with this whole "boss" and "employee" thing that has jamil make it sound like the worst that could ever happen to him if he got in trouble would be getting a really stern lecture from his parents.

and it makes me sad because i really do love both jamil and kalim so much and i think their dynamic is so tragic and complicated and interesting to think about. i think they're both really complex characters who are trapped in an awful situation. kalim is so kind and loving and would never wanna hurt anyone but he hurts jamil just by existing as part of the fucked up society they live in. kalim thought he and jamil were best friends, he had no idea of the toxicity of their dynamic and the pain jamil was in, and people say jamil should've just talked to him about it earlier... but jamil's first memory as a child is of seeing his parents bow to the asim family. being a servant is practically all he's ever known and he's had it drilled into his head since they were both small children that he can never be himself around kalim, can never just treat him like a normal person because he's a servant and kalim is his master. and even if he did accept kalim's offer to start over as equals and be friends, what would happen when they had to go home to their families? they won't be at school forever.

and i just. augh. i hate what the localization does with them. if you try to water them down to just an employee who's super mad at his obliviously crappy boss, or just two childhood friends who needed to communicate better or something like that, then you take away from the complexity of both characters. you also lose extremely cool writing choices like how jamil is a character who was born into servitude but has the power to make himself the master with his unique magic. i see so many takes about how jamil is just a jerk who betrayed his best friend and how kalim never did anything wrong in his entire life and i hate it but i'm sure the localization's choices are in fact to blame for a lot of this.

so anyway jamil and kalim's actual dynamic is fascinating and lives rent-free in my head, no thanks to how the EN version gutted it.

[husn-e-bahar]

Jubilee (2023) Prime Series

[bl-bam-beyond]

YOU ARE MINE (2023, TAIWAN)

Episode 1 Premiere September 15, 2023

Vidol's next BL after STAY BY MY SIDE

Xia Shang Zhou (PARKER MAO) is a tall handsome general manager clearly under some sort of tension. His bad attitude has his female subordinates running scared crying to Lisa and the Vice President. Even curious if the general manager hates women.

The Vice President decides to hire a male secretary as men are stronger and better able to handle such things.

Enter cute Yao Shun Yu (HSIAO HUNG) who at first glance appears timid as the boss also brings out his nerves.

But the boss's tension headache he intends to cure with pills brings out Shun Yu's fierce side (sorta) as he grabs the pills and suggests a temple rub (acupressure)

The boss eases into it soon falling asleep. Waking to find his new male secretary also napping. Suddenly wanting a closer look at his new employee.

@pose4photoml @lutawolf

[treesbian]

if ever i had a boss i got along with and they were showing interest in me like sexually or something i'd know in my mind that it's a bad idea and it's a concerning power dynamic but. idk it might be kind of fun 🙈 in unrelated news my gm showed me the proper way to cut the basil today and corrected the mistakes i was making and went "yeah good job! perfect!" when i finally at least had the proper technique. anyway i can't be doing this

[madeinchinataiwanhk-blbambeyond]

MADE IN CHINA/TAIWAN

HSIAO HUNG

PARKER MAO

[kairithemang0]

I love the idea that the sexy evil CEO overloaded is a pathetically submissive person. Like this is all just a mask of power but their true calling is to get thrown around by their employee who they really shouldn’t be in a relationship with and this employee is absolutely destroying them so much to where their public facade of power is starting to fade as they get deeper into this relationship with such a terrible power dynamic that they’re just not using and that the employee is using it more then the CEO is

[scarefox]

Also, lesson on the issue of the boss x employee power imbalance dynamic (which is part of Pats negative reaction):

[maykrisms]

Considering Samuel is like.. the walking embodiment of so many kinks, him aiding in the discovery of enjoying electrocution is, by far, one of the more tame ones.

It's better than people flocking to him for the tentacles that he no longer possesses.

[balaasaaa]

Uptight boss x pervert assistant ;b

[automatic-midnight]

My biased, really unpopular take is that I think rit/su/maya is an objectively boring ship.

[neonsbian]

i do kinda like the idea of earth playing a pathetic loser lmao