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vasito-de-leche · 5 months

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;R1999 FORGET ME NOT - General Headcanons

Compilation of headcanons and analysis on Forget Me Not as a character and other related things.

this post was brought to you by me, procrastinating on the second part of the Cover analysis and those yandere Pavia headcanons, and ALSO because mister lawrence cavendish jr is the second target for my brainrot

warning for suicide and self-harm themes!

On the subject of Forget Me Not's name and past.

It's Lawrence Cavendish Jr. Forget Me Not's real name is confirmed to be just that, as seen in this specific excerpt:

"Cavendish Jr, who was still alive and once sat in front of you [...]" which alludes to the dinner Vertin had at the Walden with Druvis III and Forget Me Not, and "'Forget Me Not', what a hilarious, stupid name". I only included this because I've seen people wonder about it.

What I mean to tackle in this point is the relationship between Forget Me Not, his origins and his current chosen name. Despite his calm and collected appearance, it becomes clear that Forget Me Not is one hair away from becoming entirely deranged, especially when confronted with the possibility of getting revenge. But why is Forget Me Not so focused on revenge specifically?

His backstory is not as openly laid out for us to read, but we can gleam some bits and pieces from all the documents and dialogue he has. To understand Forget Me Not, we also need to look at Druvis III.

All throughout chapter 02, we see parallels and connections being drawn between Forget Me Not and Druvis III - both of them appear to be extremely aloof, cold and collected, only to be revealed to be very emotional deep down, for better and for worse. Druvis III is initially defined by the neutrality and inertia that comes with being stuck in the past, while Forget Me Not is initially defined by the neutrality of the Walden and his ties with Manus Vindictae, an organization that rejects the future.

Druvis III is a disgraced, fallen noble whose life wasn't ruined by the fire that took her family, but the perception the world had of her, an image they forced onto her due to their hatred towards arcanists. And Forget Me Not has a family surname "buried in the dust, shot dead in history". A disgraced, fallen noble implied to have struggled with poverty, battling hunger and suicide countless of times. In the "··· Formula: 1920s" document, we can see a few pieces from various people and their opinions on Forget Me Not from the Big Mouth Bulletin. 3 out of 4 want him dead or think of him as a monster - entirely because of his existence as an arcanist.

The similarities are obvious. Hell, both share the theme of flora and plants, too. There is an even more subtle dynamic here too, alluding to the game's prominent religious imagery - Vertin's suitcase being compared to an ark that will brave the "Storm", the last supper moment, Arcana's offering, the orange, being a replacement for the apple of Eden...

And then, Forget Me Not association with snakes, rumoured to have a body covered in scales, with an arcanum skill that allows people to indulge in alcohol during the Prohibition Era - the snake that tempted Adam and Eve. Druvis III is associated with forests, trees, as well as a link between Vertin (the good guys) and Manus Vindictae (the bad guys) - the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The two go hand in hand and are linked together.

The big difference between them is that their respective quests to set things "right" are entirely different - their "revenge" is not the same. Druvis III was hellbent on finding out who set the fire that killed her family, not because she wanted them to face the consequences, but because in doing so, people would finally leave her alone and let her mourn. She could finally move on from something that she knew the truth of. Forget Me Not does it to feel satisfied with himself and get back at everyone who ever looked down on him or wronged him. To inflict as much as pain unto others as he had received before. It's a powerplay fantasy in which he finally wins, against all odds.

It's unclear what truly happened to the Cavendish that caused Forget Me Not to end up in such conditions, to the point where he'd go as far as make sure no one can trace him back to his family, to the point where not even the Foundation has a proper report on him.

But there is one line in particular that lives rent free in my head when it comes to the Cavendish and Forget Me Not's potential relationship with them.

This takes place after Druvis III loses her forest, after she loses her eternal branch because of Vertin's intervention during their dinner. They're talking about how to use her forest to build a refugee camp.

There's the possibility that Forget Me Not is simply alluding to that forest - something that used to belong to her is now something that he should have for the sake of Manus Vindictae's goals.

But! Indulge me for a second! There's a noticeable pause, there's a subtle tone to his voice. Reverse 1999's writing might be confusing at times due to the translation, but it's easy to see that it's loaded with metaphors, hidden meanings and so much more, to the point where reading deeply into everything most characters' say is pretty much the norm.

The dialogue that precedes that specific line is Forget Me Not insisting that he can transfer the ownership of the woods over to Druvis III anytime, because she has always been and will always be the only owner, no matter what. He does this to convince her to go through with Manus' plans, that's his main goal, he doesn't care about the woods. But that single line pictured above? It could mean so much more.

Again, the two share many, many similarities. So when Forget Me Not talks about what Druvis III once had - a prestigious family business, a name people can recognize, an assured future - is what he should have, it evokes a sense of entitlement and lingering resentment. Almost as if Forget Me Not's desire to go back to the past doesn't stem from nostalgia like her, but to reclaim something that was denied to him.

Which is incredibly ironic to me because both of them carried their family in their names - Druvis THE THIRD. Lawrence Cavendish JUNIOR. And yet, the one that worked so hard to obscure his origins and changed his family name was him.

Neither of these characters can be recognized nor traced back to their families by appearance alone - people need a name or a really good memory to truly recognize them. The only one with enough courage to continue carrying such burden is Druvis III. Forget Me Not wants something that he willingy lost the right to the moment he allowed Lawrence Cavendish Jr. to die and fade into obscurity.

The name "Forget Me Not" begins to sound more ironic. Like an order, a threat or the promise of his return - his desire for revenge and his hypocrisy become clear once you begin to dissect his character. Like the narrator in the "To Lawrence Cavendish" document says: "He is patiently waiting... to put his meanness, craziness and quivers under the sun". He's waiting to reveal himself.

The "stage" is shown when he makes people explode from inside out, a lot of people who recognized him as Forget Me Not, the mixologist. This is when we finally see his true intentions and the main difference between him and Druvis III, all in their respective reactions to the journalists.

She's terrified, thinking about the day of her family's funeral. On the other hand, he's ordering them to watch and record as he "takes everything he has been deprived of".

This is why the thing that breaks Forget Me Not is hearing that Druvis III does not care about the man who started the fire, that it's not important anymore. He believed them to be on the same page, that she would love to torture the single person responsible for all of her grief. The guy is projecting heavily onto Druvis III.

In the end, I don't know if Forget Me Not resents his father, his family name, if he had some sort of business to inherit and a "future" that was taken from him, or if they actually might've been a happy family.

What I do know is that Forget Me Not's desire for revenge was absolutely amplified and fueled by Manus Vindictae's own agenda. And that's why he works perfectly as both a victim of their MO and a willing member within their ranks.

He clings so hard to the past because there is no future worth fighting for, because everything would be much better if it was rebuilt from scratch with only those that won't oppose him and repeat history. He clings so hard that his new name and identity are, in the end, a plea for the world not to forget who he used to be and, at worst, an order because he sure as hell hasn't forgotten all the things others have done or said Back when Lawrence Cavendish Jr was around. Once his family outlived their usefulness or relevance within society.

TLDR: THIS is the cold-blooded, numb murderer who is actually very sad, empty and broken deep inside that some people wanted Pavia to be. Like, he's even sopping wet and sad and asking Vertin to kill him next time they meet.

Which leads us to my next point!

On the subject of Forget Me Not's self-destructive and suicidal mindset.

We've talked about Forget Me Not's views and relationship with the Cavendish - but what exactly is the end goal? He feels entitled to a better life, one he was supposed to have, and then what?

The "???" narrator mentions a woman who made a promise to Forget Me Not, as well as leaving a "sarcoma" behind which he then adapted and turned into his own. This woman is implied to be Arcana, as we see her talk to Vertin about being able to see the truth, to not be blinded - there's an emphasis in the way she recruits people by opening their eyes to reality. The sarcoma is the city (apparently "Windy City" is used to refer to Chicago, I had to google that but hey, that's pretty neat!). It's the world he lives in and that wants him gone. She focused Forget Me Not's grief towards it because in doing so, it would help Manus Vindictae's ideals of a world exclusively for pureblooded arcanists.

