Hey CISO's or security experts.
Context: I have security and IT within my scope but they are more operating as different departments today. We have a joint meeting weekly to discuss any overlapping issues to create a strong bond. I'm looking to integrate Sec/IT into a single team where IT owns more of the security posture and outcomes associated with it soon. I was recently using a Venn diagram on the overlap and find Endpoint Management and Infrastructure areas are two heavy overlap area and that's where I'd start.
Question(s): Have any of you gone through this? What have you done and found successful? Any suggestions on what didn't work well?
Thank you in advance.

Do publishers ever reach out to potential writers to sponsor the content?
A friend was contacted through their tiktok business e-mail, and the writer claims to be an editorial director of a well-funded publishing house. Their name and email match the website, so I have advised them to hop on a call.
Just wanted to see if phishing scams were common in this industry? The friend has no prior writing experience, but the venn diagram of their audience would suit the suggested demographic of readers.
(We will respond to the e-mail tomorrow, but wanted to do some due diligence first)

Another variant on my longshot question!
Has anyone a father or grandfather, who graduated from a Protestant high school in 1945 in Montreal, who was an adopted son? Think this is the right year.
I know there could be more than one person, but not loads?
This set of Venn diagram requirements/filters occurred to me earlier today. If anyone has any other ideas for finding a record of someone whose adopted name (assuming he WAS adopted) is not known, happy to hear them!

I am just lurking on reddit and I am not sure if this reads okay but I have no one in my life who I can ask this from, so here we go internet strangers.
I am a grown woman, close to 40, have one child and I am not looking for a relationship, not now, not for se foreseeable future. You see I receive benefits as a widow and if I even only move in with anyone I loose that, and frankly, no d**k is worth losing stability. Hence, I don't want a relationship, because that is a promise in itself: a relationship is progressing, in ideal scenario up to the growing old together stage. I can't have that at least for the next 2 decades and I accepted that. This doesn't mean life doesn't get lonely at times. So I drew up this thing in my mind that I hope for. It looks like a Venn-diagram. I have my own life, place, work, whatnot, and he has his. Then there is a part where our life overlaps, go out on dates, have 'fun' but I'm not looking for the love of my life or someone to raise my kid. Just a mix of a friendship, a situationship and a form of companionship, so a ship, without the desire to move in together and wash anyone's dirty socks.
I'm not even sure if this is an arrangement that I will ever find an applicant. And now I like this guy. Not in the head-to-toe-fallen-for-him way, more like the he spiked my interest a lot and would love to know him more way. I think I saw some signs from him that he likes me back but hey, I'm rusty so I might just imagined them.
How would I approach him? I have no problem with being rejected because I suffered worse in life than a rejection and I feel that thinking about the 'what if' would be worse then him telling no thanks. I have one more event I will see him so how do I go about this, letting him know that I'm only looking for fun but not looking like a hoe, because it's a little more complicated.

I think it’s safe to say the venn diagram of Helldivers fans and Halo fans is almost a circle, or at the very least we have a lot of love for both games.
One of my favorite things about halo was being stuck inbetween multiple factions fighting each other, like the Covenant and the Flood, or the Brutes and the Elites. Sometimes you got caught inbetween the two and others you could be a fly on the wall and complete the mission while they’re all distracted.
Now say the Terminids and the Automatons gain enough ground that their controlled sectors are bordering each other. It would make sense to see Terminids and Automatons going at it on those border planets. It would be much easier to stealth missions that have both factions active since they’d be busy with each other, but if you and your team get stuck inbetween them it would be utter chaos. You’d also have to create builds that can kill bugs and bots, or coordinate with your team to make sure any weaknesses are covered.

The guy is such an asshole, with a shitty personality and always hurts every1 around him, which makes him more punchable and unlovable than he already is with those horrific flaps of skin he calls a face. 😁
He thinks he's hilarious despite all that tho and always makes jokes, but they rarely land and just ruin the mood/conversation and make him even MORE punchable.
He's also such a dumbass it's not even funny, bro can't even do a Venn diagram properly, (I would like to say that he does other stuff well) and he'll most likely turn out a failure, and if he somehow, against the odds pursues a good career, who will care? Cuz like I said before, nobody loves him, and he'll always be a lonely bastard. Honestly he deserves it. 😁
Sry for bothering u w a rant abt this shitty person, he's a waste of space imo, I think we should pull a hitman 3 kick off a cliff murder on him...or just put him in a woodchipper, although he'll prob kick and cry and be a bitch if we don't give him smn to ease the pain, what a pussy.
I forgot the rest of my notes on him, and no, I'm not gunna tl:dr this, read it

🪞 “It's much easier to get in that it is to get out,” Emilie Autumn used to say. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4.1 - Part 4.2
She was not wrong. Welcome back to the Asylum write-up!
In this installment, we're finally getting down to the nitty-gritty of the enmity between EA and her fans.
It's time for war. It's time for blood. It's time... for tea. 🎵

THE PRESENT DAY: “ASK ME ANYTHING (WELL, NOT QUITE)”

​

"Ask me anything" titles are catchy, and that’s why I’m using one. But, obviously, don’t ask me anything, by which I mean that, if you think I wouldn’t answer it, you’re probably right. Ask me something really good. I’d love to answer you. I’d love to have comments on these posts, in fact, so that I could answer questions there regularly and ask you things as well, but insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, or so Einstein is supposed to have said, and attempting to create yet another interactive online venue after every previous attempt has ended in heartbreak—forums, facebook groups, social media accounts—it would indeed be insanity to think that this time would be any different. So there are no comments. This too is heartbreaking in the sense that, and you may not realize this, but I desperately want to connect more completely with you—to be able to intelligently converse and share and exchange. We can do that in person, of course, because the wrong people never show up in person. Isn’t that funny… So, perhaps we’ll have to arrange that;). I’ll start you off with an example question I’d want to know if I were you (I can almost guarantee that you do not want to know this). Q. Hey EA, how do you keep your wireless bodypack transmitter secure when you are leaping about in skimpy costumes and doing frequent costume changes? Also, dye your roots. A. Fantastic question, EA, and I just dyed my roots thank you very much. ... (Deleted blog post followed by a year of radio silence, 2022 📝)

