Quidditch Tryouts! on Quidditch Pitch

The Coach

June 05, 2020 10:56 AM

Quidditch Tryouts! by The Coach

"Hello, everyone!" the coach said, greeting the gathered students with a grin. It was always exciting to see who signed up for the team - there were repeat players, new players, and everything in between. Some people had played once before but not for years since. Some people clearly didn't want to be here and stood nervously near their friends, hoping for some amount of social approval by coming. Some students were bouncing on their feet, eagerly waiting to give this their best shot. "As most of you already know, Sonora has a school team rather than house teams, and we play against other schools in the area. That means the team will be traveling! It also means this is a big commitment. That being said, there are enough of you that I have high hopes we will be able to do something a little different this year." The coach grinned again, excited about this bit.

Taking a moment to savor the excitement - and the sunshine - the coach paced a little in front of the students. It helped with thinking through all throw words in the right order, too. "My hope is that we will have enough players to have a full team and a full reserve team, and we will be able to host recreational games here with mixed teams. That'll give your classmates a chance to get involved and be excited by watching, and you can all have more chances to really improve your skills by playing with different teams together." Pulling out a clipboard with the list of students who had put down their interest for tryouts and for which positions, the coach nodded, satisfied. "We should have enough for a regular and reserve player for most positions!"

This was so exciting! "All that to bring us to tryouts! Welcome, students. If anyone needs a refresher on any of the positions, please feel free to take a look at the poster I've put up on the wall over there," the coach said, pointing to a large, colorful poster near the entrance to the pitch. Moving animations showed little figures of what each position sort of did, next to more detailed descriptions. "Anyone who is trying out for more than one position may need more time than we have here today, so please follow up with me afterwards if you don't get a chance to try for all of the ones you want to.

We'll start with some warm ups, stretches, and laps to get our blood pumping, and then the tryouts will begin. I expect everyone to be limbered up properly. I know many of you are nervous, but injuring yourself because you were too important to get through a proper warm up won't do anyone any good, and I won't be impressed by that sort of behavior." The coach looked warningly at the students, although still with kindness. It wouldn't be the first time someone hurt themselves and it really was very frustrating to seek happen. "When that's done, I want you all to take a couple warm up laps on your brooms. I've set up some obstacles, so I want you to take your time getting through those. Over or under posts, through rings, around poles, things like that. I want to see that you can handle yourself, not see how fast you can manage it, so be careful. Finally, we'll begin the tryouts for individual positions."

The coach looked at the clipboard again and pointed out various spots on the field for each group to go as they were read off. "Those of you trying out for seeker will be over there. The contraption over there is charmed to fire off different color balls about the size of a snitch. First, you'll take turns--" the coach paused to assign each perspective seeker a color "--trying to catch balls of your color alone. Then, you'll all be up there, trying to only catch balls of your own color and not each others'. It's important that a seeker can be lithe, quick, and aware of their surroundings so as not to get run into or run into anyone else.

Those of you trying out for Keeper will be over by the goal posts with a similar contraption, except you won't be going at it at the same time at all. This will be a bit shorter because perspective Chasers," the coach pointed to another spot on the field, near the goal posts, "will be practicing some passing and catching activities together and then showing me what you can do for making goals. You'll do that without a keeper first and then I'll have the keeper tryouts get in there and give it a go. Missing a goal because the keeper gets there doesn't mean you did badly, and getting a goal because a keeper missed it doesn't mean you did well. Just do your best. I can absolutely see when you are playing skillfully, whether or not you get a goal out of it."

The coach paused to check for questions and then moved on to the final position. There were fewer people signed up for this one, particularly considering that they needed at least two, but that didn't mean they wouldn't be expected to tryout just like anyone else. "Prospective beaters, you're going to first take a bat and be working with a contraption much like the others I've mentioned. It'll shoot off Bludger-sized balls at you and I want you to hit them back at the targets that are set up where I've pointed. When that's done, you'll pair up and pass balls back and forth with your bats. If we have enough people, I want you to switch partners; I need to see how all of you work together."

Double checking the clipboard, pausing for questions and answers, and taking a deep breath, the coach grinned one more time. "I'm really glad you're all here. Let's play Quidditch!" The coach blew a whistle and the students began.

OOC - Welcome to Quidditch tryouts! This will function essentially like classes, although there won't be points award for this. I am trying something new and setting up specific groupings for subthreads for each position and general threads. We'll see how well that works. Feel free to tag the coach if you need, or god mod the coach slightly as necessary.

The team will be determined both by IC factors - experience and skill, things that the school would logically take into consideration - and OOC factors - essentially, contribution to tryouts. If you have any questions, shoot a message my way (Evelyn Stones') way in chatzy, or in an OOC. If you signed up for tryouts, it is assumed that you came to tryouts. However, if you don't actually post at tryouts, your chances of being on the team are significantly reduced. You'll have two weeks to post here and get your tryout in, and then I'll start building a roster to be posted in three weeks.

Happy flying!

Subthreads:

Chasers

Playing the odds this time. by Valentine Duell with Heinrich Hexenmeister , Morgan Garrett

The odds are good, but the goods are odd. by Parker Fitzgerald with Evelyn Stones

Speaking of odd by Ness McLeod

General (before & after; warmups; etc.)