And even so, he remained suicidal. There was at least one more attempt at taking his own life, and that's when he saw "what had been on his mind". Whatever that might've been, no doubt influenced by Arcana and his situation, is what pushed Forget Me Not to "allow himself to revenge, revenge, re-re-re-revenge, and to die".

Ultimately, Forget Me Not's goal is to die at the end of it all - even after he gets his revenge, earns the life he wanted, takes back everything that was meant for him. This is why, after he's fully defeated, his last words to Vertin are to show no mercy next time they meet. To kill him.

This is not only a long and convoluted plan of revenge, it's Forget Me Not willingly marching into his own demise. And just like before, he's not strong enough to pull the trigger himself. Now that he has no solid argument to justify his anger - all because Druvis III has shown him that people can, in fact, move on - his only option is to have someone else end his life. He's shown tired, and the phrase "Don't save it no more" might indicate that even if there was someone who could repeat what Arcana did to him - give him a sense of purpose and a target for his grief - he simply doesn't have the energy for that.

Forget Me Not's self-destructive tendencies can also be seen in other ways. His job at The Walden is to cater to all the people who shunned him - he welcomes everyone and anyone for the sake of creating a network of secrets, he attends fancy parties and events full of those who call him a drug dealer, Satan's spawn and so much more. And he pretends to be someone else entirely while wishing for others to remember him. He willingly surrounds himself with all the things that hurt him.

His arcanum being related to alcohol is rather poetic to me - since Forget Me Not is said to have spiraled into decadence and into this extreme mindset, it makes sense that his main skill is related to being intoxicated and to drown into something that is largely hated but at the same time, desired and coveted. The Prohibition Era does have a very similar mentality to religion, namely western ideologies - you're meant to openly reject and loathe something, but the constant repression causes you to yearn for it instead. And at some point, this repression can become an addiction in itself, leading some to indulge in it. This loops back to Forget Me Not's association with the snake in the Garden of Eden.

It makes sense to me that he indulges in something so painful, while cohercing others into indulging in forbidden alcohol. That he later uses this very same arcane skill to kill all those people who, in his eyes, represent everything he loathes about the current state of the world. It's like a sarcoma that he now leaves behind, that kills from inside out.

And this is the last time I'll bring up Druvis III in a Forget Me Not post, but notice their choice of flower/plant? She has a mistletoe bouquet - a parasitic and toxic plant which represents positive things such as fertility, life and protection in many different cultures. Forget Me Not has black roses, roses being immediately recognized as one of the most beautiful flowers but, in this context, symbolizing things such as death and rebirth, remembrance, mourning. Their duality, contrast and the "two-faced" aspect is prominent there. And not to get very deep about character design, but Druvis III holds the bouquet very carefully and carries it around with her willingly, whereas the black roses that Forget Me Not wears wrap around his neck not unlike a noose.

To really drive home how Forget Me Not sees himself, here's the description they gave him for his boss fight.

They boil down his character perfectly, to all the little traits that make up his whole emotional baggage.

And to also put more emphasis on how Forget Me Not truly doesn't expect to live and "win" at the end of this whole revenge trip, here's his ultimate - "Heavengazing from Hell". He's fully aware that he's going to be destroyed by his own actions and that the only thing left for him will be to look up at heaven from hell. That all the good things will forever be out of his reach.

Now, onto proper headcanon territory, since I'm running out of media to analyze!

On the subject of Forget Me Not's scales.

As established before, Forget Me Not is associated with snakes - one of the segments from the Big Mouth Bulletin comments on this. "[...] he had scales under those long sleeves, one next to another embedded in his flesh."

And this can actually be seen on his in-game sprite! It's very faint, but there's absolutely some sort of texture peeking out from under his collar and sleeves that resemble scales. They can also be seen on the trailer animations. The only time these scales don't appear or peek out from his clothes are in The Walden illustration, with the other members of Manus Vindictae, but that can easily be explained as him covering up properly and the angle he's drawn in.

Originally I thought that they could be burn scars, as it would mean a stronger connection between him and Druvis III. But upon closer inspection, they don't look like burn scars at all.

I like to headcanon that it's a side-effect from his own arcanum, similar to how Rabies is implied to look like a scarecrow because of his involvement treating rabies. Being something "self-inflicted" - in the sense of him having the choice to stop and heal, but refuses to - also lines up with Forget Me Not's suicidal tendencies, the whole sarcoma metaphor and the fact that by carrying on like this, he's doing nothing but destroy himself and add to his suffering.

As for how far the scales have extended, I don't have a set favorite idea! Part of me really would love it if the scales coiled around his body like actual snakes, but also the idea of him having different patches of scales scattered throughout (again, like a sarcoma) and the third secret option of him being MOSTLY covered in them to the point where it becomes grotesque, something that he can't even look at.

They're not just a tattoo or pattern embedded onto his skin either - they're actual scales, cold and rough to the touch. The areas affected by this have grown numb, making it hard for Forget Me Not to feel any warmth or pressure applied onto them. This adds to that otherworldly and sinister vibe he's got going on, even if the lack of proper tactile sense irritates him. It's extremely uncomfortable if they're brushed or rubbed in the wrong direction, however!

Sometimes, Forget Me Not might pick at the scales, as if deciding whether he loves or hates them. In particularly bad days, he picks them out. I like the idea that, once picked, the scales grow faster and stronger, as well as in broader areas, making it a perpetual loop of picking them off from his skin.

Overall, it would be extremely easy to conceal them - he only needs a shirt with a higher collar and gloves or some make-up, but I like to think that Forget Me Not loves the idea of someone catching a glimpse of them, a reminder that he's dangerous and so much more than meets the eye.

As much as he he's been affected by the stigma against arcanists, he now thrives in their hatred for him and his existence - sneaking into places he knows he's not welcome is addictive, especially knowing everyone tolerates him because he's their only access to alcohol. The way everyone will turn around and talk shit about him once they're out of The Walden is fun, because it reinforces his views on why this current era deserves to be rebuilt from the ground up.

Forget Me Not has extremely poor eyesight.

I know the glasses look thin and pretty standard, but I just like to think that Forget Me Not can't see shit without them.

He has this habit of taking them off to "clean" them whenever he's talking with those he loathes - mostly humans - just so he doesn't have to look at them directly. Sometimes, he might just close his eyes and dissociate, pretending to pay attention if the situation calls for it. Yes, he's petty and hateful enough to feel physically sick when talking to people he hates.

If you pay enough attention, it becomes clear that eye contact becomes scarce, as if just looking at them will send him into a fit of rage (but he conceals it extremely well when needed).

Forget Me Not's poor eyesight is not a secret, and he often likes to make patrons nervous by making their drinks without his glasses - of course, he knows his way around drinks and potions, there's no chance of him messing up, he could do this with his eyes closed. But seeing customers squirm is such a delight. Because now, they must choose between making a scene in HIS territory or risk being poisoned with a poorly-made drink.

I like to think that he also just has a very fine ear, since he does play instruments (all of his attacks being related to music and him using a piano as his wand during the boss fight). So really, Forget Me Not couldn't care less about his eyesight.

Forget Me Not enjoys floral arrangement.

This is just based on his association with the actual forget me not flower. I think he enjoys creating bouquets or putting up vases full of flowers around his home, even if all of them may end up creating a very gloomy and decadent atmospere - they're perfect for funerals, and he simply may be preparing for his own.

And he leaves them out on display long after they've wilted. "They're more beautiful this way", he'd say.

It's not rare to find Forget Me Not on rainy afternoons with a pair of scissors on hand, absentmindedly cutting every leaf and petal off from all these roses, as if he had a personal vendetta against their colorful hues. Sometimes, he just twirls the stem around, pressing hard on the thorns to feel anything while he looks out the window. He's so very fucking dramatic and volatile.

Basically, I like to picture Forget Me Not as the type of person who has dedicated so much time into something as empty as revenge, that he absolutely has no idea what to do outside of that.

