Mundie Moms

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Cassie's Latest Q&A plus Fan Art Update


We're catching up on Cassie's latest tumblr posts where she answered a few more questions and posted the latest fan art. You know we're loving all these answers and the fan art is making these characters so very real, we're having trouble containing our natural fan girl  tendencies:

Q. You use a lot of other languages in your books and I was wondering how you did the translations? Or do you speak them? I’m writing a book and including other languages and I was wondering if I could use Google Translate?

Cassie: First: Definitely, I do not speak Mandarin, Welsh, French, and Spanish. I’m conversational in French and speak some Spanish and Italian.

Secondly, no, Google Translate is never a good idea except if you’re trying to get a basic idea of what a website is about or something like that.

The translations in my book are done by native speakers — the French was translated by Angélique Issen who runs TMIFrance, and the Mandarin was translated by native speaker Margaret Pon, who is the mother of the lovely Cindy Pon. The phrases, and then the translations of the phrases, then go to Wolfstone Translations to be checked over. I would never do the translations myself! *— even though I’ve lived in France, literally the worst translations you can get are if you think you know a language, or if you do know a language well enough to chat in it, but you don’t know the idioms, you don’t know when things are supposed to be inaccurate because that’s how it’s colloquially spoken (“I’ve got all the feels” means nothing at all in standardized English, but all languages have expressions like it) and you don’t know how the same word is interpreted differently in different locales (“pants” in America and “pants” in England.)

You’re never going to get every single thing about a language right, and there will be native speakers who disagree with other native speakers about how language should be used. Language is a mutable thing. Consult native speakers; if you can’t, work with a reputable translation agency. Ideally do both.

And now: DIRTY HUNGARIAN PHRASEBOOK.

* The only exception I can think of would be the Spanish in TiD, because the only person who speaks it is Gideon, who just learned it — there’s no reason his Spanish would be accurate.

Q. Hi Cassandra! So my friend and I have been a bit obsessed with TLH, especially the relationship of Cordelia Carstairs and James Herondale. We both are HUGE Jordelia shippers, and know little to nothing about the two. It is known that they are married with a child (Owen) but know one has done anything with their relationship. We both are overly excited to see what happens and if there is a depth relationship there at all. So my question was, is there going to be an in depth relationship between the two? Wouldn’t it be a bit awkward because of Lucie being Cordelia’s best friend and James being Lucie’s brother? Also one last question, does Cordelia live in Idris or close/in the London institute? Thank you for you time! :) — partyingwithmagnus

Cassie: Jordelia! I am tickled pink there is a ship name for this.

I’m still learning about Cordelia and James myself. We know from The Midnight Heir that James is in love with someone else. The book is based on Great Expectations, with James as Pip and not!Cordelia as his Estella. (Tatiana Blackthorn is Miss Havisham, so you can figure it out if you’ve read TMH.)

I don’t think Lucie would mind Cordelia being in love with James. She’s a very practical girl, and it’s not like she thinks her brother is never going to have a love life. Might as well be someone she likes. If only James was more malleable!

The Last Hours also deals quite a bit with Clave politics, and moves back and forth between London, Cornwall, and Idris. Cordelia splits her time between Idris, Paris and London and does live in London for the action of the series, along with her family.

Q. HI CASSIE! So the thing is that I am doing(more like trying) a Family tree with ALL the characters of the Shadowhunter world and I want to know if Charles or Matthew Fairchild, Jessie Blackthorn or Alistar Carstairs had children? It would mean a lot if you can answer me, I am stuck at this part of the tree. Anyway, I love you Cassie so much and your books and your characters they are all so perfect. — icityofdauntlesstributes

Cassie: I can’t answer you, unfortunately! I left quite a bit out of the family tree on purpose so as not to spoil too many developments in Last Hours. Quite a few others are misleading — at least one of the marriages listed is arranged, another is a political sham, some of the death dates aren’t really death dates but people being turned/becoming Mundanes, etc.

Q. Is city of heavenly fire going to be the final book of the MI series? If so, are you planing to continue the infernal instrument series? — sadowoolcock

Cassie:  City of Heavenly Fire is the last book of TMI. I am not going to continue TID per se, though The Last Hours continues with the story of the next generation — the children of Will, Tessa, Sophie, Gideon, Gabriel, Cecily, Charlotte, Henry, etc. TDA likewise continues five years after City of Heavenly Fire with new characters, who you will meet in Heavenly Fire. Then the Shadowhunter world wraps up with  (That’s the plan, anyway.)
Anna by CassandraJP.

And Cassandra Jean drew Anna Lightwood:
More Anna Lightwood! Still trying to figure out how I best want to draw her. 
(Anna Lightwood a la The Last Hours written by cassandraclare)
“Anna, with her confidence and her rejection of binary gender identity in a more repressive time… ”

I know we're loving Anna's character already -- she's going to be wonderful to read.

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