What is this?

This is a weekly crowdfunding roundup of new projects launched last week and projects that end the coming week.

Google Docs

As an alternative format, the lists are now also available as a Google Docs found here: Weekly Crowdfunding Roundup

Updates

Expect new lists every Sunday between 00:00 and 23:59 CEST on the following platforms:
Mastodon: @danielpervan@mastodon.social
Discord: https://discord.gg/dN4P4PZcU9
Reddit: /boardgames

Selection criteria

The criteria for the lists are as follows:

Ending soon

• Sorted by number of backers
  
• Kickstarter projects ending in the next 7 days, that have at least 100 backers (or marked as "Project we love" by Kickstarter), will have reached more than estimated 95% of their goal by their deadline and passed the filters:
  
  • No DnD books
  • No zines
  • No 3D printing
  • No dice sets
  • No magazines
  • No shirts
  • No playmats
  • No furniture
  • No events
• Gamefound projects ending in the next 7 days, that will have reached more than estimated 95% of their goal by their deadline and passed the above filters.
  
• (beta) Backerkit Crowdfunding projects ending in the next 7 days, that will have reached more than estimated 95% of their goal by their deadline and have a matching BGG page.
  

Newly launched

• Sorted by number of backers
  
• Kickstarter projects launched in the last 7 days, that have had at least average 15 backers per day, have at least 100 backers or is marked as "Project we love" by Kickstarter and passed the filters (see above).
  
• Gamefound projects launched in the last 7 days and passed the filters (see above).
  
• (beta) Backerkit Crowdfunding projects launched in the last 7 days and have a matching BGG page.
  

Notable filtered projects

• Filtered projects from above lists that have more than 1000 backers.

Tags

🎉: Staff pick/featured
💰: Funded
🔥: More than average 200 backers/day
🌱: Creator's first project
🌳: Creator's >5th project
🔄: Money back guarantee (Read more)

FAQ

I live in Cuba/Canada/Haiti/USA, why are you posting on a Saturday?!
Because I'm writing this from Europe in the future where it's already Sunday. Timezones be crazy.
Why are there a bunch of non-board games in the board game list?
Because the Tabletop games category on Kickstarter includes anything remotely related to board games and sometimes things slip through my filters.
Why is this future award winning board game and literal saviour of humanity missing from your list?
Sometimes my filters get a bit overzealous and discard actually valid projects. If you feel something is missing for this reason, leave a comment and I'll add it (maybe).
Can I donate all my money to you?
No
Can you help me promote my game?
Please no. I make lists. Nothing more.
Your list is full of errors and now the great old ones have awaken!
Indeed, this fine piece of code runs purely on faith, trust and pixie dust, so anything can happen. Leave a comment and I'll see what I can do.

Ending soon (18)

Name	Description	Backers	Pledged	Ends	Information	Tags	BGG
Dark Cities | Deluxe Editions	Five games of social deduction & light strategy for up to 9 players. Deluxe book boxes include upgraded components & mini expansions.	2982	$321,124.00 (1284%) in 20 days	2024-05-23	💸 Kickstarter	🎉💰🌳
LONG DARK SEA	Long Dark Sea is a cooperative adventure card game for 1-4 players focused on exploration and combat where deckbuilding and resource management are their main mechanics. Venture into the unknown with your pirate crew in search of ancient relics in a Sci-fi universe.	1006	€136,749.40 (228%) in 19 days	2024-05-21	💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑4 players 👶 12+ ⏱️ 40-60 min. Card Game Dice Game Deck Building Cooperative	💰🌱	BGG
Hannibal & Hamilcar + Metal Minis	Hannibal: Classic Edition by one of the most acclaimed game designers in the world, Mark Simonitch.	972	€102,134.25 (340%) in 6 days	2024-05-24	💸 Gamefound 👥 2 players ⏱️ 120 min. Card Game Wargame Dice Game Area Control	💰🌳
Picky Eaters: Ultimate Collection	A delectably devious game for 2-6 players.	681	$50,546.00 (1011%) in 27 days	2024-05-23	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑6 players 👶 8+ ⏱️ 20-40 min.	🎉💰	BGG
Apistocracy	You're invited to make your season debut in a game that blends worker placement and trick-taking with the delights of Victorian London.	646	$55,877.00 (559%) in 27 days	2024-05-23	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 12+ ⏱️ 40-80 min.	💰🌱	BGG
Park Life 🇬🇧 🇨🇦 🇪🇺	Cozy trick-taking game. A celebration of public spaces and cute hedgehogs! 🦔🦔🦔	461	$13,854.00 (13854%) in 27 days	2024-05-22	💸 Kickstarter 👥 1‑5 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 15-30 min.	🎉💰	BGG
Long Live Backyardia!	A modular expansion for the award-nominated Trick-Taking and Mancala board game Bug Council of Backyardia!	454	¥2,447,309 (489%) in 20 days	2024-05-21	💸 Kickstarter 👥 3‑5 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 30-40 min.	💰	BGG
AI 100% Human - Boardgame	Innovative drafting game with a reserve and immediate scoring, all structured around building a tableau.	370	€24,480.00 (245%) in 20 days	2024-05-24	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑6 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 30-45 min.	💰🌳	BGG
Nanga Parbat: Animal Powers	A promo pack for Dr. Finn's Nanga Parbat to add even more strategy and fun to an already awesome game.	320	$4,223.00 (422%) in 12 days	2024-05-22	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 30-40 min.	🎉💰🌳	BGG
Cosmic Chains	A tactical dueling card game of cats and robots. Build the longest satellite chain to provide the best network coverage!	293	$8,739.00 (175%) in 19 days	2024-05-26	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 30-40 min.	💰🌱	BGG
DragonStrike	Mount your Dragon and ride into aerial combat in this fast paced but deviously cunning Board Game, using beautiful pre-painted Dragons!	261	$49,705.00 (124%) in 27 days	2024-05-25	💸 Kickstarter	💰
Potion Crafter	Alchemy calls! Fill the shelves of your magic shop with unique potions in this roll and write, print and play strategy board game.	251	€2,762.00 (2762%) in 14 days	2024-05-21	💸 Kickstarter 👥 1‑6 players 👶 8+ ⏱️ 20-40 min.	💰	BGG
Renters + Parking Expansion (Print & Play)	Renters, is a roll & write boardgame in which we will have to host groups of up to 5 people in our building, according to a roll of the dice. But our building requires repair the elevator, air conditioning and wifi.	225	€2,117.45 (4235%) in 45 days	2024-05-20	💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑10 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 20-30 min. Dice Game	💰🌱	BGG
Dungeon Rooms with FLAVOR	A deck of geomorphic dungeon rooms cards with... flavor!	205	€2,986.00 (299%) in 11 days	2024-05-24	💸 Kickstarter	💰🌳
Treasures Lost	Navigate wisely across the uncharted lands. Choose your path and find the lost treasures! | Fantasy | PnP | Roll n write | Dungeon |	198	NZ$4,313.00 (431%) in 27 days	2024-05-23	💸 Kickstarter 👥 1‑99 players 👶 8+ ⏱️ 15-30 min.	💰🌳	BGG
Paycheck to Billionaire: Board Game Meets Financial Freedom	Start with a Paycheck, Manage Daily Bills, Invest Smartly, from Startup to Business Empire. ----A Game Changer, not only in the Game.	189	$6,500.00 (130%) in 27 days	2024-05-23	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑6 players 👶 8+ ⏱️ 20-60 min.	💰🌱	BGG
[Micro May] Roll A Coaster Park - Print and Play	Build paths, rides and stalls and attract guests to your new roller coaster park in this roll and write game.	148	£1,465.00 (1465%) in 20 days	2024-05-21	💸 Kickstarter	💰🌱
Post Necrone : The Party Wanted Necromancer Expansion!	Experience Deck-Building, Roguelike Exploration & Party Game Dynamics with the Latest Expansion for the Strategy Card Game PARTY WANTED	104	$3,732.00 (560%) in 29 days	2024-05-20	💸 Kickstarter	💰

New this week (30)