Seekers

Keepers

Beaters

22 The Coach Quidditch Tryouts! 0 The Coach 1 5

System

June 05, 2020 10:56 AM

General (before & after; warmups; etc.) by System

0 System General (before & after; warmups; etc.) 0 System 0 5

System

June 05, 2020 10:56 AM

Seekers by System

0 System Seekers 0 System 0 5

System

June 05, 2020 10:56 AM

Keepers by System

0 System Keepers 0 System 0 5

System

June 05, 2020 10:56 AM

Chasers by System

0 System Chasers 0 System 0 5

System

June 05, 2020 10:56 AM

Beaters by System

0 System Beaters 0 System 0 5

Hilda Hexenmeister

June 06, 2020 2:19 PM

Diese Position gehört mir by Hilda Hexenmeister

Hilda looked around at those gathered for the Quiddtich Try-Outs. She approved of the turn-out. It was larger than last year, large enough to regularly field two teams in practice games, which would be good for practice and help all of them. She felt secure in her own bid for beater. Of the older students, only Nathaniel had signed up for beater. She was pretty sure Parker had once been a reserve Beater, but he was only signed up for Chaser this year, so he was Heinrich's competition not hers. Of the other who signed up, she was not too worried about Filipe - they were the same grade level and he hadn't played on the team before, plus she wasn't exactly a small girl. Heinrich had inches on her, but she probably outweighed him, because he was skinny wisp like Mom while Hilda had their father's larger bone structure, and much muscle mass to back up her bid for the position where strength and power were the most important. None of the smaller kids seemed particularly interested, but at least one could probably be convinced to the team's second reserve beater.

She figured chances were good, though, that it would be her and Nathaniel who continued on as the first string beaters. They had worked well together, and developed a series of hand signals for their most common plays, partly so she could avoid speaking English, and partly because that would be harder for their opposing teams to decipher.

There were enough advanced students and fifth years that she did not imagine she'd have had a shot at captain even if her English was good enough, so she wasn't going to hold out any doomed hope on that point. Even when she did get to be on the older half of the seniority spectrum instead of smack dab in the center of it, she would still have her ability to communicate working against her. Honestly, that was the biggest motive she had for improving her English to something more fluent than merely 'understandable with difficulty' that had been her goal until she'd made this realization.

She listened carefully to the coach give his introductory remarks and then his instructions. She stood next to Heinrich, but he wasn't translating, not unless she gave him the signal she needed help. Which she did give on a few sentences, but over all, she had followed . . . some of it. The rest she could guess at. She checked her understanding with Heinrich when it was over, and he clarified a few points she'd gotten wrong, but as she bent over to begin her normal warm up routine, she was feeling pretty pleased with her language comprehension, at least when the words were related to Quidditch instead of Charms theory.

Once she was sure she properly limbered up she took to her broom. The obstacles looked interesting and she was eager to give them a go. Speed was only important to a beater when they were trying to get between a teammate and an incoming bludger, so she felt no compulsion to show off her top speeds when the coach had specifically instructed that completing the course with minimal errors was more important finishing it quickly. Like a bull in a china shop, she weaved over and under the posts, around the poles, and through the rings with more grace than one might expect from her, avoiding each obstacle with enough clearance that her success was unquestioned, but lacking the easy agility to make it look natural rather than fraught with imminent disaster.

Once that was done, she collected her bat then headed over to the beater corner. When the ball dispensing contraption began flinging bludger sized balls at her she set to swatting them into the designated targets. Not every one hit, but most did, and the ones that missed were close enough that they would have given any chaser in that target's position a good scare. She varied how hard she hit each ball, with the ones that were smacked with the greatest power being the ones with the least perfect aim, but some of those did connect, and when they did, the thumping sound was very satisfying.

When the thing stopped shooting out balls for each of the prospective beaters, she turned to one the others trying out here, and asked, "You pass ball with me?" while brandishing her bat so they would know she knew they weren't just throwing a ball back and forth.

OOC: If you haven't ever seen the Mythbusters busting 'bull in a china shop' look it up. It's amazing.

1 Hilda Hexenmeister Diese Position gehört mir 1433 0 5

Valentine Duell

June 06, 2020 5:49 PM

Playing the odds this time. by Valentine Duell

Valentine was excited! It was finally time to start on her road toward destiny! Quidditch try-outs! Equipped with her broom and a bottle of water, she made her way out towards the Quidditch pitch. It was a beautiful day out. Perfect for flying. She took a deep breath of the fresh air and hurried over to where the coach was waiting and other students were beginning to gather.

She stood and listened to the coach and huge smile broke out on her face. Two teams! That would be great! Any by mixing up the teams the stupid petty rivalries should be avoided! The coach was a genius! That did get her thinking about what she was actually going to try out for though. Seeker had been her first choice, especially after Ness thought it would be good for the Jeremy guy if she did win it. However with two teams now, they needed six chasers and only two Seekers. Realistically, as a first year with no actual team experience, getting one of the six Chaser positions was probably a better chance than getting one of the two Seeker positions. Granted that did mean she was competing against Ness, but s/he'd get a position well before Val did.

The warm up was completed and she hopped on her broom and looked over the obstacles with a grin. She just had to remember that the coach said that speed wasn't important, completing the course was. So as she kicked off and headed into the course she kept that in mind. Precision first, speed second. A very close second. Val weaved her way through the course unerringly, and absolutely not at top speed, but maybe close. Still she couldn't help unleashing a call of exhilaration as she dodged and swung around the obstacles.

