Crotalus Quidditch Try-outs on Quidditch Pitch

Captain Linus Macaulay

October 25, 2013 3:37 PM

Crotalus Quidditch Try-outs by Captain Linus Macaulay

In all honesty, Linus had been hoping for a more enthusiastic response on the sign-ups. For a start, he'd assumed that they would at least have seven names to consider, and he had hoped that one of those names would belong to Viktor, who had shown such great promise in the starting game of the previous season. However, he had little control over how many names made it onto the list (Linus would have encouraged Paul to make up numbers, but his roommate had already anticipated him) so the Crotalus team Captain headed to the pitch a little earlier that the time he'd advertised try-outs to get everything set up and ready, optimistic that maybe a few extra bodies would join them unexpectedly.

Linus had asked Cepheus to meet him at the pitch before the others were due to arrive so he could explain what he had planned for practise. This was Linus' first and only year as Captain, so there wasn't a huge amount of knowledge and experience for him to impart to his Assistant, but it seemed that two heads were better than one when it came to planning an executing a successful team. "We might need to rustle up some extra interest," Linus told him, showing the unfortunate-looking list he'd removed from the noticeboard to the sixth year. He didn't say it explicitly, but Linus was thinking of the other Princeton who might be coerced into filling a position if the team was still short players by the time the first game came around. Linus had already made the decision that they would play with an incomplete team rather than forfeit, providing the stand-in Coach gave them that option; they represented Crotalus House, after all, and students of their ilk were not prone to giving up easily.

"Good morning, everyone," he greeted the hopefuls as they arrived. It was a testament to their commitment to the team that they were prepared to meet at this time on a weekend with no real promise of even being allowed to play this year (whether restricted by the Coach or by Linus himself, there was no guarantee thus far that any of them would be getting up on a broomstick to compete). "Thank you for arriving promptly. I am Linus Macaulay, the team Captain, and this is Cepheus Princeton, Assistant Captain," he made the necessary introductions for those few there who might not already know their superiors. Linus would normally have preferred not to have first years as starting players, but it didn't seem as though he would have any choice; he was, in fact, grateful to them for showing up for what was obviously not the most promising entry in the competition.

"Right, so today I'm going to begin by checking how competent each of you are on a broom." He had, of course, seen some of them fly before - several times - but it wouldn't hurt to see how the new recruits compared to their seasoned counterparts. He had out a selection of balls, a small collection of some of the better school brooms, and had constructed a slalom of poles near one set of goalposts. "To start with, fly in single file through the poles," he gestured to the area to draw it to their attention," passing one Quaffle backwards down the line. When the person at the back catches the ball, fly ahead to the front and start passing it back again." If this proved too simple, Linus would add a second ball into the mix. Next, he would ask each of them to engage in Beating activities, as he wanted to see how the newcomers performed in each area, and the Seeker position was not open to anyone other than Cepheus, as far as Linus was concerned (unless someone stepped forward and claimed to be a prodigy; only then would he reconsider).

"If I've never seen you fly before, introduce yourself to me so I can put a name to your face, and then join the others in the air. If anyone has any questions feel free to ask them now, otherwise I want to see you in the air."

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Paul Bennett

October 30, 2013 7:54 PM

Taking the lead by Paul Bennett

Looking at the competition, Paul actually had a moment of doubt about whether or not he would get to indulge his iteration of the violent sociopath lurking deep inside everyone this year. They could play with two Chasers and one Beater, if worst came to worst, but a Keeper was essential, and it would depend, really, on what the first years were weaker at if Princeton couldn’t persuade his brother to come along again. First year Beaters were undesirable at best, but Aladren and Teppenpaw had both lost their best as well, and if the firsties couldn’t fly fast enough to Keep….

He stood a little to the side as Linus introduced himself and Princeton, prepared to introduce himself if asked but not really caring when he wasn’t. Sinclair and Douglas were both names he recognized, the former having belonged to a pale girl a year above him, Arnold Carey’s girl, and the latter to his own part of the country, but at Sonora, he outranked them both by seniority, and by the time Douglas, whichever of the two first years was Douglas, was old enough to affect him after he graduated, Paul would be well-established and likely both of them would have completely forgotten overlapping on the team this one year. First years had lost most to all of their ability to interest Paul, including the one who was his brother and the other who would eventually be his sister-in-law, though he did find it entertaining how excited Gemma was about the latter. She had apparently decided, under the odd system of logic which only worked in her head, that this coincidence, combined with the girl being a Teppenpaw, meant Serena was her sister-in-law, too, and that she should therefore treat her like the little sister she’d never had and look after her and, if possible, dress her up like a doll at the first opportunity.

Poor kid. Good thing Teppenpaws seemed to have tolerant temperaments overall; he thought sheer energy might have almost gotten Gemma into Pecari if she had been even a bit less prone to collapsing into tears at the first crisis, but even she would put up with more than he and Eliza ever would have once she was done with that.

He had his own broom, which he had actually gotten out for some practice earlier this week, and took the lead in Linus’ passing exercise, going through the poles and passing back to the next person in line. This gave him at least a minute of not interacting with the ball, even with the short line they had managed to construct, so he looked to see first if anyone else had turned up and then to see how well the new boys were handling the Quaffle within the confines of the exercise.

