She Fights Like A Girl

@shefightslikeagirl​ is a fan-run, fan-curated fansite and archive. I have no affiliation with Emilie Autumn, her management, or her projects.

Blog Status: ACTIVE Inbox: OPEN

𝕹𝖆𝖛𝖎𝖌𝖆𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓: News Music Gallery Lyrics Interviews Journals & EA Archive *best viewed on desktop*

𝕾𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕾𝖎𝖙𝖊𝖘: @emilieautumnarchives​ @opheliagallery​

I am...thinking of you...you dirty rats...

I'm making album covers and also a lyric booklet (all just for fun). Please and thank you oh so much <3 xoxoxoxo

I don't have it in transparent, but I do have it in a few different formats on a black background:

And with some photoshop skills, it could probably be lifted out of this:

The Tension Experience: Ascension was, in their own words, a "fully immersive, site specific journey of trust, betrayal and submission." Produced by Gordon Bijelonic and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (who we know from The Devil's Carnvial), The Tension Experience served as a unique immersive theater performance in downtown Los Angeles in the fall of 2016. It began earlier in the year as an ARG (alternate reality game) that led up to the experience itself, centered around a fictional cult known as the Oracular Order of Anoch.

This came after Darren's first foray into immersive theater (that I know of, at least) with The Asylum Experience, which was Emilie's set during Vans Warped Tour in 2014.

I'll be honest: I didn't follow this closely at the time. EA didn't post about it much, except for the odd Instagram and Twitter post. But thanks to @rollingscone, we now have an archive of EA's work published in Tension's art book, The Tension Experience: Chronicles of the OOA. I've also done a little extra research on the side.

While there were more versions of Tension that followed "Ascension," I don't know if EA had involvement with "Lust" or any other productions.

See her reflection below and some photos of her work for the Experience.

On Wearing 1000 Hats

Creative Consultant Emilie Autumn on her involvement with The Tension Experience: Ascension

It was 12:36AM on a Sunday night and I had just received a text message from my friend Darren.

"What are you doing tomorrow? I need help."

"What do you need, babydoll?" I responded.

"A lot of help. This is a disaster."

I've known Darren Bousman for a very long time. This frantic call to arms is nothing terribly out of the ordinary, and if my five-year archive of text messages is in any way trustworthy, most S.O.S. requests have to do with Darren having eaten too many brussels sprouts and wondering if this would present a danger to his physical person.

As it turns out, this text had nothing to do with brussels sprouts whatsoever. This text had to do with The Tension Experience, Darren's first foray into legitimate immersive theater, which I have long known to be his great passion.

I knew a bit about Tension when it was merely an ARG, but just a bit. For example, I knew that there was a character called Addison, because I had been asked to compose and pen her entire diary a month prior. I had come up with character traits, relationships, and a backstory for Addison, based primarily on instinct and a handful of lucky guesses, and was even present at the handoff of the diary containing all of this information to a Tension ARG player as he sat, mystified, in the revolting Downtown Los Angeles Public Library. But The Tension Experience as I understood it was to be completely different, new, a standalone piece of performance art, and this I knew nothing about.

To review the remaining texts that were exchanged that Sunday, one would think that perhaps a secretary was required, or even someone to read lines with actors -- you know, some menial assistance, nothing too strenuous, and only for a day or two, certainly no more than three. Though generally far more comfortable in front of the audience than behind the scenes, I wasn't touring at the moment, so what was a few days to help out a friend?

Over a month later I had eaten little, slept less, been on emergency call on a virtually round-the-clock schedule (if Darren needs six more white dresses delivered the next day because the blood won't come out of the ones we have, I will never not make that happen), hired costumers, sewed dozens of hoods for the unsuspecting audience to wear, penned and tea-stained hundreds of tiny notes before hiding them throughout the set several times during each performance, held crying actors as they suffered existential breakdowns at what they were being asked to do, and all but moved in to a Los Angeles warehouse in a part of town so sketchy that Uber drivers refused to pick me up there after dark. I had learned every one of Tension's 40-plus roles so that I could step in for any actor that got sick, and I had already played two of those roles several times over, frequently appearing as Ina, an elderly woman who likes her puzzles just a little too much, and also as the mentally compromised machinist who locks audience members inside a room made of televisions.