Once she joined the Chasers, it was fun to toss the ball back and forth. But there were more people in the air tossing the balls than she was used to and on occasion she lost track of where the balls were as they were passed back and forth with rapidity. Her practice with Ness had been great, but still hadn't really prepared her for this. It was a bit of a relief when they switched over to shooting goals. That was a bit more along the lines of things she was used to doing. Hopefully she was doing well enough to make the team.

2 Valentine Duell Playing the odds this time. 1490 0 5

Anya Delachene

June 06, 2020 8:34 PM

Oh! Dibs! I'm here first! by Anya Delachene

Partway through the coach's speech - specifically at the part where the coach said 'host recreational games here with mixed teams' - Anya let out a whoop and jumped into the air, and pumped a fist. It wasn't as good as getting on the first string and being able to go to competitive games, but it was better than sitting on a bench all the time. If she could just make reserve Seeker, she'd at least be able to play in front of an audience here at Sonora sometimes! From what she'd seen on the sign-up sheet, it was basically between her and Jeremy, and while Jeremy had the edge (he was both older, and she was pretty sure she'd heard that he played on a team over the summers), she was going to at least make sure he had to work for that first string spot. Plus he was, well, Jeremy, so if being a team player had any influence on who got picked and it wasn't all straight up Quidditch skill, she definitely had a shot at this.

Besides, she wasn't a total noob. She'd been a reserve on the team the past two years (if one counted the stilted version of Quidditch that had gone on during her first year while the Challenges were happening as being 'on the team') and she'd been born to fly. Granted, brooms had come after horses, and she kind of preferred the horses to the brooms, all things considered, but she was a flyer. Being on the ground was suffocating. Being in the air let her breath.

She did her warm-ups dutifully, knowing from gymnastics that not stretching was a very bad idea. So she did some stretches - she touched her toes, she twisted her torso from side to side, she did a backbend followed by a back-walk-over, she dropped into a split, then switched legs, then straddled and leaned over to touch each pointed foot. Satisfied that she was well readied, she hopped on her broom and flew through the obstacle course, whooping and laughing in delighted joy the whole way. This was glorious! She barrel-rolled and dove and pulled up sharply, passing by each post, pole and ring by a narrow margin, flying fast but not too fast to not make the maneuvers. This was what brooms were good for. It was like flying Beggar's Canyon back home.

Then she headed over to the Seeker area, mumbling under her breath to remember that she was here for the blue fake-snitches, and only the blue ones.

They started shooting out of the thingamabob and Anya raced after them. Not running into the other seekers during the second half of the trial was the easy part. The catching of the little buggers was harder. She caught most of them (including at least one orange one that she grabbed out of the air by instinct as much as intent) but about a third of the little blue balls settled into the grass below them, untouched. The amount she missed when everyone was flying around was not significantly reduced than when it was just her (marginally, yes, but significantly no), and more of them were caught much closer to the ground (which she didn't have a problem with, but she knew Mom and Jasmine had trouble watching her when she was chasing after falling balls because it apparently 'looked like she didn't know crashing face first into the dirt would hurt', but Anya knew exactly how far she could push it and still come out unscathed - admittedly, it was knowledge gained by not coming out unscathed on several occasions, but that was no longer an issue). It was just less crowded at the lowest altitudes where the ground risked hampering maneuverability and other people got nervous about crashing.

1 Anya Delachene Oh! Dibs! I'm here first! 1453 0 5

Felipe De Matteo

June 07, 2020 1:50 PM

Y mío. by Felipe De Matteo

Felipe had been right. Relative both to other positions and how many people were going to have to be chosen for this position, Felipe thought had a good chance at playing beater. He didn't think he had a particular chance of being first string, but that was fine.

He was excited to play Quidditch. It was one of those "fun" things he'd been learning about, and he was pretty confident that Zara wasn't so enamored with athletes that she'd be disappointed if he didn't make the team, so there wasn't any pressure either way. He was also a bit curious. The majority of his musculature had built up as a result of weeding, harvesting, planting, climbing, and intentionally exercising. He was strong, but he was lean. How would those things translate to sports?

The warm ups were great. It was a literal breath of fresh air, and he moved through the exercises with the grace of someone who's been brought up to be exactly as lithe and gentle as he was. The next bit was harder, and the first few shots he took went wide. He'd been trying to focus on strength, but that didn't seem to do the trick. When he concentrated more on accuracy, he did well, and managed to hit the rest of the targets. He hoped that the fact that bludgers were hard and would hurt regardless, and the fact that they were dangerous even if he wasn't hitting one any which way, would be in his favor.

Finally, it was time to practice with others. Oh, how Felipe wished he spoke German. Managed four languages and none of them would be helpful here. He hated not being able to speak to someone in their most comfortable language. Nothing to be done about that right now, but perhaps he'd learn German next.

"Yes," Felipe smiled, agreeing to his classmate's offer and guiding his broom to an appropriate height. He adjusted his grip on his bat and took a breath. "I'm Felipe. You're Hilda, right?" he confirmed, wondering whether his memory for names would ever go away. It was good in this case, as this person was his competition right now but may very well be his teammate sometime soonish.

22 Felipe De Matteo Y mío. 1434 0 5

Parker Fitzgerald

June 09, 2020 2:25 PM

The odds are good, but the goods are odd. by Parker Fitzgerald

Parker sat in a triangle pose on the edge of the field in the sun, waiting for most of the people to arrive. He smiled at others as they entered and continued stretching, trying to keep his heart rate and excitement low and steady.