Sooo. For the past five-ish years, the vibe in the Asylum has been that of a protracted Christmas dinner where everyone is tensely moving their food around in their plate, bracing themselves for whatever will trigger the screaming match. Wondering what it's going to be this time. Weary old-timers make small talk about the food because no other topic feels safe. Every glance, every forced smile, is fraught with eons-old grudges and unspoken regrets; every nervous pleasantry sounds like a thinly-veiled accusation. Aunt Emilie always insists on hosting, but not-so-secretly hates having people over. Sooner or later, she finds a way to get all of these assholes out of her house. Most of the adult children are daydreaming about going no-contact.
Everyone ready for some dysfunctional family history?
CW for discussion of bullying, online harassment, mental illness stigma.

YE OLDEN DAYS: CUCKOOS OF A FEATHER NEST TOGETHER

In the beginning, it was beautiful.
EA had the excellent instinct to start banking on her online presence📝 long before MySpace was even a thing. She had a website, several online stores, an active LiveJournal and a ProBoards forum right from the turn of the millennium.
In 2004, she attached an official forum to her website; the earliest archive shows 74 registered users. By the time Opheliac came out in 2006, that number had grown tenfold. And it was, by most accounts, a pretty dope place to be! (I should specify that this write-up focuses on the anglophone side of the fandom: there were also thriving fan-run communities in at least German, French, and Spanish. Because EA doesn't speak any of those languages, the lucky bastards were mostly left alone.)
Forum users enjoyed interacting with some of EA's closest IRL friends and associates – and with the mistress of the house herself (user flair: PsychoFiddler), when she occasionally responded to comments under her own posts. But that wasn't even the main appeal for many. For a long time, on top of all EA-related topics, the official forum had very active “Off-Topic” subforums, with lively and friendly conversation on a variety of subjects. (There was even a “Filthy Libertines (18+)” sub for a while, which was closed due to preemptive concerns about minors.) Swear words (not slurs) were allowed and encouraged, and moderation was overall pretty loose beyond basic enforcement of civility. There was a lot of mutual support, creativity, and solid banter going around.

It wasn't just about Emilie on the forums. People could chat about almost anything with near free reign, making connections and lifelong friends. ... This community mattered SO MUCH to people. They felt included, accepted, and understood within the walls of the Asylum. People invested their time and creative energy into keeping the forums a vibrant, active community, and made sure that carried over into the real world. ... I've never seen anything like it in a fan space. I doubt I ever will again. (@Asylum_Oracle - “Fandom History” Instagram highlight 🔍📝, which contains most of the sources for this segment.)

And it did, indeed, carry over into the real world. There were numerous meet-ups – a few organized by EA, many more spontaneous. People who didn't know any other EA fans in real life, or were just excited to add new Plague Rats to their friend group, would regularly connect with other forum users from their area to meet up and hang out before EA shows. “Who else is dressing up??”
In 2008, for instance, EA held an afternoon meet-up at Lincoln Park in Chicago. 📺 The event was free to attend; it featured live acoustic music and a reading from EA's upcoming book, the intriguingly-titled Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls.
On the appointed day, EA rolled up in a fabulously tousled red wig, bedazzled white corset and steampunk-altered wedding dress. She had brought friends alongs. Sporting blue hair and a pink bustle and corset was her Chicago bestie, the main forum admin. Rocking a guitar and a top hat was EA's sound engineer, the soft-spoken wizard behind the Victoriandustrial sound, who was also a forum mod. The photographer from the original Opheliac cover art was there as well; he was formally introduced by EA and got his own round of applause.

People who would never normally be involved in an artist's fanbase were in EA's world. And not only were they known – they were respected and incredibly active with the fanbase. These people who managed an online message board were willing to engage in real-world meet-ups (with no security??) because of how tight-knit the community they had built was. People turned out to this event. People traveled to go to this event. It was a short reading of a book that hadn't been released yet, and wouldn't be for some time. Why? Because not only was it a chance to meet Emilie and listen to parts of the new book, but it was also a chance to hang out with their friends from the Asylum. ... The fandom really was a family for a lot of people. (@Asylum_Oracle)

“SERIOUSLY, GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE.”

It all started with The End.
The End Records, that is! Quick refresher: in 2009, after three years or so with Trisol, EA split from the label over allegations that the owner was embezzling money from ticket sales. A few months later, she signed with The End Records. Understandably, EA still wanted to sell the album that had made her famous, and to which she had smartly retained the rights – which meant a brand new, “Deluxe” release of Opheliac. (Remember, from part 3? The one you could pre-order as a bundle with the book? Some projects are just cursed, I guess.)
At that point, Opheliac had been released three times already, as recently as the year before, with only slight variations in format and tracklist. (Yes, that is a theme in this story.) The End Records version would feature new cover art and a handful of new tracks, but overall, it was... you know... the same album.
(The following paragraphs are largely sourced from this excellent recap 🔍📝, which also provides potato screenshots for all quotes.)
One fateful day of August 2009, a user started a thread entitled “Opheliac US edition deluxe re-release??” in the “EA News” subforum. In the thread, some people were kind of balking at the re-do, pondering whether to buy the “new” Opheliac or sit this one out. Some expressed that after three years, they were jonesing for a new album. Others shared what B-sides or dream covers they would have liked to see included on the bonus disc. Just... fans being fans, in a fan discussion space.
And then EA jumped out from behind the curtains.

