QUIDDITCH: Apr 8, Match #9

[goosemods]

COPPERTALE

RIBBONFIN

• This Sunday is bright blue skies and warm breezes, as spring arrives to Gooseberry. Those who believe in signs take note of the first colorful wildflowers blooming in the fields around Coppertale, while Ribbonfin fans receive the shocking news soon after lunch that one of their players came down with a sudden, violent case of food poisoning. While Chaser Ryder heads for the infirmary, Captain Davenport makes the last-minute call to sub in Reserve Owsley. On the field, Captain Ives does her best to boost Ribbonfin's morale.


• At first, it seems like this sudden roster change might not matter so much after all, as Chaser Bagman grabs the Quaffle first and speeds ahead to the Coppertale goals. Only Chaser Lewis has a chance of catching her, but Rush successfully blocks her way; while Owsley unintentionally serves as a useful distraction when he ends up too focused on watching Rush and accidentally flies right into the path of Stoker, who veers away only in time to avoid hitting him.


• Bagman makes her goal, and Ribbonfin goes for another attempt, but Keeper Velasquez blocks this one with a well-aimed smack that knocks the Quaffle right into the hands of Chaser Stoker. Showcasing the results of hours of teamwork drills, Coppertale's score soon jumps ahead by three—but Ribbonfin is never too far behind, partly in thanks to excellent coordination by Beaters Delgado and Evercreech. Two instances draw gasps from the crowd: Delgado catches Lacey with a Bludger that bounces right off his shoulder, leaving a bruise to remember; and then 20 minutes later, the Ribbonfins get Lewis in a crossfire that might've knocked her clean off… if Lewis hadn't decided to throw herself off her broom and crash-land onto Rush's instead. Coach Thorn blows the whistle and calls it a penalty on Coppertale. Rush takes the shot and Velasquez misses, which closes the gap to 60–50 for Coppertale. (Remarkably, both Lewis and Rush are uninjured from the stunt.)


• A little over 70 minutes in, it's a close match, with each team playing their hardest despite a couple of setbacks. It's far too early to catch the Snitch if either team wants a chance of beating Azurcrest or Ebonhide to the Cup, a fact that Seeker Popplestone is fully aware of when the Golden Snitch flies up from literally right under her broom. Its shining wings dance before her eyes before it takes off towards the grassy ground. Hoping no one else noticed yet, Popplestone steers her broom to where Seeker Wainwright is scanning the air, several feet up, and aims for him at top speed. Wainwright sees her coming, and looks around for her target. Beater Meer also sees this, and fires a Bludger at Popplestone, who pulls out just in time to dodge it. The Snitch disappears in the confusion.


• Coppertale maintains their lead, even with Keeper Davenport keeping up a heroic defense against the unending shots coming her way. Chasers Lacey, Lewis and Stoker maintain an excellent offense, working smoothly together to avoid Bludgers and rival Chasers. The Ribbonfin Chasers manage to stay just one or two goals behind, with Owsley even getting in two past Velasquez, but they're not as quick as the other team. Beater Barringer can see her opponents aiming to take out Coppertale's smallest, fastest Chaser, and she shadows Lewis, making sure no Bludger can touch her.


• The game doesn't turn until the 80 minute mark, when Chaser Bagman is zooming towards the Coppertale hoops, Quaffle under one arm. Beater Meer shoots a Bludger across her path; Bagman veers sharply to dodge it, but drops the Quaffle, which is then caught by Chaser Stoker. Stoker turns his broom and aims a powerful, far-flying toss over to Lacey, but Beater Evercreech catches up with the second Bludger just in time to hit it at Stoker's outstretched arm, breaking the bones. Lacey throws the Quaffle to Lewis, who catches it, but Coach Thorn calls for a break before she gets the chance to make a goal. Stoker steps off the field to get his arm fixed, puts in Reserve Ashworth to play, and tells Lacey to lead the team.


• The teams are on more even footing now, and Ribbonfin appears to get a second wind from eliminating the rival captain. Seconds after the whistle is blown again, their Chasers are off, with Bagman scoring another swift goal, finally tying the game 80–80. Lacey follows up with another goal a few minutes later, but the attempt makes his bruised shoulder suddenly worsen. They're already down one Chaser, though, so he sticks it out, and focuses on assists. Chaser Rush scores, then Ashworth—it's 100–90 for Coppertale, which is Seeker Wainwright's cue to grab the Snitch... but it's nowhere in sight. As the Seekers hunt, Ribbonfin flies circles around Coppertale, knocking out two more goals, with Owsley getting his third of the game. Ribbonfin's finally in the lead.


