The Bloody Crumpets: An Inconsistent History in The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls
An Asylum History post by@shefightslikeagirl
In 2008, the Plague tour began, and with it began the first Asylum Book readings. This was the first look into The Asylum... book for the general public, outside of the single teaser track included on the 4 o'Clock EP, and gave the fandom its first significant insight into the Asylum world.
At the time, the Bloody Crumpets that toured with Emilie were Vecona, Aprella, Lucina, Veronica, Joo Hee (on cello), and Ulorin Vex (briefly).
Lady Joo Hee, Center of Happiness, and Sachiko
Lady Joo Hee was Emilie's friend and musical companion from 2004 to 2008. In August of 2004, Emilie posted a wanted ad for a female cellist in The Asylum Forum Journal Entries, which read as follows:
Wanted: Female cellist to join the lineup of an all-female chamber-pop group fronted by violinist/singer of national renown. You must have your own gear (electric cello or cello with pickup and amp, effects, etc.), be in or around Chicago, and an appreciation for eclectic tastes that go beyond straight classical music (or straight rock for that matter). The band's goal is to perform locally and tour nationally in support of albums already recorded. If you have any background in early music (Baroque, Renaissance, even Celtic), we'll love you even more. Your talents as a seriously trained instrumentalist will be greatly appreciated (!!!) but we'd love it if you have a tendency to rock as well. An affection for corsets, glitter, and stage makeup is nice but optional.
And, in May of 2008 at the Wave Gotik Treffen Book Readings, Joo Hee was revealed as a character in the earliest version of The Asylum... (at approximately 3:10).
[Video re-uploaded / archived from this YouTube video by Frank S.]
This particular reading featured the end of the book, which means that at some point, Joo Hee was written in throughout an entire draft of the Asylum. Images of Joo Hee were also featured in an article by Alternative Magazine, who did a spread on The Asylum... book in 2008. (Her name also appears in this version of the text, but due to the low resolution it's hard to make out.)
[Emilie Autumn & Lady Joo Hee (left), Emilie Autumn & "Sachiko" (right)]
Shortly after these readings, Lady Joo Hee disappeared from the Bloody Crumpets. The reasons were not made public; however, it's been speculated that there was some falling out between the two, and she was struck from the book entirely before publication, and replaced with the fictional Sachiko, with her face edited out of the book.
Captain Vecona, Teakeeper of the Asylum, and Jolie Rogue
Captain Vecona was a Bloody Crumpet and partner of Emilie Autumn's from 2006 to 2008, and the first pirate character to join the Bloody Crumpets.
In The Asylum... book, the Captain, or Jolie Rogue, has never shared a name with a specific Bloody Crumpet. However, the Captain was initially modeled off of Vecona, drawing heavy influence from her onstage appearance and persona (compare the above image to the ones below.)
After a business dispute in 2008/2009, Vecona left the Bloody Crumpets. The Asylum... still published with the Captain having her stage likeness, but in the third edition of the book (the audiobook), Jolie's hair color was changed to blonde and thus her image was distanced from Vecona's.
See comparisons below from the text.
"I saw a white shift and striped stockings, black-and-white, black-and-white, black-and-white... I saw a mass of dark hair on top of which was a perched a bizarre tri-corner hat that looked as though it had been fashioned from torn scraps of paper."
"...and the tangled mass of black hair was unmistakable."
- The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, first ed. 2009. Print. Pg. 58, 61.
"I saw a white shift... I saw striped stockings, black-and-white, black-and-white, black-and-white... I saw a mass of silvery hair on top of which was perched a bizarre tri-corner hat that looked as though it had been fashioned from torn scraps of paper."
"...and the tangled mass of pale hair was unmistakable."
- The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, third ed. 2015. Audiobook. Tracks 26, 28.
After Vecona's departure, Maggie Lally, better known as Captain Maggots, took on the pirate persona for the tours. However, she never adopted the name Jolie Rogue, and had no characters based off of her in the book.
Emilie had this to say regarding the change, as revealed in a Goodreads Q&A in 2018:
The Naughty Veronica and Charlotte
The Naughty Veronica, or Veronica Varlow, was a Bloody Crumpet and friend of Emilie from 2008 to 2020. The character onstage and in the book were one and the same--Veronica, in the book, was a representation of the character that Veronica Varlow played on stage, and that was made very clear by Emilie and Varlow throughout their time together.