Everything he does is just a way to pass the time until he can go back to dedicate every waking second of his life into his and Manus Vindictae's plans, every "little pleasure" is just a façade, he doesn't get any real enjoyment from anything. Sometime he worries that revenge won't help him climb out of this apathetic life he's built for himself, but he can't afford to dwell too much on that possibility. Everything that he does is muscle memory, he's forcing himself to try and do it, because otherwise he could simply sit still in an empty room for hours on end, with the lights turned off, waiting and waiting - all alone with his thoughts.

#reverse 1999 #reverse: 1999 #r1999 #r1999 headcanons #reverse 1999 forget me not #forget me not #playable forget me not WHEN bluepoch i NEED him #i like forget me not when hes like. deranged #when hes one hair away from hurting others or hurting himself because hes. in the most horrible mindset ever #like hes just looking for an excuse to blow up or blow up others (hehehehehe....get it....)#like sure hes so cool with the walden and his network of information and secrets #but hes still a cowardly snake who hides and needs to be revealed. bc he cant reveal himself willingly and openly on his own #its the loss of humanity again but whereas pavia rejects it. FMN just lives within it. he just masks SO well #'but you cant simp for any manus vindictae character! theyre explicitly racists!' and re1999 is a game that CHOSE to replace #actual racial issues in history with their magic ppl vs normal ppl plot line with many many parallels to struggles poc like me lived throug #and then chose to be like 'hey theyre actually physically different and its xenophobia on a whole different species hahaaa bye'#so like. fuckin chew on that first before coming for me. if we're already suspending our belief for the sake of playing:dont cherry pick #tackle the WHOLE thing the game chose to portray. not just a single group within the whole game #sorry if that was heated but lmfao i saw ppl already trying to dictate who ppl can and cannot simp for on twitter #as if this wasnt another fictional anime gacha game at the end of the day

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simsphonysims · 2 years

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Simsphony’s CC LIST - complete

Hi everybody!

The list of CC LINKS from all the creators and packs that I have in my game is something that I wanted to do for the longest time but I've never quite had the time to do it.

So I finally decided to do it for you no matter what and here it is!

From now on you'll be able to find all of my cc here on this list. If I add something to my game I'm going to upload the list, and if I'm using something just once, I'll include the link from that cc in a regular post separately.

Anyways! I'm hoping your life is going to be much easier now!

If you like my work please be so kind and support me on Ko-fi ♡

Love you all and happy simming!

AROUND THE SIMS 4

Gardening table American diner

AWINGEDLLAMA

Boho living stuff pack Blooming rooms kit Apartment therapy

BRAZEN LOTUS (https://www.brazenlotus.com/)

Greenhouse Jaipur rugs Selene's & Mind's Eye bed set Cozy crafter bed set Separated beds - original Incantation & apothecary clutter Spellbound clutter Baskets & Ironing board table Bridal closet Vampire objects separated Glimerbrook terrains Archaeology table clutter Princess Cordelia's clutter Cats & Dogs clutter Bulb string lights

Separated Art - Base game

BREEZE MOTORS - always direct links

CHARLY PANCAKES

All her cc in one folder The lighthouse collection The strandkorb Maple & S. constractions Pt.1

Maple & S. constractions Pt. 2 Precious promises Selection one Lavish Soak Slouch Miscellanea Smol Munch Pt. 1

Munch Pt. 2

Dinna Modish Insomnia Twist of fate The candle

COWBUILDS (https://www.patreon.com/cowbuild)

Free kid's clutter

FELIXANDRE patreon - Early access

Fayun 2

FELIXANDRE free

Fayun 1

Grove Pt. 1

Grove Pt.2

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Grove Pt.4

Berlin Pt.1

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Shop the look 1 Shop the look 2 Colonial Pt.1

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London Exterior Gothic Revival Interior

Gothic Revival Exterior Gatsby/Art Deco set Georgian September 2017 - Schwerin + Petit trianon October 2017 - Schwerin + Gothic November 2017 - Petit Trianon December 2017/ July 2018 January 2018 February 2018 April 2018 - Schwerin May 2018 - old Paris objects September 2018 - Louis VX July 2019 - Canopy Marie Antoinette Greece Egypt La Galerie des Glaces - Versailles

HANRAJA - always direct links

Mini set 13 Mini set 14 Mini set 35 Mini set 20 Tray 02 Bayong Rattan bags

HARRIE

Kwatei 2 (Early access)

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Shop the look 1 Shop the look 2 Octave Pt.1

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Octave Pt.4 Spoons Pt.1

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Heritage Pt.2 5k Follower gift Jungle Adventure Overrides

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Baysic Harluxe Orjanic Pt.1

Orjanic Pt.2 Livin' rum The kichen The bafroom Tiny twavellers Jardane

KING FALCON

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Fuvwara 2 Stone railing set Vol.1

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Piha living Blockhouse Kichen Blockhouse Outdoor Blockhouse Hallway Blockhouse Study Blockhouse Bathroom Blockhouse Kids Blockhouse Bedroom Blockhouse Dining Onehunga Living

LILI'S PALACE

Intarsia Wainscot wonderland Folklore Budapest Neoclassical set Pumpkin carving table Jungendstil tiles Portraits in copper Zsolnay ceramic roof tiles

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Victorian house exterior set Antique Victorian wallpaper

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Antique stacks

MAX 20

Poolside Lounge Picasso Retro TV Master bedroom Cozy backyard Holiday mini-pack Child dream pack Classic kitchen Happy ever after Bathroom pack Dining room Fireplace Christmas gift Ikea chair Autumn clutter

MLY'S

Pufferhead Tall bookcases Simple clothes racks

MR. OLKAN

Cool pools

MYSHUNOSUN

Moonwood garden Simmify music nook Midsummer eve Lottie bedroom Freja nursery Nora living

Luna bedroom

PEACEMAKER/SIMSATIONAL DESIGNS

Austere building set Atwood living Bowed living Cats and Dogs Siding Caine living Coba collection Cozy knits Derelict delights Elsie bedroom Graciously Georgian Hamptons Hideaway Hamptons Getaway Hamptons Retreat Hamptons Builtin Hinterlands living Hinterlands dining Hinterlands bedroom Hudson bathroom Kitayama living Kitayama Bedroom Kitayama dining Lofte living Mesh dump Nifty Knitting Buymode expanded Paranormal Buymode Expanded Romantic garden expanded Rock'n Rockers Roarsome kids bedroom Splashback Glass Tiles StrangerVille Buildmode Expanded Vintage glamour Volta Whilloh kitchen

PIERISIM

Domaine du Clos 3 (Early access)

Domaine du Clos 2

Domaine du Clos 1 MCM Pt.1 MCM Pt.2 MCM Pt.3 MCM Pt.4 MCM Pt.5 Winter garden Pt.1 Winter garden Pt.2 Maison Maulière Coldbrew pt.1 Coldbrew pt.2 The livingroom mini kit The office Calderone bedroom Rold Skov kitchen Oak House Pt.6 + ADD ON Oak House Pt.5 Oak House Pt.4 Oak House Pt.3 Oak House Pt.2 Oak House Pt.1 Tidying up

REIANARA

Liberated get together fence

RUSTIC SIMS

Careyes liv & din Sayulita bathroom Gift Sayulita bedroom Talavera pop Colonial Mexic set Navajo The painting of Bly Manor Lofi

RVSN

Little Chef's toy kitchen Body form displays Anybody's dress bridal shop Uplifting elevators Clothes minded accessories

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Cottage kitchen Nota Living Room Oak&Concrete Patio

SIMPLISTIC - I'll always give you the exact link because I'm using her wallpapers and there are millions of them on the site

SIXAM

Bunk bed Charming Chalet

STRANGE STORYTELLER

Sectional library Parquet flooring Crystal chandeliers Baroque art Aubusson rugs Art set part 1 Christmas set

SURELY SIM

The Tespa

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9021 Hoes Hotline

Perfect party stuff

Office space

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Atomic TV

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Scooby Doo! Where Are You? - Movie Poster

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THE CLUTTER CAT

Mellow moods mini (patreons only)

