Four on Aladren Commons

Captain Jay Carey

August 10, 2014 10:49 PM

Quidditch Team signups! by Captain Jay Carey

Once Anthony agreed to serve as his assistant and eventual heir on the Quidditch team, Jay had responded to Professor Olivers’ owl about it and then gotten out a clean sheet of parchment to write a signup sheet on. As captain, it was his job to make sure there was a list for people to sign up on and time blocked out for them to practice in after he got enough people involved to field a team.

Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to test the old boast that Aladren didn’t even need a Keeper. If it came to that, he would rather play with one Beater than with no Keeper, but he wanted a full roster, if only to prove that Aladren could get one if no one else could. His cousins seemed to think it hadn’t always been that way, but since Jay had arrived at Sonora, anyway, Aladren had been more than just a corner of the building where a part of the student body with a few of the same personality traits slept at night. Being an Aladren meant being part of the group that was the best at everything now and Jay wanted it to stay that way until he left, and preferably until Anthony did as well. His younger siblings had, thankfully, managed to all land in less accomplished Houses so far, so his former Aladren and now professional Seeker cousin Arnold’s shadow, impressively long to belong to the shortest and slightest male member of their generation, didn’t fall quite as heavily on his siblings as it did on Jay and Anthony as they stepped into Arnold’s old roles.

Once he was satisfied with the sheet, Jay hung it up in the common room, made a mental note to go down to the Pitch or to Professor Olivers' office to look for a time block for tryouts as soon as he had a chance, and then went to the Cascade Hall to look for coffee. He had very nearly weaned himself off of it last year when the clouds were blocking all supplies to the school, but had ended his sixth year even more dependent on it than he had been to start with thanks to all the makeup work they’d had to do in the spring.

Aladren Quidditch Signups

Interested in joining the Aladren Quidditch team? Sign your name, year, and the position you want below. All students in all years are welcome, and speak to Captain James Carey or Assistant Captain Anthony Carey if you have any questions.

James Carey, 7th Year, Captain (Beater or Chaser)

Subthreads:

One! by Clark Dill

Two by Francesca Wolseithcrafte

Three by Theodore Wolseithcrafte

Four by Leonidas Bennett

Here's five. by John Umland

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Clark Dill

August 11, 2014 4:14 PM

One! by Clark Dill

Clark Dill flew down the steps on the first day of classes - really more of a barely controlled fall than actual flying or running - into the commonroom where he bounced like a pinball off of several armchairs and couches before finally hitting the wall next to the bulletin board. Catching his balance on the vertical plane he sidestepped to glance over the notices and whooped when he saw that the sign-up sheet had gone up.

He fumbled in his bag for a quill but located a ballpoint pen first so just used that to put his name up at the next spot in the list.

Clark Dill, 2nd Year, Seeker or Chaser

Thaddeus had graduated now, so he thought he stood a reasonable chance at his dad's old position, and he was still young enough to be relatively small, though he was tall for his age. It was almost all in height, though, as he had a beanpole kind of build, so he was not well suited for beater and he thought Keeper was the most boring position ever.

With his name and preferred positions now available for the new Captain's review, he tucked the pen away and went speeding out through the Commonroom's exit and into the library, like a squirrel on caffeine though he hadn't even had any sugar yet today. He was just excited to get a new year started.

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Francesca Wolseithcrafte

August 20, 2014 12:39 AM

Two by Francesca Wolseithcrafte

The first full days back at school were going well. The staff had not made any unscheduled disappearances, which meant her duties as prefect were limited to being kind and helpful, shepherding lost first years. It also meant that Quidditch was going to be back on, after last year's hiatus, so long as enough houses actually managed to field teams. She was confident that Aladren would though, they had a long and proud Quidditch history, and Pecari were usually a good bet. Seeing as three of her closest friends were on that team, it made them one of the more fun ones for her to play. She wasn't sure about the Anns, but she and Adam both enjoyed the game for the fun of it – pitting themselves against each other was a good laugh, rather than something that would test or strain their friendship.

She saw the sign up, and added in her neat, cursive writing, her name, year and that her desired position was that of Chaser. She could have signed Teddy up, as he was predictable as the seasons in his choices but it still seemed meddlesome and interfering, so she left it to him to sort out himself.

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Theodore Wolseithcrafte

August 20, 2014 12:48 AM

Three by Theodore Wolseithcrafte

Theodore glanced over the Quidditch sign up sheet, noting with interest a new name on it. He was aware of who Clark was, it was a small school, but knew little about the boy other than that he had an unfortunate, oddball haircut, and perhaps a personality that matched. Subconsciously, he ran a hand over his own brown hair, which – as ever – was trimmed neatly, a little shorter at the back so as to not brush his collar.

He took a quill from his bag, and inked onto the list, in perfectly spaced cursive

Theodore Wolseithcrafte, third year, Keeper.