Name	Description	Backers	Pledged	Ends	Information	Tags	BGG
2024 Crokinole Board Season 8: Mahagony or Beech + Cases	We are back for our 8th Crokinole Project, this fan favorite will include all the best of prior projects plus wax with every board!	3481	$459,805.00 (9196%) in 6 days	2024-06-05	💸 Kickstarter	💰🔥🌳
Feudum	Game-of-the-year winner, Feudum is back with the 7th anniversary collector's edition featuring an exclusive clockwork behemoth! Grrrrrrrrrr.	2089	$273,565.57 (1094%) in 5 days	2024-06-14	💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑5 players ⏱️ 150 min. Area Control	💰🔥🌱
Rove	A cooperative campaign experience for 1-4 adventurers set in a fantasy world on the brink of being consumed by nature.	1728	$257,808.00 (645%) in 6 days	2024-06-07	💸 Kickstarter 👥 1‑4 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 60-120 min.	🎉💰🔥🌱	BGG
Masters of the Universe: Battleground	Masters of the Universe: Battleground is a skirmish miniature game for two to four players, where forces of good and evil clash in epic combat. This glorious battle will shake the earth and change the fate of Eternia!	1605	$422,043.41 (1407%) in 6 days	2024-05-29	💸 Gamefound 👥 2‑4 players ⏱️ 90 min. Wargame	💰🔥🌳
Wonders of The First CCG	Battle across 7 realms as a Stoneseeker. Just Relaunched - Get Kickstarter Exclusive Packages and Pricing!	1451	$902,420.00 (3610%) in 6 days	2024-05-31	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 13+ ⏱️ 20-45 min.	💰🔥	BGG
Hunted: Mining Colony 415 (2nd Edition) [Solo Game of the Month]	Become an 80s action hero who overcomes impossible odds to escape deadly aliens in the 2nd edition of this solo game!	1161	$24,565.46 (491%) in 6 days	2024-05-31	💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑2 players ⏱️ 20 min. Card Game	💰🌳
Hannibal & Hamilcar + Metal Minis	Hannibal: Classic Edition by one of the most acclaimed game designers in the world, Mark Simonitch.	972	€102,134.25 (340%) in 6 days	2024-05-24	💸 Gamefound 👥 2 players ⏱️ 120 min. Card Game Wargame Dice Game Area Control	💰🌳
Oshi Push! The VTuber Trading Card Game	A TCG featuring actual VTubers, from the makers of Tanto Cuore and Game Designer, Justin Gary! www.OshiPush.com	828	$146,263.00 (293%) in 5 days	2024-06-05	💸 Kickstarter	🎉💰🌳
The Secret Cabal Gaming Podcast is Outta Control in 2024	The Cabal Founders are crashing into 2024 with more weekly tabletop gaming podcasts and other irreverent nonsense!	827	$51,447.00 (129%) in 5 days	2024-06-07	💸 Kickstarter	💰🌳
BERSERKERS : Chaos Extension by Alone Editions	Berserkers is Back !	628	€16,523.00 (254%) in 4 days	2024-06-09	💸 Kickstarter	💰🌳
Hex Effects: A Spellbinding Card Game	Hex Effects is a “take that” card game that involves beautiful artwork and easy-to-pick-up gameplay. From the makers of Side Effects!	604	$22,937.00 (191%) in 4 days	2024-06-14	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑8 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 20-40 min.	🎉💰	BGG
Everbloom	A unique blend of area control, resource management, and set collection, taking place in a magical world of flora & fauna.	560	$37,685.00 (188%) in 6 days	2024-06-08	💸 Kickstarter 👥 1‑4 players 👶 13+ ⏱️ 60-90 min.	🎉💰🌱	BGG
Good Dog, Bad Zombie: A Cooperative Board Game (2nd Edition)	Bark, sniff, and lick your way through the apocalypse to save the humans you love! New art, new playable dogs, & upgraded components!	554	$45,349.00 (336%) in 6 days	2024-06-07	💸 Kickstarter	💰🌳
The Big Bad Wolf	Based on The 3 Little Pigs! Secretly pass the "Big Bad Wolf" then Entice & Persuade players into flipping it, to Blow Down their house!	440	$8,704.00 (249%) in 6 days	2024-06-13	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 15-35 min.	💰🌱	BGG
Catstronauts: The Board Game	The cooperative boardgame based on the hit graphic novels!	361	$23,289.00 (466%) in 6 days	2024-06-14	💸 Kickstarter 👥 1‑4 players 👶 8+ ⏱️ 30 min.	💰🌳	BGG
World of Kilforth: The Fantasy Quest Games	Return to the stunning oceans of Kilforth! Missed the Kickstarter? Heed the call, and explore the beautiful southern seas to defend Kilforth from the deadly Ancients...	261	£27,836.80 (557%) in 6 days	2024-05-31	💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑4 players Card Game Dice Game	💰
Amsterdam Board Game Design - season 1	Three fun card games by different members of ABGD: Bable, Grachtenpand, & TimeZoo. May this be the first season of many!	258	€7,569.00 (252%) in 6 days	2024-06-13	💸 Kickstarter	💰🌱
Around the World in 10 to 15 Minutes	Travel the world, explore cities, and collect souvenirs in this 2-6 player print at home game	256	$2,429.00 (2429%) in 6 days	2024-05-31	💸 Kickstarter	💰
Guns of the Old West	Players compete as a team with over 100 campaign paths. Each playthrough is a unique cinematic experience offering endless replayability. Players make strategic decisions and interact with each other to achieve their group and secret individual objectives, some of which involve betrayal, making for …	203	£36,141.95 (72%) in 6 days	2024-06-11	💸 Gamefound 👥 2‑8 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 45-90 min. Card Game Wargame Dice Game Cooperative	🌱	BGG
The Thinning Veil Cormac Mac Airt on the Other Side of Midnight	A solo dungeon crawl now featuring a 2 player mode set in the world of The Thinning Veil, and featuring Cormac Mac Airt, High King of Inis Fael! This game is the first in the Thinning Veil line and the Cormac series.	182	£24,123.56 (1206%) in 6 days	2024-06-11	💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑2 players ⏱️ 90 min. Dice Game	💰
The 7 Seas: A New Start	Embark on a thrilling adventure in the world of The 7 Seas. Explore, trade, and fight to become a legend!	145	€12,654.80 (127%) in 3 days	2024-06-09	💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑5 players 👶 10+ ⏱️ 30-90 min.	💰	BGG
Freak War: A Card Game	A fun and simple pick-up-and-play card game—with unhinged rules and a hidden layer of intense strategy.	142	$11,158.00 (112%) in 6 days	2024-06-13	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 6+ ⏱️ 15-60 min.	🎉💰	BGG
EXPENDABLE EMPLOYEES	A Miniature Skirmish Game Inspired by Lethal Company, Content Warning & Helldivers 2!	126	CA$3,136.00 (125%) in 3 days	2024-06-15	💸 Kickstarter	💰🌳
Bouquet	A game of bees, blossoms, and bluffing, Bouquet is a strategic area control game where competition blooms into beauty!	105	$7,152.00 (72%) in 6 days	2024-06-03	💸 Kickstarter 👥 3‑5 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 15-20 min.		BGG
Le Vent Rouge: a Game of French Thieves & Dice	A Competitive "Roll & Spend" Strategy Game For 2-4 Players	98	$7,838.00 (52%) in 4 days	2024-06-07	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players 👶 12+ ⏱️ 60-120 min.	🌳	BGG
PLACES-Bid	Outwit opponents for the most valuable portfolio of buildings, projects, and tokens through strategic bidding, collecting, and assembling.	75	$2,847.61 (28%) in 5 days	2024-06-01	💸 Gamefound 👥 3‑6 players ⏱️ 20 min. Card Game	🌱
Grassroots	The party game to change the world	74	£3,444.00 (57%) in 5 days	2024-06-19	💸 Kickstarter	🎉🌱
Simplicity Lenormand	Unlock the Mysteries of Divination with Ease	67	$7,073.00 (47%) in 4 days	2024-06-15	💸 Kickstarter
Hockey Hardware	A fun, new tabletop game for hockey fans, gamers, fantasy hockey GMs, and players who like to win.	67	CA$15,331.00 (38%) in 4 days	2024-07-15	💸 Kickstarter 👥 2‑4 players ⏱️ 45-120 min.		BGG
CyberQuest. The Game of Cyberpunk Adventures	You are in the year 2081. The Black Chip agency, formed by members who participated in the Second Corporate Conflict on both sides, try to avoid a third conflict between Nakaware and Biosync.Max, an employee at Nakaware, discovers a confidential file that could spark a war. He contacts his sister R…	25	€2,223.51 (12%) in 5 days	2024-06-28	💸 Gamefound 👥 1‑5 players 👶 14+ ⏱️ 45-90 min. Cooperative	🌱	BGG

Notable filtered projects (5)

Name	Description	Backers	Pledged	Ends	Information	Tags
Richard Kane Ferguson's Playmat Collection	Extremely limited edition RKF extended artwork: Tutors, Force of Will and other classic and new Magic: the Gathering playmats & prints!	2698	$274,228.00 (2217%) in 28 days	2024-05-22	💸 Kickstarter	🎉💰🌱
Modular Filament Storage System	3D Printable Modular Filament Storage System	1792	$105,407.00 (2108%) in 27 days	2024-05-23	💸 Kickstarter	💰
Kimera Velvet - Concentrated Acrylic Inks and Pure Pigments	A new line of paints for miniatures, new pure pigments set, new brushes and 150mm academic busts for painting from Kimera Kolors.	1731	€235,046.00 (783%) in 6 days	2024-05-30	💸 Kickstarter	💰🔥
The Savage World of Solomon Kane RPG	Dive deep in the world of Solomon Kane with this revised version of the RPG based upon the incredible works of Robert E. Howard!	1098	€99,363.00 (248%) in 5 days	2024-05-23	💸 Kickstarter	🎉💰🔥🌳
Loot The Monster! - A Project that Grows with Every Backer	A DnD Treasure Trove of Unique Loot for Every Monster. Dungeons and Dragons 5E	1035	€17,424.00 (3872%) in 25 days	2024-05-25	💸 Kickstarter	💰🌱

