Bshir!

Q; How did you come up with the name of Bshir?
A: Actually, it came from a kid in my little brother’s kindergarten class named Bshir. I loved the name and thought it was cool and mysterious and a little standoffish; just like Bshir.

What do you like about Bshir’s character?
He’s always got a cool head, and he thinks things over before he does it.

What don’t you like about him?
He’s very cold and too shy. He’s terrified of his space bubble being invaded, so he’s not all buddy-buddy with many people.

What advice would you give Bshir?
He really needs to lighten up and be more of a kid. He;s only sixteen and he acts like he’s in a lot of torture.

What’s your favorite Bshir phrase?
Haru kept yelling at Bshir to bite him and make him into a werewolf, and Akira kept telling him that Bshir would never do something like that, and Bshir goes ‘Well, maybe if I really really wanted to.”

Laurent interveiw

Actually, after a quick poll with my friends, I learned that Laurent is the most questionable in the entire book so far. I’m using the same questions from Quail’s interview.

Q; How did you come up with the name of Laurent?A: I actually got the idea from Stephenie Meyer’s Laurent in Twilight and New Moon, and for some reason I was in love with the idea of a black supernatural and the name Laurent. I really like Laurent’s character idea, but hated the idea of making him a bad guy (it was a round this point that I figured Laurent should be a in a wheelchair) so he ended up being the good guy. Or the better-than-he-could-be guy.

What do you like about Laurent’s character?He’s mostly calm, and he has a photographic memory. He’s a good lateral thinker, very understanding, and very kind (he once let Molly give him cornrows because she was bored and wanted to experiment).

What don’t you like about him?
Laurent is not at all self-assured and he has a tendency of holding grudges. He can get angrily emotional sometimes, like when he’s fighting or when safeties of his friends are endangered.

What advice would you give him?Laurent tends to live in the past, especially when it comes to his late wife, Gene, so he tends to miss out on the things he has. He needs to take time to appreciate the people he has in his life, not worry about what happened to the people who were in his life before.

What’s your favorite Laurent phrase?Laurent has all this dry humor that usually breaks the ice. Usually, when people are angry with him, they tend to point out the obvious and he just reinforces that. It happened when Akira got mad at him, and she said ‘I’m angry!” and Laurent just sat there and said “Yes, I can see that.” Another one is where he’s getting cornrows from Molly, and he says to Haru, “I’m a pacifist” and Haru’s like, “Does being a pacifist mean that you’re willing to get your hair braided?” and Laurent’s like “Yeah” in this really heavy tone.

No longer dead.

I realized that it's been a while since I've gotten well-written email. I've also meant to pay for a laptop, train for a half-marathon, reduce my carbon footprint, learn how to polka, and adopt a three-legged wolf. You know what they say about good intentions.

A funny Jasper and Jack Moment

Laurent started rolling back and forth in a little circle, as if to start pacing. Jack watched him circling by walking in a very regal circle on the spot. He smoothed his jacket, looking annoyed when he found that Laurent’s claws had dug little holes into the pinstripe fabric. Molly appeared back from behind Jasper and, in a blink of an eye, Jack had stolen Jasper’s hat once more and crammed it onto his head, grinning as it quite pleased with himself. Jasper walked up, a furious expression on his handsome face, and he knocked Jack over with a rather childish but effective kick to the shins. It took a moment for the pain to register, it had such a high destination to run up, but after a moment, Jack crumpled and, as he fell, Jasper snatched his hat back with his teeth and bent his arm awkwardly, which received a gasp of shock from Molly and gave Akira the impression that Jasper had just attempted a very rude hand gesture. Jasper retreated to the bottom step of the stairway and sat down on it, looking mutinous. He obviously was not accustom to his hat being stolen with such fortitude.

Lately, I’ve been getting quite a few questions about my main villain, Quail. Naturally, someone finally asked me about him. Here are a few of the questions that one outrageous blog-reader asked me:

Q: How did you come up with the name of Quail?
A: Actually, it just came out of the blue because I needed a name for him. I actually now really like the name, so it just sort of stuck.

What do you like about Quail’s character?
He’s very self assured and has a lot of confidence.

What don’t you like about him?
Where to begin? He doesn’t have a lot of people’s skills and tends to want to get things out of brute force instead of asking nicely like a good boy. He also can be a bit of a glutton when the time comes and he’s a bad with swearing—he does it all the time!

But Quail is a good friend to some people. Why not others?
Quail has a sense of pride; when he and Akira were kids, they hated each other, and he can’t swallow his pride and make up with her. If that’s what you were talking about.

What advice would you give Quail?
Enjoy the little things in life instead of trying to find something huge.

What is your favorite Quail phrase?
Quail came back from the dead and approached Akira, and she said ‘But I killed you.” and Quail goes “Really; why wasn’t I informed?”