The Sovereign Auteur: Reclaiming Agency in the Digital Commons

In April 2025, the corporate world and I parted ways. After years at one of the world’s largest consulting firms, the meritocracy of big tech revealed its cracks. Layoffs were happening in multiple waves for months, and my turn finally came. On the day my manager and HR scheduled me for that classic impromptu meeting to deliver the news of my layoff, big changes were happening to my family. That was the same day that my father experienced the heart attack that killed him. That is a synchronicity that will take me years to understand. As I moved through job and parental loss in tandem, I found myself in a period of profound grief, having lost my father, standing at a new crossroads about where we find meaning in life.

I could have chased another title as consultant or strategist in a system that views people as replaceable parts. Instead, I chose to return to my own environment: the foundational pieces I had been laying down since 2010 as an entrepreneur and self employed person. I looked at LED Queens and also my Aztecverse—the creative universe of fantasy and sci-fi novels that I have published for years—and realized it was time to bring it all home. I was ready for my own personal “grito de dolores.”

The 14-Day Reclamation

This story is about how I started to think of my digital artifacts and products that surround my brand LED Queens and my Aztecverse books as stars in a constellation. I began to understand that I was the astronomer, the person who could measure their movement, predict their trajectories, and most importantly, begin to connect them together into a symbolic type of galaxy. For my ancestors, which include the Maya, Olmec, Aztec and more, galaxies were the living maps of their mythology, their agriculture (connection to the earth) and even the mysteries of the underworld. For my ancestors, our connection to galaxies was deep, ancestral, non-dual.

In other words, I started thinking of my whole set of digital presences as interconnected, interdependent, proud, vibrant. And over the next fourteen days, I decided to interlink all of them, so the world could understand my own artistic and personal vision. 

As professionals, as brands, or simply as people, we are often asked to compartmentalize our pillars of work, as well as our identities. In my case, I had a brand of sportswear that was slowly evolving into a branding agency that targets BIPOC/Queer folks, and I had two separate book series and a new standalone novel. Most marketers would tell you that these should all be treated as separate workstreams, that they really shouldn’t touch teach other, because the reader or customer won’t understand them. In other words, most “thought leaders” and “marketing experts” (who also happen to generally be cis, white, straight) will be quick to tell you to keep it all separate, to not reveal your full self.

So I pivoted and decided to unite all my body of work, as an act of resistance. As an act of decolonization. And as an act of anti-corporate sentiment. 

Some of you might suggest that I decided to build my empire. I didn't "launch an empire." Empire is a word I am going to avoid here. Empires inherently stir images of authoritarianism and fascism. It is a word that intimidates. And my ancestors didn’t teach me to do that. Instead, I designed my new interconnected works as an organism, like flowers, mycelia, or like the circulatory system in the body. 

I engaged in an act of Interconnection. In less than two weeks, using survival, imagination, and a refusal to wait for permission, I re-wired the infrastructure of my creative life.

I took five disparate nodes—cesartorres.me, 13secretcities.com, howtokillasuperhero.net, ourlordoftheflowers.com, and ledqueens.com—and linked them into a single, breathing ecosystem. I connected them on the technical side through useful platforms of CRM, e-commerce and editorial publishing systems. But most importantly, I connected them with feeling, with honesty, and with the type of world-building that has made my books famous with my readers.

Stewardship Over Scaling

Corporate culture demands "infinite growth." Tech startups demand "quick scaling." But there is an ethical, human, and environmental cost to that speed—a cost I am no longer willing to pay. My ancestors taught me that growing things in the earth needs time, love, effort, and also a set of circumstances dictated by the fertility of the soil, the rays of the sun, and other elements that are beyond our control. There are no shortcuts to healthy growth. So I turned my back on decades of dogma that was instilled in me by peers who became very rich in selling their startups to big tech or private companies. Some of those names include Brian Lam and Ken Fisher, folks who hired me several years ago for their startups. They are just two examples of leaders who I learned select virtues from, but who are inherently very different people than who I am. We differ in character.

