A (not So) Short Interlude: Fanfiction

a (not so) short interlude: fanfiction

Hello friends!

This week I have taken a break from working on my original story and instead wrote a piece of fanfiction. At first glance this may not seem like something unusual. In my bio I state I am a professional nerd afterall, and though I don’t believe I have ever discussed it on here, I do consume quite a bit of fanfiction along with original novels. However, the truth is that I had never actually written fanfiction. Well, before this week that is. 

In my one writing class (the same writing class I am doing this blog for in fact) we have been assigned to create a Remix, which is basically what it sounds like: taking other people’s content and cut/copy and pasting it to create something different/new. Remixes are the basis of fan-culture: fanfiction, fanart, video edits– all of these constitute as Remixes. And so, of course, my first, and strongest idea, for the assignment was to write a fanfiction. I wasn’t sure if that was allowed within the constraints of the assignment, so this week I basically asked my professor if I could write and submit a fanfiction for a class assignment. 

The things you do at university ladies and gentlefolk. 

I didn’t ask in so many words of course, and my professor was super chill about it and seems really excited for what I would come up with so that's cool. She’s going to be reading this post at some point actually so… 

Hello, Professor M! Thanks for being so awesome! ᕱ__ᕱ 

Anyway, all this to say, I was inspired to write my first fanfiction this week. It is not a part of the project I will be turning in for class, however it does introduce and develop some original characters, relationships, and conflicts that I may include in my class fanfic.

Oh! And before I let you get into it, I suppose I should let y’all know that it’s a Harry Potter fanfiction. That being said, I hope you enjoy!!

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~*~*~

“Muggle sports are so interesting,” Em said, swinging the pale pink baseball bat she carried up onto her shoulder with a flourish. “Don’t you think, Marcus?” She rolled her head back over her shoulder with a taunting smile to stare down Marcus Flint, who paused from where he was sauntering down the hallway with the Slytherin quidditch team, scoffing at Emma’s question.

“You think I know what the fuck your talking about, blondie? Muggle sports? As if lower myself to even touch anything associated with muggles.” His massive nose wrinkled as if he had taken a whiff of something particularly nasty, sneering down at the smaller girl. The whole hallway has frozen by this point.

“What even is that thing?” Adrian Pucey called out, “Looks like a fucked Beater’s batt,” he said, unintentionally echoing my question from earlier. “Are you sure they even use that for sport? Looks thin enough it could snap in half with one blow.” Laughter tittered through the gathered Slytherins and even some pure blood students from other houses.

“And would they even hit anything with it?” Malfoy cut in, snidely. “They’re not as developed as wizards, with their inferior reflexes. Clumsy oafs.” He sniffed with derision and the Slytherin’s laughter grew, through the rest of the students had piped down. Emma’s smile had dropped.

Flint’s sneer turned into a cruel grin “I’d think you would know that quite well, what with the spectacle your relatives made last year.” 

He was, of course, referring to when Emma had gotten caught up in the Chamber of secrets mess and had been petrified. Her muggle aunt had some to visit all the way from America and was in hysterics, though, rightfully so. Ems had to wait until near the end of the term for the mandrake draught to age to be cured as the Hogwarts Board had not seen it fit to allot a budget to import some from overseas. 

As Pucey, Malfoy and the rest of the Slytherin team snickered, Flint continued on, striking his final blow, “Poor little mudblood.” 

He leaned back, apparently satisfied with himself as Ems spun on her heel to face him fully, steel in her eyes and stone faced, the pink bat still on her shoulder. 

The thing about Emma that many people still don’t get, even though we are well into our Fourth Year at Hogwarts, is that though she may be a Hufflepuff, she is never one to back down from a challenge. Especially if she initiated it. Especially if it deals insults to her family and friends.

A sickeningly sweet smile rose to her face. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Marcus,” she simpered, false concern evident in her voice, “I forget sometimes that some people are so uneducated on this side of the pond.” Flint's face dropped and his relaxed pose faltered. “I’ll make sure to speak slowly for you, don’t worry.” That gained Ems a few snickers of her own from the other students in the crowded hall, but the Slytherins all tensed and a few people left to go grab a Professor.

