The boys are back in town on Cascade Hall

The Coach

June 07, 2024 11:20 PM

Quidditch Sign Ups by The Coach

It looked to be a relatively stable year for Sonora’s Qudiditch team, assuming most of their returning players… well, returned. Last year had seen Cole Pierce take over as captain, which meant he should be well-settled into it and ready to do it even better this year. It was a bit of a crunch him having had CATS and his first year in the role together, but he’d managed well. This year, he had to navigate the step up to advanced, but that also came with the relief of dropping a few subjects, and the coach was optimistic for how he’d be able to develop himself further this year. They’d also got Yaniel back, which meant the beating squad was strong.

The first day back, the sign up sheet beat even the earliest risers down to the Cascade Hall, pinned up on the back of the door (everywhere else was a bit wet) so that people could sign up on their way out—though most of the regulars would know to look for it on their first day and might also pause to sign it on the way in. The large double doors ensured that this wouldn’t interfere with the flow of people in and out of the hall too much.

‘Sonora’s Quidditch Team Needs You!

Our fun and friendly team competes in an interschools league. All experience levels are welcome.

Please sign up below with your name, year, and desired position (if known). A brief description of the game and positions can be found opposite, and there is a drop in session in the MARS Sports room after school for anyone with further questions.’

OOC: Not actually planning on posting the MARS session, though if anyone wants to send their character, feel free to kick something off in MARS and we'll either reply as the coach or a player. Otherwise, feel free to claim they went, got basic questions answered and got to have a go at anything they wanted practical demos of.

Subthreads:

The boys are back in town by Yaniel Ayala Velez with Cole Pierce

Here as expected. by Nicholas Pierce with Alexander Pierce

13 The Coach Quidditch Sign Ups 0 The Coach 1 5

Yaniel Ayala Velez

June 07, 2024 11:48 PM

The boys are back in town by Yaniel Ayala Velez

The sight of the sign up sheet made Yaniel's heart sing. And the fact that it made it sing made it sing even more...

Getting back to Quidditch had been one of the best things about last year, along with just hearing his name and pronouns almost every day, or hearing people saying things like 'the boys' and realising he was included.

It wasn't like it was never complicated, but overall he felt so much more comfortable in his skin. Even with all the discomfort he still felt about the body under the name and the clothes, having other people look at him and see the person he wanted them to see provided a daily chipping away against those other feelings.

He missed Billy and Oz, and it was a shame they had never got to be 'the guys' together - though he'd had a bit of time with Oz dropping in on his and Cole's sessions. Still, getting to be 'the guys' with Cole was the best feeling in the world. He wished he could bottle it up and bake it, adding essence of absolute happiness to little bludger cream puffs. Though given that their awesomeness involved a lot of sweat and bruises maybe it didn't have mass appeal.

Yaniel was early to breakfast and got his name on the list straight away, as ever taking a moment to marvel at it. However many times he got to write it, it still looked awesome.

Yaniel Ayala Velez, 6th year, Beater.

That done, he looked around for any other team mates to celebrate the start of the new season with.

OOC: If anyone has been cagey, awkward or mean to him, assume he does not approach thst person.

13 Yaniel Ayala Velez The boys are back in town 1554 0 5

Nicholas Pierce

June 27, 2024 1:15 PM

Here as expected. by Nicholas Pierce

He wasn’t quite sure how - even he, to his parents’ and brother’s and even his own occasional exasperation, couldn’t always explain why he noticed one thing or another - but somehow, Nicholas had never really noticed that he had no concrete identity as a Quidditch player until he’d gotten to Sonora. It had, of course, always been accepted that Alexander would be an excellent Seeker, and since a necessary prerequisite for that had been someone to train with from the time he was old enough to put on a real broom, Nicholas had dutifully learned to be one or the other of the major obstacles a great Seeker had to overcome: mostly ‘the other Seeker,’ but on occasions when Mom was definitely not around, he’d tried his hand at novice Beater, too. He didn’t quite fit the usual profile for either, though - he was too tall, at least recently, for a Seeker, and slighter than your average Beater - and it had proven to be an…interesting…adjustment, trying to think in terms of playing along with a whole team instead of just doing whatever best facilitated Alexander’s practices. He supposed he must take a little after Mom after all, at least in the lack of deep intrinsic interest in games for their own sakes.

