Seeking for success! on Quidditch Pitch

Captain Tobar Brishen

January 29, 2011 3:54 PM

Teppenpaw Tryouts! by Captain Tobar Brishen

Tobar was nervous, as this was his first tryout/practice as Captain. Sure, he had been Assistant last term but that had not meant much. Though he was thankful that he had full team plus an extra, he just did not know what to do. Therefore, he decided to have a general tryout for everyone but Kirstenna and himself. He was a Chaser, so he needed to find people who could fit in with his style of play, and Kirstenna was a good Keeper so he wasn’t replacing her at all, plus she was his Assistant Captain that would be just mean.

He made his way to the Pitch a little bit before the time the others were to be there, set out a couple of school brooms in case of the new kids didn’t have their own. He bit his lip nervously knowing that even with a full team on his list Teppenpaw were the underdogs. Well he was going to make the best of it no matter what. When it seemed like everyone had arrived he cleared his throat.

“Hey guys! Welcome to Teppenpaw Quidditch Tryouts! We are going to do a quick introduction so we are all on the same page. I need you to tell me your name, and what kind of experience you have playing the position or positions you are tryout for. Don’t worry no experience does not disqualify you I just want to know.” He smiled reassuringly at the team. “I’ll start. I am Captain Tobar Brishen and this will be my fourth term on the team, one as Keeper, and three as Chaser.” He then nodded to the next person to countine.

Once everyone had introduced themselves he nodded again. “Alright this is how we are going to work this tryout; Chasers will try to score against our Keeper Kirstenna.” He had figured this would be a good practice for Kirstenna.

“Beaters I want you to get the bats and hit this between each other. It’s a bit smaller then a bludger but I don’t need ya’ll taking a hit to your faces before you even make the team.” He said as he tossed over to one of the first year boys, an enlarged baseball.

“Seekers you will be taking turns trying to catch the snitch, and I’ll be flying around observing everything. That sound cool guys?” He didn’t wait he just blew his whistle hopped on the broom and zoomed off.

OOC: Walk-ons welcome! Just remember to introduce yourself!

Subthreads:

Seeking for success! by Jessica Applerose with Kate Bauer

Trying Out as a Teppenpaw Beater by Derwent Pierce IV with Ben Holland

Re: Teppenpaw Tryouts! by Andrew Duell

Chasing my Carrot! by Arista Rose Thornton

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Jessica Applerose

January 30, 2011 8:44 PM

Seeking for success! by Jessica Applerose

Jessica walked onto the pitch holding her Aero broom and smiling. She felt extremely nervous. This was her first tryout, and though she was confident in her seeking skills, she still knew she was a newbie and didn't know as much as some other people might. Her curly hair was tied back in a ponytail, the little tendrils pinned back to give her blue eyes a clear view of everything. Even the littlest distractions were terrible in Quidditch.

The weather was unusally cool, and though she preferred sunnier weather, she thought that this would be nice weather to fly in.

Jessica stood with the other Teppenpaws and nervously spoke up when it was her turn to introduce herself.

"I'm Jessica Applerose," she said, "a first-year. I've played Quidditch since I was seven, and my dad trained me as a Seeker," she said. Her brother had tried teaching her a little too, when he was feeling nice, but he had left before she really got to know him.

Jessica listened to the other introductions, and then it was time for the tryouts. She looked at the other Seekers. "Do you mind if I go first?" she asked, then mounted her broom and flew into the sky. The snitch was already out there somewhere, and it was her job to find it.

Jessica flew to the east side of the pitch. Now it was time to watch and wait. She remembered her father telling her to focus only on seeing a glint of gold, and to ignore the other distractions. She took a deep breath and tried to focus her mind. She looked around the pitch, the figures of other witches and wizards slowly blurring into the background. All her blue eyes searched for was a glint of gold.

And her eyes found it hovering near the ground towards the north side of the pitch. She immediately leaned in and soared towards the north. The snitch, seeming to feel her coming, zoomed off in another direction. Jessica's eyes followed it. She felt confident she'd get it. She would not disappoint her family.

Jessica's broom was fast, but she wanted to go faster. The wind didn't help; it whipped against her face and made her eyes water. It took only a blink to clear her vision, but it took only a blink to lose the snitch. She allowed her blasted eyes to water, but she never let her eyes fall away from the snitch.

She followed the slight gold that veered off between people, and Darla made sure that her broom didn't catch on anything, nor that she herself got hit with a stray bludger or a person, or something.

The snitch suddenly stopped at the south end of the pitch and Jess almost flew past it. Her reflexes, however, stopped her just in time, and she made a grab for the golden ball. It barely slipped out of her fingers. Jessica wanted to curse, though she knew she shouldn't, and made another grab. It was fate that the ball hadn't moved an inch, so when she grabbed at it again, it easily moved into her palm.

