WEBVTT 00:00:38.060 --> 00:00:40.719 and welcome back to Eldritch Girl. I'm really 00:00:40.719 --> 00:00:42.880 happy that you're stuck with the podcast so far. 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:44.960 I really hope you're enjoying Yelen and Yelena 00:00:44.960 --> 00:00:47.899 and if you are I'd love it if you'd also buy 00:00:47.899 --> 00:00:50.380 a copy of Yelen and Yelena. Give it to a friend 00:00:50.380 --> 00:00:54.560 or just read along and you can get it in print 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:58.700 or ebook anywhere you want. It's available from 00:00:58.700 --> 00:01:01.259 print on demand Amazon and Barnes and Noble so 00:01:01.259 --> 00:01:02.920 you've got that choice if you're not an Amazon 00:01:02.920 --> 00:01:06.200 fan and you can get it from any ebook place as 00:01:06.200 --> 00:01:11.280 well. Anyway, we're on Chapter 13, friends. Water 00:01:11.280 --> 00:01:16.159 and Winter. So there are only 20 chapters, so 00:01:16.159 --> 00:01:20.579 we are racing towards Part 3, The Rot, which 00:01:20.579 --> 00:01:22.840 is coming up right after this chapter. So this 00:01:22.840 --> 00:01:28.379 is the last chapter of Part 2. In terms of content 00:01:28.379 --> 00:01:32.200 warnings for Chapter 13, there is bloodletting 00:01:32.200 --> 00:01:36.519 and some ancient medical... equipment that is 00:01:36.519 --> 00:01:39.760 used for that for blood transfusions by which 00:01:39.760 --> 00:01:42.799 I mean needles and I understand that some people 00:01:42.799 --> 00:01:45.640 just cannot do needles at all if that is you 00:01:45.640 --> 00:01:47.780 do not worry if you look in the episode description 00:01:47.780 --> 00:01:50.180 there will be a little note to say what time 00:01:50.180 --> 00:01:54.099 to skip to so that you miss that part out and 00:01:54.099 --> 00:01:56.579 if you're reading the book as a read -along you'll 00:01:56.579 --> 00:02:00.040 know where it where it's coming and you can just 00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:02.579 skip ahead a couple of pages and it'll be fine 00:02:03.709 --> 00:02:07.489 So there we go. Those are the main content warnings 00:02:07.489 --> 00:02:11.349 for this chapter, I think. Chapter 13. Water 00:02:11.349 --> 00:02:17.069 and Winter. [The novel is the transcript for this read along section: please get a copy of that to read along]. 00:19:53.200 --> 00:19:55.259 This is a shorter one again, and I wanted to leave 00:19:55.259 --> 00:19:57.119 it there because we're now going into part three, 00:19:57.180 --> 00:20:00.440 The Rot, with chapters 14 to 20. But also I thought 00:20:00.440 --> 00:20:03.019 I could do world building part two on the end 00:20:03.019 --> 00:20:05.250 of this shorter episode. I'm going to talk about 00:20:05.250 --> 00:20:08.890 some influences for this and also some of the 00:20:08.890 --> 00:20:12.069 folklore that I used while I was worldbuilding. 00:20:12.390 --> 00:20:14.509 So one of the most fun things about the worldbuilding 00:20:14.509 --> 00:20:16.43 was riffing off the Beauty and the Beast story, 00:20:16.549 --> 00:20:18.690 where Belle's father is a merchant who falls 00:20:18.690 --> 00:20:21.289 on hard times and Belle's sisters want silks 00:20:21.289 --> 00:20:23.029 and expensive gifts when he gets back from his 00:20:23.029 --> 00:20:25.869 latest venture that's going to turn his fortunes 00:20:25.869 --> 00:20:28.789 around. But all Belle wants is a rose. One of 00:20:28.789 --> 00:20:31.250 my favourite live -action versions is the 2014 00:20:31.250 --> 00:20:33.589 version with Vincent Cassell as the Beast and 00:20:33.589 --> 00:20:36.349 Lea... Seydoux I think I said that right as Belle 00:20:36.349 --> 00:20:43.049 directed by Christophe Gans in that one she falls 00:20:43.049 --> 00:20:44.910 in love with him through her dreams of seeing 00:20:44.910 --> 00:20:48.549 him interacting with his late wife which is gorgeously 00:20:48.549 --> 00:20:51.650 French, and she literally just has these dreams 00:20:51.650 --> 00:20:55.069 of him as a man and like he's married to the 00:20:55.069 --> 00:20:58.430 love of his life and like she sees them interacting 00:20:58.430 --> 00:21:01.150 and she's like yes that is the man that I want 00:21:01.150 --> 00:21:05.589 to marry myself when She dies. And then