So at the climax of Revenge of the Sith, when Anakin has gone all 9/11 and is flailing about in his lifelong misery while taking the galaxy down with him, he and Obi-Wan start arguing about political differences, religious beliefs, and whether it’s morally acceptable to murder hundreds if not thousands of people along the way to get there. Obi-Wan takes the valid stance of it not being cool, and makes it clear he’s going to fuck Anakin’s shit up for all his dark deeds. Anakin is eager for this because as said above, he’s riding high on FUBAR as a state of being and seeks the catharsis/validation of beating someone he can project all his problems onto. Thus, we get the baddest lightsaber duel there is, and you know the rest.
Now a lot of the time, people drag their knuckles about the line “Only a Sith deals in absolutes” and how it’s some kind of indicator of inherent Jedi hypocrisy or dramatic irony or George Lucas being a hack or what-fucking-have-you. I don’t really care because I think it's stupid, as Jocasta Nu illustrates for us here, and it’s not the point I want to make. Instead, I’d like to draw your attention to the line Obi-Wan drops before: “Anakin, my allegiance is to the Republic, to democracy!”
Nice delivery by Ewan aside, the meaning of this line is pretty clear: that Obi-Wan, in the face of Anakin flying completely and absolutely batshit off the handle into Divine-Right-of-Kings-For-Those-I-Love, is declaring himself an ally to the Republic and democracy specifically. That he is a very pro-democracy individual and considers it a part of the Republic. Which, cool, because Anakin is totally bugfuck nuts at this point and anything he believes in is probably bugfuck nuts as well so it’s smart to avoid it.
The thing is though, that Obi-Wan is wrong. Actually, he's not just wrong, he's speaking nonsense that is genuinely complete nonsense to hear from a Jedi in the Prequel Era Republic. Because let's recap a few details:
The Jedi Order of the Prequels inducts their initiates as infants or toddlers, with an aged nine Anakin being considered way too old. Now it's their prerogative to take students as they wish (though the thousand years of uniformity unsurprisingly severely backfires), but generally speaking, children under nine are learning things like what's acceptable to put in your mouth and how to read, write, and use the bathroom. The ability to choose "make me a Jedi for life" is genuinely nonexistent for them, so right off the bat, one of the basic democratic cornerstones is also nonexistent for them. It's also not like the Jedi are just Space Catholics/Buddhists: they are explicitly raised and taught to serve the (increasingly corrupt) Republic and its (gradually growing in obscenity until they have to violate their identities as peacekeepers) needs. The actual ability to choose for Jedi is already in the negative double digits.
And for whichever one of you that's breaking their keyboard typing about how Jedi can leave if they want, I'm already aware, thanks for nothing. The thing is that A.) the ability to be able to refuse to participate in something you did not actually sign up for is what I would consider the absolute bare minimum, B.) it doesn't change the part where they don't make the choice to join to begin with, and C.) given how Jedi are taken into the Order usually before they even begin forming concrete memories, we can probably assume that's the reason so few do. When you're raised in that environment for your entire life, the choice to leave is synonymous with abandoning everything you've ever known, which is pretty terrifying.
Moving on: in the Jedi Order, the positions of authority are broken up between the Grand Master (who leads the entire Jedi Order), the Master of the Jedi Order (who is the leaderepresentative officer of the Council), and the Jedi Council. Let's talk about how the buck of leadership is passed around these people, and how there's frighteningly little oversight for the vast majority of the Jedi. Pay attention to the bold words.
The Council is made up of twelve Jedi Masters, including the Grand Master and Master of the Order (this was Yoda and Mace respectively in the PT) who historically are the same person holding both titles. In ROTS, Anakin serves as the senate-appointed representative, an extreme breach of tradition and what sends the Council into dealing with Palpatine's dictatorship (long after the Chad Mace Windu had sobered up to his increasing power and the problems of the war in the EU). While there's no 13th chair made for him, it's never clarified who Anakin was replacing or why there was an open spot at the moment. Though we can probably assume it was due to a wartime event, like the previous Council member being violently executed with a planet full of civilians on the HoloNet by the Separatists as part of their terror campaigns a week ago, it ultimately doesn't matter because this isn't about him.
The twelve seats are split between five lifetime members, four long-term members (and the end to that term is entirely decided on what's the "approved end date", not an actual hard number), and three limited-term members (that limit is not stated). If a lifetime appointment member dies, then it's possible for a long-term member to succeed them or for the Council to choose another Jedi Master at their own discretion, and the long-and-short-term members can be elevated to another position in the Council and have their term extended. The Council, in addition to serving as the liasion between the Jedi and the Senate, are also responsible for deciding when Padawans have progressed to the point of being ready for the Trials to become a Jedi Knight.
(Before I get some wannabe trying to blast me in the comments for using supplementary material to make an argument, take a look at the lineup of the Council in the movies. In the ten year period between TPM and AOTC, there have been only two switches in membership (which in extended material usually involves both being killed), and the three year period after AOTC leading up to ROTS being a war makes it questionable whether term limits became a thing, or Council members just stepped down or got killed off. Not really ideal).
Now notice how, nowhere in the above, is there a "members of the Jedi Order vote for who should be on the Council" option. Even if you want to argue that there should be a qualification factor, like say, holding the rank of Master, that still leaves a large candidate pool open where the actual rank-and-file of the Jedi could decide who they wanted making decisions. We're talking about a group that's supposed to be at least 10,000 members strong at this point, I somehow believe there are enough people willing and capable of leadership given the opportunity. Let alone the idea of immutable, set term limits.
Instead, it's basically just Yoda (also: very telling that the dude who probably only missed a four digit lifespan due to an unholy amount of trauma and misery at the tail end of it is a key decision maker for everything) and a couple of other people (who very well might have similarly lengthy lifetimes on account of being aliens) holding onto power for insanely extended periods of time and selecting who else gets to hold on to power for insanely extended periods of time at the whims of this inner circle. This is obviously a little less than preferable for how leadership should be handled, and that's not even taking into account how the Council seems to be the only real governing body of the Jedi Order.
But let's sidestep how completely anti-democratic the Jedi Order is internally, and focus on its external agency. The Jedi, despite being members of the Republic and a key cornerstone of it as a government institution, are never shown able to participate in the Senate in any meaningful way, shape, or form, such as actually voting for senators to be representatives of any star system. Let me remind you, this is the same senate where megacorporations get to have their own seats, so we aren't exactly talking about a sacred and honorable institution here.
Even if you want to assume the Jedi wouldn't want to influence the elections of systems they technically aren't part of (because of the above-mentioned total removal from their homes and cultures to become Jedi), there's an enormous leap between that and the basic ability to vote for who you'll be taking orders from. Why can't the Jedi have a voice in the government when Space Exxon gets to have their own senator? Even if it's just something as basic as "participate in the vote for who will become Chancellor of the Republic", that would be A.) an enormous leap towards the Jedi Order getting to participate in a democracy, and B.) exercising the absolute bare minimum of power in the system they are part of and help uphold. Maybe if there had been Senatorial Representative Jedi Master Shii-Par Kewwll in the PT, they could have turned the vote against Palpatine in TPM! Or advised Jar Jar against giving Palpatine emergency powers in AOTC! But nah, we can't have the defenders of the Republic decide anything about how it operates, that's too much.
Actually though, scratch that, the Jedi wouldn't actually be participating in a democracy even if there was a Senatorial Representative Jedi Master Shii-Par Kewell. Because according to the Prequels worldbuilding, senators don't even have to actually be selected by the systems they represent. Let's look at Padme's case: She is supposed to represent the Chommel sector of the Republic, a system that holds about thirty-six different planets. You would imagine then, Padme had to be elected by all of them, or some other selective process, to act as their representative, no?
Nope. The only system we are ever informed of regarding the election of senators is that 1/36th of their constituency-in this case-their home planet's ruler-has them serve as the representative. Even if Padme is from Naboo, that doesn't make her part of the Queen's administration if she serves as the senator of the entire Chommel sector. The fact we only get one other named political representative for the Chommel sector in Jar Jar, who is representing the second species of Naboo, doesn't suggest much involvement from the other planets they are supposed to be serving.
Hell, Padme herself wasn’t even democratically elected if we go off her own account of Naboo’s post-TPM political history. After she served her second term as Queen, the population wanted to abolish term limits to keep her in power, which she refused to accept and the next Queen, Jamilla, was elected. Queen Jamilla then has Padme become their senator through the tried-and-true democratic process of…requesting her to serve. Nowhere is the mention of other candidates, an election, anything that isn’t just the monarch asking the previous monarch very nicely if she’ll take over the job for the entire sector.
It also bears noting that the only reason there is a current monarch that’s not Padme is because Padme refused to follow the people’s wishes, which were to break term limits on the monarchy for her to stay as Queen…which can be summarized as “one person making everyone else agree”. Now, that’s not to criticize Padme for preserving what shreds of legitimacy Naboo has as a government, but breaking term limits so someone can spend fifteen years total controlling policy is nuts. From fourteen to twenty-nine, Padme has massive control over Naboo’s politics, which is an insane amount of time even if people had wanted her to serve another term as Queen and presumably were all in on her being Senator as a result. Even if the people had wanted it, there not being a formal election means that this system is just begging to be abused. Wonder how Palpatine got his start, huh…
So to recap: if you’re a Jedi in the Prequels, you have been picked up from when you were very small to be raised in a system you will have no conceivable influence on at any point in your life. As part of that system, you are also taught to serve another system you will never have any conceivable influence over, and it’s very likely that the vast majority of the populace that make up that system don’t have any hope of conceivably influencing it either. This is the amount of agency you will have over your entire life, unless you decide “hey, I’m going to leave now, can I keep the lightsaber so I can fight off the wolves I’m being thrown to?”, which the Jedi at least have the good will to offer as an option in contrast to the Republic. Turns out that when Anakin’s starting to talk about authoritarianism in AOTC, he’s actually just telling Padme about how the Jedi and Republic operate as institutions, and how the daily life of the average member of both is just getting teabagged by everything ever. There was never any democracy to save in the Republic, the characters are all living in a shared delusion that cracks on an accelerated timeline when Palpatine starts his Sithma grindset, and the only solution was to send Anakin in with a flamethrower and let him cry himself out burning everything down, so the ashes could be used as soil and his tears as water to grow something better with.
I should probably be clear that I don’t get the sense much of this was intentional. Lucas often flip-flops in his BTS commentary about the Jedi, and that’s without getting into how it actually plays out in the stories he writes. Despite the Republic and Clone Wars being a deliberate criticism of America, a lot of the politics are muddied and not really fleshed out for the audience. The lack of interest in Padme as a character is clear for everyone to see, so it’s no surprise a lot of her story has more than a few headscratchers. I think it’s clear there’s a lot of stuff in the PT that wasn’t completely thought out or put together well, and this is another instance of such a thing occurring.
Ultimately to me, it doesn’t matter too much what that intent was. If your takeaway from the Prequels is that the Jedi and Republic were hopelessly fucked from the beginning and both systems needed to be entirely flipped on their heads to even begin to be democratic, all that matters is that you can back it up from within the films themselves, as I have done with the above. The point is, the Jedi and Republic were not soulfully democratic in any sense, their defenders and allies were not supporters of democracy as a result, and Obi-Wan took yet another L. It’s just how he rolls, gotta love that for him.
TL;DR: A lot of the ways the Jedi operate as an entity, and their dynamics with themselves, in service to the Republic, and outside parties as part of the Republic, makes far more sense when you read about how George Lucas considers them to be peacekeepers in the same way mafia dons are. Based Nute Gunray, dodging an offer he couldn’t refuse in TPM?
(Also if you come away from this post thinking it’s point was “OP is saying the Jedi are bad/evil” and I see that shit in the comments: you’re a moron. This post has sailed over your head. You have the same level of reading ability and intelligence as the Avatar movies do cultural impact. Go outside and touch the grass.)