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222

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Spring Spirits + Mermaid mansion free

THE JIM 07

Fountain edge set Versailes Treillage

THE TOWNIE ARCHITECT

Moderno

TUDS

Wave living Base game curved windows SHKR kitchen Casa Caipira Tiles Ind Pt.1 Ind Pt.2 Ind Pt.3 Cross Turn Living Rope Lounge Mirr kitchen Vime closet MadeinBrazil collection - Clay water filters Beam kitchen Beam living Pt.1 Beam living Pt.2 Emma Collection

#sims 4 cc list #sims 4 maxis match #sims 4 maxis match cc list #ts4 cc list #ts4 cc #sims 4 cc

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terminusantequem · 11 months

Photo

Robert Hodgins (South African, 1920-2010), Red Armchairs, 2001-02. Oil and pastel on canvas, 90.5 x 120 cm

#robert griffiths hodgins #robert hodgins

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gogmstuff · 8 months

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More 1914 Fashion -

1914 Prinsessan Margareta by Oscar Björk (Kungliga Slotten - Stockholm, Sweden). From kungligaslotten.se/ur-arkivet/bernadotteportratt/2018-02-14-prinsessan-margareta-1882-1920.html; enlarged one quarter 706X1353.

1914 Prince Oskar & His Bride Countess Ina Marie von Basseewitz. From eBay; fixed spots & flaws, esp. upper rt. corner, removed mono-color tint, & increased contrast 913X1498.

1914 Regla Manjón, Countess of Lebrija by Joaquín Bastida y Sorolla (private collection). From the-athenaeum; fixed spots w Pshop 1280X949.

Left 1914 Real Automóvil-Club de Cataluña. Copa Tibidabo by Ramon Casas (Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya - Barcelona, Catalunya, Spain). From atsandculture.google.com 1970X2704.

Center 1914 Robe du soir par Beer. From castaroundlesmodes.tumblr.com/post/68582843613/robe-du-soir-par-beer-1914?is_related_post=1 729X1135.

Right 1914 Waiting for the results. From messynessychic.com/2018/04/27/lovely-ladies-in-lace-at-the-paris-races; removed print and filled in lower 2/3 of left edge with Photoshop 924X1280.

1914 Society Beauty by Friedrich August von Kaulbach (for sale at Brady Hart Gallery). From their Web site; fixed flaws & bigger spots w Pshop 2500X3333.

1914 Costumes Parisiens…, Manteau de Soir en velours frappe Garni de Soir brochee d'argent by George Barbier. From tumblr.com/mote-historie/732065935834398720/george-barbier-manteau-de-soir-en-velours-frappe?source=share&.

1914 Woman at the Piano by Nathan Altman (State Tretyakov Gallery - Moskva, Russia). From arthive.com/artists/1711~Nathan_Isaevich_Altman/works/10728~The_lady_at_the_piano 647X1400. This shows art deco influence.

#1914 fashion #1914 #1910s fashion #Belle Époque fashion #Edwardian fashion #Princess Margareta #Ina Marie von Basseewitz #Princess Royal Mary #Regla Manjón #Gustave Beer #Oscar Björk #Joaquín Bastida y Sorolla #Ramon Casas #Friedrich August von Kaulbach #Nathan Altman #tight skirt #Barbier #evening coat

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wardrobeoftime · 1 year

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Downton Abbey + Headpieces

Lady Mary Crawley's hats in the 1920s | Part 01 of 02.

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dead-lights · 3 months

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1890-1940 // portraits of lilith vatore

I wanted to try making wall decorations, so I made these and threw them into that massive painting from Vampires. It's sort of a mini decades challenge going from 1890-1940. Behold, the result:

My hc is that the Vatores were born in the late 1930s/early 1940s, so Lilith isn't actually old enough to have worn any of these clothes when they were first in style. I think she dressed up like it's old times and took a buncha pictures just to confuse people trying to figure out how old she is, but you may draw your own conclusions.

cc and full color below the cut

1890s

hair: granny bun by @saurusness

hat: fine feathered hat by @gilded-ghosts

earrings: rose in the garden earrings by @rustys-cc

dress: the ida dress by retro-pixels (direct link)

pose: from mademoiselle by @blackpanda-ts4

1900s

hat: striped bow hat by @lilis-palace

hair: bertha by @buzzardly28

earrings: arthur earrings by @yakfarm

outfit: dress: edwardian huntress dress by @elfdor

pose: also from mademoiselle

1910s

hair and flower accessory: gibson curl updo by @the-melancholy-maiden

earrings: arthur earrings by yakfarm

dress: rose lunch dress by @happylifesims

pose: also from mademoiselle

1920s

hair: maxie by @raindropsoncowplants

lipstick: clara by @chere-indolente

dress: 1920s evening dress 06 by happylifesims

pose: from the louise brooks posepack

1930s

hair: gigi by @simadelics

coat: 1930s female coat 02 by happylifesims

pose: from barstool poses ii by @katverse

1940s

hair & dress from forties film noir by gilded-ghosts

pose: from monday poses by @ratboysims

#lilith vatore #ts4 historical #ts4 1890s #ts4 1900s #ts4 1910s #ts4 1920s #ts4 1930s #ts4 1940s #ts4 render #ts4 edit #townie makeover #maxis premades #ts4 premades #deadit #ts4 vampires

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enjoypaitings · 1 month

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Ugo Celada (Ugo Celada da Virgilio) (Italian, 1895-1995)

01. Composizione con uovo e frutta

02. Composizione con frutta

03. Composizione con cacciagione

picture resolution 2048 × 1627; 2048 × 1656; 1920 × 1496

More by #ugo celada da virgilio enjoypaitings

#ugo celada da virgilio #ugo celada da virgilio enjoypaitings

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joojconverts · 1 year

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4t3 Conversion of HappyLifeSims’ 1920′s Evening Dresses

A 4t3 conversion from three 1920′s evening dresses for all your ladies, ‘cause we can’t get enough of the roaring twenties!

These are the remaining evening dresses that were still not converted to ts3, those being 02, 03 and 05. Dress 04 here converted by @simdreams!

Hope you like it! Enjoy! <3

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Known Problems:

The sleeves are a bit odd in these dresses but I did my best on minimizing clipping and deleting the body under them. I only found clipping in very specific animations, and it should look normal/good in 99% of them! <3

LIGHTING GLITCHES ONLY APPEAR ON CAS!

* Note that teens and elders have unsolvable neck gaps. This is sadly the price for having them available! for teens, try using this slider by gruesim!

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ALL OG CREDITS GO TO @happylifesims! IT’S NOT MY MESH, AND IT’S NOT MY TEXTURES, I JUST CONVERTED THEM TO THE SIMS 3!

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NOTES:

Evening dress 05 has three presets: first one is dinamically shiny (specular map), second one has the shine as an overlay texture (white dots), and the third one has no shine!

Evening dress 03 has three presets: first one has the shine as an overlay texture, and the second one doesn’t but only at the top part, at the bottom I kept the overlay because I didn’t like how it looked without it! Third one has no shine!

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SimFileShare | Dropbox

☕ buy me a coffee or become a patron!

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Credits & Special Thanks:

HappyLifeSims - here, here and here

Necklaces by Ladesire - here

💖 @katsujiiccfinds @emilyccfinds @kpccfinds @xto3conversionsfinds

#s3cc #ts3cc #4t3 #ts4 to ts3 #ts3 cc

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dragons-and-dwarves-are-nice · 2 months

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Hazbin Hotel Masterlist

Key:

Fluff - 🌸 // Angst - 🍂 // Comfort - ☁️ // AU/Canon Divergence - 💫 // Found Family/Domestic - ☀️ // Female reader/character - 🌷 // GN reader/character - 🌻 // Long Fic - 🌲 //

Characters:

Alastor

The Grim Reaper's Guide to Breaking Every Rule of the Universe - Tags: Demiromantic-Asexual Alastor x Demiromantic-Asexual OC/Reader - 1920s/30s New Orleans - fluff - angst - EXTREME slow burn - crack - Violence (It's Alastor what else) (in progress) - Taglist 🌸🍂💫🌷🌲

Last Updated: 21/02/24

(if your character isn't on here, don't be afraid to request anyway!)