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Sasha Sinclair

November 05, 2013 8:19 PM

Pretending not to follow. by Sasha Sinclair

Sasha was completely ready for the Quidditch try-outs. He had been flying since he could walk and practicing Quidditch with his brother since he could remember. Quidditch was the sport that he learned to play and enjoy with his father. His father was a very busy man in Scotland, helping the family as often as possible. To Sasha, that meant he was far more important than his cousin, Henri, who was the actual Heir to the family as Sasha’s father took care of all the books, but Sasha wasn’t allowed to mention any of that. Anyway, Sasha’s father was a busy man, but he always found the time in his schedule to spend quality time with Sasha and that often meant taking him to Quidditch games. Rurik, Sasha’s younger brother, was never allowed to come. His father said that Rurik was too weak to handle the action of the games.

Quidditch was certainly one of the things that Sasha was going to dominate as he grew older. It was just how things were going to happen for him. His father said that he deserved everything that he wanted, and being the top player was what he wanted. He knew that Beaters weren’t necessarily the ‘go-to’ position for people who want to rule the school as he wasn’t sure how often a beater became Captain over a Seeker or Chaser, but the Beater position gave a person strength and they were necessary for the protection of the team. Besides, Sasha was built like his father. Although one couldn’t tell at eleven, Sasha would grow up to be bulky with broad shoulders and would end up being tall. Certainly not the build of a Seeker.

The blonde made his way down to the pitch earlier than he might have otherwise, but wanted to make a good impression. He carried his new broom with him, a gift from his father before he had left for Sonora. He had already used it for flying lessons and so he felt comfortable riding it. The amount of people on the pitch was small, which bode well for Sasha making the team but not necessarily well for the confidence of the team if no one wanted to be on it to begin with. But he didn’t make an indication of his thoughts about this.

Sasha had to control himself to not roll his eyes when their instructions were given. If there was anyone trying out for a school Quidditch team that didn’t know how to fly well and competently, they had no business being on the field to begin with. “Sasha Sinclair.” He introduced as requested before running off to join the older students where the poles were. He had no desire to handle the quaffle, but he understood that on a team (although he had never been on one, he had been to enough games to see the warm ups), they tended to do ‘team building’ things to help keep them in shape.

He caught the quaffle easily enough as he went between poles, but had a harder time throwing it behind him. Hopefully, he wasn’t too far off and didn’t give the person behind him a difficult catch. That wouldn’t look very good on his skills. He couldn’t wait until they were working on an activity he was actually good at; swinging a bat.

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Isaac Douglas

November 07, 2013 6:03 PM

Thinking about the future. by Isaac Douglas

As Captain Macaulay began to speak, Isaac listened to what he was saying, but with only half his attention really on the words. The other half kept wandering, of its own accord, probably inevitably, to the other authority figure on the team. Isaac had never been such a one for puzzles as his sister, but this one, as much as he hated to admit it, fascinated him, and after what he had just heard, he wasn’t sure he could be quite comfortable until he figured it out.

Part of the answer, he was sure, was that Princeton was foreign. He must have been homesick for Mummy and bad weather and whatever else they had in England which hadn’t been good enough to keep sensible people’s ancestors there, and Alicia must have played on that. Couldn’t hurt that, presumably, English purebloods knew as little about which families were prominent here as he did about who was who over there. And then, well, there had been a group, it was much easier to get into a category than to get out of it, everyone knew that, and so he had stayed. That much, at least, might have been understandable, Alicia’s insistence that they all just really loved each other that much a lie to mess with Isaac’s head. But today, his sister had said something which had changed the whole show, and Isaac had no idea what could make it make sense. Even if Alicia was blackmailing him, it was still…something for Loser Sidekick to apparently decide they should have a party where he essentially announced to the entire school, for no apparent reason given the really quite reasonable lapse of time between the dates, that Alicia’s birth was an event as important and worthy of celebration as his own.

It hurt Isaac’s head. Even if he didn’t Know – even if he thought she was a pureblood, he had to have noticed that she was just a girl, and not even his girlfriend, or sister, which might make a certain amount of stupidity about her more understandable. As it was, though…what was wrong with this guy?

The only thing Isaac could see was that they were in the same gang of Aladrens, where Princeton was the Loser Sidekick because of his House and therefore maybe needed to work harder than everyone else. Isaac had no idea, though even if it wasn’t the reason and there was just something profoundly wrong with Princeton, he had still managed to draw a piece of useful advice from it: He had to get a group of his own. He had known that was a good idea in the abstract all along, but this made it seem like a really, really good idea. The kind of thing which could even be important outside of school, someday, especially since he didn’t have the kind of handicaps going in that Alicia did.

Now he just had to get his classmates to cooperate, and, in the meantime, try to use the Quidditch team as that until he could do better. He tried hard to look enthusiastic as he joined the line tossing the Quaffle behind them, behind Sasha his roommate and a much older fellow he thought might be one of the Bennetts. When the Quaffle came to him, he caught it okay - not brilliantly, it did twist a little between his fingers, but he got it in hand, then passed it along to the next one in line, willing himself to keep looking enthusiastic even though technically, now he didn't really have anything to do.

OOC: My abject authorial apologies for Isaac to our excellent English authors (…just pretend it starts with an ‘e’) on this site, and the English in general. Your homeland was doomed in Isaac’s estimation the moment someone from it befriended Alicia, but this is one of the many things about which he and I disagree.

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