• Seeker Popplestone sees the Snitch again, but so does Wainwright, and the two immediately react. Popplestone weaves around Bagman, and Wainwright takes a sharp turn to catch up. They race in a straight line, neck and neck, and Popplestone's fingers brush the wings of the Snitch moments before it drops vertically. It's down to the hair, down to who has the quicker reaction time, as both of them abruptly let their brooms drop through the air. Wainwright's arm sweeps upwards as Popplestone tumbles into the grass. Only one Seeker holds their hand up victorious.

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COPPERTALE WINS
150–110

Whether you’re a player, cheerleader or spectator, post below with your character’s reactions! If you wish to post separately about the game, please use lj-cuts and mark for spoilers for the first 24 hours, so no one sees the result before reading the official match description.

Comments

PLAYERS & CHEERLEADERS

[goosemods]

Calvin is skipping the pity party.

[evercreep]

Calvin knows they lost, but he's definitely not acting like it. He spins his bat in his hand before letting it rest on his shoulder as he walks straight past the Coppertale team. No offers of handshakes today. As far as he's concerned, this game was Evercreech vs. Stoker, and he won. It's less loaded now that he and Sylvester are tolerating one another under Jeffy's captainship, but it doesn't lessen Calvin's pride. Not much can. Only Ana and Charlotte can get any niceties out of him, and they'll need to corner him for it. Today, there's concrete proof he's just as strong as Sy. Tall, broad, and capable. He's never enjoyed his stature more.

So instead of being a good Ribbonfin, he takes a clear path toward where the majority of Azurcrests are seated. There's one jay in particular he's looking forward to a congratulations from.

Sylvester

[threatens]

Sy lets out an involuntary shout when Reid raises the Snitch, then bows his head nearly to his knees as he collapses with relief. It's a moment of weakness he allows only for a few seconds before he's dragging himself onto his feet again. His arm's in a sling, so he can't just vault over the divider that separates him from his team, but he honestly would've tried it if Mufferaw wasn't watching.

Later, he's going to go over exactly what the fuck they all did wrong out there. For now, he owes his team hugs. (And okay, sure, he might shake Davenport's hand and tell her her team put up a good fight.)

Sy & Reid

[cygninae]

Reid walks up to the divider to meet Sy. He'd expected another defeat. Your time's over. Your winning streak is done. You're lucky, not good.

Maybe that last one's still true, but he doesn't care as he grabs the railing and hits his forehead against Sy's. It's too violent to be intimate and it leave his head hurting. "Told you I'm not done with," he mutters.

Sandy is a happy loser.

[sandyowsley]

While Ribbonfin may not have won and this may not have been their smoothest game ever, Sandy still lands feeling good about the experience. The team played well and scored fairly well, after all, and he's never been in for an entire game before! Not at Gooseberry, anyway. So that's pretty exciting. And winning isn't everything.

He'll be shaking hands and offering sincere good games to Ribbonfins and Coppertales alike. If he gets the chance, he'll pop over to apologize to Sy for their near-miss collision. Sorry, Sy!

Re: Sandy is a happy loser.

[of_mice_and_men]

Eve claps Sandy on the shoulder (or like, elbow, she’s a midget) and tells him enthusiastically that “you did good, mate. You were brill.”

Re: Sandy is a happy loser.

[electable]

"You did so good!" JD gushes as soon as Sandy lands. She's not even upset to have missed the game herself, since she's still got another year and she's never been the best chaser anyway.

Eve

[of_mice_and_men]

As soon as Eve lands, she’s already doing the math. They’re fifty points behind coppertale. They’ll have to best coppertale’s next game score, plus a snitch, to even come in third. The other two teams are a hundred behind coppertale now, but they have two games left. They’re probably fucked. Unless they both severely fuck up in at least one of their two games, ribbonfin doesn’t stand a snowballs chance in hell of even coming close to the cup.

She’s not competitive, and she genuinely tells both coppertale and ribbonfin that they both did good, but afterwards, she goes to seek out Avery, knowing that Avery would be taking this lost hard, as a captain, especially in her final year.

Nisha

[godzillabutworse]

Guess who's positively radiating delight? Why, it's Ilverymorny’s 15 under 15 Most Likely to Die 2013, Nisha Lewis. Feet back on the ground but head firmly in the clouds, she peels off her helmet, hands shaking from adrenaline.

A good game - a winning game - well played by both sides. Coppertale had seemed to her like a well-oiled machine, in sync even with a reserve subbed in. Plenty to be proud of, today. But, more than all that, and perhaps a little selfishly, she had flown. Left her broom and just soared. Nothing beats that feeling of free fall, even if it lasts for just a split second.