Return to Navigation

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the-greatwar · 5 months

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Reginald, known as Reggie, was the eldest son of William (Bill) Stenning and his wife Emily

Stenning nee Gander. He was born in late 1891 and baptised here on 01/11/1891. His father was a

gardener and the family lived at Treeps Cottage. He is listed at home on both the 1901 and 1911

censuses when he was a baker’s assistant.

Reggie’s papers have recently been digitised but form part of the ‘burnt documents’ severely

damaged in an incendiary attack on the repository during WW2. Reggie’s papers are missing large

sections. It is possible to work out that he joined the 1/1st Sussex (Fortress) Reserve of the Royal

Engineers as a sapper on 16/11/1914 and was numbered T224, the ‘T’ indicating this was a Territorial

unit. This unit was based in Newhaven and their role was local defence. As the dangers of invasion

receded six engineer units formed the 1/1st Sussex Army Troops Company, RE. With their specialist

knowledge they left England on board the Empress of India arriving at Le Havre on 20/03/1915

joining the British Expeditionary Force at Etaples. At some point Reginald was raised to Lance

Corporal and, although the date cannot be read, it is most likely to have been before he entered

France. The Company was employed building accommodation for the arriving troops and hospitals

and roads around Etaples. They were moved to Vimy Ridge in May of 1916. Here their role was to

extend the deep dugout and tunnel systems under the ridge. One of their innovations was to construct

a ropeway slung from the roof to carry the spoil out to the surface. This system was later adopted by

other units. They also built concrete machine gun positions, and if that were not enough, some of

them, reportedly, helped the local farmers with their harvest.

In late 1916 a reorganisation of troop numbering of the Territorial Forces was undertaken. Six figure

numbers were allocated and the Sussex Fortress men were given numbers starting at 545001 on 01/

02/1917. Reggie was renumbered 545119. Just two days before this Reggie was hit in the leg by a

shell splinter. He was taken to 45 Casualty Clearing Station based at ‘Edgehill’ near Dernancourt but

died the following day. He is buried in the Dernancourt Communal Cemetery Extension in grave IV.

H. 8. He is remembered on both local war memorials.

Grave B102 in the South Avenue Cemetery holds a member of the Stenning family. In 1920 an Act of

Remembrance laid flowers on the graves of all servicemen who had died. Reginald is mentioned in

the newspaper article and it is possible that flowers were laid here. There is no stone.

Reginald, bekend als Reggie, was de oudste zoon van William (Bill) Stenning en zijn vrouw Emily Stenning - Gander. Hij werd eind 1891 geboren en gedoopt op 01/11/1891. Zijn vader was een tuinman en het gezin woonde in Treeps Cottage. Hij staat vermeld op zowel de 1901 als de 1911 gehouden volkstellingen toen hij bakkersknecht was. Reggie's papieren zijn onlangs gedigitaliseerd, maar zijn ernstig beschadigd bij een brandbomaanval op de opslagplaats tijdens WO2. Van Reggie's papieren ontbreken groot gedeelten. Het is mogelijk om eruit op te maken dat hij zich aansloot bij de 1/1st Sussex (Fortress) Reserve van de Royal Genie als sappeur op 16/11/1914 en was genummerd T224, de 'T' gaf aan dat dit een Territorial eenheid was. Deze eenheid was gestationeerd in Newhaven en hun rol was vooral lokale verdediging. Toen de gevaren van een invasie afnamen werden zes genie-eenheden gevormd in de 1/1st Sussex Army Troops Company, RE. Ze verlieten Engeland aan boord van de Empress of India, waar ze op 20/03/1915 in Le Havre aankwamen en zich aansluiten bij de British Expeditionary Force in Etaples. Op een gegeven moment werd Reginald gepromoveerd tot Lance Korporaal en, hoewel de datum niet kan worden achterhaald, is het zeer waarschijnlijk dat het was voordat hij Frankrijk binnenkwam. De compagnie werd ingezet voor het bouwen van accommodatie voor de aankomende troepen en ziekenhuizen en wegen rond Etaples. Ze werden in mei 1916 verplaatst naar Vimy Ridge. Hier was het hun taak om diepe dug-outs en tunnelsystemen onder de heuveltoppen te graven. Een van hun innovaties was het bouwen van een kabelbaan die vanaf het dak wordt gebruikt om de specie naar de oppervlakte te brengen. Dit systeem werd later overgenomen door andere eenheden. Ze bouwden ook betonnen mitrailleurstellingen, en alsof dat nog niet genoeg was, naar verluidt hielpen ze de lokale boeren met hun oogst. Eind 1916 werd een reorganisatie van de troepennummering van de Territoriale Strijdkrachten ondernomen. Zes nummers werden toegewezen en de mannen van Sussex Fortress kregen nummers vanaf 545001 op 01/ 02/1917. Reggie werd omgenummerd tot 545119. Slechts twee dagen eerder werd Reggie in zijn been geraakt door een granaatsplinter. Hij werd naar 45 Casualty Clearing Station gebracht, gestationeerd in 'Edgehill' bij Dernancourt, maar overleed de volgende dag. Hij ligt begraven op de Dernancourt Communal Cemetery Extension in graf IV. H. 8. Hij wordt herdacht op beide lokale oorlogsmonumenten. In 1920 werd in het kader van de herdenking bloemen op de graven van alle gesneuvelde militairen gelegd. Reginald wordt genoemd in het krantenartikel, gewijd aan deze herdenking.

#world war 1 #great war #belgium #france #first world war #world war i #world war one #ww1

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Revenge of the Linkdumps

Next Saturday (May 20), I’ll be at the GAITHERSBURG Book Festival with my novel Red Team Blues; then on May 22, I’m keynoting Public Knowledge’s Emerging Tech conference in DC.

On May 23, I’ll be in TORONTO for a book launch that’s part of WEPFest, a benefit for the West End Phoenix, onstage with Dave Bidini (The Rheostatics), Ron Diebert (Citizen Lab) and the whistleblower Dr Nancy Olivieri.

If you’ve followed my work for a long time, you’ve watched me transition from a “linkblogger” who posts 5–15 short hits every day to an “essay-blogger” who posts 5–7 long articles/week. I’m loving the new mode of working, but returning to linkblogging is also intensely, unexpectedly gratifying:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/02/wunderkammer/#jubillee

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/13/four-bar-linkage/#linkspittle

[Image ID XKCD #2775: Siphon. Man: ‘Wow, it’s true — the water doesn’t flow up the tube anymore.’ Woman: ‘Honestly, it’s weird that it ever did. Why did we ever think it was normal?’ Caption: ‘Physics news: the 2023 update to the universe finally fixed the ‘siphon’ bug.’]

My last foray into linkblogging was so great — and my backlog of links is already so large — that I’m doing another one.

Link the first: “Siphon,” XKCD’s delightful, whimsical “physics-how-the-fuck-does-it-work” one-shot (visit the link, the tooltip is great):

https://xkcd.com/2775/

[Image ID: A Dutch safety poster by Herman Heyenbrock, warning about the hazards of careless table-saw use, featuring a hand with two amputated fingers.]

Next is “Hoogspanning,” 50 Watts’s collection of vintage Dutch workplace safety posters, which exhibit that admirable Dutch frankness to a degree that one could mistake for parody, but they’re 100% real, and amazing:

https://50watts.com/Hoogspanning-More-Dutch-Safety-Posters

They’re ganked from Geheugenvannederland (“Memory of the Netherlands”):

https://geheugenvannederland.nl/

While some come from the 1970s, others date back to the 1920s and are likely public domain. I’ve salted several away in my stock art folder for use in future collages.