Emma took a step forward as if nothing was wrong, smile still in place, but fire in her eyes. “This is called a baseball bat. It’s used in a sport called baseball. It’s very popular in America, even among the wizarding community. I unfortunately don’t think I have the skills to explain the whole game to you in a way that you would understand, but a baseball bat functions similarly to a beater bat. However, the ball that one must hit is much smaller than a bludger.” Emma paused here to take another step forward, her smile growing into something sharper. “What that means, Marcus, is that a baseball bat is much, much better for hitting,” she glanced down his body, making sure he saw the direction of her gaze when she looked back into his eyes a few seconds later, “smaller targets.”

Marcus inhaled sharply and the Slytherin team stood frozen as several students in the hall burst into laughter. Emma stepped back, her smile turning into a much more genuine smirk. “And for the record Marcus, I’m very grateful my aunt came all the way from America to visit me when I was attacked by the Heir of Slytherin. I’m very lucky to have such wonderful family. I’m sure your father would have done the same for you.” Flint flinched back slightly, hurt flashing across his face, though it was quickly covered by a scowl. Now that was a bit of a low blow, though arguably it was deserved. It was the worst kept secret in Slytherin that Marcus and his father did not get along, to put it lightly. 

Just then, a Ravenclaw prefect rounded the corner with Professors McGonagall and Snape in tow. Students very quickly began to disperse, including the rest of the Slytherin team, as Professor Snape raised an eyebrow at the scene. “Just what is going on here?” 

“Nothing, professors,” Emma bounced on her heels as she turned towards Snape and McGonagall, beaming at them. I could have sworn I heard Professor Snape mutter “too bright” under his breath, but I could be mistaken. “I was just telling Marcus about the American muggle sport called baseball,” she gestured to the bat on her shoulder.

Then, she turned to look at Flint again. “I’m so sorry to cut this riveting conversation short but I really do have to go and check on some of my plants. I’m sure Professor Burbage would be happy to continue to explain baseball to you if you ask politely. Though, that may be a challenge for you,” she nodded gravely to herself, “You should work on that. I hear that adequate etiquette skills are needed in pure blood circles, but I’m sure I wouldn’t know anything about that, being muggleborn myself.” 

She smirked at Flint, daring him to say anything and reveal the fact that he had called her a slur. Flint looked down and glared at the floor. Ems shifted her gaze back to the bewildered professors. “I was actually raised in the wizarding world, professors. It’s actually quite interesting! The American magical government is a little less strict about no-maj, sorry, muggle separation and my muggle aunt did marry a wizard.” 

“When my parents passed away and my aunt and uncle took me in, they revealed the world of magic to me. My aunt still works in the muggle world, but my uncle works for MACUSA.” Ems grinned. “That’s how it was so easy for me to get approval to study abroad here at Hogwarts. It’s where my uncle went. Anyway, I really do have to go. See you in transfiguration tomorrow Professor MacGonagal, bye!” With that Emma skipped away.

Snape shook his head slightly and turned back to Flint. “Do you have anything to add to Miss Williams’ account, Mr Flint.”

Flint’s mouth pinched and his shoulders hunched but he just shook his head and said, “No, Professor.”

MacGonagal huffed a short breath. “Right, then. Everything seems to be in order.” She  shooed Flint off. “Away with you Mr Flint, there’s no need to dawdle in the corridors. And thank you Mr Turner for grabbing us to deescalate the situation,” she said turning to the prefect, “2 points to Ravenclaw.”

Flint shuffled off, as MacGonagal left with the Ravenclaw prefect, Turner, who was asking her about something or other transfiguration related. Only Snape remained in the hall, and when both parties turned opposite corners, he spoke again. “Miss Woodward.”

I remained hidden. 

He sighed. “Miss Woodward I would like an account of these events from your own perspective this evening. Please arrive at my office after dinner, no later than 7.” With that he turned and stalked off.