Fan: Okay. Before I start, I just want you to know that I think it's very good that EA is getting more popularity, and that she can release lots of albums, but - are 5 editions of the same album really needed? You may say now “ah, it's not the same, it has 2 bonus tracks” or whatever, but I mean: it's not new material. Now don't get me wrong. I'm happy for it, maybe I'll even buy it, but I'm just wondering if she shouldn't keep herself busy with other (maybe more important) stuff? * hides * EA: Nobody's forcing you to buy it. Thanks.

Record scratch.

Fan 1: is this Opheliac release version number 4? lol If she's recording NEW tracks, then surely they deserve to be sold by themselves, otherwise people are going to have to buy an album that they may have already bought twice (like me!). But... alas, I am a fool and adore everything this woman does... im buying it lol Fan 2: exactly – if it was just reissuing the last version of Opheliac to tap into new markets that would be fine (...) but if they start adding extra bits of material to albums people already have then the true muffins are going to feel obliged to buy new copies (...) EA: How exactly are you obliged to buy anything? Nobody is forcing you to spend a fucking penny, my dears. I suppose it would make more sense to you to simply not have my records available any more as the old label I just escaped from will no longer be distributing them? Forgive me for adding extra tracks. No obligation necessary.

...Okay, so I'm pretty sure that we can see both sides of the argument here. Fans are annoyed at the idea of spending money on barely-anything-new, because they love EA and buy every single CD she releases. EA is exasperated by fans acting like she's twisting their arm and somehow resenting the inclusion of new material, when she was just ensuring that her album would remain available for purchase and trying to keep things interesting.
But maybe we can also agree that those replies should have been screamed into a pillow rather than typed out on a keyboard.
EA was getting increasingly (and, I'll just say it: disproportionately) sarcastic and defensive in her replies. Enter poor FantineDormouse.
FantineDormouse meant well, I think. Maybe she thought, she's spiraling. Maybe she thought, friends don't let friends go down that road. Granted, FantineDormouse probably should have known better than to phrase it the way she did. Or to assume that EA perceived her as a friend.
Either way, at some point, FantineDormouse jumped in and posted the comment that finally made EA lose it. THE comment which, overnight, ended the honeymoon period of the Asylum, triggering a doomsday domino effect from which the fandom would never truly recover. Are you comfortably seated?

FantineDormouse: Uhm, Emilie, love, I don't mean to sound rude or anything... but maybe you should have a cup of tea and relax a little.

...
* sound of archduke getting shot *

EA: Excuse me? You can throw this onslaught of absolute cruel bullshit at me and those I work with in my own space that I own, and I can't say anything back? How fucking patronizing. Relax? Are you fucking kidding me? Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? FD: I'm not trying to piss you off even more, Emilie. And trust me, I have to deal with it myself, and as much as I would really love to punch the cunts I have to deal with in the face, I don't. You're pissed off, I get it. You're bipolar, which makes it 10x worse, I get that. I'm just not the person to stand around and do nothing when a fight where I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of regret is going on.

Famous last words. Literally! Immediately after EA delivered her irate closing statement – which includes one of my all-time favorite EA zingers, bolded...

EA: I cannot believe this... You just don't stop, do you? So just because I've shared the personal information with you all that I happen to be bipolar, I can't get pissed off at all of you being perfectly awful in the very space that I pay fuckloads a month to have up (has it ever occurred to you all that I pay dearly for this space you play around in?) Why not just tell me that I must be upset because it's my time of the month? Seriously, get the fuck out of my house. You are unbelievable, and your level of patronization is almost criminal. Don't make me write another book. With muffins like you, who needs enemies? Nothing I say or feel is legitimate, not ever ever ever because I'm bipolar... discredited before I begin... unbelievable...

...FantineDormouse got permabanned.
Jaws dropped. After days of infighting between white knights, detractors, and crossfire negotiators, several mod resignations, and general mayhem surrounding the ban, EA made a post entitled “In Which: I Invite You to Make a Fucking Choice.” 📝 For brevity's sake (cue laugh track), I can't reproduce it in all of its righteous splendor, but it's quite a read. It runs the gamut from fair and articulate points about how mental illness shouldn't be used to discredit someone's legitimate anger... to histrionic commands that “deserters to the cause” should “turn in their weapons” if they can't handle her way of doing things.

To those of you who appear not to understand why said posts, most especially those of the banned party, were offensive to me, I give you the option to either educate yourselves on your own time and in your own space (because please never forget that this is my space that I share with all of you at my own expense, and in which I generally give you all the freedom I would wish for myself), or to resign your posts in the Asylum Army – this is not the place for you, and I humbly suggest that you turn your attention and support towards other artists of a more placid, non-controversial, and less opinionated nature; there are more than enough of them out there, and I’m sure they all have forums of their own.

Some fans did leave. Most stuck around, whiplashed. Soon, the storm quieted down, and business as usual resumed on the forum. But something had been damaged beyond repair. The FantineDormouse fiasco had erected walls and drawn lines in the sand, both around EA and among her fans; its sad specter would haunt every Asylum crisis that spiked up forever after. “Fucking Patronizing Fucking” or “FPF” 🔍 became memetic shorthand in the fandom for overreaction and self-righteousness. 🐀
...And now you understand why, in the following years, some fans were so delicate and diplomatic in voicing their very legitimate complaints about messed-up orders, unsigned books, and puzzling lies... while unofficial platforms like Tumblr flourished with pent-up resentment and snark. 🦠

A NOTE ON HARASSMENT: “MAD GIRL, CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT THEY'VE DONE TO YOU?”