All right, now that the fun stuff is out of the way, let’s get down to some crunch tech-policy. To ease us in, I’ve got a game for you to play: “Moderator Mayhem,” the latest edu-game from Techdirt:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/05/11/moderator-mayhem-a-mobile-game-to-see-how-well-you-can-handle-content-moderation/

Moderator Mayhem started life as a card-game that Mike Masnick used to teach policy wonks about the real-world issues with content moderation. You play a mod who has to evaluate content moderation flags from users while a timer ticks down. As you race to evaluate users’ posts for policy compliance, you’re continuously interrupted. Sometimes, it’s “helpful” suggestions from the company’s AI that wants you to look at the posts it flagged. Sometimes, it’s your boss who wants you to do a trendy “visioning” exercise or warning you about a “sensitivity.” Often, it’s angry ref-working from users who want you to re-consider your calls.

The card-game version is legendary but required a lot of organization to play, and the web version (which is better in a mobile browser, thanks to a swipe-left/right mechanic) is something you can pick up in seconds. This isn’t merely highly recommended; I think that one could legitimately refuse to discuss content moderation policies and critiques with anyone who hasn’t played it;

https://moderatormayhem.engine.is/

Or maybe that’s too harsh. After all, tech policy is a game that everyone can play — and more importantly, it’s a game everyone should play. The contours of tech regulation and implementation touch rub up against nearly every aspect of our lives, and part of the reason it’s such a mess is that the field has been gatekept to shit, turned into a three-way fight between technologists, policy wonks and economists.

Without other voices in the debate, we’re doomed to end up with solutions that satisfy the rarified needs and views of those three groups, a situation that is likely to dissatisfy everyone else.

However. However. The problem is that our technology is nowhere near advanced enough to be indistinguishable from magic (RIP, Sir Arthur). There’s plenty of things everyone wishes tech could do, but it can’t, and wanting it badly isnlt enough. Merely shouting “nerd harder!” at technologists won’t actually get you what you want. And while I’m rattling off cliches: a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Which brings me to Ashton Kutcher. Yes, that Ashton Kutcher. No, really. Kutcher has taken up the admirable, essential cause of fighting Child Sex Abuse Material (CSAM, which is better known as child pornography) online. This is a very, very important and noble cause, and it deserves all our support.

But there’s a problem, which is that Kutcher’s technical foundations are poor, and he has not improved them. Instead, he cites technologies that he has a demonstrably poor grasp upon to call for policies that turn out to be both ineffective at fighting exploitation and to inflict catastrophic collateral damage on vulnerable internet users.

Take sex trafficking. Kutcher and his organization, Thorn, were key to securing the passage of SESTA/FOSTA, a law that was supposed to fight online trafficking by making platforms jointly liable when they were used to facilitate trafficking:

https://www.engadget.com/2019-05-31-sex-lies-and-surveillance-fosta-privacy.html

At the time, Kutcher argued that deputizing platforms to understand and remove which user posts were part of a sex crime in progress would not inflict collateral damage. Somehow, if the platforms just nerded hard enough, they’d be able to remove sex trafficking posts without kicking off all consensual sex-workers.

Five years later, the verdict is in, and Kutcher was wrong. Sex workers have been deplatformed nearly everywhere, including from the places where workers traded “bad date” lists of abusive customers, which kept them safe from sexual violence, up to and including the risk of death. Street prostitution is way up, making the lives of sex workers far more dangerous, which has led to a resurgence of the odious institution of pimping, a “trade” that was on its way to vanishing altogether thanks to the power of the internet to let sex workers organize among themselves for protection:

https://aidsunited.org/fosta-sesta-and-its-impact-on-sex-workers/

On top of all that, SESTA/FOSTA has made it much harder for cops to hunt down and bust actual sex-traffickers, by forcing an activity that could once be found with a search-engine into underground forums that can’t be easily monitored:

https://www.techdirt.com/2018/07/09/more-police-admitting-that-fosta-sesta-has-made-it-much-more-difficult-to-catch-pimps-traffickers/

Wanting it badly isn’t enough. Technology is not indistinguishable from magic.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Kutcher, it seems, has learned nothing from SESTA/FOSTA. Now he’s campaigning to ban working cryptography, in the name of ending the spread of CSAM. In March, Kutcher addressed the EU over the “Chat Control” proposal, which, broadly speaking, is a ban on end-to-end encrypter messaging (E2EE):

https://www.brusselstimes.com/417985/ashton-kutcher-spotted-in-the-european-parliament-promoting-childrens-rights

Now, banning E2EE would be a catastrophe. Not only is E2EE necessary to protect people from griefers, stalkers, corporate snoops, mafiosi, etc, but E2EE is the only thing standing between the world’s dictators and total surveillance of every digital communication. Even tiny flaws in E2EE can have grave human rights concerns. For example, a subtle bug in Whatsapp was used by NSO Group to create a cyberweapon called Pegasus that the Saudi royals used to lure Jamal Khashoggi to his grisly murder:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/nso-spyware-used-to-target-family-of-jamal-khashoggi-leaked-data-shows-saudis-pegasus

Because the collateral damage from an E2EE ban would be so far-ranging (beyond harms to sex workers, whose safety is routinely disregarded by policy-makers), people like Kutcher can’t propose an outright ban on E2EE. Instead, they have to offer some explanation for how the privacy, safety and human rights benefits of E2EE can be respected even as encryption is broken to hunt for CSAM.

Kutcher’s answer is something called “fully homomorphic encryption” (FHE) which is a theoretical — and enormously cool — way to allow for computing work to be done on encrypted data without decrypting it. When and if FHE are ready for primetime, it will be a revolution in our ability to securely collaborate with one another.

But FHE is nowhere near the state where it could do what Kutcher claims. It just isn’t, and once again, wanting it badly is not enough. Writing on his blog, the eminent cryptographer Matt Green delivers a master-class in what FHE is, what it could do, and what it can’t do (yet):

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2023/05/11/on-ashton-kutcher-and-secure-multi-party-computation/

As it happens, Green also gave testimony to the EU, but he doesn’t confine his public advocacy work to august parliamentarians. Green wants all of us to understand cryptography (“I think cryptography is amazing and I want everyone talking about it all the time”). Rather than barking “stay in your lane” at the likes of Kutcher, Green has produced an outstanding, easily grasped explanation of FHE and the closely related concept of multi-party communication (MPC).

This is important work, and it exemplifies the difference between simplifying and being simplistic. Good science communicators do the former. Bad science communicators do the latter.

While Kutcher is presumably being simplistic because he lacks the technical depth to understand what he doesn’t understand, technically skilled people are perfectly capable of being simplistic, when it suits their economic, political or ideological goals.

One such person is Geoffrey Hinton, the so-called “father of AI,” who resigned from Google last week, citing the existential risks of “runaway AI” becoming superintelligent and turning on its human inventors. Hinton joins a group of powerful, wealthy people who have made a lot of noise about the existential risk of AI, while saying little or nothing about the ongoing risks of AI to people with disabilities, poor people, prisoners, workers, and other groups who are already being abused by automated decision-making and oversight systems.

Hinton’s nonsense is superbly stripped bare by Meredith Whittaker, the former Google worker organizer turned president of Signal, in a Fast Company interview with Wilfred Chan:

https://www.fastcompany.com/90892235/researcher-meredith-whittaker-says-ais-biggest-risk-isnt-consciousness-its-the-corporations-that-control-them

The whole thing is incredible, but there’s a few sections I want to call to your attention here, quoting Whittaker verbatim, because she expresses herself so beautifully (sci-comms done right is a joy to behold):

I think it’s stunning that someone would say that the harms [from AI] that are happening now — which are felt most acutely by people who have been historically minoritized: Black people, women, disabled people, precarious workers, et cetera — that those harms aren’t existential.

What I hear in that is, “Those aren’t existential to me. I have millions of dollars, I am invested in many, many AI startups, and none of this affects my existence. But what could affect my existence is if a sci-fi fantasy came to life and AI were actually super intelligent, and suddenly men like me would not be the most powerful entities in the world, and that would affect my business.”

I think we need to dig into what is happening here, which is that, when faced with a system that presents itself as a listening, eager interlocutor that’s hearing us and responding to us, that we seem to fall into a kind of trance in relation to these systems, and almost counterfactually engage in some kind of wish fulfillment: thinking that they’re human, and there’s someone there listening to us. It’s like when you’re a kid, and you’re telling ghost stories, something with a lot of emotional weight, and suddenly everybody is terrified and reacting to it. And it becomes hard to disbelieve.

