#now as depicted in Asterix maybe we get a different outcome who knows

[canyourfavesurvivecastledracula]

I realize you don't like doing actual real people, but in honour of the date, what about Gaius Julius Caesar (100 BCE - 44 BCE) the Tumblr stabby boy?

You had me at "the Tumblr stabby boy" as if he didn't already get duper duper stabbed in real life also, as well as on the stage. But no, he's ours now.

So okay. We say Jonathan Harker ignores red flags, but like, a soothsayer bids Caesar beware the Ides of March, and our buddy Julius says "no 😌" Like the thing he's famous for (today at least) is ignoring warnings shouted at him by weirdos as he passes by. (By contrast when Jonathan is told to beware Castle Dracula - in much less clear terms, mind - his response is more on the order of "y tho?" at which point everyone suddenly stops being able to speak German. They are not the same).

The other main character trait he has, in the play at least, is arrogance. That's why they stab him all those times. The fear is that he's going to make himself King - Brutus says Caesar was ambitious, and Brutus is an honorable man. All through those early scenes, his advisors are advising him to maybe chill a bit, and he's just like "😎 haters gonna hate" about it - and then is genuinely surprised when they do. My guy...

Julius Caesar thinks he's All That, he thinks he's untouchable, he thinks he's a god. They may bond over stories of conquest but he's not going to take anyone's warning seriously or give Dracula the respect or deference he demands. And even if Dracula is baffled by his +7 shift ciphers (which he may be if he hasn't read the Dancing Men yet) it'll only make him angry. No matter his high opinion of himself, at the end of the day he bleeds like any other man, whether you're stabbing him 33 times on the senate floor or seeing if he really does have kisses enough for everyone.

Also apparently his horse had human toes instead of hooves, which is super freaky and I don't like it. It's not relevant in any way (or, in all likelihood, true) but I thought you should know.

Julius Caesar, the Tumblr stabby boy, at least as depicted by ol' Billy Shakes, can not survive Castle Dracula. And now we know where the Roman coins in Dracula's pile came from.

[schleierkauz]

Q&A Highlights

Ok so bad news first: My questions were ignored. Cornelia did not clarify any of our death-related theories. Maybe next time.

There was A Lot of other stuff, though so... Enjoy!

- The stream starts with everyone wishing us a happy women’s day! Usually women in Erfurt (where the bookstore people are) get flowers but not today because... you know. Cornelia says America is starting to go back to normal, meanwhile Germany... :| Anyway. Don’t look over here.

- Cornelia says she probably won’t get the vaccine anytime soon because she’s just chilling on her farm anyway and people who have to be out in public/are vulnerable should get it first

- Question: When will Cornelia visit Germany again? In response to this, she gives us some exclusive news, not official yet, heard it here first: She’s gonna move to Italy! Apparently she bought an olive farm there which is cheaper, better for the environment (her current farm will be sold to some people who want to turn it into an organic farm) and obviously closer to Germany so she’ll be here more often. :)

- The 4th Reckless book will be released in English at some point this autumn

- There’s no definite release date for TCoR because she’s busy with Dragonrider but she hopes she’ll have finished writing it by the end of this year

- If she’s still alive after all that to work on Reckless 5, it’ll be the last book of the series... probably. She’s also working on a bunch of smaller projects with her artists in residence

- Question: What are Cornelia’s favorite stories by Jane Austen, the Brontë sister and Shakespeare? She’s not a huge fan of Austen or Brontë because she finds all those repressed emotions too exhausting to read about. With Shakespeare on the other hand she struggles to name a favorite because there’s so much greatness to choose from (she does name MacBeth and Romeo and Juliet though)

- The Black Prince’s legacy in the Reckless timeline may play a role in the next Reckless book or it might evolve into a whole other story. Either way, she’s thinking about it  👀

- Someone asks about Reckless characters and Cornelia says that Kami’en and the Dark Fairy felt very familiar to her from the start in that she always knew who they were as people. She’s not sure why that is. She thinks the Dark Fairy represents many aspects of womanhood, like the ancient forgotten Goddess. Same with Fox, who embodies different sides of that.

- If Cornelia had to date a man from the Mirrorworld, Kami’en would interest her

- Rainer Strecker randomly joins the chat to say hi and everyone is delighted

- Cornelia’s favorite book series is still Lord of the Rings

- Question: Why has the Black Prince never found his true love? Cornelia says she’s not sure that’s true - maybe he did found true love at some point and then lost it again? ‘...and they lived happily ever after’ isn’t a guaranteed outcome after all. Since he’s such a passionate man, she’s pretty sure he’s had at least one big lovestory at this point. She hasn’t asked him about that yet but hopes she’ll find out when she continues writing his story.

- Jumping off that question, Cornelia says she respects her characters’ privacy and lets them keep their secrets until the time comes to ask about them, just as she would with real people.