I stepped out from the tapestry I was hiding behind and made a mental note to send Ems a note thanking her. I myself then turned and made my way to the courtyard despite the winter chill, resolved to avoid the dungeons and my head of house until after dinner.

~*~*~

I’m quite proud of what I have written here and for my first fanfiction ever I don’t think I’ve done too shabby of a job. But, with that, since this post is a little longer than normal, I shall let you go.

Remember: dot your  your j’s and cross your t’s! ᕱ__ᕱ 

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

extra content 2: electric boogaloo

Hello friends!

As the title suggests, here is the second extra post as promised!! Last week I introduced y’all to Prince Kazuki of Okunseiko, who is Queen Aurora of Sylvanthia’s beau, so this week I figured I’d introduce some of their attendants/friends. Also, one of these characters happens to be my favorite character thus far! I hope you love her just as much as I do! ᕱ__ᕱ 

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Sascha [meaning]  (19)

Age 19

Human (?)

Her father abandoned her when she was quite young and she never knew her mother

Right hand woman of Queen Aurora of Sylvanthia

The Spymaster for her majesty

Was previously on an undercover mission to investigate the mysterious illness (that claimed both Aurora’s mother and Kazuki’s father) which had been spreading across the land in the past decade or so

And she was in the process of discovering that it ran much deeper than simply a new virus developing

Was pulled away from that to attend Kazuki’s coronation as a representative for Sylvanthia as her Queen was too busy cleaning up the mess her previous advisors made to attend

Is now stuck on the run with Prince Pretty Boy Kazuki himself after uncovering a plot to kill him and saving his life

Serious, takes no sh*t attitude with a sharp wit and sharper tongue

If one is lucky (or unlucky depending) they may get to experience her wicked sense of humor

Surprisingly beautiful, ironically contrasting her caustic personality

Extremely independent 

She gets her job done and done well

Has been very hurt and betrayed by people she should have been able to trust in the past

Which is why she staunchly ignores Romulus’s affections for her (though she mayhaps feel the same)

Her thoughts are rushing around at the speed of light, constantly observing her surroundings and taking in new information, but the most common of them feature worry over Aurora, both as her Queen and her oldest and dearest friend, determination to figure out just what is causing the rising unrest in Delyorea, and attempting to resist the urge to throttle Kazuki whomst seems to attract trouble like dung attracts flies

Nicolás [meaning] (19) 

Age 19

Human

Bodyguard of Crown Prince Kazuki or Okunseiko

Also his best friend

A classic knight figure

Extremely noble of spirit and loyal of heart

To his credit he immediately believed Sascha when she said something was fishy during Kazuki’s coronation and contributed heavily to saving the lives of not only Kazuki, but Sascha as well

Son of a nobleman on Okunseiko’s court, he has been with Kazuki since Kazuki was 8 and he was 9

It almost pained him physically to not flee with Kazuki but stayed behind to attempt some light undercover work to try and discover Kagero’s motivations

Eventually he leaves Okunseiko however and sets out to try and convince the Atharenel to ally with Kazuki and Aurora

His current worries are whether or not Kazuki is okay, why these damn shadow beasts won’t stay dead, and how he’s ever going to make allies with the Atharenel if Ailidh keeps avoiding him 

~*~*~

Sascha is an absolute doll, I love her so much!! She’s also the second main, main character in my story. And Nicolás, we can’t forget about him. If any of y’all remember way, way back at the beginning of this blog when I first introduced an original character from this story, but Nicolás is Ailidh’s knight. *waggles eyebrows* ᕱ__<

Ugh! I have such plans for these babies and I can’t wait to start actually writing, but as I said last week, I have a lot of planning left to do first. Thanks for hanging in there with me y’all!  Till next week!!

Remember to dot those j’s and cross those t’s!

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

Percy Jackson is the best book boyfriend and one of the main reasons my standards for relationships in both fiction (my own original work and work I consume) as well as real life are so incredibly high

We do not talk about this passage enough, this is so sweet

NANOWRIMO: the conclusion + learning from failure

Hello friends!