During all of this time, I never entirely knew what my job title was, and I think at some point I was called a Creative Consultant, though I'm not entirely sure what that even means. And, in the end, it didn't matter. I was there to help, and to learn, and my goodness, did I learn. Humbled daily by how much I didn't know, startled constantly by the depth of my own insecurities, and bursting with pride every time I watched an actor successfully get through a trying scene that I know I had encouraged, I learned.

Suffice it to say Darren hadn't needed a secretary after all. What he had needed was a friend who could puts aside her own actor ego to help others develop theirs, who could put aside her often-debilitating germaphobia to help build a piece of collaborative art that was anything but clean or pretty, and who could simply get things done that needed doing, while never complaining or saying "I can't."

While I shouldn't say that I never complained (there were many long car rides home), I will be forever grateful that Darren thought I could fit this description, however loosely, and I hope that I served The Tension Experience, its actors, and its audience well.

And if you went through the Experience and left with puzzle pieces tucked down your shirt, there is a very good chance we've met.

Some of EA's notes included in the Experience, as archived by Taylor Winters of Haunting.net:

EA's credits listed in the art book (AD and Artistic Consultant):

Some of EA's posts, circa 2016:

Do you have any info about The Tension Experience? Did anyone go? The askbox is always open!

Rat Queene Tail, Captain Jolie Rogue Hat and More on Ebay

Disclaimer: These are not my items. I stumbled across these listings today and cannot guantee anything about them.

Remastered Album, Originally Recorded 1999 The rats have been down to the vaults. Enchant—the teenage compositions first committed to tape in 1999, long before anyone was listening—returns remastered. As violin-heavy as her later work, this is the sound of EA's tentative first vocals, years before the Asylum was so much as a bloodspot on anyone's striped stockings. Come in and hear where it all began.

Rumors have been circulating that Enchant was taken down from streaming to be remastered. EA confirmed those rumors in a newsletter today, announcing a remaster—and that the remaster would be done live in the Inner Circle.

Dearest friend and fellow Inmate,

More than a few Plague Rats have reached out over the last few months to ask what happened to the Enchant album after it had gone missing from all the (evil) streaming sites. The first letter surprised me, and I assumed it would be the only one. It wasn't.

What I learned is that I have utterly no idea what work of mine people are attached to, or even aware of—and how far back that thread goes.

The simple fact is, I had taken down my earliest material for remastering. I didn't think anyone would notice, let alone be upset, and for that ignorance, I apologize.

If you are one of those Ratties who misses "What If" or "Castle Down" or "Across the Sky," I have news I suspect you'll be glad of: The original 1999 Enchant album is being remastered...tomorrow!

It happens live, inside the Asylum Inner Circle, streaming directly from Striped Stocking Studio, where you can watch and listen to every step of the process.

And if you're not a Circle member, fear not—the remastered edition will be available everywhere the moment it's finished.

And of course, the cover—which I only possessed in my archives as a 300×300px jpg—has been remastered as well.

I will never cease to be shocked at how many years it took me to realize I'd put my "W14A" tattoo exactly where I once drew "enchant." It seems there is rather a lot I hadn't realized...

While I'm not part of the Inner Circle, I suspect the live remastering is being done, in part, to prove she isn't using AI to process the songs. But it remains to be seen how she's remastering, or what qualifies as a remaster.

I also don't know what she means by original 1999 album, unless she simply means some of the songs were recorded in '99 even though the album was released in 2003.

"What If" Live Piano Version, 2026 Clipped from an Asylum Inner Circle Livestream