Wouldn't they stop When you asked them to leave you alone? (“Mad Girl”, 2008 🎵)

Now, let's be clear, because it should not be minimized: EA has also been the target of genuine online harassment. Based on the simple fact that she is a woman with a public presence on the internet, I have zero doubt that EA has received (and perhaps continues to receive) more than her share of truly vile, bigoted, creepy and threatening messages – and, knowing what I know about the darker recesses of the Asylum, a terrifying amount of emotional blackmail and obsessive projection from people who hold her to punitively high standards. I'm also inclined to believe that it started way before she ever did anything that warranted any backlash. And that fucking sucks. It's repulsive and inexcusable, and the people who harass her should crawl into a hole and live among the worms.
Notwithstanding. In my decade-plus of following EA drama, the public comments on EA's own platforms (where people knew she was likely to be reading) have been, for the most part... civil and nuanced, and relatively mindful of the human? Even very confrontational comments (some clearly written from a place of anger and desire to shame) rarely resorted to outright name-calling or cruelty. When abusive or bigoted language did crop up, it was often promptly shut down by other fans as gross and uncalled for. In short: I have, with mine own two eyes, in real time, read some of the comment sections that EA described as cesspools of blind rage and odious attacks, and... I just couldn't see it.
If anything, for a long time, a lot of the angry comments directed at EA during any given controversy read more like break-up letters to an ex-best friend: harsh, curt and targeted in a way that cuts deep.... but also kind of screams how much love you still have for this person, against your better judgement.
Not that it wouldn't mess a person up to get hundred of those in a matter of hours, even if they don't individually qualify as “abusive”.
It's worth noting that prior to becoming semi-famous and regretting it, EA was also (by her own account and among other forms of abuse) a victim of intense childhood bullying. It feels like the two situations are closely connected in her mind when her focus seamlessly transitions from one to the other. 📺 I don't think that tremor in her voice is put on.
Based on her writings, I get the feeling that over the years, EA has developed a very black-and-white view of two monolithic groups of people. There's (an idealized vision of) her “real audience”, well-dressed, well-read, kind-hearted, and Asylum-savvy, who she fully trusts to “get it” – and buy it, and love it, unquestioningly, whatever “it” may be at any given time – because that is the true measure of love and loyalty. These are the people she makes art and merch for, the people she writes heart-emoji-filled newsletters to, and desperately longs to see in person again.
And then there's the lynch mob, those who really don't “get it”: the trolls, the faceless creeps, the basement-dwelling mouthbreathers, the ones who stalk her every move obsessively, waiting for any chance to spam her with vicious abuse and slander and obscenities. The latter only exist online (they are manifested into arbitrary existence by the internet itself, not by anything EA said or did), and there is zero overlap between the two sets of people. That seems to be the official narrative.

The "public eye" isn't an [enviable] place to be, and the closer I've come to it, the more horrified I've been. Because, for starters, who is "the public?" Is "the public" my audience? Hell no. My audience is special. They are not the general public. If they were the general public I would be a lot wealthier. The "public eye" means getting stalked, harassed, viscously judged, and put in danger. If I do things in the future that gain notoriety, I will do them in spite of fame, not because of it. I am out for world domination, but not fame. (Interview for The Moaning Times, 2014 📝)

In real life (well, mostly online, but I mean: on this shared plane of existence), things play out slightly differently. The Venn diagram of “true blue fans” and “people who criticize EA" and "people who know way too much about EA” is a circle. The call is 100% coming from inside the Asylum, and I think EA rationally knows that. But here's the thing: no matter how many shows and meet-and-greets you've dressed up for, how many loving and supportive comments you've left, or how many family heirlooms you once pawned to purchase a copy of the not-for-sale 2003 DJ pressing of Enchant... the instant EA feels attacked, everyone is a saboteur and a bully until proven otherwise, and suspected treason is dealt with on the spot. One strike, you're out. Unfortunately for everyone involved, her threshold for bullying seems to be “any remotely thoughtless opinion from any stranger on the internet”.
It makes for outstanding human-interest entertainment... but it also sounds an awful lot like the unhealthy patterns of a person suffering from all sorts of PTSD. 🔍 So, please bear that in mind as you read through this write-up. It's easy to make EA out to be the sole villain, a paranoid and delusional drama queen, based on her extreme reactions to things that often “weren't that bad”. Anything can, in fact, be “that bad” when you're thrown back into the very worst moments of your existence every time your brain decides that the situation is even remotely similar.
PTSD takes over your rational mind and actively distorts your perception of reality. That can be how a person ends up impulse-reacting to “a few people expressing an unfavorable opinion” as if the entire internet had just ganged up on them with knives. Which makes their audience feel unjustly accused, which makes them hostile, which gives the person actual good reason to feel attacked... and so the cycle of hurt continues.

You know the games I play And the words I say When I want my own way You know the lies I tell When you've gone through hell And I say I can't stay You know how hard it can be To keep believing in me When everything and everyone Becomes my enemy, and when There's nothing more you can do I'm gonna blame it on you – It's not the way I wanna be I only hope that in the end You will see: It's the Opheliac in me... (“Opheliac”, 2006 🎵)

And YES, it is extremely regrettable to have this as a trigger, when you're a public figure and you're bound to receive more negative feedback than the average citizen. “It's what she signed up for”, “it comes with the territory” and all that jazz. I really don't think EA was unaware of that fact when she decided to become a musician, share her personal life, and form an intense parasocial bond with her audience. But maybe she underestimated how hard it would be to process and recover from.
Just because you expect something unpleasant to happen, doesn't mean your psyche will be ready to handle it when it does – or that you'll pick the best and most effective strategy to deal with it.