Whittaker sets such a high bar for tech criticism. I had her clarity in mind in 2021, when I collaborated with EFF’s Bennett Cyphers on “Privacy Without Monopoly,” our white-paper addressing the claim that we need giant tech platforms to protect us from the privacy invasions of smaller “rogue” operators:

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

This is a claim that is most often raised in relation to Apple and its App Store model, which is claimed to be a bulwark against commercial surveillance. That claim has some validity: after all, when Apple added a one-click surveillance opt-out to Ios, its mobile OS. 96% of users clicked the “don’t spy on me” button. Those clicks cost Facebook $10b in just the following year. You love to see it.

But Apple is a gamekeeper-turned-poacher. Even as it was blocking Facebook’s surveillance, it was conducting its own, nearly identical, horrifyingly intrusive surveillance of every Ios user, for the same purpose as Facebook (ad targeting) and lying about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

Bennett and I couldn’t have asked for a better example of the point we make in “Privacy Without Monopoly”: the thing that stops companies from spying on you isn’t their moral character, it’s the threat of competition and/or regulation. If you can modify your device in ways that cost its manufacturer money (say, by installing an alternative app store), then the manufacturer has to earn your business every day.

That might actually make them better — and if it doesn’t, you can switch. The right way to make sure the stuff you install on your devices respects your privacy is by passing privacy laws — not by hoping that Tim Apple decides you deserve a private life.

Bennett and I followed up “Privacy Without Monopoly” with an appendix that focused on a territory where there is a privacy law: the EU, whose (patchily enforced) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the kind of privacy law that we call for in the original paper. In that appendix, we addressed the issues of GDPR enforcement:

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy#gdpr

More importantly, we addressed the claim that the GDPR crushed competition, by making it harder for smaller (and even sleazier) ad-tech platforms to compete with Google and Facebook. It’s true, but that’s OK: we want competition to see who can respect technology users’ rights — not competition to see who can violate those rights most efficiently:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/gdpr-privacy-and-monopoly

Around the time Bennett and I published the EU appendix to our paper, I was contacted by the Indian Journal of Law and Technology to see whether I could write something on similar lines, focused on the situation in India. Well, it took two years, but we’ve finally published it: “Securing Privacy Without Monopoly In India: Juxtaposing Interoperability With Indian Data Protection”:

https://www.ijlt.in/post/securing-privacy-without-monopoly-in-india-juxtaposing-interoperability-with-indian-data-protection

The Indian case for interop incorporates the US and EU case, but with some fascinating wrinkles. First, there are the broad benefits of allowing technology adaptation by people who are often left out of the frame when tools and systems are designed. As the saying goes, “nothing about us without us” — the users of technology know more about their needs than any designer can hope to understand. That’s doubly true when designers are wealthy geeks in Silicon Valley and the users are poor people in the global south.

India, of course, has its own highly advanced domestic tech sector, who could be a source of extensive expertise in adapting technologies from US and other offshore tech giants for local needs. India also has a complex and highly contested privacy regime, which is in extreme flux between high court decisions, regulatory interventions, and legislation, both passed and pending.

Finally, there’s India’s long tradition of ingenious technological adaptations, locally called jugaad, roughly equivalent to the English “mend and make do.” While every culture has its own way of celebrating clever hacks, this kind of ingenuity is elevated to an art form in the global south: think of jua kali (Swahili), gambiarra (Brazilian Portuguese) and bricolage (France and its former colonies).

It took a long time to get this out, but I’m really happy with it, and I’m extremely grateful to my brilliant and hardworking research assistants from National Law School of India University: Dhruv Jain, Kshitij Goyal and Sarthak Wadhwa.

I don’t claim that any of the incarnations of the “Privacy Without Monopoly” paper rise to the clarity of the works of Green or Whittaker, but that’s okay, because I have another arrow in my quiver: fiction. For more than 20 years, I’ve written science fiction that tries to make legible and urgent the often dry and abstract concepts I address in my nonfiction.

One issue I’ve been grappling with for literally decades is the implications of “trusted computing,” a security model that uses a second, secure computer, embedded in your device, to observe and report on what your main computer is doing. There are lots of implications for this, both horrifying and amazing.

For example, having a second computer inside your device that watches it is a theoretically unbeatable way of catching malicious software, resolving the conundrum of malware: if you think your computer is infected and can’t be trusted, then how can you trust the antivirus software running on that computer.

Back in 2016, Andrew “bunnie” Huang and Edward Snowden released the “Introspection Engine,” a separate computer that you could install in an Iphone, which would tell you whether it was infected with spyware:

https://www.tjoe.org/pub/direct-radio-introspection/release/2

But while there are some really interesting positive applications for this kind of software, the negative ones — unbeatable DRM and tamper-proof bossware — are genuinely horrifying. My novella “Unauthorized Bread” digs into this, putting blood and sinew into an otherwise dry abstract and skeletal argument:

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

Then there are applications that are somewhere in between, like “remote attestation” (when the secure computer signs a computer-readable description of what your computer is doing so that you can prove things about your computer and its operation to people who don’t trust you, but do trust that secure computer).

Remote attestation is the McGuffin of Red Team Blues, my latest novel, a crime-thriller about a cryptocurrency heist. The novel opens with the keys to a secure enclave — the gadget that signs the attestations in remote attestation — going missing.

When Matt Green reviewed Red Team Blues (his first book review!), he singled this out as a technically rigorous and significant plot point, because secure enclaves are designed so that they can’t be updated (if you can update an enclave, then you can update it with malicious software):

https://blog.cryptographyengineering.com/2023/04/24/book-review-red-team-blues/

This means that bugs in secure enclaves can last forever. Worse, if the keys for a secure enclave ever leak, then there’s no way to update all the secure enclaves out there in the world — millions or billions of them — to fix it.

Well, it’s happened.

The keys for the secure enclaves in Micro-Star International (AKA MSI) computers, a massive manufacturer of work and gaming PCs — have leaked and shown up on the “extortion portal” of a notorious crime gang:

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/05/leak-of-msi-uefi-signing-keys-stokes-concerns-of-doomsday-supply-chain-attack/

As a security expert quoted by Ars Technica explains, this is a “doomsday scenario.” That’s more or less how it plays in my novel. The big difference between the MSI leak and the hack in my book is that the MSI keys were just sitting on a server, connected to the internet, which wasn’t well-secured.

In Red Team Blues, I went to enormous lengths to imagine a fiendishly complex, incredibly secure scheme for hosting these keys, and then dreamt up a way that the bad guys could defeat it. I toyed with the idea of having the keys leak due to rank incompetence, but I decided that would be an “idiot plot” (“a plot that only works if the characters are idiots”). Turns out, idiot plots may make for bad fiction, but they’re happening around us all the time.

In my real life, I cross a lot of disciplinary boundaries — law, politics, economics, human rights, security, technology. I’m not the world’s leading expert in any of these domains, but I am well-enough informed about each that I’m able to find interesting ways that they fit together in a manner that is relatively rare, and is also (I think) useful.

I admit to sometimes feeling insecure about this — being “one inch deep and ten miles wide” has its virtues, but there’s no avoiding that, say, I know less about the law than a real lawyer, and less about computer science than a real computer scientist.

That insecurity is partly why I’m so honored when I get to talk to experts across multiple disciplines. 2023 was a very good year for this, thanks to University College London. Back in Feb, I was invited to speak as part of UCL Institute of Brand and Innovation Law’s annual series on technology law:

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/events/2023/feb/recording-chokepoint-capitalism-can-it-be-defeated

And next month, I’m giving UCL Computer Science’s annual Peter Kirstein lecture:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/peter-kirstein-lecture-2023-featuring-cory-doctorow-registration-539205788027

Getting to speak to both the law school and the computer science school within a space of months is hugely gratifying, a real vindication of my theory that the virtues of my breadth make up for the shortcomings in my depth.