He’d woken up early this morning. His body jolting him awake. He’d only done quick workout in his room, knowing he’d have a bigger workout later. He quickly ate breakfast, hardly registering what went into his mouth or those around him. His mind was abuzz. This was his last year at Sonora. It was his last year to play Quidditch. He was pretty sure he would not be playing at the college level or professionally. At least, that wasn’t something he had on his mind. Still, part of him wanted to do well, wanted to prove to himself, and others, that he could be a good leader on the pitch and a good player.

He stood smiling as the coach began her speech. When she was talking about hosting games his smile turned in a light chuckle as Anya let out a woop. He wasn’t too surprised. She was a lot like him, full of energy that needed to be channeled in some way and he was glad to see her here again. He looked around. He liked most of the people here from his interactions with them. He saw Jeremy and even felt a sense of comfort with the student, even if Lyssa called him Jeremeany.

When the coach was done Parker went back to his stretching and then began to run laps back and forth across the field. After doing it six times he did a few dozen burpees, reveling in the feeling of the blood pumping through his veins, causing him to forget about other things. He could feel stress melting away and he couldn’t help but smile wider as he stepped onto his broom. He knew he probably looked like an idiot, but this is what he loved. He loved playing sports with a team. This was his happy place.

When he was younger he took the obstacle courses fast, trying to show how good he was with a broom based on speed. He now realized that going slower through some of the obstacles actually increased the difficulty in completing them. There would be a time for speed, but doing the course correctly was important to him. He got his broom going at a comfortable speed during the first few laps and then ran through it at a steady pace. He never once slowed down or sped up. He made it through without knocking anything and did a small fist bump on the back of his broom as he increased speed to move out of the way of anyone following him.

He felt a bit childish throwing the ball back and forth. He knew it was an important part, but it would make sense if they had some sort of strategies or plays to practice. Still, he was enjoying himself, and threw it to a young, Parker assumed first year. Every once in a while he flew around trying to catch other balls as some of the other students lost track of them in the mele of balls that were flying around.

Then came the part Parker had been practicing for. Getting goals. At first he was relatively tame, carrying the ball up and swerving while tossing the ball to the goal and faster and faster speeds. He was trying to steady his breath and maintain his focus. Visualize the ball going into the goal. He cheered for the first year that he’d been tossing the ball back and forth with. She looked good.

Then Keeper tryouts started.

Parker had wanted to try something, but had wanted someone on the other side, to see if it would work. He started slowly building up speed heading towards the Keeper and the three goals. He swerved to and fo as if he was dodging Beaters. The ball in his arm as he moved from side. Quickly picking up speed he headed right for the Keeper, moving the ball from hand to hand as if to decide which goal he was going to go for. He raised his right hand and took aim at the left goal. His arm moved back and then started moving forward before twisting so the ball went straight up instead of to the left. Parker quickly leaned towards his left so his right hand came around. The ball hit his palm for just a moment, but enough of a moment for him to aim it. Parker let his core muscles do the work as he twisted his body and the broom so the momentum of the ball shifted towards the right right goal. Parker broke down so as not to collide with either the goals or the Keeper. As he spun downwards all he could think was, “The move worked!”

He’d been testing different ways of doing it in his parents house over the summer. Unable to actually fly a broom, it had been hard to see if it would work. Tryouts was maybe not the best time to test it, but it had worked! He wasn't sure if it had gone in, but it was heading towards going in and that was what was important!

He rotated his shoulder giving it a test rotation. The coach wasn’t wrong, stretching was important and he was glad he'd done so.

41 Parker Fitzgerald The odds are good, but the goods are odd. 1402 Parker Fitzgerald 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

June 10, 2020 12:16 PM

I suspect I agree with one of you about something. by Nathaniel Mordue

De Matteo, Nathaniel was forced to conclude, was quite insane. He was not, as Nathaniel was, a bit damaged: he was outright insane and ought to be locked up for his own safety, not to mention that of others.

Nathaniel’s inclination would have been to blame the Muggleborn girl, as everyone knew that running with that sort was a short, broad, smooth path to ruin, but after the fool had lowered himself to behaving like a Muggle at the beginning of last year, it had rapidly become common knowledge that De Matteo and the girl – Hanes or Hayes or whatever her name was; wasn’t as if it mattered, given that she had no family – were no longer even on speaking terms. This meant she, at least, was probably not to blame for De Matteo now being stupid enough to join the Quidditch team despite the fact that it had both Jeremy and Nathaniel on it, and that neither of them had forgotten that he had presumed to attempt violence (even in Mugglish fashion; was he such a poor excuse for a wizard that he hadn’t thought he could do any better?) against Jeremy. Why would the girl he was groping these days, Jackson – why would she want him to ignore these facts, though? That suggested the Crotalus boy was simply insane, and to be pitied, really – at least, if it hadn’t happened to be Nathaniel’s brother he’d punched in the face.

Truthfully, Nathaniel didn’t even really hold it against him as much as he felt he should have done. Aside from the fact he was clearly delusional, there was also the fact that Jeremy could be quite a provocative, difficult person. Nathaniel could never like someone who assaulted his brother, of course, but he could understand how someone could be driven to want to do that. Didn’t matter though. Jeremy was his responsibility, and Nathaniel had let him down too many times anyway. De Matteo was therefore on the rather long list of people Nathaniel regarded as Enemy.