Feeling her heart soar with delight, she wished she could check the time. It couldn't have taken more than fifteen minutes. She landed on the wet grass and breathed a sigh of relief. The adrenaline was addicting. She looked at the golden ball in her fingers, trying to escape, and she smiled at the next person.

"Close your eyes for ten seconds and I'll let it go," she said. It'd only be fair that they didn't see where it went.

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Derwent Pierce IV

January 30, 2011 11:01 PM

Trying Out as a Teppenpaw Beater by Derwent Pierce IV

"I'm Derry Four," Derry introduced himself when it came time to do so. He'd left his tricorner hat in his room, fearing that it would fall off and get lost while he was flying around, but the rest of his clothes made up for it. He'd broken down and decided to wear the yellow colonial outfit he'd pulled out of his suitcase that first night. They were, after all, the only clothes he owned in Teppenpaw's colors. The white undershirt was covered by a laced yellow vest. His pants were a pair of maroon knickers that ended just below his knees with a gold buckled strap. White knee-high socks came up to the knickers and black buckle shoes finished off the ensemble. "Uh, Derwent Pierce the Fourth," he added belatedly, in case the Captain needed his full name for paperwork or something.

He'd tried to figure out whether or not it would be better to mention that the school's Quidditch Coach was trying to pretend to be his first cousin, but concluded it would only cloud the issue of whether or not he should be on the team. "Of the New Hampshire Pierces." The Coach hadn't offered a branch name during her introduction as the flying instructor, so he thought this would make it clear enough that they weren't officially related despite their common last name.

Derry had spent the morning tending to his brother's broom, fixing the minor damage caused during flying lessons, and he held it tight in his hand now, a reminder that his brother had played on his house team in Salem, and that he would be expected to do the same as well. "I guess I've been flying for um, eight years? Long as I can remember. We didn't have enough people to play real quidditch, but I had a bludger I could practice knocking around. I'm a first year so never got to play for a House team yet." That concluded his introduction and explanation of his experience so he nodded for the next person to go.

Later, after everyone had done the same, Captain Tobar tossed him a strange looking white ball with red stitching that was a little smaller than a bludger. Derry caught it without any difficulty and mounted his broom. He checked that he also had his bat with him (it would be embarrassing to realize once they were all up in the air that he'd put it down when he fixed his shoe buckle) and that his gloves were securely fastened. Once these things were confirmed he took off into the air.

"Ready?" he asked the other Beater hopefuls. When they said they were, he batted the weird white psuedo-bludger toward one of them. The bat hit with a solid thunk and the ball flew just as Derry had intended it to go. Odd it might be, but the white ball flew way better than some of the rocks he'd used before Father had trusted him with a bludger.

1 Derwent Pierce IV Trying Out as a Teppenpaw Beater 189 Derwent Pierce IV 0 5

Andrew Duell

January 31, 2011 8:30 PM

Re: Teppenpaw Tryouts! by Andrew Duell

Andrew whistled a merry little tune as he walked out to the Quidditch pitch with his old broom over his shoulder. He was feeling happier than he had in awhile, and he wasn't entirely sure why. He was going to try out for the Quidditch team, but he wasn't really a huge Quidditch fan. He'd played before, and did have fun with that, but that was about as far as it went. He knew some of the other players really got into it, analyzing statistics, plotting strategies, practicing nonstop. That was just to much for Andrew, he just liked to play the game.

Last year he didn't play, he really didn't do much of anything other than classes and schoolwork. It wasn't a particularly fun year for him, and he really only had himself to blame. So maybe that's why he was in a good mood. This would be a different year, this year would be fun again.

He casually strolled out onto the pitch and saw a bunch of his potential teammates waiting for things to get started. Andrew introduced himself with a smile when his turn came, "I'm Andrew Duell. I was a reserve player my second year here, and played chaser my third. Last year I didn't get to try out, so I thought I would again this year."

He listened to the other's go through their introductions, then kicked off into the air on his broom with the rest of the chasers. He assumed he was supposed to go with the chasers anyway. He had signed up on the sheet as 'any', because he wasn't sure which position Tobar would need him to fill. This was the position he had the most experience with, so he may as well start here anyway. If Tobar wanted him to try out somewhere else, he'd switch over and give it a shot.

The quaffle came his way and he caught it more deftly than he expected. Apparently, Quidditch was like riding a bike, even after not playing for a year. He took a quick spin around the pitch on his broom and sent the ball sailing toward the goals. It was not a particularly impressive shot, but it generally went in the right direction.