A MADHOUSE UNDER MARTIAL LAW: MARCHING INTO THE FORUM WARS

There are two sides to every story... except for this one! (“If I Burn”, 2012 🎵)

You may have noted the military imagery in EA's “Make a Fucking Choice” response post – “resign your post in the Asylum Army”! What do psychiatry and the military have in common? They're both institutions of top-down social control. 🔍 EA's mixed metaphor may be a bit clunky, but it did foreshadow the evolution of the Asylum – in terms of aesthetics and power dynamics – in the years that followed the FantineDormouse incident and the release of The Book.
EA's next big release after the Asylum book came in 2012. It was a new album, an outline of the soon-to-be Asylum musical, called Fight Like a Girl (FLAG for short). As the name suggests, the main mood was bellicose. Incidentally, in the interim years, EA's communication style generally became noticeably more combative, incendiary, and (within her own spaces) controlling.📝 You remember those quirky word filters on the forum, that would change “fan” to “muffin” and “bra” to “teacup holder”? They kind of took on a Nineteen-Eighty-Four-burlesque flavor when you realized that one filter automatically changed “Fischkopf” to “Liddell” - and that circumventing the rule to address her totally real last name would get you banned, as would any discussion of her family. (“Wikipedia, random internet sites and heresay are not credible sources.” - Mod reminder of forum rules, 2010.)
Also, you try sustaining a serious, grown-up conversation among concerned fans about how Emilie Autumn should “take ratsponsibility for her mistakes out of ratspect for her muffins”. Thus, the official Asylum forum kept a tight grip on overt criticism of EA's claims and actions.

The Emilie Autumn forum is a dystopian hell. Truth be told, when I decided to leave you could not do anything but gush about Emilie. Otherwise all of her extremist arse kissing fans will be down your throat, ripping you apart in seconds, if you so much as questioned her behaviour. So much for freedom of opinion, let alone the idea of creating a harmonious community for ‘outcasts’. Hahaha. (2014 🐀)

The word filter thing really wasn't a big deal – I'm just pointing it out as one goofy expression of EA's need to control the narrative and rhetoric, which became especially noticeable in those post-book, pre-FLAG years. By that point, EA's fuse had been shortened by near on half a decade of non-stop touring / recording / writing / promoting / adjusting to the pressure and demands of an ever-growing fanbase, while also dealing with a horrorshow of personal turmoil and health issues behind the scenes. In other words: she was done taking any shit, in any form, or humoring anyone's ridiculous feedback regarding anything.
To be fair, it was never her forte to begin with. Will it come as a shock if I tell you that EA doesn't have the greatest track record for successful collaborative work? Let's do a quick-cut montage!
EA's very first corporate sponsor was her mother's “Enchant Clothing & Costume” online store 🔍; she went on to claim that her mother was dead. She sessioned for Billy Corgan, that went super well. 🎵 She liked Courtney Love for a minute, but that didn't work out because she felt that Courtney only valued her for her pee. 📝 (It probably didn't help that in early 2006, while EA was recording her post-break-up-tell-all album about Corgan, C-Love was recording her post-rehab-redemption album with Corgan. 🔍 Either way, EA didn't seem to like Courtney anymore after that. Courtney likes her, though! 📝) The one artist EA has ever approached for a duet (and by approached, I mean she recorded a demo and threw the CD on stage when he played Chicago in 2004) was, of all people, Morrissey. That never came to pass, thank mercy 🔍 – this fandom has suffered enough. In 2005, EA recorded some haunting vocals and violins for a potential collab with the frontman of Attrition. When, three years later, they were used on one track 🎵 of Attrition's All Mine Enemies Whisper, she alleged 📝 that the recordings had been obtained from her under the false pretense of a different project, then hideously altered to sound “out of tune”, and used without her permission. She enlisted her fans to boycott the album and the band, and threatened legal action. Meanwhile, on LiveJournal and Attrition's message boards, band associates were appalled: according to them, EA had been aware of the project's nature from the start... and had been completely unreachable, even through her label, during the months of its development. (Besides, Attrition is a semi-obscure English darkwave band from the 80s, whose micro-distributed albums don't even have their own Wikipedia pages... so I wonder what EA was hoping to get out of that theoretical lawsuit. These people own nothing but vintage gain pedals!) The song “Cold Hard Cash” 🎤 by Angelspit (who contributed a remix to one of her EPs in 2008) may or may not be an EA diss track. 🐀 Back when indie jewelry brand RockLove (which now has licensing deals with Disney, Marvel, and DC) was still someone's bedroom project, their first drop was an EA-inspired collection 🔍, which appears in many early Opheliac photoshoots. The partnership was terminated on bad terms, for unclear reasons; the RockLove owner shared in a statement that EA had “drunk the cool-aid” of Trisol Guy's shady business practices, and that the two of them had been spamming her with “crazed angry message[s]” for days.
Why am I talking about this? Because it was precisely one such ill-fated business partnership that triggered the Great Asylum Secession.
One fine day of spring 2010, the owner of vegan make-up brand Aromaleigh popped onto the Asylum forum to announce that they were cutting ties with EA, with damning receipts of copy-pasted emails (lost to time). Basically, the brand had been sponsoring her for half a decade, and while Aromaleigh had been actively promoting her music and tours, EA hadn't exactly been returning the favor. (Indeed, the extent of EA's sponcon seemed to have been a banner link to their website on her front page, and a single “random drunken endorsement” LiveJournal post that kind of reads like satire📝, from 2005.)
EA responded by banning the owner's account, deleting the thread, and posting this flippant statement a few days later:

Dearest Plague Rats, To be honest, I have no idea of what the hell happened with Aromaleigh, and I don't care to find out – the whole drama is a complete mystery to me, as I've been away for months touring and have not been in contact with anyone. All I know is that I've been promoting the company for ages and have not asked them for anything in years. (...) Please focus on more interesting things. I am. (“Save the Drama...” forum post, March 2010)