Perhaps De Matteo was just sane enough to realize this, he thought with a glimmer of amusement, for De Matteo was quick enough to pair up with Hilda. Pity, really. Nathaniel could have possibly broken his nose for him today to let him know he wasn’t wanted and he could have at least gone off to join another position, if not just…gone away entirely. Ah, well. Plenty of time.

“I’ll take turns,” he said, looking only at Hilda, and picking simple words to help her understand better. “Unless someone else comes to play with us soon,” he added, still ignoring De Matteo’s existence.

He was curious to see how it went between them, though. De Matteo had not been particularly skilled at the aiming bit during the first part of practice, so Nathaniel might get to ‘save’ the situation by running after the balls De Matteo sent flying toward the wrong people. These didn’t seem likely to hurt anyone, but it would be something to do until it was his 'turn' with one of them or the other.

16 Nathaniel Mordue I suspect I agree with one of you about something. 1412 Nathaniel Mordue 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

June 10, 2020 1:04 PM

Keeping it together. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana was not the only person who had volunteered to be the Keeper, but she rather expected to end up with the position. Two other students had included Keeper on the list of positions they might like, and they were both first years. Tatiana felt slightly like a giant as she looked down at the pair, even though she knew she was not abnormally tall for a woman by most standards. Not abnormally short – she could look Dorya in the eyes – but not abnormally tall in company of her own age, either.

“Hello,” she said to them both, with an awkward attempt at an American smile, not wanting to frighten them. It still felt odd, smiling just for the sake of smiling, and she would not do it as a general practice, but it seemed acceptable to make a few concessions to tiny first years. “I am Tatiana Andreyevna Vorontsova – you may say ‘Tatya,’” she added kindly, having noticed that sometimes, Americans had trouble even picking out where one word ended and the next began in her proper name. She was a bit puzzled by this, as ‘Tatiana’ was a sufficiently simple name that it was almost decipherable as her name even when it was written in the Roman alphabet, but again – a few concessions to tiny first years. “You tell me how to say your names, I do that, if I can.” She had tried to sound out the names on the list; she had parsed them as “Gram” and something almost French for “good beauty,” which made her wonder if the girl spoke French, and if she should introduce her to Dorya if so – he could make people feel more welcome than Tatiana did, and even if he was about to leave school, it would still be nice for Goodbeauty to hear someone speak her own language sometimes this year.

Well, presumably ‘her.’ Tatiana had gathered from working with Ness McLeod on the challenge team that some people made things very complicated, and there was also the small problem that Tatiana had never heard of people named Gram and Goodbeauty before, and couldn’t therefore say for sure which was male and which was female (if neither was complicated), though she suspected Goodbeauty was the girl and Gram was the boy. She couldn’t imagine why someone would name their child after a unit of measurement, but it seemed more likely than naming a boy something with the word ‘belle’ in it. Though, bon was the form of the French word which she thought went with masculine objects, which meant her name should have been Bonneabelle or Bonabeau (she thought, tentatively) instead of Bonabelle, so it was entirely possible that Goodbeauty was complicated like Ness. Which…Tatiana didn’t understand it at all (wouldn’t that just mean having all the inconveniences of both of the usual types of person, with none of the advantages of either?), but she thought she was getting very used to not letting it upset her stride when people here introduced her to strange ideas she automatically knew in her gut that Mama would be appalled by, even before Mama had demonstrated that she was right about at least one of those feelings with all the fighting this summer when it came to Dorian. What, as she had reasoned to Dorian, did it matter to her, so long as it didn’t harm her, or in fact really affect her in any way, aside from having to fight all summer? In Russian and French in particular, it would have been very difficult to make the language work, she thought, with people who were complicated, but English didn’t gender words the way other languages did anyway, because English was a strange language that didn’t make a tremendous amount of sense.

“I go first, ok?” she said, not really expecting argument from the midgets, when it came to having balls thrown at her by a device in front of the goal hoops. She hopped on her broom and flew away, the feeling of having her hair in a single braid that swayed between her shoulders still a little strange after the past year of always wearing it pinned up on her head.

She did not know why, exactly, she had decided she did not want to wear her hair up anymore at Sonora, or why she had gone from not wanting to wear it up anymore to actually letting it down sometimes, at least when she expected that Katya wouldn’t be around to be scandalized. She might, she thought, pin it up again for Quidditch practice in future, but for now, it was in a braid, the way she used to wear it when she played Quidditch, before Mama had declared her old enough to put her hair up. She tried not to think about it too much as she centered herself in front of the goal posts and focused her mind on the device.

The session went, she thought, well. She missed two balls, but not by outrageous amounts, and made what she thought was one very nice save against the left hoop. When the device stopped throwing things at her, she flew back to the ground, satisfied, to watch her small companions try and wait for the second round of the practice with the Chaser candidates.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova Keeping it together. 1396 0 5

Evelyn Stones

June 12, 2020 8:23 PM

I'm scared I won't get this. by Evelyn Stones

Last year, it had been Evelyn, Heinrich, and Ness. It had been perfect. This year, there were others trying out for Chaser who would likely get it and Evelyn was not under any misunderstandings about the fact that she was a likely boot out. She was athletic and competitive and skilled, sure, but she was also small and clumsy and probably not that impressive. Plus, Parker. Parker, Heinrich, and Ness would be a dream team for any coach to put on their roster. Evelyn thought it was likely that she'd get second string, and would be pretty upset if she didn't, but still.