- Someone asks if Cornelia has ever written herself into a story and she says a part of her is in all her characters. Except the villains because she hates them. She feels closest to Fox because she also always wished she could shapeshift

- The bookstore lady jumps in and asks about Meggie, is she similar to how Cornelia was as a child? Cornelia says yes, especially because she also had a very close relationship with her father and they would bond over books. However, she always envisioned Meggie with dark hair and as a different kind of girl than she was. (Ok sidenote from me on that, I wonder what she means by ‘dark hair’? Because Meggie is explicitly blond, so like... dark blond? Or did we just unlock brunette Meggie in 2021? Cornelia-)

- Continuing the conversation, Cornelia says she doesn’t consider herself the creator of any of the characters in her stories, she feels like she met them and wrote about him but she would never say something like ‘I invented Dustfinger’ because that’s absurd. How would that even work. That’s disrespectful. No.

- Some characters pretty much demand to be written about and are very impatient (like Jacob), others are more shy and elusive and take effort to understand (like Will or Dustfinger)

- There probably won’t be another book like The Labyrinth of the Faun because it was created under such unbelievable circumstances. Cornelia does enjoy writing film scripts, though, like she did for the Wild Chicks recently

- Question: How does Cornelia come up with character names? She has a bunch of encyclopedias and when she knows where a story takes place she checks if there are any artists from there whose names she can steal. She always wants names to have meaning and to paint a picture of whatever character it belongs to. However, she says that sometimes the vibe of a name is a tricky thing: When she wrote The Thief Lord (which takes place in Italy), she thought ‘Mosca’ was the perfect name for a big strong boy. However when the time came to translate the story into Italian, the Italians told her that ‘Mosca’ sounds like the name of a tiny little fly. Oh well.

- Cornelia says a lot of readers have written to her about The Thief Lord because at one point Victor (the detective) calls Mosca (who is black) a “Mohrenkopf”. Context: ‘Mohrenkopf’ is a German slur towards black people and also an outdated name for this goddamn marshmallow cookie:

Fuck this cookie.

- Cornelia says yeah, Victor is being racist in that moment but that doesn’t mean that she, the author, is racist. Similarly, she used the term ‘Indians’ in Reckless and a lot of readers were upset which she did not anticipate. To her it’s a positive word since she admires ‘Indians’ so deeply and finds terms like ‘Native/Indigenous Americans’ very complicated. She wonders how much longer she’ll be allowed to say ‘Black Prince’

- She thinks it’s right to be vigilant about bigotry but simply searching for problematic words is dangerous because context matters

- Bookstore lady brings up Pippi Longstocking and how the N-word has been removed from modern copies (think Pippi’s father). She think’s it’s wrong because the original text is part of the cultural heritage and shouldn’t be hidden from children but instead explained. 

- Cornelia says that in America she sees the hurt that’s connected to that word but she doesn’t think it’s right to simply remove the slur and expect everything to be fine. After all, the text in which it was used is still the same so any harmful ideas would still be in there and that needs to be discussed. Simply whitewashing things doesn’t make them any less racist.

- Cornelia brings up a visual example: The Asterix comics. She always liked them but the fact that the only black character is drawn as a racist caricature is harmful and wrong. It’s time to listen when black people express how hurtful depictions like that can be. Many white people never noticed racism growing up because it never affected them and that’s why it’s important to learn

- The ‘from rags to riches’ American dream was usually reserved for white people and Cornelia thinks a lot of (white) people are waking up to that fact. The way black people are still being criminalized and the way prisons use inmates for cheap labor is horrible and like a modern kind of slavery

- The bookstore people try to say something but Cornelia is not done: We Europeans are not off the hook either because the sins and wounds of colonialism are still felt around the world, not to mention the way other countries are still exploited today. Our wealth rests on the shoulders of poorer nations. Many doors are opening and it’s difficult to step through but we have to do it and admit to the things we may have been blind to due to privilege.

- The three of them agree on that and go back to reading questions

- Question: What are Cornelia’s tips for young authors? She advises to never start writing a story on a computer, always get a notebook and collect ideas & pictures for your story. Don’t rush things. If you have more than one story, give each story its own book and feed whichever one is hungry. It’s important to follow the idea where it leads, if you use cliches your readers will recognize them. And then it just takes time and passion. And trust in your own unique voice. She paraphrases a quote by Robert Louis Stevenson who once said no one cares about stories or characters or whatever, people read books to see the world through the goggles the author puts on them. I’m sure he said it prettier, I’m paraphrasing the paraphrase.

- That said, Cornelia thinks authors who say things like “I’m writing to express my innermost turbulences” are kinda dumb. She thinks it’s important to write about the things that happen everywhere else and around yourself and to try to find voices for others, not just yourself. Just like how carpenters build furniture for everyone else, a writer should use words to build things for others, whether it’s a window or door or a hiding place.

- Speaking of notebooks, as most of us probably know Cornelia has a lot of those and occasionally publishes them on her website. She says she’d love to let people look through them in person, maybe at the new farm in Germany (Cornelia sure does love farms)

- Speaking of writing things on paper, all three of them stress that everyone should write more letters because one day they’ll be old letters and curious people will want to read them, just as we like to read old documents now.

- Last question: How come both the Inkworld and the Mirrorworld feature a character called Bastard? Cornelia thinks that’s a good question and she should probably think about that. (Am I stupid? Are they talking about Basta? I’m confused)

...And with that, the livestream ends. They’ll get back together to do this again two months from now, until then: I’m going tf to sleep