I had a problem last year where I did not receive proxy voting materials for a foreign stock that I purchased through Fidelity on the OTC market. Eventually, someone was able to help me get them, but only several days after voting closed. I am in the same situation this year. When sending a message through Fidelity's site, the response I received was where to find proxy voting materials on the site's documents section and a note that I did not have any available (which had stated the obvious).
I sent an e-mail to the company's investor relations which put me in touch with the share registrar for the stock. I was advised that they did not see my name or Fidelity's on the register. I then asked further questions about who was listed.
It was explained to me that the shares are traded via the market makers and that I am not listed on the register directly. They explained that Fidelity would hold the shares via a sub-custodian in their country (such as JP Morgan, HSBC, etc.), so there would be a foreign custodian who is the registered holder (with the power to vote directly) and I being the beneficial owner of the shares.
There is no time left for me to register a proxy vote before the deadline this year. This is unfortunate, as the vote could severely impact my investment. I would like to know what I need to do with Fidelity to ensure that moving forward, I can be provided the necessary proxy voting materials so they would be available moving forward.
Any assistance that could be provided would be greatly appreciated!

So, as pretty much everyone knows, KOTOR games has a mod list for each game that you can access from the sidebar. While I do not doubt that Snigaroo spent countless hours testing the Mod Build and ensuring it won't break the game, I find some parts of it... unnecessary.
For one, it includes texture remasters and some of them are even marked as "Essenital" meaning he REALLY wants you to install it. I find Texture stuff to be optional, and that it should have it's own dedicated list rather than what he considers (his words, not mine) "Is an improvement of the vanilla experience rather than the creation of a new experience."
For example, his K1 Full Mod List incudes a mod that adds a whole new section to the game that isn't made by BioWare themselves, but rather a fan expansion. He describes this mod to be "Lore Friendly with KOTOR and SWTOR", however it's not in vanilla so can you really consider it "Vanilla+"?
So I've "curated" his Mod Builds to include ONLY bug fixes and content restoration that makes sense to "restore". For example, there's a certain mod that allows you to get one certain companion "earlier" than intended, but the dialogue makes it clear that it doesn't make sense should you obtain them at that point.
EXTREMELY IMPORTANT NOTE: THIS GUIDE ASSUMES YOU'RE FOLLOWING "KOTOR 1 FULL" BUILD WHICH DOES INCLUDE SPOILERS. I WILL NOT MENTION IN-GAME SPOILERS HERE, BUT KNOW THAT MOD DESCRIPTIONS ON DEADLYSTRAEM/MOD BUILD ITSELF MIGHT
Notice: K1 is a relatively "stable" game. While bugfixes themselves do fix very important issues, if you opt to play with no mods you'll be 90% fine. Issues mostly stem from a certain Cathar lady who can join your party depending on your choices, where it's possible to break her companion questline easily.
As I have no explicit permission from any of the mod makers, I will not include direct links to their mod. Rather, you will have to find the mod name and install instructions from "K1 Full" build itself.

1. (PERSONALLY NOT SUGGESTED)"KOTOR Dialogue Fixes": I've used it's "only corrections" version that is supposedly only fixes typos. I have... doubts about some of the choices they made with their changes. However, if you hate mustache twirling evil dialogue etc then it's full version should do the trick.
2. "JC's Minor Fixes for K1": It's a collection of bugfixes made by JC, a prominent KOTOR modder.
3. "Ajunta Pall Unique Appearance":While I did say "no graphic mods", this fixes a boss' texture so instead of using a generic enemy he has a unique look that fits to lore so I'm including it.
4. "KOTOR Community Patch":Your usual major bugfix patch.
5. "PFHB02 Eye Fix":A small fix for a certain Female PC head.
6. "JC's Korriban: Back in Black for K1 2.3":Fixes oddities in Korriban NPC's appearances.
7. "Korriban Workbench": I will admit, this DOES get outside of this curated list's point, but it's a logical addition to game that not only doesn't break the lore, but can help player immersely. It adds a workbench to one of the locations where you can utilize it extensively.
8. "Senni Vek Restoration":It adds a certain NPC you encounter to the boss battle with his boss.
9. "Ixgil the Bith":This fixes one bug that you'll only notice for five seconds and has no negative consequence should you not install it.
10. "Hidden Bek Control Room":Unlocks a locked door that is probably not meant to be locked.
11. "Juhani Restoration":Remember when I've said "You will be fine if you don't mod K1 other than a certain Cathar lady"? Yeah, this helps that immersely.
12. "Vision Enhancement":Yet another great mod from JC, fixes issues with few important cutscenes
13. "Balanced Pazaak":Ever played Pazaak and wonder why you're losing? Because NPC's are cheating worse than actual casinos. This helps, but not entirely eliminates, their cheating.
14. "Camera Replacement":Fixes camera angle in your ship.
15. "Improved Grenades":Makes grenades actually usefull after early-game.
16. "Turret Minigame Remover":PLEASE FOR LOVE OF EVERY HOLY FIGURE YOU BELIEVE IN, INSTALL THIS. YOU'LL THANK THE AUTHOR FOR IT.
17. "Repeater Attacks Restoration":Makes Repeaters useful
18. "Tutorial Remover":Install this after your first ever playthru, skips gameplay exposition at the beginning.
19. "Dark Sacrifice":Restores a cut ending for Female PC
20. "Sunry Enhancement":Improves a certain character's personal questline.
21. "Davik Slave Change":Use Option 2. It gives some consequences to a certain bad action.
22. "Security Spikes for K1":Security Spikes are meant to boost your Security skill while picklocking doors. However, they do not work on PC and Android version for some unknown reason. This mod either applies a band aid fix, or replaces them with credits instead.
23. "Trandoshans Rescaled":Makes Trandoshans' size lore accurate
24. "Custom Selkath Animation":Lets Selkath do the "angry" animation
25. "Sneak Attack Restoration":K1 cut advanced levels of "Sneak Attack" feat that Scoundrels get by leveling up. This restores that so Stealth players can deal good damage
26. "Sherruk with Lightsabers":Lets a boss who collects Lightsabers, actually use them. A.K.A KOTOR's General Griveous. 27."Helena Shan Improvement":Replaces one of your significant party members' mother with a texture that is more similar to her.
27. "Dueling Arena Adjustment":Fixes a certain (like you don't understand from mod name lol) area.
28. "Bendak Non-Darkside Option":Helps pure LS players to collect a bounty without ruining their LS run
29. "Kashyyyk Forcefield Rework":Fixes a certain cutscene
30. "Engine Lab Bench":Fixes a yet another small issue that is mildly annoying
31. "Missing Lamps Fix":Few lamps in game doesn't appear while still providing light source, this fixes that.
32. "Juhani Romance Enhancement":Remember our broken Cathar lady? Yeah, this further fixes her
33. "Dodonna's Transmission":Fixes a logical error
34. "Ending Enhancement":Improves DS ending
35. "Elder Droid Unique VO":Fixes some voiceovers.
36. "Ajunta Pall's Swords":It adds value to afromentioned swords.
37. "Weapon Stats Rebalance":Makes blasters useful
38. "Training Lightsabers":Your PC will now use proper Training weaponry
39. "Logical Datapads":Expands datapads' names so you can find what you're looking for easier
40. "NPC Alignment Fix":Remember some weaponry doing damage against those who aligned themselves to LS/DS? Yeah turns out it's almost useless in vanilla. No more!
41. "Galaxy Map Fix":Corrects the map in your ship to be lore accurate.
42. "Remove Duplicate TGA/TPC":Deletes duplicate stuff so your game doesn't commit crash.
43. "4GB Patcher":Essential for every game that is 32-bit, it lets KOTOR utilise much more RAM than usual and reduces the memory related issues

Hi dear Fantasy World Building community,
I am sending this message through different reddit communities and it is mainly focused on game creation and writing (through platforms like RPG Maker, Twine, Ren'Py and others).
First of all, I am kind of new and unfamiliar with Reddit, so apologies if I infringe on any rules. Please let me know, and I will correct any mistakes.
To introduce myself, my name is Alioune, a 35-year-old French game-making, amateur creation, and interactive fiction enthusiast. I run a (French-speaking, sorry XD) blog on these two subjects: https://medium.com/@aliounebfall In addition to my blog, I am working on a project for an amateur creation platform. As part of this project, I would like to conduct a small market study through a survey (very quick, less than 5 minutes) to understand the habits of creators and writers. Hence my call to the Fantasy World Building community.
For those who wish to participate in the survey, feel free to do so here: https://us2.list-manage.com/survey?u=2fc1d183a9c7896d5e4cd6867&id=201fb4b454
A huge thank you to the participants, and may the force be with you for all your beautiful ongoing projects! ❤️