I’m getting a similar thrill from the domain experts who’ve been reviewing Red Team Blues. This week, Maria Farrell posted her Crooked Timber review, “When crypto meant cryptography”:

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/05/11/when-crypto-meant-cryptography/

Farrell is a brilliant technology critic. Her work on “prodigal tech bros” is essential:

https://conversationalist.org/2020/03/05/the-prodigal-techbro/

So her review means a lot to me in general, but I was overwhelmed to read her describe how Red Team Blues taught her to “read again for joy” after long covid “completely scrambled [her] brain.”

That meant a lot personally, but her review is even more gratifying when it gets into craft questions, like when she praises the descriptions as “so interesting and sociologically textured.” I love her description of the book as “Dickensian”: “it shoots up and down the snakes and ladders of San Francisco’s gamified dystopia of income inequality, one moment whizzing up the ear-poppingly fast elevator to a billionaire’s hardened fortress, the next sleeping under a bridge in a homeless encampment.”

And then, this kicker: “it’s a gorgeous rejection of the idea that long-form fiction is about individual subjectivity and the interior life. It’s about people as pinballs. They don’t just reveal things about the other objects they hit; their constant action and reaction reveals the walls that hold them all in.”

Likewise, I was thrilled with Peter Watts’s review on his “No Moods, Ads or Cutesy Fucking Icons” blog::

https://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=10578%22%3Ehttps://www.rifters.com/crawl/?p=10578

Peter is a brilliant sf writer and worldbuilder, an accomplished scientist, and one of the world’s most accomplished ranters. He’s had more amazing ideas than I’ve had hot breakfasts:

https://locusmag.com/2018/05/cory-doctorow-the-engagement-maximization-presidency/

His review says some very nice and flattering things about me and my previous work, which is always great to read, especially for anyone with a chronic case of impostor syndrome. But what really mattered was the way he framed how I write villains: “The villains of Cory’s books aren’t really people; they’re systems. They wear punchable Human faces but those tend to be avatars, mere sock-puppets operated by the institutions that comprise the real baddies.”

One could read that as a critique, but coming from Peter, it’s praise — and it’s praise that gets to the heart of my worldview, which is that our biggest problems are systemic, not individual. The problem of corporate greed isn’t just that CEOs are monsters who don’t care who they hurt — it’s that our system is designed to let them get away with it. Worse, system design is such that the CEOs who aren’t monsters are generally clobbered by the ones who are.

So much of our outlook is grounded in the moral failings or virtues of individuals. Tim Apple will keep our data safe, so we should each individually decide to reward him by buying his phones. If Tim Apple betrays us, we should “vote with our wallets” by buying something else. If you care about the climate, you should just stop driving. If there’s no public transit, well, then maybe you should, uh, dig a subway?

[Image ID: Matt Bors’s classic Mr Gotcha panel, in which a medieval peasant says ‘We should improve society somewhat,’ and Mr Gotcha replies, ‘Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very smart.’]

This is the mindset Matt Bors skewers so expertly with his iconic Mr Gotcha character: “Yet you participate in society. Curious! I am very smart”:

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

(Which reminds me, I am halfway through Bors’s unbelievably, fantastically, screamingly awesome graphic novel “Justice Warriors,” which turns the neoliberal caveat-emptor/personal-responsibility brain-worm into the basis for possibly the greatest superhero comic of all time:)

https://www.mattbors.com/books

Watts finishes his review with:

I’ve never fully come to terms with the general decency of Cory’s characters. Doctorow the activist lives in the trenches, fighting those who make their billions trading the details of our private lives, telling us that they own what we’ve bought, surveilling us for the greater good and even greater profits. He’s spent more time facing off against the world’s powerful assholes than I ever will. He knows how ruthless they are. He knows, first-hand, how much of the world is clenched in their fists. By rights, his stories should make mine look like Broadway musicals.

And yet, Doctorow the Author is — hopeful. The little guys win against overwhelming odds. Dystopias are held at bay. Even the bad guys, in defeat, are less likely to scorch the earth than simply resign with a show of grudging respect for a worthy opponent.

I often get asked by readers — especially readers of Pluralistic, which is heavy on awful scandals and corruption — how I keep going. Watts has the answer:

Maybe it’s a fundamental difference in outlook. I’ve always regarded humans as self-glorified mammals, fighting endless and ineffective rearguard against their own brain stems; Cory seems to see us as more influenced by the angels of our better natures. Or maybe — maybe it’s not just his plots that are meant to be instructional. Maybe he’s deliberately showing us how we could behave as a species, in the same way he shows us how to fuck with DRM or foil face-recognition tech. Maybe it’s not that he subscribes to some Pollyanna vision of what we are; maybe he’s showing us what we could be.

Got it in one, Peter.

And…

It’s also about what happens if we don’t get better.

Writing on his “Economics From the Top Down” blog, Blair Fix — a heterodox economist and sharp critic of oligarchy — publishes a Red Team Blues review that nails the “or else” in my books, and does it with graphs:

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/

Fix surfaces the latent point in my work that inequality is destabilizing — that spectacular violence is downstream of making a society that has nothing to offer for the majority of us. As Marty Hench, the 67 year old forensic accountant protagonist of Red Team Blues says,

Finance crime is a necessary component of violent crime. Even the most devoted sadist needs a business model, or he will have to get a real job.

[Image ID: A chart labeled, ‘With more plutocracy comes more murder. As countries become more unequal (horizontal axis), their murder rates go up (vertical axis).’]

Fix agrees, and shows us that murders go up with inequality.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/#sources-and-methods

Which is why, while the average private eye is a kind of “cop who gets to bend the rules of policing”; Hench is “a kind of uber IRS agent who gets to work in ‘sneaky ways that aren’t available to the taxman.’”

[Image ID: A chart labeled, ‘Was the US prison state the inspiration for cyberpunk? The term ‘cyberpunk’ (which describes a genre of dystopian science fiction) became popular in tandem with mass incarceration in the US. It’s probably not a coincidence.’]

This observation segues into a fascinating, data-informed look at the way that science fiction reflects our fears and aspirations about wider social phenomenon — for example, the popularity of the word “cyberpunk” closely tracks rising incarceration rates.

https://economicsfromthetopdown.com/2023/05/13/red-team-blues-cory-doctorows-anti-finance-thriller/#sources-and-methods

(It’s not a coincidence that the next Marty Hench book, “The Bezzle,” is about prisons and prison-tech; it’s out in Feb 2024:)

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

I’m out on tour with Red Team Blues right now, with upcoming stops in the DC area, Toronto, the UK, and then Berlin:

https://craphound.com/novels/redteamblues/2023/04/26/the-red-team-blues-tour-burbank-sf-pdx-berkeley-yvr-edmonton-gaithersburg-dc-toronto-hay-oxford-nottingham-manchester-london-edinburgh-london-berlin/

I’ve just added another Berlin stop, on June 8, at Otherland, Berlin’s amazing sf/f bookstore:

https://twitter.com/otherlandberlin/status/1657082021011701761

I hope you’ll come along! I’ve been meeting a lot of people on this tour who confess that while they’ve read my blogs and essays for years, they’ve never picked up one of my books. If you’re one of those readers, let me assure you, it is not too late!

As you’ve read above, my fiction is very much a continuation of my nonfiction by other means — but it’s also the place where I bring my hope as well as my dismay and anger. I’m told it makes for a very good combination.

If you’re still wavering, maybe this will sway you: the blogging and essays are either free or very low-paid, and they’re heavily subsidized by my fiction. If you enjoy my nonfiction, buying my novels is the best way to say thank you and to ensure a continuing supply of both.

But novels are by no means a dreary duty — fiction is a delight, and after a couple decades at it, I’ve come to grudgingly concede — impostor syndrome notwithstanding — that I’m pretty good at it.

I hope you’ll agree.

Image: Robert Miller (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/12463666@N03/52721565937

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Toronto, DC, Gaithersburg, Oxford, Hay, Manchester, Nottingham, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: A kitchen junk-drawer, full of junk.]

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