Quinn Harper

Quinn Harper is a student at the Etheran Academy who is the latest host for Brigid, the Celtic Goddess of Healing, Poetry, Smithcraft, and Prophecy. She is a member of the Core Four and one of the protagonists in Young Gods.

Early Life
Although she was born in Belfast, Quinn spent most of her childhood growing up in Dublin after her parents moved to the Silicon Docks for work. Rowan & Mary-Louise Harper were both programmers who had been working for Google for the majority of Quinn's life which is what exposed her to the world of technology from such a young age. Her older brother Finnley Harper introduced her to video games and the two would often play together, either competitively or cooperatively. Even though they got along well at home, it wasn't cool for Finn to hang out with his sister at school so he purposefully ignored her or pushed her away so that he could hang out with his friends. Unfortunately, Quinn never had an easy time making friends of her own. No one in the class had the same interests as her unless they were other boys who were still in their phase of pretending to hate girls so Quinn either received absolutely no attention from her peers or too much attention when they teased her for any number of the following topics: red hair, freckles, tomboy, chubby, lonely, etc.

But none of that bothered Quinn all that much. She grew a thick skin and learned to not to let other people's hurtful words affect her. It didn't exactly help either that she was obnoxiously energetic and unapologetically loud. She told herself that she was completely fine being on her own but that was never really the case. She made many meaningful relationships over the years online and through the games that she played. It was a lot easier for her to socialize over the internet as opposed to talking to people in real life. She continued on through primary school with nothing outstanding to report. While her brother always got excellent grades and was regarded to be one of the brightest students at their school, she was definitely one of the most forgettable. She got average grades, refused to participate in extracurricular activities, and never did anything to stand out apart from having bright red hair and her brash personality. But that didn't end up being the case for much longer.

A camping trip at the end of Quinn's sixth class of primary school changed everything for her. She hadn't even wanted to go but her parents had persuaded her, telling her it would be a good opportunity to take a break from the internet and video games. What an absolute nightmare. The entire weekend had been full of strange occurrences ranging from nearly dropping a glass of water but having none of it spill out to a s'more spontaneously combusting. That was just the tip of the iceberg though. Those two incidents paled in comparison to the final one. The entire class was sitting around a fire on the final night of their camping trip, singing songs and sharing ghost stories. It was during one of those ghost stories that Quinn found herself spacing out into the fire pit in front of her. The fire began to dance in an odd way that enticed Quinn at first until she realized it was taking shape into that of a woman. At that point, she received her very first vision. A large redheaded woman sat with her parents, talking to them about something that she couldn't hear.

When she snapped out of it, she immediately sat up from her chair causing the students to stop and turn to look at her. "Did no one else see that?" she asked breathlessly. Obviously they had not. Everyone looked at her like she was insane which wasn't a major deviation from how they normally did. Not knowing how to explain it and not wanting to bother either, she sat back down and continued to stare at the fire, hoping that it would give her another vision. It didn't.

Quinn arrived home the following day and was greeted by her parents... as well as the woman from her vision. The woman towered over even her father which was a frightening sight for the 5'3" girl. The woman introduced herself as Dagda, the allmother of the Celtic pantheon, and informed her that she was the mortal host for Brigid, a Celtic goddess. She explained her abilities, including precognition which explained the vision that Quinn had of this very moment. It was then decided that Quinn would not be continuing her schooling in the Irish school system and would be enrolled in the Etheran Academy starting next Fall.

Underclassman Years
It would come as no surprise to anyone that Quinn had as hard a time making new friends at the Etheran Academy as she did back in the mortal world. Her bossy behavior and merciless sense of humor did not earn her any points with her classmates. While making jokes at the expense of others earned her a few laughs (ie. Assclap), it didn't help her make any friends at the Academy and her antisocial behavior persisted throughout her first year.