I've had my switch for a while, but I really want to buff my collection. Any recommendations? So the games I have to my name include:
Physical •Pokémon Let's Go Eevee •Pokémon Let's Go Pikachu •Pokémon Sword •Pokémon Shield •Pokémon Brilliant Diamond •Pokémon Shining Pearl •Pokémon Scarlet •Pokémon Violet •Pokémon Legends Arceus •Zelda BotW •Zelda TotK •Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition •Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity •Zelda Link's Awakening •Zelda Skyward Sword •Mario Kart 8 •Mario Maker 2 •Paper Mario the Origami King •Mario 3D World + Bowsers Fury •Borderlands 1 •Hades •Subnautica + Subnautica Below Zero double pack •Fire Emblem Three Houses •Animal Crossing New Horizons
Digital •Borderlands 2 •Borderlands the Pre-Sequel •Stardew Valley •Resident Evil 4 •South Park the Stick of Truth •South Park the Fractured But Whole •The Force Unleashed •Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy •Minecraft
"To Get" list is currently •Mario Odyssey •Mario Bros U Deluxe •Mario Bros Wonder •Fire Emblem Engage •Super Mario RPG •Luigi's Mansion 3 •Paper Mario the Thousand-Year Door (Upon Release) •Metroid Dread •Bayonetta 3 •Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze •Kirby and the Forgotten Land •Mario vs Donkey Kong •Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle •Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope

Hi dear Interactive Fiction community,
I am sending this message through different reddit communities about game creation and writing (through platforms like RPG Maker, Twine, Ren'Py).
First of all, I am kind of new and unfamiliar with Reddit, so apologies if I infringe on any rules. Please let me know, and I will correct any mistakes.
To introduce myself, my name is Alioune, a 35-year-old French game-making, amateur creation, and interactive fiction enthusiast. I run a (French-speaking, sorry XD) blog on these two subjects: https://medium.com/@aliounebfall In addition to my blog, I am working on a project for an amateur creation platform. As part of this project, I would like to conduct a small market study through a survey (very quick, less than 5 minutes) to understand the habits of creators and makers. Hence my call to the Interactive Fiction community.
For those who wish to participate in the survey, feel free to do so here: https://us2.list-manage.com/survey?u=2fc1d183a9c7896d5e4cd6867&id=201fb4b454
A huge thank you to the participants, and may the force be with you for all your beautiful ongoing projects! ❤️

If you’re a designer, a yarn dyer, a spinner, a hook maker, seamstress, you name it, today is YOUR day! Promote yourself and your art below 👇🏼 and tell us how we can get our hands on it!

Welcome to the /WeAreTheMusicMakers Weekly Feedback Thread! The comments below in this post is the only place on this subreddit to get feedback on your music, your artist name, your website layout, your music video, or anything else. (Posts seeking feedback outside of this thread will be deleted without warning and you will receive a temporary ban.)
This thread is active for one week after it's posted, at which point it will be automatically replaced.

Rules:

**Post only one song.- *Original comments linking to an album or multiple songs will be removed.

• Write at least three constructive comments. - Give back to your fellow musicians!
  
• No promotional posts. - No contests, No friend's bands, No facebook pages.
  

Tips for a successful post:

• Give a quick outline of your ideas and goals for the track. - "Is this how I trap?" or "First try at a soundtrack for a short film" etc.
  
• Ask for feedback on specific things. - "Any tips on EQing?" or "How could I make this section less repetitive?"
  

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Questions, comments, suggestions? Hit us up!

Hey all,
​
I've been running into the following problem for a few days. I am trying to customise the horiztonal section of this CMS detail page. Namely, I want to add more space so that I can add more items. These items are already in there and can just be seen on mobile. Only on desktop and tablet I can't get it to work, does anyone know where I should look?
​
Fourroom (the maker of the template) didn't reply sadly.
​
thanks in advance!
​
Link to the environment:
https://lars-de-nijs-r---digital-designer-fotog.webflow.io/project/club

Context
Michael Jackson’s song 'Smooth Criminal' featured on his seventh album Bad (1987). The song is about a woman being attacked in their apartment. It used the refrain “Annie Are You Ok?” which is used to teach students CPR on CPR mannequin Annie (Wikipedia, 2023). “Resusci Anne was developed by the Norwegian toy maker Åsmund S. Lærdal and the Austrian-Czech physician Peter Safar and American physician James Elam” (Wikipedia, 2023). The oldest version is the proto-CPR mannequin of the world. It was invented after Asmund “was alerted to… physicians and engineers in Baltimore that had a new and much more effective method for resuscitation, involving mouth-to-mouth breathing”. The creation was sentimental as Tore, his son, had experienced drowning. The doll was modelled after the face of the death mask, ‘L’ inconnue de la Seine’ translated from French to English meaning ‘The unknown of the Seine’ (A rich heritage, 2023). They chose the face of a young female as male doctors would’ve felt uncomfortable practising on a same-sexed doll . Additionally, to resurrect a girl “millions of times is at the centre of a macabre mystery.”
Legend
Legend states, a young female corpse was pulled from the river Seine, the death mask was moulded on the corpse's face by a pathologist as they were beheld by her beauty. The corpse awaited with other bodies for identification which never came in the Paris Morgue. This practise was real as “two-thirds of the corpses dealt with by the morgue fished out of the Seine" were "suicides, accidental drownings or murders” (The Guardian, 2007).
Eric Nadeau stated "the pathologist asked for a mould to be made of the young woman’s face and the closest moulder was [their] very own Michel Lorenzi who founded Artlier Lorenzi, a molding workshop founded in 1871 “19, Rue Racine” (Morgan, 2017) . A suggestion from a now deleted post by users: and the link provided by in this thread provided contradicting info, Phoebe Judge stated that Eric Nardeau stated that the mask wasn’t created of a corpse, but Lorenzi stated in a 1914 French interview, but of a living model in 1866. The mask was made due to the model's popularity with other artists (The unknown woman, p.8, 2023).
According to Nadeau: “Michel Lorenzi, who was from an old moulding family based in a small village near Lucca, Italy and arrived in Paris around 1850” (Morgan, 2017). Although, another source stated that “Michel had a house in Piano. di Coreglia, came to settle in Paris around 1868” (LORENZI Pierre- Sculptor, n.d). It's possible the mask wasn't created in France but Italy according to the date Michel Lorenzi moved and the creation year of the mask provided by Nadeau.
Debunkers
Claire Forestier, a descendant of the original Lorenzi stated the death mask’s face has " full, rounded cheeks ... smooth skin…[usually akin to] casts taken from living faces [as they are] are so clear, so detailed, that when you look at the eyelids you can just see the eyeballs' movement underneath. That's the case with the Inconnue" (The Guardian, 2007).
“… moored at their headquarters near the Pont d'Austerlitz, Chief Brigadier Pascal Jacquin was less than convinced that the girl was dead when the mask was made” according to them “the drowned and suicides, they never look so peaceful. They're swollen, they don't look nice" (Grange, 2013).
"In 1960, Pierre Lièvre reported to the magazine "Chercheurs et Curieux." The interview stated the then owner of Atelier Lorenzi's ancestor (presumably Michel Lorenzi) had "molded the Inconnue at the request of a forensic doctor, as quoted on March 28, 2020 in the "Cousu Main editions blog titled "L'Inconnue de la Seine" on cousumain.worldpress.com"". The writer Jean Ducourneau, whilst writing The Church of Céline "(referenced below) [35, 36]", made a visit to rue Racine, they wrote the found that the mask "had been lifted on the face of a very pretty workshop model, reminding us that it is technically impossible for this mask to have been lifted on a corpse," reiterating the technical impossibility of this veil being lifted from a deceased body. "(In fact very quickly the rigidity cadaver blocks the mandibular joint and the smile would rather have been a rictus or a grimace)"
Origin of the Legend
“The name L'Inconnue de la Seine is quite late and probably dates from Ernst Benkard's collection of photographs in 1926 [25, 26] … placed the Unknown Woman of the Seine on the cover of his collection of death masks, Das ewige Antlitz (The Eternal Face) [Figure 20]. The book was published in 1926. The myth of her death mask probably originates from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Cahiers de Malte Laurids Brigge, published in Germany in 1910, in French 1911*.* “Rilke arrived in Paris in 1902 and stayed at 3 rue de l'Abbé-de-l'Épée near rue Racine. [He] mentions the mask of the Unknown woman associated with that of Beethoven, in the window of the molder Lorenzi, rue Racine. “The face of the young drowned woman that was cast in the morgue, because it was beautiful and because it smiled, because it smiled so deceptively . ". [23L page 72 Points edition] [Figure 11].” (Jean-Pierre, 2022).
Beginning Art History
According to Gaelle-Salliot (2017), Lorenzi’s grandniece stated that the death mask was first used for the 19th tetes d’expression at Ecole Beaux Arts. The author cited Edourd Papet’s (2008, p. 20) fact that the death mask was earliest depicted in Charles Bargue and Jean Leon-Gerome’s cours de dessin a drawing manual which features a drawing of Homer. She is depicted in Figure 2 (Gaëlle-Salliot, 2017, p.7). This drawing manual didn't reference a story of that of a drowned girl etc.
Potential real facts about the Jane Doe
An alternative name for the live cast is ‘La Belle Italienne’, from Frenct to English meaning, ‘The Beautiful Italian’. She’s seen in A. Daprato & Co. Boston, Manufacturer of Plastic Arts. “Several plaster casts manufacturer in the United States added a portrait of the girl in their [catalogue] collection, but in all [catalogue] she is named as La Belle Italienne. Why Italian?. This is a curious fact, it is a true information or an error because the girl was unknown?” She is seen with the name in “P.P. Caproni & Bro. Boston, Plastic Arts. 1911 cat [-ologue]. Masks n° 13525 La Belle Italienne, from life $ 1,00” (Felice, 2012). “Forestier thinks she must have been at most 16 for her skin to be so firm and smooth” (The Guardian, 2007). “According to the draughtsman Georges Villa, who received this information from his master, the painter Jules Joseph Lefebvre, the impression was taken from the face of a young model who died of tuberculosis around 1875, but no trace of the original cast remained” (M, Bessy, 1981 cited by Wikipedia, 2023)”. However, according to Marious Grout, the model was famous and working for “artists around 1875” (Gaëlle-Salliot, pp.6-7, 2015).
False leads
According to Alvarez (2015) the model of mask gained success in German with their father in a Hamburg factory that reproduced the mask (Gaëlle-Salliot, 2017). This fact doesn’t lead to anywhere. She was also identified as a Russian prostitute named Valerie who committed suicide, buried in Pere- Lachaise (Gaëlle-Salliot, 2017). Although, this comes from the fictional book The Mask by William Wood (G. E. W. H, 1951, p.6). As well as, Ewa Lazlo, a creation of John Goto, who wrote a fictional investigative story identifying the model. They “assumed that people would have a postmodern view and treat it as fictional," and they "really didn't expect [people] to take it seriously" as people online took his story to be factual (Grange, 2013).
Conclusion
She has the artistic reverence and mystery of a once youthful girl alike Afghan girl. “In light of the Cold War, the portrait was described as the "First World's Third World Mona Lisa"” according to S. Hesford and Kozol (2005) cited by Wikipedia, 2023. A title formally given to L’ inconnue de la Seine “because of her mysterious smile, “Mona Lisa of suicide” (Aragon)” (Jean-Pierre, 2022). The legend casts a great shadow over her identity, as the story ends with a corpse; she is muse who’s story is reinvented time and time again. It is possible that not resources all have been exhausted, there is potentially more information that could be obtained by the Artlier Lorenzi. Additionally, we still don’t known the causes-effects that lead to Georges Villa obtaining information about her, it is possible that other documents about this figure exist from this contemporary art community . If this person is Italian - a small possibility – this person’s life could have been documented in Italian records waiting for a face to match the details.
TLDR: An unidentified model possibly of Italian origin, was used to create a live cast of a bust. It was recreated repeatedly. The bust was misreported to a be a “death mask” of girl who drowned in the river Seine, in late 19th century France, from a pathologist in awe of her beauty created the mask. Long after, she became a muse for many artists. Then, she became the model of the first CPR doll in the 1960s. Finally, the victim of a melodic tragedy ‘Smooth Criminal’. No one knows the model’s identity.
Fact-file
Name: Unknown
Age: 16+/- (The Guardian, 2007)
Born: 1850+/- (Based upon the possible creation year of the mask from The unknown woman, p.8, 2023 and possible age range of the model from the Guardian, 2007)
Modelled: 1866? (The Unknown woman, p.8, 2023)
Death year: 1875? (Bessy, 1981 cited by Wikipedia, 2023)
Death cause: Tuberculosis? (Bessy, 1981 cited by Wikipedia, 2023)
Ethnicity: Italian? (Felice, 2012)
Occupation: Model for live casts
Place of work: Lucca, Italy (LORENZI Pierre- Sculptor, n.d) or Artlier Lorenzi, France (Morgan, 2017)?
Employer: Michel Lorenzi (The Guardian, 2007 et al.)
References:

• Bessy, Maurice (1981). 'Mort, où est ton visage?' Monaco: Éditions du Rocher via Wikipedia (2023). 'L' inconnue de la Seine'. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Inconnue_de_la_Seine [Accessed: 18th March 2024]
• Felice, Andrea (2012). ''La Belle Italienne'. FELICECALCHI The Plaster Casting Journal'. Available at: https://felicecalchi.blogspot.com/2012/05/la-belle-italienne.html [Accessed: 7th Dec 2023]
• Gaëlle-Salliot, Anne (2015). 'Drowned Muse: Casting the Unknown Woman of the Seine Across the Tides of Modernity'. Oxford University Press. Available at: https://books.google.com/books?id=1QBlCgAAQBAJ [Accessed: 18th March 2024]
• 'G. E. W. H' (1951). ‘New Fiction’. The Sydney Morning Herald. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tPkQAAAAIBAJ&pg=PA6&dq=The+Sydney+Morning+Herald+l%27inconnue+de+la+seine&article_id=2195,5150417&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiDqpGim5iGAxX8_7sIHQwoB7UQ6AF6BAgHEAI [Accessed: 6th Dec 2023]
• Guardian (2007). 'Ophelia of the Seine'. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/dec/01/france.art [Accessed: 6th Dec 2023]
• Grange, Jeremy (2013). 'Resusci Anne and L'Inconnue: The Mona Lisa of the Seine'. BBC News. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24534069. [Accessed: 6th Nov 2023]
• Jean-Pierre, Haberer (2022). 'From “The Unknown Woman of the Seine” to Resusci Anne'. CHAR-fr. 22nd Nov 2022. Available at: https://char-fr.net/*Haberer-Jean-Pierre*.html [Accessed: 18th March 2024]
• LORENZI Pierre- Sculptor (n.d). 'Monumentsmorts'. Available at: https://monumentsmorts.univ-lille.fauteu1881/lorenzipierre/ [Accessed: 7th Dec 2023]
• Morgan, Emma (2021). ''Journées du patrimoine: Meet the maker behind world's most kissed face'.' Connexion France. Available at: https://beta.connexionfrance.com/tag/art [Accessed: 9th Dec 2023]
• One Million Lives, (2023). 'A rich Heritage'. Available at: https://one-million-lives.com/a-rich-heritage/ [Accessed: 6th Dec 2023]
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🪞
Welcome back to the Asylum write-up, where we explore the decade-long slow-motion car crash that is the Emilie Autumn fandom.
Sorry this installment took so long to upload! Just a heads-up, I may take some time to deliver the last one too – these posts take forever to format on Reddit's finicky-ass editor, and my dumb real life is currently keeping me from precious Internet time. Thank you for your patience! You have my word that everyone who pre-ordered the final installment will receive a PERSONAL, HANDWRITTEN letter autographed and illustrated by me, a list of the snacks I consumed while composing this write-up, some exclusive behind-the-scenes secrets, and a pony.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4.1 – Part 4.2 Part 5

Places, everyone This is a test Throw your stones Do your damage Your worst, and your best (...) And if I had a dollar For every time I repented the sin And commit the same crime I'd be sitting on top of the world today (“God Help Me”, 2006🎵)

Quick recap of where we left off. First, there were five to ten halcyon years of pleasant and meaningful interactions between EA and her blossoming fanbase, prominently by way of her official forum. Then, circa 2009-2010, EA's online presence shifted towards sudden anger outbursts, ban-hammering, and an increasingly top-down communication style.
This created a sort of primordial rift within the fanbase, between those who supported EA's right to speak her mind and regulate her own fan spaces however she pleased – and those who thought that her reactions were rude and inappropriate (at best), and that even fan spaces should allow for reasonable, non-abusive criticism of the artist.
Between a poorly-handled book release (see Part 3), the controversial (Part 2) or dubiously true (Part 4) contents of said book, and serious shade from various former collaborators (Part 5), more and more fans had pressing thoughts about EA's work ethic and choices. EA attempted damage control through drastic forum rules that made it virtually impossible to voice any “serious” critical opinion. It didn't work, of course: instead of squashing the mutiny, she created a schism.
Critical fans and active haters started congregating on unofficial platforms.

“WITH MUFFINS LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?”: TROLL LIKE A GIRL

So here we were, the early 2010s. The official forum (which had about 700 members in 2006, if you recall) was now thousands-strong, reaching just over 12,000 registered users in 2012 – not all of them active, but still. In terms of sheer numbers and content creation, the party was POPPIN'... but increasingly in parts of the Asylum that escaped EA's jurisdiction, such as Tumblr, where they could speak their mind freely.

You play the victim very well You've built your self-indulgent hell You wanted someone to understand you Well, be careful what you wish for, because I do (“I Know Where You Sleep”, 2006🎵)