His friends and brother and dad did not share this particular quirk, though, so he didn’t mention it much - aside from matters of pride and such, there was also simply the matter of things that lacked intrinsic interest nevertheless usually providing a useful and agreeable means of spending time with the people he liked. In the beginning of his third year, he’d been a little worried about the potential relationship between the number of hours in the day and the number of things introduced to his plate, but if anything, he thought he might also like Quidditch a bit better now just as something that provided some variety amidst all his studies. And so, although looking at the list itself still produced a brief sensation of dislocation, when the sign-up sheet went up, he went along to volunteer to either try to hit anyone who might threaten his brother with a Bludger or else to be the backup man to take Alexander’s place in the unlikely event that was something that ever became temporarily necessary without really thinking twice about it.

16 Nicholas Pierce Here as expected. 1565 0 5

Cole Pierce

June 29, 2024 4:04 PM

That's us, the boys in town! by Cole Pierce

Cole arrived in the Cascade Hall basically as soon as it opened for breakfast. He was still on an East Coast sleeping schedule and he'd tried to stay in bed as long as he could, but that meant he was up at 6am Sonora time. Lenny was still sound asleep, so he dressed quietly in the dark and headed out for breakfast and got there a few minutes before 6:30 and had to wait for the doors to open. He wandered in slowly and smiled when he saw the Quidditch sheet was already hiding on the back of the Hall's door.

As the returning team captain, there wasn't any hesitation in putting his name on the list of players.

Cole Pierce, Year 6, Beater

He figured he'd probably swing into the MARS session the sheet mentioned, be there to meet the new prospective players as their team captain, and back up the coach with answering questions. He made a note of the date and time on his schedule (after three years as an Intermediate, he had a new class line up this year, so he actually had a timetable this year to keep track of where he was supposed to be for the first week or so until he got used to the Advanced schedule), then headed out to sit at Teppenpaw and see if anyone else he knew was an early riser.

The first person he saw was Yaniel, who also was quick to add his name to the sign-up sheet, and Cole waved him over as soon as he was done there. "Hey, Yaniel!" Cole greeted, kicking out a chair in invitation. "Welcome back! How was your summer? Do a lot of baking?" He absolutely was not fishing for pastries, but if Yaniel just happened to have any on hand ...

1 Cole Pierce That's us, the boys in town! 1546 0 5

Alexander Pierce

September 17, 2024 9:55 PM

Likewise by Alexander Pierce

Alexander had planned to be a seeker at Sonora for as long as he could remember. It wasn't his ultimate goal, of course - he had higher professional goals than sports - but it was a good way to get his name known during his school years, playing as the team seeker, being lauded for every win (and blamed for every loss, but hopefully that didn't happen as often), and it had been his father's position, which meant it part of Alexander's master plan for How To Become Head Boy.

Or rather Head Student, now, which was fine, because that meant if he didn't share the honor with Ida, maybe he could share it with Nicholas, which definitely wouldn't have been possible back in their parents' day. He did secretly hope it would be Ida, though, if only because that was part of his father's set example for How To Woo A Wife - pity there probably wouldn't be another magical accident that left them in charge of the school. . . unless Alexander could figure out how to engineer one, maybe? Not important, that wasn't relevant yet. Quidditch sign-ups was.

The sheet was out and Nicholas had beat him to it, which was great, that meant he was definitely playing - not that Alexander thought he wouldn't, but his brother had never seemed quite as into it as Alexander and their other friends had. Nicholas was signed up as beater or seeker, which seemed a little unambitious to Alexander, as there were returning first string players in all of those positions already, so the chance of getting on the away team was low. Still, the beaters were sixth years, and neither had understudies, so he may just be playing the long game there and not competing against the slew of people closer to their own age trying to nab the Chaser slots. It was a solid strategy. He also made sense as the reserve Seeker, given how often he'd practiced the position with Alexander. He was the same age, so he wouldn't do as a replacement, and Alexander was still hoping to find a good protege to mold in his image, but for this year, if no such protege emerged, the coach could definitely do worse than Nicholas as Alexander's back-up and practice rival.

Satisfied his brother did have a good plan after all, Alexander added his own name to the list:

Alexander Pierce, 4th Year, Seeker

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