She tried to push her doubts aside as she moved through her stretches, than the course, than the catch. It was easy. It was mindless. It was the sound of blood pumping in her chest and the feeling of her hands and feet getting warmer, and the taste of sweat and cut grass mingling in the air she sucked down. It felt so good to be doing something physical.

Her turn to try for a goal came right before Parker's and she raised her eyebrows at him. "Wish me luck," she laughed. It was nice and easy being here, even if Parker was her competition. Ness was here, which was great. Heinrich was here, which was perfect. But these people were her friends. She'd miss Parker when he was gone from Sonora, and it was nice that they could all be friends and be themselves. She felt safe here.

Her biggest advantage was speed. She was slender and quick and lithe, and aerodynamics favored the small. Tossing the Quaffle as hard as she could manage, she made a goal based almost purely on the fact that she could get there before the Keeper got there first. So be it. It was the reason she'd tried for Seeker her first year, but this was better. This was so much better.

She felt a little confident until she saw Parker go next. There was no way in heck that she was going to make the team and she had the time it took him to fly back to the ground to figure out how to be happy for him. Reminding herself that she could still do practices and maybe even play games with her friends if she was second string, Evelyn managed a smile when he landed.

"That was great!" she told him. "I don't think I could do left and right handed like that."

22 Evelyn Stones I'm scared I won't get this. 1422 0 5

Jeremy Mordue

June 15, 2020 5:17 AM

No, I was by Jeremy Mordue

The night before Quidditch tryouts, Jeremy had checked and double-checked all his equipment, including several variations on his outfit depending on how the weather looked. He almost always ate sensibly anyway, but he had paid careful attention to his meals over the last week and to his breakfast that morning. Oatmeal was always a great breakfast, and it had just the right slow release carbohydrates to get you through a morning of tryouts. He’d heaped it with healthy blueberries and, because he was never sure exactly how the elves made it here and whether they were including enough milk (even though it tasted fine) had had a yoghurt on the side to make sure he was well-stocked on protein. He had sliced a banana and put some peanut butter down the middle before using ’Reparo’ to seal it back into its skin and that was waiting in his gym bag as his post tryout snack.

He felt on top of things. He was well-prepared, and the weather was pretty much perfectly neutral. That was an advantage to everyone, of course - perhaps he should have wished for vastly inhospitable conditions as the less rigorous players would undoubtedly fall by the wayside more easily and more obviously in those. However, he was confident he could outclass them anyway, so long as the coach paid adequate attention, and he was never going to wish to have to go flying in a howling gale or pouring rain. He could though. If needed.

Jeremy limbered up as instructed. Apparently not bothering with warm ups was something the coach thought of as a sign of nerves. He thought of it as a sign of stupidity. There was probably plenty of both issues out here though, seeing as the coach was having to provide basic reminders on pretty much everything down to which way to point a broom. Either way, as he wasn’t either of those things - he was a well-conditioned and professional athlete - he had no difficulties in running himself through a proper warm up.

He kept half an eye on Anya as she warmed up, keen to spot any mistakes she made just in case the coach didn’t. He didn’t exactly think her warm ups were standard. He thought she was also showing off rather a lot - something he couldn’t stand when it was other people doing it in a way where he couldn’t better them - though luckily not in any regard that made her a better Seeker. Presumably because she wasn’t.

The coach specified carefully rather than quickly for the obstacles, though obviously the ideal was going to be both, especially for Seekers. Luckily, Jeremy had years of doing such drills under his belt - they were basically standard warm up in training and at Quidditch camp. He slalomed with ease, changing direction, height and anything else that was required with close and tidy margins. He didn’t push himself to shave seconds off his personal best or anything, seeing as they were going for precision, but he was probably a pretty high scorer in both neatness and nimbleness.

He made his way over to the Seeker tryouts, not really acknowledging Anya when he arrived. He was almost grateful for her presence just because it would be nice that no one could say he’d got the position by default - though given how flimsy the competition was, it almost was the case.

It was a little hard to know how to handle the orange snitches during his solo trial. Obviously, the quicker he caught them, the better he showed himself to be in terms of speed and efficiency. However, if he let them fall closer to the ground, he got to show some of his diving prowess and manoeuvering skills, which were vital for a Seeker (and which he had in abundance). The coach had not specified the purpose of this test, beyond ‘be able to catch small balls’ which was a pretty low bar. He decided to value speed and efficiency for now. A couple of the balls were fired low of their own accord, or required a sudden change of direction from where he’d been before, which hopefully showed how well he controlled the broom in the air.

The second part was harder because he was surrounded by idiots. And, unlike in a real match, he didn’t know that they were well qualified at what they were attempting to do. He could easily not run into them, provided they had a modicum of control, but it was challenging not being able to trust that that was truly the case. If any of them got between him and his catches through their ineptitude, there would be hell to pay. He would also take barging into someone over missing a ball, and that proved to be necessary on one occasion. Even if the coach had asked them to avoid, Quidditch was a contact sport and what he’d done wouldn’t constitute a penalty - yes, it was better to avoid it, but it was the lesser crime than missing the Snitch altogether.

He gave Anya a sharp ‘Hey!’ when she snatched one of his balls out of the air. That had better count as a mark against her, and not as a miss for him! But apart from these minor incidents, the trial went very well. By the end of it, he’d thrown in a lateral stop that was under three seconds, transitioned one-hundred and eighty degrees in both directions, and pulled out of a very close dive along with countless other Seeker basics, all of them executed for more or less necessary reasons. And he had a near perfect stack of orange balls to show for his efforts.