Long time, no see! ᕱ__ᕱ These past two weeks I have been giving myself a little break from this blog. I have been swamped with final projects in all of my classes and have been trying to balance getting all of them done with middling success. I’m not thriving, but I am surviving. 

However, to make up for my absence, I will be giving y’all some extra content within the next two weeks. In those posts I won’t be boring you with my rambles as I usually do and instead will simply be giving you some content that I have created for my novel! In this post, though, I will be updating you on my novel’s progress and giving you my thoughts on NANOWRIMO.

For those of you who have been here for a bit, you will know that I attempted to participate in National Novel Writing Month for the first time this November. (As always, here is a link with more info about NANOWRIMO for your perusal.) My personal goal as a full time student with a part time job, was to write a 25,000 word manuscript instead of the full 50,000 words. November has ended and I am happy to report that I failed. I failed to reach even my cut down goal. However, I am surprisingly really happy with my progress this month. I learned a lot about myself as a writer and about my process and while I didn’t manage to write even a 10,000 word manuscript, I feel much more prepared to tackle writing this novel.

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So, here are the things that I learned:

Character design and building is VERY important to me

This, I already knew. One of the main things that bother me about book to movie translations or “hot takes” about books on social media or even some fanfictions is that characters, their personalities and development and relationships, are often either misunderstood or sacrificed for the plot or the sake of another character's development. It’s so annoying. I personally belief that every character in a work of fiction should be able to stand on their own, especially if they are a main or secondary character. Characters should be their own individuals with their own motivations and backstories and for goodness sake they should be consistent! (Crappy character development is a thing that bothers me about published novels too. The wasted potential of Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore, and Draco Malfoy, among countless other characters, in the Harry Potter novels bugs me so, so much!!)

 So, one of the things that happened everytime I sat down to write this NANOWRIMO was that I would find myself getting “stuck” on this character’s backstory or that character’s personality. I have 13 characters that exist for this story in my head. 2 are the main main characters. The 11 others are also going to have their own plot lines and spin offs. Before NANOWRIMO, I knew that this would make my novel complex. After NANOWRIMO, I realized that I was going to have to organize and map and structure and detail my characters (along with several other things) to the metaphorical gods before I even try to manuscript anything or else I am going to be stuck forever and I will never get this book out of my head.

Worldbuilding is also VERY important to me

This was a bit of a surprise. I am definitely no Tolkien and before I started this blog, and my creative writing journey, at the beginning of this fall, these original characters simply just floated around in my head in a vague fantasy realm with no discernible structure or detail. I expected to be able to just continue with this vague fantasy world and as I started writing let the structure fall into place. Yeah… that’s not what happened. 

As I began to outline character backstories and a basic plot to start writing, I would find myself drawing up short when I needed to insert a detail about the world in which my story is taking place. This month made me realize that I need to also worldbuild to the metaphorical gods before I try to manuscript anything, and in some cases before I try to go deeper into outlining my character’s backstories and such as well. I’m such a detail oriented person that I have no idea why this didn’t occur to me before, especially because I am including a magic system in my book. I hate fantasy books (that are meant to be serious and not just cozy reads) in which the magic systems rely on the “because it’s magic” excuse and the author doesn’t make any attempt at giving at least some sort of structure or rules. So yeah. I really need to worldbuild, which I am going to hate because it is going to take FOREVER (detail oriented person).

I work better on lists and schedules

This I did know, but I didn’t realize it applied to my writing. A lot of the reason why I failed to write anything of substance for the plot of my book is that I thought I could just throw myself in and make it up as I go. Incorrect. As November passed, and I kept getting stuck on details, I realized that I would need to incorporate my penchant for planning and list making if I was ever going to complete a task this large.

Also, side note, but I keep referring to this story that I’m writing as a novel. It will most certainly not be a novel. It will be a whole dang book series. (13 characters!! Who will each get their own POV at some point!! “A novel” my a**.) 

I can throw myself head first into school essays and short writing assignments no problem, but with a story this big, all coming straight from the mess I call my brain, I need to do a lot of planning beforehand. That, above all, is what this failed NANOWRIMO taught me. 

