Hello, everyone! Usually on Mondays, I have reviews, but instead this week, I’ve decided to interview my favorite character from Lee T. Blauersouth’s Secondhand Origin Stories – Yael! Yael uses xe/xyr pronouns, so please keep that in mind!

Opal has been planning to go to Chicago and join the Midwest’s superhero team, the Sentinels, since she was a little kid. That dream took on a more urgent tone when her superpowered dad was unjustly arrested for protecting a neighbor from an abusive situation. Now, she wants to be a superhero not only to protect people, but to get a platform to tell the world about the injustices of the Altered Persons Bureau, the government agency for everything relating to superpowers.

But just after Opal’s high school graduation, a supervillain with a jet and unclear motives attacks the downtown home of the Sentinels, and when Opal arrives, she finds a family on the brink of breaking apart. She meets Isaac, a boy who’s been developing secret (and illegal) brain-altering nanites right under the Sentinel’s noses, Yael, another teenage superhero-hopeful who looks suspiciously like a long-dead supervillain, and Jamie, the completely un-superpowered daughter of the Sentinels’ leader. Can four teens on the fringes of the superhero world handle the corruption, danger, and family secrets they’ve unearthed?

Hello, Yael! Welcome to the blog!

Hello!

Tell us a little bit about yourself!

Well…I’m 17. My papa is Helix, the superhero, so you’ve heard of him. I’ve been training to be a superhero…pretty much forever. Everyone on the team says I’m gonna be really good at it. I have superpowers, obviously. The usual super strength, super healing all that junk. I also have two others that….I probably shouldn’t…talk about. Right now. Uhm. I use xe/xyr pronouns but I’m not too used to telling people that. I like drawing, comic books, and being around animals.

 

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?

This might sound weird but I kind of wish I was a little shorter. Not a lot shorter. Just like…6ft6. Just short enough doors aren’t a problem when I go outside. It’s hard to feel comfortable around people when you have to scrunch down all the time.

I think I’d like to be about the same height as my papa. Maybe I’d just like to look a little more like him, in general. Maybe that does sound weird.

 

What is your favorite thing about your family?

I mean- they’re superheros! You can’t get better role models, right? It makes it easy to see what you’re supposed to be, anyways.

 

What is your least favorite thing about your family?

My family is great. And they love each other and I’m happy to be here.

But I wish… we lived all together. Melissa and Jamie and Issac live in one apartment and Neil lives in another and Drew lives in another and papa and I live in one. But it’s all the same floor of the same building and we all go in and out of each others apartments…I guess I don’t see why we split up like that. I don’t like that my siblings live in a different apartment than me as if aren’t siblings. I mean, on paper, we’re not. Not by blood or…paperwork or anything. But I’ve grown up with them my whole life and we all know we’re siblings.

 

What is your favorite thing about owning hamsters?

Hamsters are great because if you really try, you can pretty much give them a perfect hamster life! Everything my hamster want, I can give them.

Plus they’re really, really cute.

 

If you could spend a day with someone you admire (alive, dead or fictional) who would it be?

Superman could destroy whole cities and just doesn’t. And he has all these big huge secrets that make him different than other people but he’s still good. He doesn’t angst about it. He just loves his family and protects people. At least, that’s how he is in the comics I like. I feel like Superman knows how to live a good life.

 

What is your most treasured possession?

Oh, that’s hard. I try not to be too materialistic. I know my room looks like I love stuff…I guess my collection of Doc Martin boots? I have…I think 12 pairs. Like a whole rainbow. My last birthday I told everyone I wanted bright boots for my birthday so everybody got me different colors.

 

If you were in need of comforting, what would be the best thing that someone could do for you?

I like a good hug, but not everybody is actually good at hugging.

Papa sometimes does this thing where he puts this big green blanket on me and then puts the hamsters on there and they crawl around like I’m a big landscape. It’s pretty funny. Then he brings me snacks to share with them. He’s really good at hugs.