A Practical Guide to Evil, but the Dread Empress Malicia is a company CEO, Black is vice president, Catherine is his apprentice (who fights capitalism within itself, I guess? to help smaller entrepreneurs who got annexed by the Big Sth?)
And the whole work is a thorough introduction to politics & economics (though it sounds like it’s on the verge of parody)
– 2025-03-22, me
a practical guide to corporate evil:
actually a walkthrough collection of dark patterns used by corporations, no fictionalization, just like some ‘bias’ and neuromarketing books
– 2025-04-07, my partner
I realize that, I believe, this work will never be written as a fanfic, or brought to life via any other form of media except for blogposts – at least not by my hand – because it requires immense knowledge which I currently don’t have and no, I don’t want to get a degree in economics (management, politics, etc) to create a fanwork.
However, I can use this drive, this inspiration, to learn at least basics of economics, try to construct the world of CPGtE and explore various possible plots. Even assigning the roles in this AU is no easy task, since we can’t just make Catherine Black’s assistant – an almost 16 years old girl from Imperial Orphanage for Tragically Orphaned Girls just doesn’t have the education required for such a role.
2025/09/11: The saddest thing about this project is that real life examples of “corporate evil” are quite unhinged. Only after watching LavenderTowne’s video I have realized that I won’t be able to replicate THIS level of indifference.
The video covers three cases:
- mass poisoning by forever chemicals not properly utilized by DuPont, which DuPont ignored for decades
- Rohingya genocide enabled by Facebook algorithm and lack of moderation
- mass insurance claims denial powered by AI
And I’m not even talking about historical examples like Congo Free State (which was severely exploited to produce rubber).
It feels like the topic of “corporate evil” is an infohazard, the knowing-too-much (also known as cognitohazard) subtype. Exploring crimes against humanity can severely damage one’s trust in humanity, and I’m not sure how deep I want to dive into this rabbit hole. Some things just can’t be unseen… Well, in my case.
On the other hand, loving humanity in spite of this knowledge, reminding yourself that humans are capable to create both wonders and atrocities…