A balanced opinion on the matter would have noted that Anya had done well too. She was undeniably fast and agile. And daredevil enough to pull off some pretty impressive stunts.

Jeremy’s opinion on the matter was that he had better get it. He was clearly the best. And he had waited so patiently whilst they’d let Eden have a stupid last turn last year even though he’d deserved it more. Maybe, if she tried hard enough, Anya would scrape together enough talent that she’d be able to be considered a qualified (though obviously inferior) replacement by the time he graduated, but right now he was the more experience and the more talented and giving it to anyone else was just unfair!

13 Jeremy Mordue No, I was 1443 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister

June 17, 2020 2:26 PM

It is important to know how probability works. Good job. by Heinrich Hexenmeister

Heinrich had agreed to play Quidditch again, mostly because of the people involved rather than the sport itself. Truthfully, he could take or leave playing Quidditch, but Hilda wanted him there, and he'd had fun being part of the Evelyn, Ness, and Heinrich Chasing Team. It was fine, but it wasn't the highlight of his calendar the way it was for Hilda. He was a decent player, but he wasn't an amazing one. With the large number of people signed up for Chaser this year, he was by no means taking it for granted that he'd make the first string team.

He was half tempted to tell the Coach that he didn't need to be on the front lines and to give it to someone else who wanted it more, but then that would leave Hilda without a translator when they went on the road, so he didn't. She was getting better at English, especially with Quidditch related vocabulary, and had even worked out a set of hand signals with Nathaniel last year for Beater related communications, and she could probably manage on her own if she had to, but she'd made no secret of the fact that she wanted him on the team this year with her again. So he was going to try out, and he wasn't going to self-sabotage his chances, but he had no illusions that this was going to be easy.

The warm-ups were easy enough. He just did standard warm-ups like for a normal practice, nothing too fancy. The flying course was a bit more challenging. He did not pass through it completely without mistake. He'd attempted a few maneuvers just a hair too close and brushed against a few poles and hoops. No serious fails, but not a flawless run.

Once that was complete, he moved to the corner where the Chasers were having their try-outs. Passing back and forth was fairly straight forward, and with Evelyn and Ness, he made a couple of imperfect tosses so they could show off how they could recover from a less than ideal pass, knowing they were perfectly capable of doing so. They'd played together well enough that they should be able to read from his body language that he was going to toss wide and be prepared for it.

That stage completed without any egregious errors on his part, and they set to flying against a keeper. He took one turn where he failed to make a goal because Tatiana had made a good save, then waited for his next run. As he saw one of the first years come back from her own try, he gave her an encouraging smile - if he wasn't sure he'd make the team, it had to be intimidating to be trying out as a first year - and said, "Good job. Tatiana is a good Keeper."

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister It is important to know how probability works. Good job. 1414 0 5

Ness McLeod

June 18, 2020 8:26 AM

Speaking of odd by Ness McLeod

Ness was really stoked for Quidditch tryouts. It was sort of weird getting up and getting ready in the most basic, non-Quidditchy things but it had been the routine for a while now. Topaz had made it apparent that she was determined to mess with Ness and whilst it honestly seemed like it was all mouth a lot of the time, Ness was not willing to take the risk on a vital piece of equipment that was responsible for maintaining Ness tens of feet in the air. Nor with things that could affect Ness’ performance on an important occasion. Obviously, if Topaz ran any obvious interference that caused Ness an accident, she would surely be expelled (or at least disciplined severely), and she probably wasn’t powerful enough to literally curse a particular day or anything like that, but Ness was still worried about more lowkey problems. Things that were harder to detect and trace back but which would throw tryouts off. Ness wasn’t sure whether a particular pair of socks from last year had just been super uncomfortable because they were new or whether Topaz had put an itching jinx on them. Whilst Ness tried to keep things that mattered off Topaz’ radar, it wasn’t always possible. Ness had never made a big deal of DnD or what it was, trying to minimise Topaz’ ability to mess with that, but there had been times last year when Ness could swear that the dice were jinxed. Of course, Gary said that happened to everyone from time to time. But Ness wasn’t ruling out it being literally true.

Luckily, Ness had a best friend with plenty of storage space (and that would be the excuse that Ness stuck to if ever asked because Topaz did not get to know she was winning on anything). This left Evelyn carrying two brooms and sports bags down to the entrance hall, but that was called a warm up, and she was welcome.

After a healthy breakfast, a quick change at the pitch, and with broom in hand, Ness felt much more the part. It was exciting seeing so many names on the list but also somewhat problematic. Ness had a pretty good shot and, sweet as Val was, the fifth year did not really feel threatened. It was the other end of the age range that was a bother though - they actually had too many senior players. If Parker had wanted to play Beater or something, it would have worked out. Well, maybe. Ness had to admit that Hilda was good. Grudgingly, so was Nathaniel. But Parker might have beat either of them with age or experience - if he’d stuck with it and had the latter. It was sort of cool that the DnD squad represented when it came to Quidditch - yay for them all being well rounded, not just a bunch of nerds/jocks and stuff - but it meant that they were all competing against friends, and that at least one friend was going to lose out. As Venn Diagrams went, it was a bit too close for comfort.

Still, that wasn’t something to think about now. Ness was not about to self-sabotage and be the one left out. Game mode… Well, game mode often was friend mode cos they were on the same team. But try out mode was not.