In one wing of Asylum Tumblr, a smattering of call-out blogs emerged, which laid out EA's various lies, faux pas, shitty takes, and general deep-seated terribleness in detailed timelines and screenshots (or, short of that, long-winded bullet points). While many such blogs framed it as “serious” whistleblowing and did their best to remain as fact-based and neutral as they could, there was some genuine disgust, animosity and creepiness towards EA on that side of Tumblr; for some ex-fans, “exposing the truth” was mostly justify obsessive hatred, prying and verbal abuse. Some, for instance, felt the bizarre need to side with EA's mother in their estrangement. (One user, with the URL “emilyautumnfischkopf”, argued in a serious and down-to-earth tone - but with zero sources - that EA's upbringing had been nothing but peaceful and supportive until she ungratefully kicked her loving family to the curb for no reason at all. They were later revealed 🔍 to have an alternate handle as “eaisalyingcunt”.)
Either way, through these blogs, a number of potential drama bombs that had mostly flown under the radar were dredged up from over the years – some of which were hard to ignore, even for supportive fans. Where to begin?
There was that nonsense in-joke song, captured twice on camera during the 2009 tour (to very little outrage, at the time), crassly called “Manatee Retard”📺. Or EA's scathing response, in print, to a wheelchair user who found it insensitive that she used a bedazzled wheelchair as a prop to do sexy acrobatics on stage. (“Your offence taken at my hard-won self-acceptance proves that I indeed have something to fight against”, she wrote). Spoken word tracks where she made trivializing knock-knock jokes about serious mental illnesses she didn't have, like schizophrenia and OCD. Multiple instances of calling Britney Spears a “bimbo” and a “Hollywood fucked-up”, resentfully claiming that she only shaved her head because she was “hopped up on drugs” and certainly not because she was “bipolar”, a word the press liked to wield as an insult anyway. (“That's almost like calling someone a retard!” Yeah, heaven forbid.) The meanest, most distasteful paragraphs in the book. Basically everything problematic EA had ever said or written.📝 In retrospect, it had been a long time coming, but it was a lot to take in – and certainly more off-putting, even to less emotionally invested fans, than silly lies about her age and last name.
In another wing of Asylum Tumblr, some fans had had it up to here and just wanted to have fun. 🎵 If Plague Rats had learned one valuable lesson from EA, it was how to crack a joke in the face of absurd tragedy – and the general state of the EA fandom certainly warranted a few.
In 2012, Fight Like a Girl was released. After six long years, three of which had been peaceful, the Opheliac era was officially over. The new album and ensuing tour confirmed that the Asylum had entered a process of glamorous Broadway-style militarization. 🎵📺
The mood board was “Roman general meets Vegas showgirl meets Victorian street urchin”.🪞 The color palette was, to naysayers, “musty pink and rotten, stale piss yellow”. 🐀 The keyword was “REVENGE” (through the power of... self-expression! sorority! brutal assault with rusty medical implements!). The chorus of the title song had an intriguing run-on line about getting “revenge on the world, or at least 49% of the people in it” 🎵 – which seemed like an awful lot, and was widely interpreted (to cheers, boos, or uncomfortable sighs) as a misandrist jab at literally all men on Earth.
The show was essentially a demo version of the musical, in that the setlist vaguely reflected the order of events in the story – but prior reading was essential in order to get what the hell was going on on stage. This one Broadway reviewer had not perused the literature before seeing the show 🔍, and hated: the set, the choreography, the skits, the plot, the lyrics, the music, the concept. (Seriously, you should read the review. It's not even my show and I feel like quitting show business.)
Pre-show VIP encounters, now violin-free, were lorded over by EA's new manager🐀, whose official title was “Asylum Headmistress”. (Interesting choice – she sounds fun!) The swag bags were less substantial than before, and the “greet” part of the meet-and-greet was rarely more than a quick hug and photo op.
On Twitter, EA continued to embrace her “I am very badass” fronting attitude...

Often wonder if cyberbullies r aware they’re fucking w/ a girl who’s BFs w/ maker of the SAW films & is marrying a knife-throwing scorpion. (🐀📝)

...and her taste for needlessly inflammatory statements. About an aisle sign in a supermarket:

If this does not infuriate you, then you're a fucking potato.

(Again with the confounding crypto-ableism, EA! 🔍) She also went through a phase of raging against Lady Gaga 📝, who had stolen her idea of using a wheelchair on stage as an able-bodied woman. 🔍 That failed to convince anyone that she wasn't the histrionic diva that haters made her out to be.
Spurred on by EA's rallying cries and “us vs them” mentality, loyalists turned the white-knighting up to 11. On Twitter, some Plague Rats got into cat fights with Lady Gaga's Little Monsters (what a time to be alive). Others tried to balance out the Tumblr negativity with initiatives like “Spreading a Plague of Love” – a “positive-only” confession blog, whose extreme fangirling, comically drastic rules and hyper-defensive tone📝 did not debunk the increasingly popular notion that “true Plague Rats” were a bunch of authoritarian and hopelessly brainwashed fanatics.
EA truthers and other anti-fans started lashing out at anyone who dared express any positive opinion of EA, solidifying claims that the backlash against EA was just a conspiracy of bitter, hysterical bullies.
All this to say: every passing day brought new reasons for fans to get mad at EA and each other, and everyone in the Asylum was in need of a laugh. It's not easy having a good time.🦠
Leading up to Fight Like a Girl and in the years that followed, user-submission-based meme blogs took off, most notably “Spreading a Plague of Lulz / Troll Like a Girl”. A lot of the early submissions were absurdist humor and toothless, cheezburger-Impact memes (a style that was, oddly, already dated at the time). Those often originated in good fun, and from loyal fans, on the official forum. But there was also true snark, satirizing EA's questionable ethics, outrageous claims, and easily spoofed artistic gimmicks. A new slang of Asylumspeak emerged: Glittertits (slight NSFW), GAGA!!, EA Gusta and all its memeface variants, Get outta mah house!, Are You Suffering?, Fight Like A Goat, [Random celebrity] copied EA (a subgenre in its own right), ...
Most of the “trolling” was directed at unrepentant bootlickers and, to a lesser extent, red-in-the-face haters and creeps. Meme blogs would post joke comments under “serious” or gushing submissions on Wayward Victorian Confessions, and taunt loyalist accounts by tagging them in their posts. When a few people complained on WVC that almost all of the Bloody Crumpets to date had been thin white able-bodied women, and a few fans responded by sharing their dream-casts for a more diverse line-up, the blog was flooded for days with confessions that “X should be a Crumpet” (candidates included RuPaul, Mitt Romney, Nicki Minaj, EA's therapist, and the WVC admins). Farcical shenanigans like that.
Ah, but some people will always cross the line, won't they. EA threads popped up on merciless, bully-friendly snark platforms like Lolcow, Pretty Ugly Little Liar, and Encyclopedia Dramatica. Snarkers with a mean streak and obsessive haters mingled in some of the more aggressive, 4-chan-spirited retaliation against EA – which would be called “brigading” in modern parlance. This included flooding EA's Goodreads page with one-star reviews (see part 4), repeatedly editing her Wikipedia page to include her legal name and birth year, and ensuring that Googling said name would bring up current pictures of her.
All of this compounded agitation fragmented the once-united fandom beyond recognition.🦠 Through substantial disagreements among fans, personal bickerings, layers upon layers of inscrutable in-jokes, and cross-platform telephone games, the Asylum morphed into a booby-trapped Escher room.
Satire blogs were taken in earnest. Earnest fan blogs scanned as satire. Memes would get called out as abuse. Appreciation without attached criticism would get mocked as bootlicking. Obvious jokes made by EA would be taken at face value. One divisive confession could trigger days and days of debate, to the point that WVC eventually banned confessions in response to other confessions. New waves of infighting created a confusing web of rival sub-factions🐀, each accusing the others of being toxic, cliquish, and delusional.
The shared fantasy was broken, the collective vision had crumbled, no onez was speaking the same language anymore. Fans would jump down the throat of other fans who held almost identical views about EA, except for that one thing she said or did that one time. Everyone had differing thoughts on what should or shouldn't acceptable to discuss, question, excuse, make fun of.
War is hell.

SCORCHED EARTH SHENANIGANS: HONEY, I SHRUNK THE ASYLUM

Would you tear my castle down Stone by stone And let the wind run through my windows Till there was nothing left But a battered rose? (“Castle Down”, 2003🎵)

Haters vs sycophants is not really the kind of conflict where one side can come out on top (if you're participating, you've already lost). But in the long tug-of-war between “grassroots” and “EA-sponsored” fan spaces, the ultimate winner is obvious – in that the former is gasping in agony, a shriveled husk of its former glory, while the latter... is non-existent. This is due in no small part to EA's tendency, like the Czars of old, to settle conflicts by setting Moscow on fire.🔍)
That's not entirely fair: unlike EA, the czar only did it that once.
By early 2013, as EA was gearing up for her third Fight Like a Girl tour at the end of the year, the official forum was... not as lively as it once had been. Not just because of the stifling rules and disgruntlement towards EA, or because EA herself hadn't really posted anything on there in years; the Internet was also changing, and forums in general were fast becoming passé.
This made it difficult for EA to create a safe space where she could talk to fans, and fans could talk to and about her, in a way she deemed suitable (ie, a space she could gate-keep and regulate enough to keep it completely free from negative criticism). Social media was a minefield; she still posted regularly, but didn't interact very much. So EA and the Headmistress came up with a way to filter out the unbelievers: an official fan club📝, aptly called the “Asylum Army”, with a $100 entry price.
Joining the AA came with a dog tag, a sew-on patch, and a lifetime membership certificate signed by EA and – for some reason – the Headmistress. (Unlike EA's best friend and sound engineer back in the forum's heyday, I don't think fans ever really embraced the FLAG-era manager as part of the Asylum in-group. She came across more as a coordinator / businessperson / adult chaperone, at best.🐀) So, slightly better goodies than you'd get by joining the other AA 🔍 ... but not by much. The main appeal was that members would have access to exclusive content, special merch, giveaways, early bird tickets for future shows, and regular video chats with EA.
The concept itself drew a fair amount of criticism, as you can imagine. Between the name🐀, the price, and the inherent gatekeeping of a pay-to-join fanclub, many balked at the monetizing of a concept that had once (like, three years back) been significantly more DIY, grassroots, and inclusive. 📝🐀
Then again, many also longed for a positive, drama-free space where fans could just be fans. And while the creation of the AA was generally recognized as a quick cashgrab, a lot of people were surprisingly cool with it. EA was trying to finance her dream musical, after all – although a number of fans wished she had gone about raising funds in a less sketchy way.
So around 400 fans shelled out (which, according to the Headmistress📝, “basically cover[ed] the cost of running the fanclub itself – keeping the database up, website, etc.”). Enough for a close-knit, but sizable community. But already, there was a conflict of interest: a high fanclub entry fee essentially demands that you pledge loyalty to the artist over loyalty to your fellow fans, who wish to join but can't afford to. Sharing, caring, and ensuring no one felt left out were some of the more positive values cultivated in the fandom... but leaking exclusive content would surely piss off other paying members🐀, and make EA feel betrayed all over again. (And she had barely just started to mellow out on social media!)
...But then again, this is the internet. After the first month of secret AA drops (lyric sheets, some photoshoot outtakes – nothing too juicy, really), there were, yes, some leaks. EA was predictably miffed, and retaliated by... ghosting the fanclub for weeks at a time in its first few months of existence (great look!). She eventually found the “solution” to her problem, by providing something you couldn't right-click-save (and which had been part of the promised perks to begin with): live interaction.
Over webcam, she was her usual in-person bubbly, charming, funny self. Everyone seemingly had a good time during the fanclub video chat, and this gave people faith and hope.
There were a few more events, giveaways, etc. As promised, ahead of the fall 2013 tour (the last one to date, it would turn out), AA members got priority access to show tickets and VIP bundles. The latter were much pricier than before, and only included soundcheck, a photo-op, and three goodies: a tin of loose-leaf tea, a signed printer-paper setlist, and a small flag that said “F.L.A.G.”.🔍 Some stuff continued to leak – but, as some of the outlaws pointed out (scroll down to the Disqus comments), they were mostly relaying information that was relevant to the entire fanbase, such as updates about ongoing projects (the dragged-out recording of the audiobook, for one).
In early 2014, lifetime memberships were closed, and replaced with monthly, quarterly and yearly subscription tiers. Bizarrely, you ended up paying $3 more per month if you bought a $99 yearly subscription📝 – but it did include the patch, dog tag, and piece of paper!