2 Andrew Duell Re: Teppenpaw Tryouts! 145 Andrew Duell 0 5

Arista Rose Thornton

February 05, 2011 1:35 PM

Chasing my Carrot! by Arista Rose Thornton

Arista had been on the team the year before, but that didn’t help her nerves as the Tryouts came nearer and nearer. She had seen there were a lot of names on the list of people who wanted to try out, and she truly hadn’t done her best the year before. The now twelve year old felt bad about it, and wanted to show them that she’d practiced over the summer and now could handle the game even better. The red-head only hoped that she’d get the chance to show the new Captain, Tobar Brishen, a teammate of hers last year. Since he was on the team last year, he’d seen how she’d done, and she hoped that would not lose her the chance to try again this year!

Arista had somehow managed to dislodge her younger sister from her arm by telling her she was going over to get food at Cascade Hall with a bunch of people. She felt bad about it, but the red-head knew that her sister was terrified of crowds, and she knew that would be the only way she’d be able to make it to Tryouts! Addison’s fear had been worse than the twelve year old thought it was going to be once they got to school, and though she loved her sister, it was getting annoying to the second year. She had to come up with reasons to ditch her sister a few times in the past week, and though she felt terrible about it, knew she had to for her own sanity! Running towards the Pitch, as she was almost late, she tripped over a branch on the ground and sprawled right onto her right hand. “Ouch!” She screeched as she looked at how swollen her wrist was already getting from her spill. “Wonderful…” She said aloud, feeling as if this was a bad omen.

‘This will NOT stop me!’ she thought as she stood up, feeling the blood rush to her head as it felt as if her hand would fall right off at her wrist. As Addison had tried very hard not to be dislodged, Arista knew she was running late for the tryouts, so she ran once more and, panting, finally made it just as Tobar started talking. Glancing around, she saw the others who were trying out, as well as the school brooms on the ground and turned back up to look at Tobar as he welcomed them to tryouts.

Arista nodded as Tobar told them he wanted to know everyone’s names and what experiences they had in playing and she let a few students go ahead of her before she spoke, feeling her wrist throb from both her recent fall and her tendonitis. “I’m Arista Rose Thornton, and I have been playing Quidditch for some time now, as well as being chaser on the team last year.” she said and some more Teppenpaw’s introduced themselves. Once her housemates had all introduced themselves Tobar spoke again, and she listened through the growing pain in her wrist. Tobar explained how tryouts were going to work and Arista nodded through held back tears. The fact that she had teared up in the first place was something. As the family daredevil, it was very rare that anything hurt that badly, but an already injured hand getting another injury so soon wasn’t so good. She knew it right then, but was not planning on missing Tryouts because of it.

‘I’ll grit it through the pain…’ she thought to herself as she nodded once more at the end of Tobar’s information. Seeing as the red-head was chaser the year before, she lined up to go by the other chasers, knowing Tobar would put her where he needed her, if she made the team at all this year and took a deep breath before mounting her broom. She closed her eyes tightly and took in a deep breath as she kicked off from the ground, pelting upward into the air, feeling the breeze blow through her hair which she had left half down that morning.

One of the other students pelted past her clutching the Quaffle and her eyes brightened. “Pass it! Pass it!” she called to them and as they passed it to her, she caught it easily in her left hand and crooked it under her left arm. Flying fast, she headed right towards Kirstenna, the teams Keeper and Assistant Captain. Taking a deep breath, Arista braced herself to throw the ball hard through the left side hoop, though faking towards the right one to Kirstenna.

She threw the large red Quaffle hard, and…

(OOC: The other student is just a random, there’s no godmodding! And I wasn‘t sure if we were supposed to make it into the hoop or not, if we are, I‘ll do an ending, just let me know please!)

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Kate Bauer

February 06, 2011 8:36 PM

Me, too! by Kate Bauer

It was a bad thing to do, and Momma kept trying to make her break it, but as Tobar welcomed them all to the try-outs, Kate kept digging the nail of her longest right finger into the side of the bed of her right thumbnail, occasionally sliding the nail of her ring finger against the top of the thumb itself. She knew that, as a returning player, she had at least a good chance of getting her spot back, and didn’t even really feel very worried about it, but every time she looked down, or just hurt her thumb a little too much, she noticed that she’d slipped back into that nervous habit of playing with her fingernails.

The truth was, she never should have been a Seeker. She was too tall and wide across the shoulders for it, had been last year and was compared to the first year she was trying out against; Dad said she was built like a swimmer, and Kate couldn’t really argue that. At home, she had always been a Chaser, maybe a Beater on some days, but last year, Lucie had needed a Seeker, they’d only had six people anyway, and that was the one position that could not go unfilled, so she’d been the Seeker, and now she wanted that back, at least a little because of how much it annoyed her sister for her to not only play Quidditch at all, but also to be in the most showy position there was.