Ness took the warm up seriously, ditto the obstacle course. It was one of several annoying effects of puberty that actually Ness could not accurately predict limb placement with 100% accuracy. Not that there had been a recent enough growth spurt that Ness was way off and couldn’t work out which limb was where, but just… enough different since the last time of doing this that it took more concentration than felt strictly fair for a player with the fifth year’s level of experience.

That extra reach came in handy when it was ball time though. Ness was a neat flyer and quick enough off the blocks to reach most things, but long arms were an advantage, especially with catching. Strong arms helped with throwing, and Ness was something of a noodle. Not that years of playing didn’t come with some physical fitness and toning but raw strength was not Ness’ highest stat. Reach (what was that, in DnD? It didn’t really seem to have an equivalent - it didn’t seem to impact things very often) and dexterity, sure. Smash? Not so much.

Parker pulled off a pretty sweet feint for one of his goals. Ness’ were way more standard. Look left, shoot right etc. Ness was happy to see Tatiana trying out, though didn’t go any easier on her because of it. Along with the feints, Ness tried just speed and strength throws to get past her, and to show a range of skills, trying to really believe it didn’t matter for each of their stats how many made it in.

13 Ness McLeod Speaking of odd 1419 Ness McLeod 0 5

Morgan Garrett

June 18, 2020 7:21 PM

Yes, it's pretty helpful out here. by Morgan Garrett

Morgan knew when she looked at the sign-up sheet that she was probably going straight to the second team, and accepted this stoically. She was, after all, part of a...well, it wasn't long, really, with Morgan just the second member of it...short, prou...well, 'proud' was probably a strong word, one that pushed a little too far...a short, extant tradition of people who mostly occupied such a position. Not for nothing was she the daughter of the only Aladren captain within memory, and possibly within the history of the school, to to go straight from spare to captain. There were morals to some of the stories of Dad's life when he had been younger and more interesting, and one of them was that it could pay off to be patient and wait.

(Of course, Dad himself assigned that particular story a different moral - that one shouldn't assume too much competence or expertise from someone just because that person happened to occupy a position of authority, because a lot of things just happened on the bases of tradition and seniority, which were "objectively worthless even compared to me." This was one of the things that would make Sage 'Dav-vid' him, though, so Morgan suspected she should not share this moral with others. At least not when they were doing Quidditch, or until after prefect selections, and then not even after prefect selections if Mara or Josie became the Chosen One. So probably just not a moral she should share in general, really.)

She wasn't sure how politically advisable it was, given that this was the school-wise team instead of a House team, but she had adorned her dark brown ponytail with big black and blue bows. They were stiff enough to not have fluttery bits that could be hazardous, but still big enough to be kind of festive. She grinned at all the other people gathered, both to those who she knew from last year - most of whom were also her gaming buddies - and to the new people. The first years looked smaller, somehow, out here than they did in classes; she assumed they would return to their normal scale soon, once she got used to seeing them in this context, especially since the difference between their sizes and Morgan's was not significant.

Injury was undesirable, especially when it wasn't even part of the game, so Morgan went through her ground-based warm-ups diligently, eagerly looking forward to getting back in the air. With Dad and Sage, she didn't have to worry about what the adults around her thought if she said or did something wizardish, but she still didn't get to fly much because they lived too close to other people. When she was in Kentucky for the other half of her summer, she had more space, and could do some interesting maneuvering practice around the spindly, tall, closely-packed trees surrounding her grandparents' house, but she had the feeling that everyone there was still not all that comfortable with what she was. That meant she could only feel comfortable sneaking out to fly a bit on rare occasions when everyone else had gone out of the house, and since they never left her alone much more than an hour....

Taking to the air again, she made a few loop-the-loops, disappointed but not surprised to find that she no longer did so quite as smoothly as she had at the end of last year. Her tree-avoiding practice proved handy enough, though, with the dexterity challenge; her speed was not impressive, but she did way better than she had on her first day last year. Improvement - one of those wins one had to take when nothing else was readily available and there was no real way to con a better win out of anyone.

"She is," she agreed with Heinrich when he told one of the first years, a pretty girl with brown hair and big blue eyes, that Tatiana was a good Keeper. "I'm Morgan," she introduced herself, "and...it's my turn I guess. Wish me luck!"

Heinrich, at least, probably did not wish her too much luck, but she didn't mind much. Keeping in mind that she was a bit rusty, she tucked the Quaffle under her arm and kept one hand firmly on her broom as she approached and began trying to fire on the goals. Tatiana was wearing her hair differently, she noticed; funny, that. She had always worn it the same way for as long as Morgan had known her, so it looked almost funny, seeing it even slightly different...she tried to focus on the goal hoops, evaluating Tatiana's position and how fast Morgan reckoned each of them could move. She was guessing, from watching the others, that Tatiana could move faster than she could, so to score, she would have to use mostly throwing force, she thought: draw Tatiana to one side, and then try to shoot as hard as she could at the center hoop. For her, that would involve throwing with her back as much as her arms, though, which would risk losing her balance a lot more than most moves did....

It wasn't good odds, but she did her best, and was proud that she only wobbled a little when she threw toward the middle hoop as hard as she could. She didn't make the shot, but she got decently close, she thought. Improvement. It was definitely a win compared to total failure or regression.

16 Morgan Garrett Yes, it's pretty helpful out here. 1470 Morgan Garrett 0 5