like 00:21:05.589 --> 00:21:09.299 when... she's awake she denies that she cares 00:21:09.299 --> 00:21:11.660 about him because he's a beast and he's also 00:21:11.660 --> 00:21:14.619 very annoying very grumpy and then he lands on 00:21:14.619 --> 00:21:16.259 top of her during a chase scene and they nearly 00:21:16.259 --> 00:21:18.319 kiss but they fall through the ice or something 00:21:18.319 --> 00:21:20.259 like that and then there's a lot of fantasy elements 00:21:20.259 --> 00:21:22.720 and it's a lot of fun but there's also a lot 00:21:22.720 --> 00:21:24.779 more time given to the family back home and the 00:21:24.779 --> 00:21:27.059 father's debts and the consequences and there's 00:21:27.059 --> 00:21:30.559 like all of these shady gamblers and like debtors 00:21:30.559 --> 00:21:33.319 going on and like ruffians and it's it's just 00:21:33.319 --> 00:21:36.339 oh yeah i just really liked it as a as a film 00:21:36.589 --> 00:21:38.210 because there's quite a lot of influence here. 00:21:38.549 --> 00:21:40.589 And I wanted to switch it up a bit and have my 00:21:40.589 --> 00:21:44.990 protagonist already on Hard Times. And I took 00:21:44.990 --> 00:21:47.250 the merchant idea and I was like, what if it's 00:21:47.250 --> 00:21:50.329 a world where merchants run everything? And so 00:21:50.329 --> 00:21:53.829 it would make sense if my protagonist is not 00:21:53.829 --> 00:21:56.410 part of that class at all. And I did kind of 00:21:56.410 --> 00:21:58.369 toy with the idea of making her father a merchant 00:21:58.369 --> 00:22:02.690 who is now not a merchant. But I kind of like... 00:22:03.079 --> 00:22:06.339 the fact that he never ever got to be and so 00:22:06.339 --> 00:22:09.680 that shapes Jelena in a different way to a way 00:22:09.680 --> 00:22:12.920 you know where she potentially thought she's 00:22:12.920 --> 00:22:17.819 owed something or she feels like she should be 00:22:17.819 --> 00:22:20.859 part of that class but she isn't. I kind of wanted 00:22:20.859 --> 00:22:23.299 her to be completely separated from it and have 00:22:23.299 --> 00:22:26.779 to sort her own life out and have very little 00:22:26.779 --> 00:22:29.740 agency and be very aware of the agency that she 00:22:29.740 --> 00:22:32.700 doesn't have. So I knew that was the situation 00:22:32.700 --> 00:22:35.259 I wanted her to be in and I built that world 00:22:35.259 --> 00:22:37.099 for her to be at the bottom of the pecking order. 00:22:37.400 --> 00:22:40.079 I didn't know anything about her really but I 00:22:40.079 --> 00:22:42.839 wanted to kind of see how the world would shape 00:22:42.839 --> 00:22:46.259 her, how the situation would shape her. And also 00:22:46.259 --> 00:22:48.380 it's very difficult to build a Belle character 00:22:48.380 --> 00:22:53.880 that isn't like a shell of a person from all 00:22:53.880 --> 00:22:56.480 of the other stories. So I wanted to make her 00:22:56.480 --> 00:23:00.099 kind of her own person. And I also use the Disney 00:23:00.099 --> 00:23:03.980 animation version. So the songs about Belle being 00:23:03.980 --> 00:23:07.920 from a poor provincial town as my setting inspiration. 00:23:10.029 --> 00:23:12.109 I grew up in a very small place, which is not 00:23:12.109 --> 00:23:14.670 really a town. It's in the countryside. I couldn't 00:23:14.670 --> 00:23:17.130 wait to leave it. And I ended up basically back 00:23:17.130 --> 00:23:20.230 there as an adult for the longest time. And I 00:23:20.230 --> 00:23:22.009 know a few people who left and then deliberately 00:23:22.009 --> 00:23:24.630 came back because they love it so much. And they 00:23:24.630 --> 00:23:27.089 have many ties to it. And they literally can't 00:23:27.089 --> 00:23:28.769 imagine living anywhere else because they love 00:23:28.769 --> 00:23:31.309 it. Like they go away for university. They go 00:23:31.309 --> 00:23:34.109 far away. They go to London. They go to like 00:23:34.109 --> 00:23:36.910 other cities. They try life out somewhere else. 00:23:37.230 --> 00:23:39.190 And it's just not for them. And they come back. 00:23:39.470 --> 00:23:43.970 and that's what I wanted I wanted to kind of 00:23:43.970 --> 00:23:47.869 honour that story of someone who loves their 00:23:47.869 --> 00:23:51.009 village loves their community loves all the memories 00:23:51.009 --> 