The new-comer at least didn't want his position. He was lucky in that it wasn't commonly fought over – normally people were glad that someone wished to sign themselves up for the role many saw as best suited to a masochist. Theodore felt that better suited Seeker's – everyone wanted to claim part of their glory if they won and vilified them if they lost. True, a Keeper was only really noticed for doing their job badly, rarely celebrated for doing it well, but there was a long margin before anyone actively loathed you for it. And staying quietly away from the hubbub at victory parties suited him just fine.

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Leonidas Bennett

August 22, 2014 12:56 AM

Four by Leonidas Bennett

After the summer, Leonidas Bennett was nearly back to thinking of himself as Leo. It had seemed like someone was saying his name every moment of the holidays, and while he didn’t think he was as averse to human society as his roommate was, he had wanted to crawl under a rock and never speak to anyone again by the second week in July. After half a year with Gemma attempting – and really, really failing; his sister just wasn’t bright enough for that kind of thing – to mother him and their “in-laws” while the school was adult-less and then a summer of his parents bickering over whether or not Father had a say in whether or not he and Gemma came back to this school when they were both in Mother’s half, he was thoroughly sick of the attention he had, occasionally, envying his oldest sister Eliza, wanted when he was younger.

Gemma, though, had seemed happy enough to stay at the Teppenpaw table so far this year, the teachers showed no signs of disappearing again, and life was getting back to normal. There were some new teachers, but since he hadn’t been very attached to any of the old ones or to the ones left, he wasn’t worried about that. What was important was that there were classes going on, normal meals – especially interesting; Gemma had gotten sort of hysterical a few times last fall, sure they were all going to starve to death; Mother had gotten all upset over the summer when she realized that Gemma had put on some weight in the spring in reaction, so if Leo never saw another grapefruit again, he thought it would be too soon – and even student organizations picking back up, including the Quidditch teams.

Quidditch was honestly not one of his favorite things to do, but it had a strong argument in its favor: it was a place where people got to know each other. The Aladren team had been dominated by the Careys for a while now, the Wolseithcraftes seemed likely to succeed them, and while there was always a random kid or two in addition to their sort, he thought it was as much a club for young pureblood boys who were going places (and Francesca) to get to know each other as a sports organization. Or at least he hoped it was as he signed up – Leonidas Bennett, Third Year, Chaser or Beater - before breakfast one morning. He was the younger son in a family which had not yet attained anything like real greatness, and while he would have rather they were not Careys, he needed connections of whatever sort he could get.

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John Umland

August 22, 2014 2:21 PM

Here's five. by John Umland

On the first night of school, Professor Yu had encouraged all of the first years to join the Quidditch team whether they were any good at the game or not, but John had been inclined to ignore the advice. As much as he liked sport and physical activity, he had always been mistrustful of defined, regular teams. There was also the slight issue of his having never played Quidditch, or something loosely derived from it, anyway, more than three times in his life. His was pretty much a Quodpot family, and since he lived in a mostly Muggle community in Calgary, he hadn’t even played that with Dad’s various younger cousins very much. He liked flying itself, but broom sports were alien, and he really doubted that House teams were really about just having fun. The House system had originated in England and featured, according to his history lessons, heavily into politics and even a near-war or two. The Americans didn’t (fortunately for him) seem to take it as seriously as all that, but from what he’d read in Julian’s letters over the years, it got a little more serious when Quidditch was involved.

After the first time Prefect Francesca inquired about whether or not he’d considered getting involved, he’d asked Julian about the Aladren team specifically. His sister had offered facts, not opinions. She said it had had a very long winning streak with the Seeker who’d been playing when Julian started school, who had gone into professional Quidditch after he left the school, but that he probably had nothing to do with one of his relatives being the captain now, since the captains at Sonora were the senior members of each team, regardless of family – a model which he approved of, he guessed; it wasn’t perfect, but skill could be subjective, especially with four different positions, and it was definitely better than some ways of deciding things.

Still, the repeating names on the sheet made him a little skeptical about how well joining up would do, even if Clark from flying lessons had been the first one on the list. He had written home about it, and Mom had said she thought joining the team anyway was a good idea. He needed to mingle with people, she said, and it was as bad to assume one kind of people would be bad just because of what they were as it was to assume that about another. If it went poorly, he could always get out, but she really thought he needed to be in groups with people, and the Quidditch teams and book club were about all the opportunities there were for that at Sonora.

John had given up on explaining it to Mom, because she really didn’t seem to get it (she was the sort who hated being in large groups of people, but forced herself because it was the only way to be effective a lot of the time), but he actually did like being with people – when he wanted to, to do something interesting, with people he at the very least didn’t object to. He wasn’t sure a real sports team would allow for that. If any sports team did, though, it would be one composed entirely of people nerdy enough to be in Aladren, so finally, he signed up, hoping it wasn’t the stupidest thing he had done at school to date and that it wasn’t going to backfire horribly in his face. The fact he didn’t even know what position to sign up for didn’t inspire much confidence in that, but maybe it would work out okay. Mom said that was the right way to think, and he didn't really have much evidence that she was wrong yet, especially in the context of this school.

John Umland, 1st yr, Whatever

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