~*~*~

So! Now that I have torn my failure to shreds and dissected all the little pieces and given yall a short (yes that was short for me - I’m starting to think you guys don’t know me at all ᕱ__ᕱ) summary of who, what, when, where, and why my failure occurred, what’s next. Well, I plan. I outline to the metaphorical gods (as I seem to be fond of saying in this post), and next year, when November rolls around, hopefully I have done enough planning and outlining and detail work that writing a 50000 word manuscript should be a breeze!

That’s all for now folks! If any of y’all are curious as to some of what I did manage to get done on my novel/series over NANOWRIMO then stay tuned for the first of your special content posts which should be up within a few minutes of me posting this. Also, if any of y’all have suggestions about how to store/order worldbuilding content in an easily searchable way that would be fantastic!! Please do let me know. Thanks for bearing with me! ᕱ__ᕱ

And remember, dot your j’s and cross your t’s!

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

Also super quick post— expect a more detailed one later this week but…

Hello friends!!

I am back and I am ready to pick up my weekly posts on this blog again. A longer explanation for my extended absence is in the works I promise but for now this will have to suffice: I am back, I finally downloaded Tumblr onto my phone, and I am bringing with me inspiration and a much better mental state!! ᕱ__ᕱ

I can’t wait to post here again, and hopefully engage more with others in the wacky world that is Tumblr so that I can grow a writing community. Stay tuned my good people! I have a lot of things coming soon. ᕱ__<

And don’t forget! Dot your j’s and cross your t’s!

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

i'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack

Hello friends!

As I said in my last post, I’m back!! Many apologies for disappearing into thin air after the last full length post in January, things just got crazy with the Spring semester. I was taking my big Writing Seminar class for my History Major, and researching and writing my big final paper (which was required to be 22-25 pages long and which I turned in at 49 pages long of course). I simply did not have the time, space, or mental capacity to devote the level of effort required for developing my original story and for the upkeep of this blog. 

And even after the semester ended, I got sidetracked by starting an internship for my major as well as starting a new part time job over the summer and the pet project of creating a website for my Aunt’s small business. Unfortunately, writing for personal enjoyment fell to the wayside for me for over half a year. But now, with a new semester kicking off, I’m back! ᕱ__ᕱ

Some of you may be thinking, but Clementine! It’s the start of a new semester, aren’t you going to still be too busy with college for this blog? Well…yes, I will be busy with college (and all the stuff I have to do to prep for my graduation in December)! But also no, I won’t be too busy for this blog. There are a multitude of reasons for this. For example, the fact that I’ve been cracking down on my procrastination habits over the past year and have been seeing some improvement, or the fact that I am only taking four classes this semester. But the main reason I will for sure have the time to devote to this blog and my personal creative writing again is thus: it’s become an assignment for one of my classes again! 

(Hello again, Professor M! You’ll be sick of me and my rambles by the end of the semester I promise. ᕱ__<)

I won’t bore y’all with the details but basically I’ll be picking up right where I left off with this blog, except this time I’m going to: 

#1 -  Try to be more active on this account that just my weekly posts for class. (I finally downloaded tumblr onto my phone so I should be able to partake in some doom scrolling on here as well as instagram lol.)

And #2 - For my posts that are for class, I’m going to try to have a little more focus that I did previously. As I’ve discussed here before, worldbuilding is extremely important to me, but it is also one of the parts I dread the most about developing my original story. So, I’m using my class assignment as an excuse to force myself to do at least a little something with world building and/or the development of my original story’s magic system every week.

But, as many of you know, the best laid plans often go awry, so strap in folks. It’s gonna get interesting. (But that’s the fun part after all! ᕱ__ᕱ) Hopefully, I’ll see y’all soon!

Dot your j’s and cross your t’s!

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

Also PS. I have a writing playlist that I've made (which I will share at some point) and the song that inspired it was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AUn3kNda0k

It's so beautiful and awesome and epic that I just had to share! That's all. ᕱ__ᕱ