Posts questioning her good faith in the conflict were deleted from the forum. Shortly thereafter, citing how prolific and labor-intensive the Asylum forum had grown, EA shut down all non-EA related subforums – which, among many other topics, included a pretty active thread about Aromaleigh products.
So one Plague Rat decided to create a separate, members-only forum 📝, where users could recreate some of the now-defunct off-topic threads... and also freely voice their critical opinions of EA's behavior without fear of backlash from mods or rabid stans. Thus, “The Reform” was born. (Reform [n]: amendment of what is defective, vicious, corrupt, or depraved.)
For a few weeks, the two-state solution seemed to work fine. And then word spread among forum mods and other diehard fans that there was this horrid other forum, where obsessive haters gathered to spew disgusting lies and vitriol about EA... and soon enough, it was bedlam in the Asylum.
Any explicit mention of the Reform was forbidden on the Asylum forum. Suspicion of participation in the Reform would get you banned. The party line was that The Reform was the enemy 🐀 – even though a number of people were active on both forums, because they liked freedom of expression almost as much as they liked EA. Double agents would lurk on the forum and report back with snark material; sycophants would infiltrate the Reform to identify traitors – much to the amusement of the “haters”, who mocked them and their ilk for “licking EA's pink sparkly boots”. There was no containing the seething, or the sass, among Asylum ranks.
Pretty soon, the insubordination spread to Tumblr. There was the “Ask the Reform” Q&A blog, where questioning fans could interact with “Rebel Rats”, get more details on past drama, and make up their own minds about the people EA called bullies.
And then, there were the “confession blogs”, which published anonymous submissions about EA, positive, negative or neutral, with little censorship. Finally, you didn't even have to pick a throw-away username on a private forum to voice your hottest / strangest / most controversial EA takes. Fans could vent, rant, lament, wonder, shitpost to their heart's content, anonymously. Obviously, given the context of frustration and censorship in the fandom, a lot of the first waves of confessions were EXTREMELY negative.
EA's acolyte Veronica managed to get the first one shut down. If memory serves, she misunderstood the confession blog format, and may have believed that all the posts on “Emilie Autumn Confessions” came from one or a small group of individuals. She was genuinely devastated, and wrote the blog admin to let them know that they were a terrible person who said terrible things. The admin was mortified, apologized profusely and deleted the blog of their own initiative. (Which goes to show that the concept did not come from cruel and malicious anti-fans, as detractors often claimed.)
But a new blog sprung up almost immediately, with a different mod team, and did not surrender. And much like in EA's own book, once the Plague Rats found out that they possessed the gift of speech... well, they really took to it.
Established in 2011 and passed on through generation after generation of mod teams to the present day, Wayward Victorian Confessions would turn out to be the longest-lived institution in the EA fandom. For over a decade now, through all the bleakest nights and dankest debacles of the Asylum, and despite its initial reputation as a troll den, WVC has acted as a kind of neutral ground and vox populi for the active fanbase and anti-fanbase. (The last nominally-active EA fansite to date, She Fights Like a Girl, is actually an offshoot of WVC: one of the old admins created it as a database to answer “frequently asked questions” about EA.)
Wayward Victorian Confessions has now outlived every other EA platform, official and unofficial. Were it not for the continued existence of the “troll den”, what little fan community survives in 2024 would be non-existent, plain and simple. To quote from late 20th century Canadian philosophy: isn't it ironic?

I feel like [WVC] is the only place I feel any of that old Asylum community kind of feeling I felt before EA got so focused on the book. It sucks that it’s so full of unhappiness, and I wish she hadn’t poisoned the sanctuary she claimed to have built. It’s just kind of fallen apart, like a crumbling building. (🐀 2016)

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

Hi everyone, first time posting on reddit and first time here (for obvious reasons 😂). I haven’t been officially diagnosed with HES but everyone involved in my health care are leaning heavy into that diagnosis. It should be confirmed in the next week or so.
My main question is if anyone here started with only lung issues? I developed a cough that became chronic in June of 2022. Before that, I had no health issues outside of sleep apnea that I’ve had since I was 17, I’m 47.
A little more background that may or may not be relevant, but I’m not overweight, I don’t exercise much, and smoked for 30 years. I grew up in Texas and moved to Seattle in 2018 where I developed allergies. Got a yellow lab in 2020 and recently had an allergy test done to find out I have a mild allergy to dogs. At first I thought I had developed a cough from smoking or was having an allergic reaction, so I went to see specialist.
My first pulmonologist was an a-hole, but my second was a lifesaver and seemed to know everyone that was top in their field here in the Seattle area. Long story, somewhat shorter, I was diagnosed with pretty bad ILD and severe sinusitis. I have a persistent cough with blood, fatigue, no appetite, lost a total of 60 pounds in a year (the last 30 from August 2023 to Jan 2024, and most recently skin lesions after coming of 60mg of prednisone for 2 weeks. That sparked discussion of various autoimmune disorders.
Now after 3 dermatologists, ENT, ILD specialists, Rheumatologist, hematologist/oncologist, a year and a half’s worth of a crap ton of tests and biopsies, including a recent VATS lung wedge resection, they think I have a type of hypereosinophilic syndrome. I have a bone marrow biopsy next Wed and they are presenting my case at a conference at UW tomorrow in hopes to confirm this. What’s made it so difficult is that a ton of my symptoms overlap other diseases so I’ve become a Venn diagram of sorts.
The skin lesions were a one off, but I am having new joint pain. Seems like something new every week. I have night sweats, don’t sleep well and have zero appetite. I went from 190 to 131 and I’m 5’10”. I also lost my sense of smell and taste since my sinuses are so bad.
My levels for a lot of my different cells are high or low. To note, my neutrophils at 8.62 and my MyChart says Normal range: 1.80 - 7.00 103/u, and my absolute eosinophil count is 5.25 with Normal range: 0.00 - 0.50 103/uL
I guess my curiosity is if my case is truly rare or if others out there have gone through something similar (or as specific as me) and how did you handle it. Because of the roller coaster I’ve been on for the past 2 years, I’m having a hard time accepting that I might finally have a diagnosis and that it’s HES.
Thank you in advance for your support and insight. Also, thank you to those who took the time to read all of this rambling.