Sometimes I kind of want to be part of the cool kids and register to the Asylum Army. Then I remember how it came about, what you could get for the same price a couple years ago, how the whole thing was and is handled, and that I won’t support any of this bullshit. (And then I roll around naked in all the money I’m saving.) (🐀)

Still, a number of fans rejoiced at the affordable monthly option, and joined – if not for the exclusive content and merch (which were... okay, but not much to write home about), then for the friendly, drama-free exchanges with an artist they actually did love, in spite of all the frustration.
For the still-too-poor or still-undecided, there was always the forum! It wasn't as active as it used to be, but a few die-hards still managed to keep the lights on... until, inevitably, Someone Did Something and Ruined Everything. (Once again: EA's wrath is spectacular, but rarely completely unprovoked.) The incident features one notable figure in the Asylum community. Let's call him the Collector.
OK, so maybe you remember the meme I linked to in Part 4, with Christian Grey and the ginormous EA hoard. Well, that's the Collector's collection. The “Violin” promo that I called the "Holy Grail of the fandom" in the same paragraph? Also his. The handwritten lyrics that went for $940? Guess who won that auction. Over the years, the Collector had probably spent five figures on EA merch and shows, and although that fact was a little unsettling, he was a very active, easy-going, and generally well-liked fixture of the fandom.
One day in 2012, shortly after the Headmistress had replaced EA's old Chicago BFF as main forum admin, the Collector's account got banned or restricted over something dumb. When the ban wasn't lifted as quickly as he hoped, he took it... the way one takes things when one is unhealthily invested: he started spamming Headmistress and the mod team with increasingly rambling and abusive emails (lost to time, probably for the best). When that didn't work quickly enough, he tried a different route.
One of the many auctions that the Collector had won, some years prior, was EA's old iPod Touch📝 – which contained all of her favorite tunes and, buried somewhere in the data cache... a phone number. Which the Collector tried calling. And wouldn't you know it: EA picked up. She congratulated him on his sleuthing skills, listened patiently as he made his case, apologized for any distress caused by the unfair account restriction, and then they got married.
Kidding! She freaked the fuck out, hung up, and banned him for life from the forum and all EA shows and events.
After his ban, the Collector allegedly still tried to attend at least one VIP pre-show (one source in the comments says he was allowed to buy some merch, refunded for his ticket, and escorted out). He joined the Reform forum to bitch about EA and try to rally people to his cause, possibly made revenge posts about her on darker snark forums, and continued to hound the Asylum mod team. So in June 2014, EA came up with a radical and unexpected fix to the Collector problem.

The official Asylum Fan Forum has been shut down permanently. I have personally paid thousands of dollars each year to keep the forum safe and secure for you ... Unfortunately, the forum has not been kept safe and secure for me, a truth which disappoints me greatly, instead becoming a place where people who have physically threatened myself and my staff prey upon forum members, pressuring them to contact me and my staff on their behalf. If the gullible wish to humor my stalkers (who live in their parent’s basement at age 30 something) and thus put me in danger, they may do it on their own dime. They may also fuck off, because stupidity can kill, and I won’t be your victim. To those who enjoyed the forum, you know who to thank for its closure. (“On the closing of the Asylum Forum”)

Voilà! This is how a decade-long archive of shared history ends: not with a bang, but with a dirty delete and a sod-off communiqué.
The obliteration of the forum took everyone by surprise...

I was actually on the forum when it was taken down. I was navigating between posts and when I went to click on a different board, an error message came up. I honestly cried a little, I'm not ashamed to say. (WVC admin on Reddit, 2024)

...and I do mean everyone:

Chicago BFF / ex-admin, the next morning: Whoa, EA forum shut down? Ex-mod: It turns out that if someone spends enough years actively “waging war” to destroy what they can’t have, eventually they’ll be successful. * eye roll * Not even mods got prior warning. Just all the sudden, poof, gone. BFF: Really? She did not let the moderators know?! This is sounding worse and worse. Uggh. I’m so sorry. Such a loss. (...) Ok, threats are serious, but why not just put it in archive mode so no one can post? (...) Sad. I shall light a candle in the forum's honor. (Facebook posts; scroll down for screenshots)

It was a gut punch, especially for people who had poured countless hours into the community, or could have used some prior warning to save years of their own writing from the role-playing threads. One last chance to take a look around the place that had meant so much to so many.

From the wording of the announcement of closing the forum and a number of other things, it sometimes seems like EA doesn't like her fans much. :/ (🐀)

Three months after the forum was nuked, Battered Rose (a venerable EA fansite, which had been around since the Enchant era and had one of the most complete EA galleries online) announced that it was shutting down too.📝 The admin, who had also been a long-time forum mod, cited a lack of “time, energy, passion, or money” to keep the website going... and being upset at the sudden disappearance of the forum. It was, truly, the end of an era for the Asylum.
...Well, no point in living in the past. For those who could afford it, and still wanted to talk to/about EA after that (not everyone did 🐀), there was always the Asylum Army fanclub!
Over the summer of 2014, EA held regular live chats and Q&A's, and... many attendees really enjoyed them, and thought the AA was well worth the money after all. She also quietly parted ways with the much poo-pooed Headmistress around that time.

Just spent over 4 hours giggling, drinking tea and playing guessing games in chat with EA and other Asylum Army members ... No griping, no downers, just lots of fun. I think I like the way the ‘new fandom’ is going and now I’m really glad I finally decided to join the Army. (September 4, 2014🐀; Battered Rose had closed the day before)

The forum was lost forever, but perhaps that was a chance for a fresh start. Could this fanclub thing really be the Asylum Renaissance that fans had been longing for?

...I have come today to a very difficult but necessary decision, and that is to discontinue the Emilie Autumn Official Fanclub. The site itself, and the community chatroom, will remain open to you indefinitely, but I will no longer be making updates to the site. (Newsletter, September 8, 2014📝)

...Never mind, then.
Turns out the fanclub had been the Headmistress' idea all along. EA had been reluctant from the start, and although she really enjoyed the live chats with a safe community of people “who are there for the right reasons”, she couldn't overcome her fundamental discomfort with the concept. Lifetime and regular members would receive a bunch of digital downloads and a -35% coupon on the Asylum Emporium for their troubles. EA said she would definitely pop back once in a while for live chats, for free, just for fun, but to my knowledge, she never did.
And so the most devoted fans were left standing in the rain...

She is happy, she made it. She is fulfilling her dreams, found love and happiness after all the pain. I understand that she now doesn’t need “us” anymore ... That doesn’t change the fact she broke my heart with taking the Asylum Army and the forum from me. Yet, I am happy for her. (🐀)

...while naysayers pointed and laughed, Nelson-style.🦠

I don’t feel sorry at all for the people that paid for the Asylum Army fan club. Most of them knew that EA is an atrocious business woman and has broken many promises before. In fact, I laugh at them. They seriously thought that EA would actually stay consistent with this? (🐀)

EVERYTHING MUST GO: THE ASYLUM WHOLESALE

EA fans were left without an “official” home for about three years. This gave them plenty of time to be annoyed at EA for: not releasing the audiobook on time, not materializing any new project for a while... and the new sin of peddling random, ridiculously marked-up AliBaba jewelry as “merch” on her official store. Think faux-antique cameo pendants and $30 Big Ben rings (...because the Asylum story is set in London, get it?).

The whole accessories section looks like a tacky overpriced English souvenir shop. (🐀)

The fanbase lost a lost of steam in those in-between years, because there wasn't much to stick around for. As evidenced by the positive reception of the AA live chats, even in the midst of unresolved drama, out-loud interactions in a friendly environment have always been EA's saving grace. Considering the amount of online hate, there are shockingly few accounts of bad IRL encounters with EA: most people say that in live conversation, she comes across as a fun, warm, and genuinely sweet person. Some report that their negative opinion shifted after meeting her.
But there were no chats or live shows anymore. There was only social media, where she ignored questions and vague-posted about overdue projects – and the newsletter📝, which was all saccharine love-bombing to promote bland dropshipped trinkets. For fans who remembered the handcrafted merch (and two-way communication) of the early years, it was a bitter pill to swallow.

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

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