While Fire Manipulation didn't take very long at all for Quinn to get basic control over, she found Water Manipulation much more difficult. Her teachers attributed it to her personality, saying she was much more attune to the element of fire than the element of water. Despite being capable of much more, Quinn maintains an average GPA and doesn't really apply herself to any of her coursework. Her best and favorite subject was combat training because of how involved it was and how naturally it came to her. She also had a lot of fun using her Enhanced Crafting ability to make weapons and applying it to her love of cosplay. Her worst subject was healing because of her struggle with water manipulation. This was what eventually led Quinn to becoming closer to Wade Abram, a boy that she had tormented in her first year despite being actually rather fond of him. Now in their second year, Paean noticed that Quinn was still struggling with her healing classes and asked Wade, his star pupil, to tutor her. Begrudgingly, Wade accepted and despite a few bumps in the road at the start, the two managed to become quite close to one another.

In their third year, Paean hosted a dinner party to celebrate his top pupils and Wade invited Quinn as his plus one. All of the other students had either brought specifically dates or were also his top pupils but that did not apply for Quinn. Because of the setup, the other students descended upon them with questions about their relationship status and in her panic, Quinn lied that she always just saw Wade as a brother. It shut everyone up though, including Wade, for the rest of the night until they returned to Quinn's dorm. It was there that Wade asked Quinn if what she'd said was true and she nervously revealed that it wasn't. The two of them confessed having legitimate feelings for each other and from that point on became a couple.

Appearance
Everything about Quinn Harper is obnoxiously loud and in your face. She may be short in stature but she makes her presence known through other means. You can spot her wavy, unkempt ginger easily in a crowd and her round face is adorned with hazel eyes that are wide with a mischievous sparkle. She's got pasty, freckled skin and cute button nose. Her lips, like her, are plump and usually curled into a smirk above a dimpled chin.

As previously mentioned, Quinn is short and pudgy with a full-figure, giving her an ample bust and wide hips. Because she's so short, she's adapted her walk into a fast-paced one in order to keep up with her more vertically blessed peers. Her style can be described as childish and tomboyish, not having changed much since she'd graduated middle school. She wears a lot of bright colors and graphic t-shirts with jeans, never skirts or dresses, and has multiple different Converse sneakers to match her outfits.

Quinn has a very heavy, abrasive Irish accent. Her tone is very bossy and brash. She has a hearty laugh that can be heard throughout a building.

Personality
The first thing that people notice about Quinn is how boisterous and rowdy she can be. She doesn't care who hears her saying what, she will freely speak her mind with absolutely no filter. Because of her ADHD, she tends to jump from one conversation to another very quickly and has a tendency to ramble. She gets very uncomfortable during long silences and also feels the need to fill them with her own voice, even if she has nothing to say. She has a very corny sense of humor and loves to make puns. Making jokes is usually her go-to for handling uncomfortable situations which usually just makes things even more uncomfortable. She is very bad at having serious conversations because she lacks emotional maturity.

Although Quinn doesn't care about the opinions of strangers, she constantly requires reassurance from those closest to her. Because of how difficult it is for her to make friends, when she does make a friend she holds onto them tightly and becomes fiercely protective over them. No one messes with her friends or else they'd have to deal with Quinn's wrath. She is brave and fearless, acting on gut feelings rather than thinking things through which often translates to being reckless, impatient, and impulsive.

She has always maintained that she is an independent individual who doesn't need a lot of friends because quality is more important than quantity but she does feel a yearning to be a part of a big group. She often feels jealous of Wade's other friendships and it does hurt her when he spends time apart from her to be with them instead. While normally confident, it is situations like that that make her feel insecure with the kind of person she is or that she is unlikable but she never voices these concerns or insecurities to anyone.

When she is around Wade in particular since he is her closest friend, she is always teasing him and tends to take charge in their relationship. This tends to come across as her being bossy and controlling towards him but it stems from her being stubborn herself and not liking to take orders from other people. She knows what she wants and is very assertive about it. She also has a desire to always be the best at the things she is good at while also quitting things that she doesn't pick up immediately, such as healing. She is very competitive as well as a very sore loser.

Quinn's main hobby is playing video games and actually spends a lot of time playing them on stream for her Twitch channel QueenHarper which Wade helps her moderate. Other hobbies include cosplaying which she uses her Enhanced Crafting for and stuffing her face with blueberry waffles at Aesop's.

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