hi all ! student at BHU rn, and here is a doable plan for people who have not started GT (assuming you are prepared with other subjects)
day 1 - time for GT - 12 hours (5 + 5+ 2)
LR - analogy, classification, series, coding decoding, alphabet test ( 5 hours)
Quant - Number System, HCF LCM, Sqaures and Cubes, Indices and Surds, Simplification ( 5 hours)
GK - youtube se current affairs padh lo, basic static GK (2 hours)
////
day 2 - time for GT - 12 hours
LR - Mathematical Operations, Direction Sense test, blood relations, logical sequencing, missing charecter ( 5 hours )
Quant - average, ratio and proportion, percentage, profit and loss, simple and compund interest, ( 7 hours )
GK optional bcs math heavy topics on day 2
////
day 3 - time for GT - 12 hours
LR - ranking test, sitting arrangement, puzzle test, venn diagram, cube and dice ( 5 hours )
Quant - mixutre and allegation, time and work, speed distance time, area perimeter, volume and surface area ( 7 hours )
////
day 4 - time for GT - 12 hours
LR - non verbal reasoning ( 2 hours )
Quant - algebra, geometery, data interpretation ( 4 hours )
GK - important dates, indian history, books and suthors, current affairs, general polity, sports awards, UN agencies, famous inventors of India, etc no bound syllabus here ( 6 hours )
////
day 5 - time for GT - 4 hours
REVISE RESVISE !!! do as much current affairs as you can, and revise all other subjects ( don't forget english !!)
all the best pookies <3

Sevenns on App Store
Sevenns combines crossword clues, anagrams and Venn diagrams for a mental game of twister!
​

If you have a venn diagram which has a segment where mods that appropriately represent the time period, or refine the "westerness" of the game, what I'm looking for will NOT be inside that segment.
I'm looking for recommendations on any mods which add:

• Modern, futuristic weaponry. Alien kit is great also.
• Non-setting appropriate melee weaponry - greatswords, katanas, spiked shields.
• Magic systems - could be like Skyrim, Enshrouded or one of those. Doesn't really matter - I'll take a look!
• Vehicles & aircraft. I saw there's some UFO mod, that's like a pin prick of goodness - strafing with a biplane would be fun as heck.
• Non-human entities, creatures or other - could be like skinwalkers or demon bufallo, or any crazy stuff. Giant crabs? Sure.

To those who are going to respond about "blah blah it's a western, only western mods" - I hear you, save your time and find another thread to contribute to if my "non-western" desires somehow offend you.
Once again, thanks in advance for any kooky, crazy, zany or other highly inappropriate mods for RDR2.
Peace!

When Tamara called for him, Ejder wasn't surprised. Her Mercy had every reason to be angry.
“Ejder, why? I gave you my soul shard so you could battle the evil and the merciless, and the God-Slaver is the only evil you've used it against. Every other time, it's been unreasonable use. Tournaments, sparring matches, simply causing chaos… Why?”
“I haven't used it against your wishes. You only said to show mercy while using it, and I've done that. I have not been merciless to anyone.”
The platinum dragon sighs. “You have that power to defend the realm, not to make yourself more powerful to win useless battles for the sake of entertainment.”
“So, what, are you taking it away? Crashing everything I've built to the ground? It's not much, but the Drakenwardens would become powerless.”
“No, I am not taking your soul shard. I am simply blocking your access untill a true evil actually requires it. Everything You've built with it, the Drakenwardens, the *Drakwing,* all of it will still work, you just cannot make anything new.”
Ejder looks down at the ground. “And how can I earn it back?”
“You can't. Not until you have your soul under control.”
Ejder speaks impatiently. “It is under control! I work in tandem with Ember!”
“Evidently, you seem to have gained her temper.”
He tries to collect himself, once again speaking calmly. “So what part do I not have under control?”
Instead of responding, Tamara taps Ejder’s chest with a claw, and what looks like a 3D venn diagram appears in front of him.
Tamara points to the two orbs, both orange. “These are you and Ember. The Sorcerer and the Dragon.”
She then points to the spot where the two orbs intersect. “This is the Fire, the portion of your souls that are fused. The part of your souls that would not exist if you two were not combined.”
She then reaches in and pulls the two orbs apart, revealing a small, golden, crystalline shard in between. “This is the Light, my soul shard, which suffuses power into the Fire to improve your combat abilities. Of course, you know all this.”
Tamara then points to another, smaller, black orb floating a short distance away. “This. This is what is not under control. Your soul has more pieces than you think. This here, is an untamed piece of your soul. Take a look and tell me what you see.”
Ejder looks closer, and the black orb seems to reform into a hooded, cloaked, shadowy figure with glowing red eyes. It looks up at him, without a sound.
“What is that?” Ejder asks.
The figure suddenly begins growing, becoming the same size as Ejder. “Well, I'm part of your soul, of course. I'm the version of you that takes those dreams and tries to make them real. I'm the one who spots sources of power for you. I'm the one who makes you feel guilty, wrath, desperation.”
“So, you control me without me knowing it?”
“I know, ain't it sad? But it's true.”
Tamara circles around Ejder and the shadowy figure. “You see, Ejder? You are not in as much control as you thought.”
“Why? What use is it to you?” Ejder asks the shadowy figure, ignoring Tamara.
“Well, I become more powerful, and you are the mask I wear while I do it. You're the one who gets blamed.”
“But, who are you really?”
“Well, that's just a silly question.” The hooded figure steps forwards. “I'm you, Sorcerer.”
Ejder steps back, a flash of fear penetrating his stoic expression. Tamara lets out a flash of light, causing the figure to disappear.
"Now, I still consider you one of my followers, Ejder. I will be on your side, but I cannot allow you to have the amount of power my soul shard grants."
Ejder stands still. "That... Thing... Is part of me?"
The dragon curls her tail around him, attempting to be comforting. "Only as much as you allow it to be. But please, understand, I'm taking the shard and telling you this for your safety."
"Ah, I see. There's your great, merciful benevolence shining through," Ejder says sarcastically.
The goddess lifts him up with her tail, holding him at eye level. "If I always showed you my benevolence, you would think nothing is ever wrong. Maybe when you start following my tenets a bit more closely, we can talk kindness and benevolence."
"Speaking of Benevolence, I should probably get back to Drakenhaven. I'm supposed to be doing high-altitude drop safety with the Drakenwardens."
"Why don't you stay in my domain for the night at least? Leave the responsibilities behind. Have some time alone to think."
"This feels eerily familiar."
The Shepherd watched from within, as the Sorcerer spoke with the Blinding Light. The Sorcerer didn't quite seem to understand the magnitude of what had just happened. The Sorcerer laid down in the presence of the Blinding Light, relaxing in the aura of light and life that radiated from her. And as his mind drifted off to sleep, the Shepherd began thinking, leading the Sorcerer's mind astray through his dreams.
The time would be soon.
/uw Really dialogue heavy post here. I doubt many will see it, let alone read it, and it's pretty garbage, but I'm waiting for some other things to finish up before I kick off my character arc, and I need to write something!