00:23:53.349 that they've made there and then they have it 00:23:53.349 --> 00:23:56.509 taken away from them piece by piece until there's 00:23:56.509 --> 00:24:00.329 nobody left And everyone who is left is so busy 00:24:00.329 --> 00:24:02.470 fighting for their own survival there that they'll 00:24:02.470 --> 00:24:04.849 turn on each other. And it's kind of like this 00:24:04.849 --> 00:24:07.569 deconstruction of a community and like that's 00:24:07.569 --> 00:24:09.789 just had its heart and soul ripped out of it 00:24:09.789 --> 00:24:13.549 just because everybody's moved away. A lot of 00:24:13.549 --> 00:24:17.210 Jelena's family are all dead. That's just part 00:24:17.210 --> 00:24:19.809 of my story and it's part of communities that 00:24:19.809 --> 00:24:22.250 I know. And so I put all of that in there as 00:24:22.250 --> 00:24:27.430 well because I kind of don't like the... naivety 00:24:27.430 --> 00:24:30.829 I suppose of oh it's a poor provincial town and 00:24:30.829 --> 00:24:33.369 I'm too good for it and I don't want to be part 00:24:33.369 --> 00:24:35.670 of it and they're all really narrow -minded here 00:24:35.670 --> 00:24:37.809 and they're all selfish and they're all you know 00:24:37.809 --> 00:24:41.829 like it's just such a stereotype and I know that 00:24:41.829 --> 00:24:44.730 there are also small towns like that but I don't 00:24:44.730 --> 00:24:46.529 know man I think a community is what you make 00:24:46.529 --> 00:24:52.099 it you know And I kind of liked the idea of there 00:24:52.099 --> 00:24:54.900 being a community there that was worth going 00:24:54.900 --> 00:24:59.799 back to. And so that was Jelena's story. And 00:24:59.799 --> 00:25:01.839 I deliberately didn't want her to be conventionally 00:25:01.839 --> 00:25:03.539 beautiful either, because I really don't see 00:25:03.539 --> 00:25:06.099 the point of that. And I also deliberately didn't 00:25:06.099 --> 00:25:09.240 want Jelena to be a Disney prince, even if he 00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:11.599 changed back. Because again, I don't see the 00:25:11.599 --> 00:25:13.680 point of that either. And I thought, you know, 00:25:13.680 --> 00:25:15.759 if he changes back, he's going to be a fat man 00:25:15.759 --> 00:25:19.670 in his 50s. not some ripped angelic looking 18 00:25:19.670 --> 00:25:22.230 year old. And I really like that. So it's an 00:25:22.230 --> 00:25:24.269 age gap thing, even if he hadn't been cursed 00:25:24.269 --> 00:25:26.869 for 200 years. And I quite like that too. So 00:25:26.869 --> 00:25:29.329 that's why Yelena then became a laundress and 00:25:29.329 --> 00:25:32.750 a sex worker for fun and profit in her 30s. So 00:25:32.750 --> 00:25:35.230 she's still quite young, but she's also not a 00:25:35.230 --> 00:25:37.529 kid who doesn't know the world. She's had time 00:25:37.529 --> 00:25:40.529 to build up some adult life experiences. She's 00:25:40.529 --> 00:25:43.130 been beyond the village and come back. And she's 00:25:43.130 --> 00:25:45.990 a much better match for Yelen as he is now than 00:25:45.990 --> 00:25:48.740 a younger girl would be, so... as for the aesthetics 00:25:48.740 --> 00:25:51.740 of it i think a lot of that are influenced by 00:25:51.740 --> 00:25:54.579 the disney animation which i think sparked my 00:25:54.579 --> 00:25:58.279 love of the gothic as a small child and also 00:25:58.279 --> 00:26:02.019 of course Jean Cocteau's 1946 version which I 00:26:02.019 --> 00:26:04.960 really love, but a lot of the village itself and 00:26:04.960 --> 00:26:09.180 village life comes from Juraj Hertz's 1978 Czech 00:26:09.180 --> 00:26:12.160 New Wave production Panna a Netvor, The Maiden 00:26:12.160 --> 00:26:13.960 and the Monster or Beauty and the Beast and that's 00:26:13.960 --> 00:26:17.400 the one where the beast has a bird head and is 00:26:17.400 --> 00:26:21.279 a kind of like half man half bird and is really 00:26:21.279 --> 00:26:23.480 weird like I really love that I think that's 00:26:23.480 --> 00:26:25.819 probably my favourite film. So that's where a 00:26:25.819 --> 00:26:28.220 lot of world building came from and I built it 00:26:28.220 --> 00:26:31.140 from there. The Butterfly as souls is a piece 00:26:31.140 --> 00:26:33.900 of real world folklore in Ireland white butterflies 00:26:33.900 --> 