An Aladren trying out on Quidditch Pitch

Thaddeus Pierce II

October 26, 2013 11:12 PM

Aladren Try-Outs by Thaddeus Pierce II

Thad arrived at the Pitch with his sign-up sheet in hand. There were eight names on it, including his own, which meant Aladren had enough for a full team and an alternate. It was honestly one more than he had dared hope for after the loses the team suffered since their final last year.

Once he had the school balls and brooms arranged in the center of the pitch in preparation of his first try-out as captain, Thad looked over the list again. He'd circled the positions named by Jay, Francesca, and Lucien as givens. Andrina's was underlined with a question mark next to it since she had competition. Anthony had been a reserve last year and the other two were first years.

Lucien had been a great beater, so he saw no reason to change that, especially with Aladren's dearth of other Beater options. Jay and Francesca had worked together before as Chasers as well, and he'd rather have one new person to that position than two or, worse, three. Andrina he'd dithered about, since she'd had the Keeper position last year and he wasn't going to make the other returning playing fight for their spots, but none of them had any new players who wanted their spots. Anthony had put his dibs on Seeker and Leonidas wanted Chaser, which already had Kitty's open spot.

On the back side of the sign-up sheet, he'd written the open postions: Beater (1), Chaser (1), Seeker (1), Keeper (1) and below that the list of the five people vying for them: Andrina, Anthony, Leonidas, Theodore, and 'Me'. He'd meant to write his own actual name at the end of the list, but the pronoun had found itself on the page before he caught himself and he hadn't cared enough to bother changing it.

Once his team had finished arriving, he folded the page into quarters and tucked it into one of his robe pockets. "Hello," he greeted them all. "I am Thaddeus Pierce, Aladren's new captain this year." He nodded toward Jay, "That's Jay Carey, he's our assistant captain." In truth, he probably would have preferred working with Francesca, especially now that the New Hampshire Pierces had changed their allegiance away from WAIL and it was no longer improper for him to associate with Quidditch playing females, but he'd had no good reason to deny Jay his chance to be assistant captain, or eventually captain. That Jay might not want it never even occurred to him.

"We have a number of openings on our roster this year, but we do have one more person signed up than we have spots, so at least one of you is going to be a reserve. Is anybody here not already signed up on my list?" He looked around to see if they had any walk-ons, ready to ask their name, year and which positions they would like to try out for if there were any.

Once that was resolved, he continued, "I'm going to give preference to people who were on the team before, but nothing is guaranteed. We're going to start with Beaters. Is anyone willing to play Beater besides Lucian?" he asked, just a little bit more plaintively than he would have liked to sound as the new leader of Sonora's most accomplished Quidditch team in recent history. "Speak now, and you're on the team."

He paused hopefully for any takers.

"Okay," he resumed a few minutes later, "for everything else, we're going to start with a couple of drills, just so I can see what everyone's capabilities are. Everyone get on a broom." He waved vaguely in the direction of the pile of school brooms for those who didn't have their own. He continued once everyone had a broom in hand, "Jay, Andrina, and Leonidas, you're on one team. Francesca, Anthony, and Theodore, you're on the other team. Lucian, you're hitting practice bludgers at everyone." Thaddeus nudged the release for a practice bludger and let the softer inflated black ball leap up into the air. "Andrina and Theodore, you've got the goals. Jay, Leonidas, Francesca, and Anthony, you're Chasing. Okay, everyone get ready." He picked up the Quaffle from the ground next to him. "One, two, three, go!"

He threw the red ball up as high as he could, then mounted his own broom and kicked off after his teammates, watching to see who got the ball first, and how well everyone maneuvered on their brooms.

OOC: Walk-ons are, of course, welcome. If you're joining without having signed up first, assume Thad assigned you to one of the teams. First walk-on is on Jay's team, second on Francesca's, third on Jay's, etc. If you volunteered for Beater, firstly, thank you, and secondly, you can still fill out whichever team you were assigned to as a Chaser or Keeper.

Subthreads:

An Aladren trying out by Francesca Wolseithcrafte with Jay Carey, Anthony Carey VIII

Getting a feel for it by Theodore Wolseithcrafte

1 Thaddeus Pierce II Aladren Try-Outs 213 Thaddeus Pierce II 1 5

Francesca Wolseithcrafte

October 27, 2013 11:57 AM

An Aladren trying out by Francesca Wolseithcrafte

Francesca was excited about Aladren's Quidditch try outs. Apart from the opportunity for her and her brother to play together, there was the positive fact that they had more players than they needed. She, like everyone else (she suspected), had been concerned about whether they would be able to fill all the vacancies that had arisen. There was no guarantee, of course, that the new players would be any good (although she trusted in Theodore's skills) or that those new to their positions would be. They were bound to be less skilled than those who had left them after more or less seven years competing at this level. That was simply to be expected and so she hoped no one would be disheartened by it. The freshness of some of the players, and working with a new structure, were things that the Aladren team were going to have to work on, to overcome, along with the fact that the signees did not necessarily match the positions of a team. But they had enough raw material to work with, and that was a good enough start. It would be hard but they had the wherewithal to keep playing. Hopefully to keep winning.

