Communication. on Teppenpaw Commons

Joe Umland

February 07, 2018 8:45 PM

Teppenpaw Quidditch Sign-Ups! by Joe Umland

In retrospect, Joe could not figure out why he had been so disorganized. He had been Assistant Captain last year, the Captain had been a seventh year last year – he should have already had everything ready to go before he even got the official confirmation that he was in fact heir to Ginger’s throne.

He hadn’t, though, so his first night back at school involved some scrambling. Getting Jozua formally badged was easy enough, as they had followed their habit of taking Feasts together, but then he remembered that he had neglected to write a sign-up sheet. He ran up the stairs to his dormitory and promptly stepped directly in the puzzle he’d spent most of the time between arriving at school and the Feast working on. Cursing, he made his way to his belongings, gingerly stepping over pieces of wood, and finally came up with paper and pen to work on the sheet with.

Welcome Back! he wrote in large, bold letters, which he then charmed to flash maroon. It was a poor substitute for Ginger’s flashy signs, but he couldn’t draw all that well. He’d meant to recruit John, who could do so a bit (mostly birds, as they were the main reason John had put forth the effort to gain a badge for that in Scouts, but beggars couldn’t be choosers), to do that for him over the summer, but he’d forgotten.

It’s a new year and a new Teppenpaw Quidditch team! Everyone is welcome to sign up for tryouts. Just put your name and your year and which position(s) you’re interested in on the list below!

Thanks,

Joe Umland, Captain.

Now that he was captain, Joe realized it was more or less up to him which position he played, which raised an interesting question: which position was he going to play? He had started his career as a Chaser, but had switched to Beating when he had been literally violently angry with his Beater brother and had been doing that for a while now. Should he stick with it – and, more importantly, could he find a replacement for himself if he didn’t? Teppenpaws didn’t tend to like Beater; that he didn’t mind it one way or the other (when one-upping John didn’t make him very much for it) was one of the many ways in which Joe was a just plain Bad Teppenpaw.

That settled it for him. Below, he wrote his name again, and then sixth year, Beater before going over to the bulletin board to post it with a prayer that maybe, just maybe, they could rustle up a full team this year.

Subthreads:

As Asst. Captain, I guess I need to do this by Jozua Sparks

I'm here! by Eden Manger

Communication. by Nathaniel Mordue and Joe Umland

16 Joe Umland Teppenpaw Quidditch Sign-Ups! 329 Joe Umland 1 5

Jozua Sparks

February 12, 2018 12:13 PM

As Asst. Captain, I guess I need to do this by Jozua Sparks

Despite four years of being on the Teppenpaw team, and now wearing the badge of Assistant Captain, Jozua had never once signed up for playing on the Sign-Up Sheet. In his first year, he'd showed up as a walk-on because he felt bad about the shortage of names on the sheet. In his second year, he'd followed the misleading suggestion on Ginger's sign-up sheet to show up to try-outs just to cheer on his former teammates from the previous year, and somehow he'd managed to make it onto the team again anyway. In third year, Ginger had pouted at him and promised not to make him be a beater or a chaser, and yet there he'd been, Beating. Last year, Ginger had used an Imperious Curse on him (he assumed) and made him show up for try-outs again, and again put him down as a beater.

This year, Ginger was gone. Jozua was kind of relieved about that. In part, because he somewhat resented her for continually tricking him back onto the team year after year. Mostly though, he was glad she was gone because he coveted her position.

Jozua Sparks, he wrote his name voluntarily onto the Quidditch sign-up sheet for the very first time (he was assistant captain, now, and joining the team was kind of an expectation that went along with that), fifth year, Keeper

1 Jozua Sparks As Asst. Captain, I guess I need to do this 348 Jozua Sparks 0 5

Eden Manger

February 18, 2018 11:18 AM

I'm here! by Eden Manger

The nice thing about Quidditch, Eden thought, was that you didn’t have to be athletic in the same ways you did for other sports, like the Muggle ones. There was running and jumping and lifting, all things that she wasn’t terribly good at, especially now that she was fully in the throes of puberty and finding her limbs a bit longer than she remembered. She was gangly and uncoordinated on the ground, but in the air, the broom did most of the physical stuff. She just had to know how to ride it and keep her eyes peeled.

It was also nice that she was apparently pretty good at it. Either that or she was magnificently lucky. Honestly, she was more inclined to believe the latter, but if winning two years in a row was just luck, she didn’t think it was fair to the team to change something and give up now. It might throw everything off, and maybe the new Seeker wouldn’t be as lucky as she was. Maybe it was the world paying her back for what had happened, even if it was only one tiny, overall insignificant way.

He was proud of her, somehow. Her father. The new broom and the letter were probably on their way already, soon to arrive to her. How her dad did that - kept spoiling her even after he was gone, kept sending his love from beyond the knowable - was completely impossible for her to understand, but it was wonderful to know that her dad was maybe still somewhere. Not really, physically, of course. She knew they buried a body. But some part of him was out there, and it was thinking about her. It was comforting.

It made her sad to see the sign up without Ginger’s name. Eden didn’t really have anyone she called a friend around here yet, and her brother’s girlfriend had been so very nice to her. She bit her lip, reminding herself how much fun the team would be even without Ginger, and signed her name in her neatest print below the boys’.

Eden Manger, third year, Seeker.

12 Eden Manger I'm here! 385 Eden Manger 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue and Joe Umland

February 20, 2018 4:05 PM

Communication. by Nathaniel Mordue and Joe Umland

Coming in at the end of his first week at Sonora, Nathaniel had dark circles under his eyes and an urgent desire to go straight to bed. He had planned to follow through with that desire, too, until he remembered that would mean putting off starting his homework and therefore Being Irresponsible. Rubbing his eyes, he sat down in the common room and opened his bag.

He only realized he was staring through the page when a voice above him – male, older than his own – said “Hi.” Looking up, Nathaniel found himself looking at a much older student, a handsome boy with dark blond hair and brown eyes with metal badges on the front of his green robes.

“Hello,” said Nathaniel cautiously.

“I’m Joe Umland,” said the older boy, smiling in a way which reminded Nathaniel slightly of his father. “You’re one of the first years, right?”

“Yes,” said Nathaniel, still cautiously, but politeness demanded more of a response than this. “I am Nathaniel Mordue,” he said.

“Like Simon Mordue? I heard he just became one of the Crotalus captains.”

“He’s my cousin.”

Joe Umland nodded. “Cool,” he said. “Well, I’m one of the prefects here, and thought I’d say hello. I’m also the Teppenpaw Quidditch captain, if you’re interested.”

Now that Nathaniel thought about it, he realized that this did ring a distant bell. He had been confused and exhausted and worried about various things – Sylvia being displeased with his Sorting, whether Jeremy had misbehaved at supper at home, why it was he had happened to be Sorted into the same House as the one person he and Sylvia had met so far who’d seemed to dislike them, what Simon thought of all this – and also really confused, but he had tried to listen to Professor Xavier’s speech to them and now he remembered Professor Xavier mentioning the Quidditch captain and prefect Joe Umland in that speech. This was a person of importance, then, and someone who apparently knew Simon, and therefore someone Nathaniel should probably listen to and more or less try to emulate, insofar as other Teppenpaws were people to be emulated – many of them did seem awfully informal. This was how he ended up signed up for Quidditch, volunteering to be a Chaser, without having ever really planned to.

OOC: Writing for Joe because I'm his author too.

16 Nathaniel Mordue and Joe Umland Communication. 1412 Nathaniel Mordue and Joe Umland 0 5