00:26:35.880 were thought to be the souls of departed children 00:26:35.880 --> 00:26:39.460 which is where I think I heard it first and I 00:26:39.460 --> 00:26:40.900 couldn't remember the source for it so I looked 00:26:40.900 --> 00:26:44.160 it up and it's everywhere so I didn't know that 00:26:44.160 --> 00:26:46.319 there are butterfly legends in Mexico as well 00:26:46.319 --> 00:26:49.920 it's an indigenous Mexican myth about butterflies 00:26:49.920 --> 00:26:52.220 being the souls of the dead but I haven't really 00:26:52.220 --> 00:26:54.940 looked into that and also it's in Japan too and 00:26:54.940 --> 00:26:57.220 I thought that was really cool so I thought okay 00:26:57.220 --> 00:26:59.299 I stuck with it as a piece of folklore because 00:26:59.299 --> 00:27:01.700 of the European folklore connection, the Irish 00:27:01.700 --> 00:27:04.700 connection, I kept that in. The wind was just 00:27:04.700 --> 00:27:07.839 a random thought because of the way we anthropomorphise 00:27:07.839 --> 00:27:10.420 the winds and the way the wind is described as 00:27:10.420 --> 00:27:12.980 having a voice, it whispers, it screams, it cries. 00:27:13.400 --> 00:27:15.640 So I thought it would be good to give it an actual 00:27:15.640 --> 00:27:18.759 stream of voices to carry and make it part of 00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:21.819 the fantasy afterlife and weave it into folk 00:27:21.819 --> 00:27:24.640 belief and religion. And I thought maybe city 00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:27.319 people can't hear those voices because they're 00:27:27.319 --> 00:27:29.759 no longer attuned to them. And the provinces 00:27:29.759 --> 00:27:31.720 are still one of the only places that you can 00:27:31.720 --> 00:27:33.920 hear the dead voices on the wind properly above 00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:37.500 the noise of life or what the industrial life 00:27:37.500 --> 00:27:40.549 and urban life has become. And that might be 00:27:40.549 --> 00:27:42.630 really fun to explore if I do anything more in 00:27:42.630 --> 00:27:44.869 this world where the wind could be used to differentiate 00:27:44.869 --> 00:27:48.170 the city from the country. I have mentioned As Below, So 00:27:48.170 --> 00:27:50.910 Above before, and that also takes place in a 00:27:50.910 --> 00:27:53.130 rural setting and it's all set in an alchemy 00:27:53.130 --> 00:27:55.849 tower. So I won't be exploring the wind concept 00:27:55.849 --> 00:27:58.789 there, I don't think, but we'll see. So I thought 00:27:58.789 --> 00:28:01.490 it would also be nice to have the water carrying 00:28:01.490 --> 00:28:04.329 something too and for there to be debate about 00:28:04.329 --> 00:28:07.509 it. So that kind of... balanced out the wind 00:28:07.509 --> 00:28:09.890 I thought we also need something else that's 00:28:09.890 --> 00:28:13.210 more kind of grounded and again water is often 00:28:13.210 --> 00:28:16.269 anthropomorphized as babbling, chattering, laughing 00:28:16.269 --> 00:28:19.910 especially in mid -20th century children's books 00:28:19.910 --> 00:28:22.250 that were read to me as a child like The Laughing 00:28:22.250 --> 00:28:25.569 Brook, The Laughing Stream and I think I just 00:28:25.569 --> 00:28:29.069 internalized that because that's what I instinctively 00:28:29.069 --> 00:28:32.049 think of as an adjective I think of like you 00:28:32.049 --> 00:28:35.450 know The Laughing Stream or something so it made 00:28:35.630 --> 00:28:39.450 sense to have the water be the laughing element 00:28:39.450 --> 00:28:41.970 that balances out the bad news of the air so 00:28:41.970 --> 00:28:44.190 I think that's what I was going for and that's 00:28:44.190 --> 00:28:46.509 sort of how my process went and some influences 00:28:46.509 --> 00:28:48.470 that got me thinking about the layers I was going 00:28:48.470 --> 00:28:50.910 to build on and where some of those ideas began. 00:28:51.190 --> 00:28:54.250 I had a lot of fun building up my fantasy religions 00:28:54.250 --> 00:28:58.869 as you might have noticed and the legends in 00:28:58.869 --> 00:29:01.450 particular so I may talk more about that in future 00:29:01.450 --> 00:29:05.819 episodes but for now. I will leave it there and 00:29:05.819 --> 00:29:08.420 see you next time. Bye for now.