So the already jittery bounce in her step is even bouncier than usual as she struts around the field. She slips into a somewhat more muted smile to deliver congratulations to both sides.

Re: Nisha

[of_mice_and_men]

Eve congratulates Nisha but does pause to tell her that bodily throwing herself at Tobis was pretty wicked. Bad arse save.

Nisha & Heathcliff

[heathclifflacey]

Nisha! Was! Amazing! And Heathcliff's got no problem telling her that with high fives and excited hugs. Way to go, half pint!

Nisha & Dinah

[dinahdanger]

Dinah basically materializes next to Nisha, screaming incoherently that she thought she was going to DIE when she dropped off her broom and that's SO COOL??? NSA Agent Nisha Nitro is UNAFRAID OF DEATH and this is deffo going in her next storyline.

Re: Nisha

[norush]

Toby stares, wide-eyed, at Nisha for forty full seconds.

Re: Nisha

[cherubic]

Archie runs down the stairs and onto the pitch, weaving through the crowd of people congratulating Nisha. He feels it's within his rights to butt in line, and ducks under the arms of a taller teammate until he's standing in front of Nisha.

"Hello." He's a little breathless from his dash across the field.

Ira scored 1 score

[ashworthless]

And he's very happy about it, mostly because of its timing. Quidditch isn't something that's extraordinarily important to him. He's beginning to wonder if he'll even try out for the team again, next year. Or really, if he'll be at this school next year. That's something to worry about later. For now, it's fun, and it's better to be playing than watching. He'll congratulate everyone with greater than usual enthusiasm. It'd be very cool to be a part-time member of a cup-winning team, and that seems well within their sights now. Before he leaves the field, especially, he's going to punch Heathcliff in the shoulder...or arm, because that's more reachable, and greet him as "Future Captain Lacey" quietly, with no further elaboration.

Heathcliff!

[heathclifflacey]

Despite the deepening pain in his shoulder, Heathcliff lands with a broad smile on his face. Because HELL YEAH they won the game and the Chasers were solid and he got to take the lead when Sy had to get benched! What's an aching shoulder compared to that? He's all cheers and yells and encouraging (one-armed) hugs or slaps on the back with his teammates...and mostly forgets about Ribbonfin, honestly.

Ramon is feeling fine.

[sochill]

Losing has never bothered Ramon all that much, especially when he feels like he doesn't have much to be ashamed of in his gameplay, so as usual he lands with his signature relaxed demeanor. Still, today is a little different - though a twinge of stress always runs through him at the thought of how some of his teammates might react, he's actually feeling particularly free of this at the moment. Maybe it's because things have generally calmed down in his life, or because Calvin seems satisfied, or because Sandy also doesn't seem to care about losing, but Ramon just feels more like he had last year, when things seemed to matter a lot less. He performs the usual congratulations to Coppertale and his team (and maybe tries to get a bit of an idea of how much damage he's done to Heathcliff, just for curiosity's sake), before starting to heading back to Ribbonfin to decompress.

Avery

[un_kept]

She knows exactly what this means. The numbers are not good, and they're lined up for last place - lucky if they can battle for third.

Avery feels utterly defeated, but checks on Gwen after her tumble, congratulates her teammates on a good game - particularly Sandy for stepping in and doing well - and congratulates Coppertale before heading off the pitch for a long shower.

AUDIENCE REACTIONS

[goosemods]

AFTER THE GAME

[goosemods]

OOC 💫 QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION

[goosemods]

ty to meggie for helping me write this one too :c

OOC 💫 GAME STATS

[goosemods]

Game Length: 1h 56m 40s
Final Score: 150–110 (100–110 without Snitch)

COPPERTALE
# goals blocked by Velasquez: 7
# goals scored by Lacey: 3
# goals scored by Lewis: 4
# goals scored by Stoker: 2
# goals scored by Ashworth: 1

RIBBONFIN
# goals blocked by Davenport: 14
# goals scored by Bagman: 4
# goals scored by Rush: 5
# goals scored by Owsley: 3

Re: OOC 💫 QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION

[evercreep]

Marin is my favorite person.

Re: OOC 💫 QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION

[sandyowsley]

While Owsley unintentionally serves as a useful distraction when he ends up too focused on watching Rush and accidentally flies right into the path of Stoker, who veers away only in time to avoid hitting him.

This. Dumb. Child. ♥ Sorry Sy!

Re: OOC 💫 QUESTIONS/DISCUSSION

[godzillabutworse]

Thank you so much for letting my bad daughter do ridiculous things.