I cannot see into other people’s minds, but as a writer, I can share parts of my own vision easily with you. My value set is one that imagines what things might be like on Earth 50, 100, 200 or even 5,000 years from now. And as such, this ability dictates a whole new approach for me that is informed by ancestral indigenous knowledge. It’s a reclamation of what colonialism has taken from millions of people and communities for centuries. Centering power, prestige and money over living things is simply damaging to the earth. Full stop.

As you read this, you know that I am using platforms and digital services that also foster genocide and colonialism. I’m aware of that. I hope to change that and leave behind the tools of the colonizer someday, too. But for now, I wield the tools of the colonizer in a new way, as a means to an end.

During the month of September I spent two weeks connecting all my body of work through infrastructure: new content, new images, new web sites, and even new ways of working. I did this like a tailor with thread and needle (and not a sewing machine). I did use select AI tolls like Gemini for research, and you’ll learn about that later. But I worked in a way that was very anti-corporate. I worked as my full self, not as a splintered, code-switching mask. I worked hard, but I also didn’t burn out. This is not something to brag about, and it doesn’t make me tough, a “boss”, or better than you. Instead, I worked on my sites like a farmer. I just did what needed to get done daily. I did it with love, and I was grateful for my health every day that I did it.

What I built in those 14 days wasn't about "dominating a market." It was about my agency.  I used the tools of the system (Shopify, Klaviyo, AI) to build a sanctuary for my work.

• I treated my book IPs not as products to be "marketed," but as parts of a living world where the websites are as much a part of the art as the text. To put it simply, my books are me, my books are also my web sites, my books are the visuals I create, and I am also my books. I am my web sites. I am the visuals I create.
• I kept a select portion of my LED Queens sportswear products available for only the most devoted customers. I allowed myself to live differently as a maker of retail fashion products in order to give my imagination a break and turn my focus other parts of my creative enterprise.
• I applied the "Enterprise Logic" I learned when I was a consultant for Ford Pro’s evolving brand, but I applied it with the nimbleness of a solo operator who answers only to the integrity of their community. 

The LED Strategy Lab: A New Way to Operate

The grift of the tech world is the idea that you need them more than they need you. I am here to tell you that is a lie. They tell you this lie to keep  you afraid and dependent. What you need is community. People who are looking ahead to further generations instead of grifting for maximum immediate profit. 

The colonizer wants us to think that the only place that is going to reward us is the corporate environments that are founded upon white supremacy in this country. That in itself is simply an idea, a belief. Creators, artists, brands and people have the ability to move their minds into completely new paradigms. And in order to create better equity and outcomes for all people, the paradigm has to shift.

The LED Strategy Lab is my way of sharing my knowledge with my community. It is for the visionaries who are tired of being "digital serfs" on platforms that don't care about their story. It is about building small, interlinked, and resilient systems that provide a payoff much bigger than a quarterly report: A life lived on your own terms.

I am a journalist, a marketer, a designer, visual artist, and a book author. But above all, I am a Sovereign Auteur. This post is the first in a series of essays and deep dives that will reveal to you that the expensive “though leadership” from corporate culture is in fact something else altogether. But I’ll also show you how I think, how I work. I’ll be sharing a lot of my frameworks and ideas for free, so that you can chart your own interconnected digital galaxy without feeling like you need their approval or high rates. Will I make money by giving away a lot of my secret sauce for free? That’s not an answer that I know, and it’s besides the point. The point is that we find ourselves deep in techno-feudalism, late stage capitalism, authoritarianism and fascism. Going back into the corporate structures that fund and foster these cruel dynamics is to capitulate to the colonizer. 

So if this writing makes sense to you, if it resonates, let’s continue the journey. I hope my words continue to resonate with you.

-Cesar Torres

Image credit: Hubble Panoramic View of Orion Nebula, NASA