Hey, I'm a highschool student and we are learning logic. I apologise if I'm using the wrong terms for something, English isn't my first language. So our teacher explained Aristotle's 8 rules of logic (or syllogisms, don't know) and gave us some examples to solve. We solved this one in class:
Planets are celestial bodies Stars are celestial bodies Therefore planets are stars
He gave us 2 ways to analyse the structure to then apply the previously mentioned rules. The first was something Aristotle also said, it was like "the minor term [of the syllogism/affirmation] is the subject of the conclusion, the median term is the one used in both premises and the major term is the predicate of the conclusion". This way we assigned the terms based on the conclusion (with my example: P is Q, R is Q, therefore P is R means P = minor term, Q = median term and R = Major term.) The second method is that we just identify the terms and make something similar to a Venn Diagram (celestial bodies are a broad group, therefore they are the major term, stars are then median term because they pertain to this group, and planets are the minor term because they are the subject of the conclusion)
Both methods give different conclusions, obviously. When I asked him after class he didn't answer me, insisting we talk next day, when we have to do an exercise that counts towards our grade (he only does three per trimester and is very keen on making trick questions, so it can drop my average grade for this subject from around 7 to less than 5). I wanted to ask some clarification. Is one (or both) of this methods wrong, did he not explain something important or am I just too dense and dumb to understand?
Also, sorry if this isn't a post that should be made in this subreddit. Is there another subreddit more centered around logic questions? Thanks!

What’s that one hero that either sucks or you just suck at, but that absolutely nails your dopamine receptors?
Mine is definitely mars. I think the hero is pretty niche, he’s really, really dependent on his teammates to do damage, is hard countered by bkb until he gets refresher, and my WR with him is ass compared to centaur, Venomancer, darkseer, kunkka, heck even visage.
But my god is he fun. Landing that perfect arena and two man spear and then cyclone spearing running enemies is just…chefs kiss. And Venn diagram refresher arena is also just nasty. What’re your “lose but hits the dopamine” heroes?

Hiraedu is a site that can help you to handle your all coursework. contact hiraedu via
WhatsApp: +1 (213) 594-5657
Call: +1 727 456 9641
Top 6 Course to learn Statistics and Maths for Data Science in 2024

1. Statistics for Data Science and Business Analysis: This is one of the best courses to learn the fundamentals of statistics, not just for data scientists but for anyone who needs to use statistics for data analysis. In this course, you will learn to efficiently analyze data, formulate hypotheses and generally reason about what the big set of data is telling you.
2. Mathematics for Machine Learning Specialization: For a lot of higher-level courses in Machine Learning and Deep Learning, you will find a need to refresh the basics in mathematics and statistics like probability. This Specialization aims to bridge that gap, getting you up to speed in the underlying mathematics, building an intuitive understanding and relating it to Machine Learning and Data Science.
3. Become a Probability and Statistics Master: This is one of the most focused courses on Probability and Statistics together. You will learn everything from Probability and Statistics like Data distribution like mean, variance and standard deviation, normal distributions and z-scores, Data Visualization including bar graphs, pie charts, Venn diagrams, histograms, dot plots and more.
4. Statistics with R Specialization: This is another awesome resource for Data scientists on Coursera. In this Specialization, you will learn about how to analyze and visualize data in the R programming language and create reproducible data analysis reports.
5. Statistics Foundations: Understanding Probability and Distributions: This is an excellent online course to learn to sample and explore data, as well as basic probability theory and Bayes’ rule. You will examine various types of sampling methods and discuss how such practices can impact the scope of inference.
6. Mathematics for Machine Learning and Data Science Specialization by (link unavailable) This is a rather new course on Mathematics for Machine Learning and Data Science, created by (link unavailable), a company founded by Andrew Ng, a Coursera co-founder and pioneer expert in ML and AI. The “Mathematics for Machine Learning and Data Science” Specialization, offered by (link unavailable) and instructed by Luis Serrano, is a foundational program designed to equip learners with the essential mathematical toolkit required for understanding and implementing machine learning algorithms.