On the day of the try outs, she headed down to the pitch, a good meal inside her and her long blonde hair braided tightly back from her face. She was curious to see how Thaddeus was going to manage the mismatch of people and positions. A broad and blatant appeal for Beaters, apparently. In spite of him stating that he outright did not want to play it, she wondered whether he would resort to that if there were no other viable options. For all that several people had said they were open to playing anything, he had physical strength and experience on his side. The logical thing might be for him to take it, whilst training up whoever ended up as a reserve to specialise in it next year. She supposed she would just have to wait and see.

She already had her own broom, a slim, lightweight model whose advantages were speed and cornering, but which was perhaps more susceptible to the whims of the wind and would not stand up well to physical onslaught. It was true that most brooms were harder to control in high winds and usually came off worse in a fight with a Bludger (even if it was just to be knocked off course) but it was especially so in the case of hers – the price paid for higher agility and, to her, worth it. She exchanged a grin with Teddy as they were put on the same team. Kicking off, they went their separate ways in the air.

Last year, her main problem had been adapting to the size and scale of the game, especially the number of bodies on the pitch. Of course, this being a team event, there wasn't anywhere near that number of people on the pitch, but she had resolved to throw herself into things more. She'd never find out how tightly she could weave through a knot of people if she always hung uncertainly on the edge of it. She missed the Quaffle by inches but felt she'd shown sufficient willingness to try. She kept her eyes forward, spotting a gap to the left of one of the other players, and dove out, pulling her broom up to take her above the other players, ready to fall alongside her team-mate for a pass, or to pursue the other Chasers down the pitch and attempt to thwart them in reaching her brother's goal.

13 Francesca Wolseithcrafte An Aladren trying out 250 Francesca Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Theodore Wolseithcrafte

November 07, 2013 5:20 PM

Getting a feel for it by Theodore Wolseithcrafte

Theodore was a little apprehensive about try outs. He was sure his performance would be perfectly satisfactory, especially given that he was a first year and thus the expectation was relatively low. He was more concerned about being pressurised into taking a position that he did not want. He had a position. He liked his position. He was better at that than at anything else and thus saw it as worth waiting for, even if it meant a year on the bench. However, if it was a choice between that and not having a complete team, he could see that his arguments would fall flat. Technically, there were enough people for it to not have to come to that, but it depended how the cards fell. Luckily most other people had claimed some degree of flexibility.

He had breakfasted with his sister, and now stood on the pitch, his broom over his shoulder. His hand remained firmly down when Thaddeus asked for Beaters, guaranteeing them a spot if they volunteered. He was curious to see what Leonidas would do. He knew that his room-mate had been in two minds about signing up so he was unlikely to be desperate. Theodore was glad he'd gone for it though.

Theodore took to the air, pleased that he was having a chance to show his skills in his desired position. It was unlikely that he'd get it, when there was already an established, older Keeper, but he commended Thaddeus for letting him try. He made a beeline for the hoops, looping around them to get a feel for it. He had spent his flying classes adapting to the size of the pitch and practising covering the goals whenever he got the opportunity, and so he felt as comfortable as could be expected. He knew he needed to get more efficient and be able to make alterations to his moves without losing track of where he was, relative to the goal posts. But the basic spacial awareness was there. He covered the airspace, waiting for something to come his way.

13 Theodore Wolseithcrafte Getting a feel for it 270 Theodore Wolseithcrafte 0 5

Jay Carey

November 08, 2013 4:10 PM

We have that in common by Jay Carey

Jay had been mildly surprised to see that the team had gotten enough people to have reserves, and pleased, though still worried at the same time that this chance would make everyone too confident, too sure that they were going to be the same as they had, for as long as anyone here was concerned, always been. He didn’t think it was impossible that they would keep winning, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t going to be as easy as it had been, and that was even if Anthony didn’t have some damn fool idea about matching Arnold’s reputation in his head, which Jay was pretty sure he did. On one level, he sympathized, of course, he knew all about being the brother nobody noticed was alive, half the time, as long as he was there when they needed him, Anthony for display or Jay to look after the others, but on another, Anthony having a crisis of worth was not really what the team needed right now. They needed that about as much as Jay needed another mess to clean up. So he hoped he was being an utter pessimist and making up problems which were never going to happen.

At least, he thought as the team gathered, he only had one relative on the team to deal with. He really had felt sorry for Arnold and Arthur last year. It just got complicated when you knew the other people too well and started guessing at what they were thinking while they were doing things and worrying about charges of nepotism on top of it all. With people he hadn’t grown up with, Jay thought it would be easier to sort things – an advantage Thad had already, Jay guessed, since he wasn’t related to anyone here as far as Jay knew.