In the first iterations of The Asylum..., Veronica was a friend and confidant to Emily-with-a-y. However, in the audiobook version (3rd edition), the plot changed drastically to make Veronica more central to the story. The character Christelle (below), who was murdered by Dr. Stockhill in the first two editions of the book, was absorbed into Veronica. She became the character murdered by Stockill (instead of surviving, as she did in the previous versions), in an attempt to add a tragic punch to the end of a new love story between herself and Emily-with-a-y.
Veronica has also been given two songs in the musical: "Don't Kiss Me," which was originally specifically written for Varlow for the Asylum Experience 2015 (which never got off the ground), and "From the Gutter to the Stars."
However, it's been speculated that Varlow and Emilie had a falling out in recent years. At some point after the Spring of 2019, Emilie and Varlow unfollowed each other on social media and stopped cross-promoting each other (Varlow published a book and overcame skin cancer during that time). And then on March 14, 2022, Emilie posted a new lyric video for "From the Gutter to the Stars" and "Don't Kiss Me" on YouTube with the following caption:
*Note* For anyone already familiar with the story, you'll wonder at the name change of the character of Veronica to Charlotte. I made this call as, for the musical version of the story, the name "Charlotte" was deemed more Victorian-era appropriate (it was suggested to me that "Veronica" was a bit out of place and I agreed). I thought it would be confusing to have the same character referred to by multiple names, so, Charlotte it is, and she's fabulous.🖤
Neither party has made any direct statements about their standing, but after their very public friendship, career, and collaborations over the last decade, it's quite surprising to the fandom to see them separated.
The Lady Aprella and Christelle
This one requires a lot of assumptions, because the connection isn't clear and Aprella has never been mentioned by name in any iteration of The Asylum..., but there are comparisons to be made between Aprella and Christelle.
"A girl called Christelle promptly arrived to fill the empty cage. Originally from France, Christelle amuses the viewers tremendously by singing obscene songs in her native language whilst spinning around in circles."
- The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls, second ed. 2011. Print. Page 143.
In an interview with her now-closed fansite, Aprella stated the following about her stage character:
"...the basic root of [my character] is that she was a ballet dancer who had dreams of becoming prima but those were shattered when her magical red ribbon was removed from her neck while she slept. The ribbon had served her ability to do perfect ballet and after the ribbon was removed, her ability to dance perfectly fell apart..."
While ballet itself originates from the Italian Renaissance, it's known mostly for its French and Russian history. And with Christelle's French origins and her "broken" dancing, which was a critical element of Aprella's onstage persona, I think it's fair to say that there is a parallel between them, however slight.
Overall, Christelle is a minor character. In the first two editions of the book, her largest part is that Emily-with-a-y witnesses her murder at the hands of Dr. Stockill, but this is changed to another character in later editions.
Aprella and Emilie parted ways in 2010. Both unfollowed each other on social media and Aprella auctioned off some of her costume pieces, leaving the Bloody Crumpets permanently. She makes little reference to her days in the Asylum now.
Honorable Mention: fLee, Queen of Tarts, and Flea
In the days of the Asylum Forums, there was once a site admin named fLee. She was a real-world friend of Emilie's when she lived in Chicago, whose screen name was featured in the book as a small side character that was later removed in the 3rd edition.
It has been speculated that after the forum's closure in Summer of 2014, the two grew apart and are no longer close friends. Emilie had this to say about the removal of Flea, Christelle, and Joanna:
The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls has gone through many, many revisions, from small corrections to large-scale plot changes. There are multiple copyright years: 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2017, and 2020 onwards (musical). But in its original draft, it was most likely sent to be printed when everyone was still on good terms with each other, and the fallouts between Emilie, Trisol Records, and some of the Bloody Crumpets had yet to take place. Each character change in the book seems to follow after Emilie has broken ties with the persons those characters may or may not be based on, and some have come during heavy editing of the book--the second to third edition--and may simply be a result of those revisions.
It's all speculation. But I hope you all found this post interesting, and feel free to comment anything I missed out on or forgot in the reblogs and comments below.