Of course, more important was how Momma was annoyed by it, but Kate didn’t think her mother would ever actually disown her. Emily Bauer Douglas, née Layne, was a tough customer, and could and would do and had done just about anything to get to the top, but she was still talking to her half-sister, Squib Aunt Lavinia, after Squib Aunt Lavinia had a baby with a Muggle while she was fifteen and not married. Kate didn’t know a lot about how upper class snots really saw the world even after living among them for six or seven years now, but she was pretty sure just being a Squib was worse than being a female Quidditch player even without all the other stuff.

Momma had managed to deny her a new broom, since she wouldn’t buy it and Dad didn’t have the money in hand for anything very good, but Dad had managed to get her something decent secondhand, so that was one thing taken care of. Last year, she’d been on a school broom, which she thought was a lot of why she had done not so hot against Marissa Stephenson in the Teppenpaw-Crotalus match. She clutched it close to her, noting with a little envy how nice the one the first year would-be Seeker, Jessica, beside her had was, as she introduced herself. “I’m Kate Bauer,” she said. “I’m a second year, and I was the Seeker for Teppenpaw last year. I’ve been flying about as long as I can remember, my parents taught me when I was little, and Momma was the Crotalus Quidditch Captain when she was in school.” It couldn’t hurt to throw that out there. And leave out the part where Momma had left the team, along with the school since she was also a Crotalus prefect and the Head Girl, in a huge rut when she left school abruptly in February of her seventh year to elope with her ostensibly ex-boyfriend, Jake Bauer.

She raised her eyebrows slightly when Jessica immediately asked to go first, but nodded. “That’s fine,” she said, loving the slight thrill of the implication that her permission was needed for anything. Being a second year was great.

A few minutes later, though, her mouth dropped open. “Oh, come on,” she said to no one in particular. “No way did the Snitch just stop.” Kate remembered too well the frustration of the way the stupid ball just would not stay in one place long enough for her to coordinate what her arm was doing with her brain seeing it during the game last year. Practices weren’t as bad, she’d get it when she took her turn, but the pressure of the game was a killing thing.

“Sure thing,” she said, a little flatly even though she tried not to be like that, when Jessica came back, still miffed by the ball apparently taking a liking to the first year and by the making the order to close her eyes an order. She counted to ten in her head, like she was playing hide-and-go-seek with Rachel and Sam when they were little and Rachel wasn’t a robot, then kicked off to look for the Snitch.

“Ready or not, here I come,” she said under her breath.

Unfortunately, it seemed that the Snitch was ready; she didn’t know exactly how long that count had taken her, but it had been long enough for the ball to escape. Going above the heads of the other players, she flew in a long oval over the Pitch, looking for it. She shouldn’t have gone along with closing her eyes; that wasn’t how it worked in games, and the Snitch was fast enough to take care of itself.

She thought she saw a glimmer of gold, down near where the Chasers were shooting against Kirstenna, and dove toward it, but realized it was a trick of the light just in time to have to pull off a neat bit of flying to avoid a collision with one of the other players. Then she spotted it for real far off to her left, and while it was gone by the time she got there, she had her eyes on it now. This was so much easier when the direction of play wasn’t changing every two seconds, and Bludgers flying at her all the time, and another Seeker to worry about, too. Not good for training, but good for looking good right now.

Twice more it darted just out of range as she caught it up, but on the fourth sighting, she pushed the new-to-her broom as fast as it would go, so fast her left hand became white-knuckled on the shaft as she was sure she felt herself sliding backward, and, dangerous as it felt, threw out her right and felt it close around the ball. Kate slowed to a stop, not trusting herself to go from however fast to nothing without some in-between, and smiled, ignoring the heat in her face as the blood rose after the movement and the way her light brown ponytail was now almost certainly in a hopeless tangle. Not bad, if she did say so herself.

16 Kate Bauer Me, too! 170 Kate Bauer 0 5

Ben Holland

February 08, 2011 10:50 PM

Beating. by Ben Holland

Ben stood nervously among the other hopefuls, gripping his Lightning Streak 380. Cy had carefully penned him a letter, that was tucked in his pocket alongside a Muggle two dollar bill. It had been gift from James, who had explained that it was no longer printed, but they weren't very rare. Even so, it had been his good luck charm since he was seven. With the latest letter from Cy, and James' gift, he had put a coloring page from Kara. The coloring was incredibly neat for a six year old, and the Quidditch player displayed on it had actually been drawn by Cy.

He planted his game face in place as he spoke, "I'm Ben Holland, trying out for Beater. I've been trained by my sister since I could walk, and have played in a couple recreation leagues."

He took off with Four, examining the enlarged baseball with interest. Cy had used things like it during training when he was younger, but it had been a while. Gripping his bat, he swung carefully for practice. As the
ball flew from Four to him, his adrenaline kicked in. He wacked it back, and a proud smile crossed his face. The beater spot was his.

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