Though of course he still had problems. Jay looked over the other candidates and concluded that none of them were going to make very good Beaters. Even to someone who didn’t know just how much of his summer he’d spent studying Arithmancy and how little outdoors, Anthony was visibly not built for it; he and his father were both, for heirs, unfortunate throwbacks to Great-Grandmother, tall but wispy, not very strong. And the other two were first years.

“I can do it, if that works out best,” he said. He didn’t really care, so long as they got into the air and kept up the House – and, at this point, by extension his family’s – reputation to that extent at least, and he was probably better suited to it than the others were. Besides, it was the number two guy’s job to do what no one wanted to do to keep things running. That was what being the number two guy was about. It was why he couldn’t imagine why anyone would ever want the job, even though it lead to being the number one guy eventually here, though he guessed that could have something to do with his lack of ambition toward being the number one guy, too. “Whatever we need.”

They were split into teams, and he got Andri and one of the first years. “Hi,” he said to the first year. “I’m Jay Carey, nice to meet you.” He hoped, as he remembered the sign up list and the guy’s last name, that his last name wasn’t going to be a problem, given his family’s history with the Bennetts; that had been another branch, nothing to do with South Carolina at all, but outsiders didn’t always appreciate those distinctions. Hopefully, though, Leonidas Bennett was a totally different sort of Bennett from the one who’d gotten mixed up with Georgia, too, or just didn’t care about ancient history. “Watch out for Bludgers and keep the Quaffle away from Andri, and we should be okay,” he added.

The other team had the Wolseithcraftes together, but since the younger one was playing Keeper, he doubted that would affect things. Francesca’s team probably did have a bit of an advantage in Chasers, but they’d get by. He caught the Quaffle, then flew toward the new Wolseithcrafte for a bit before trying a pass to Theodore’s roommate to test his skills out.

0 Jay Carey We have that in common 0 Jay Carey 0 5

Anthony Carey VIII

November 08, 2013 4:13 PM

I suspect everyone in this thread will have that in common by Anthony Carey VIII

As he walked onto the Quidditch Pitch, Anthony was seized by the thought that this had been a terrible idea and that he needed to leave, right now, before he embarrassed himself and his cousin and his brothers and his whole family and had to spend the rest of his life in disgrace. He made himself ignore it. For one thing, he doubted he could really do anything so bad in a Quidditch game that it would have consequences that severe, because for another thing, he couldn’t think of much he could do in a Quidditch game which would be worse than getting out here, getting most likely close enough to other people for them to recognize him, and then turning around and running for it. Arthur wasn’t here anymore, so he would probably be spared jokes about glorious Hector if he did that, but…only probably. He wasn’t going to risk it.

It was, he thought with a smile, since he found the thought funny, kind of hard to tell the difference between nerve and reputation sometimes. Anthony had the vague idea that he had no reputation yet, that he blended in with the woodwork as well here as he did at home, and when he established one, he didn’t want it to be the reputation of that guy who ran from the mere memory of his older brother.

One way or another, he would get some kind of reputation out of this. Not Arnold’s, he thought – no one was going to be Arnold. Anthony didn’t have the personality to be Arnold even if he had had the skill, and he was pretty sure he didn’t have that, either. He didn’t think he could be Arthur, either; his other brother was too assertively an intellectual. If he hadn’t always been so close to Arnold, it wouldn’t have strained Anthony at all to imagine Arthur happily going on a trip around the world by himself, taking up native forms of dress, sending home bizarre and possibly dangerous souvenirs, and gaining a nice cache of near-death experiences to tell Arnold and Anthony’s kids about someday. In Quidditch, too, Arthur was a lot tougher than him; Anthony was pretty sure he could not take the level of damage he’d seen either twin take and keep playing. He was going to have to try to be Anthony, rather than Arnold or Arthur or even Arnold and Arthur’s brother. Which was itself enough of a reason to head for the hills. He wasn’t comfortable with the spotlight, even though he had just volunteered to essentially throw himself into it. He regarded it as one of those unpleasant but somehow necessary inconveniences of life.

The immediate problem, he saw, was that they needed a Beater, and he wondered why Thad was so opposed to retaining the place he’d played for so long even as he correctly interpreted the look Jay passed over him. Taking the spot would get him out of the spotlight, but Anthony knew he would be pretty bad at it – worse than his cousin, for sure. Jay wasn’t a big guy either, their branch didn’t really tend to them, but he was stronger than Anthony, anyway, and probably was the next-best on the team for the role.

He wasn’t sure if his team had a better chance of scoring than Jay’s did when they split up, since his team had Francesca but Jay’s had the more experienced Keeper, but did feel obliged to do all he could to bring it about, so when Jay passed toward his first year, Anthony intercepted the ball, turned around with it, and then passed it back toward Francesca.

0 Anthony Carey VIII I suspect everyone in this thread will have that in common 234 Anthony Carey VIII 0 5