#thread: claudia

[chaoticfoxes]

Location: Lounge Date: Saturday, May 29 Time: Night (open​)  

Claudia’s very happy with her scavenger hunt birthday party. It might be her favorite one yet. It’s the perfect way to get everyone involved, it still has an element of competition which she always likes and can easily last through the night considering how much ground there is to cover.

When it came to teams, it was a no brainer who she wanted on hers. Claudia, Marley, and Glory are great roommates, great Exy teammates, so she’s confident they’ll tackle this scavenger hunt well too. Part of the game was to come up with a team name, and they settled on “Dread Queens” as a play on her captaincy, and Claudia hopes the Dread Queens get the most points. Though there’s some they’ll probably skip that the others might actually dare doing, like getting matching tattoos. 

There’s still plenty of other ways to rack up points though, and right now she’s working on stealing an item from each teammate, which will reward them with twenty points. The obvious place to look is their dorm, but Claudia figures if she also needs to find something that belongs to Wymack then the lounge will kill two birds with one stone. They were just here yesterday to watch the Championship game. 

Sure enough, Claudia finds a worn textbook on the table, and considering it’s a medical one, it must belong to Charlie. She’s surprised he left it here, but maybe now that exams are over, he got careless. “That’s one down,” Claudia says as she shoves it into her backpack full of other items. When someone else joins her in the lounge, she nods towards Wymack’s office. “Do you think we have to pick the lock or does he leave it unlocked?” She shouldn’t be breaking and entering as the captain, but she wouldn’t take anything important and she’d return it. It’s not like he’ll miss a pen.  

[breakagain-writes]

OPEN: male or female connections

Claudia walked out of the back of the strip club, taking a short break. She took out the cigarette, lighting it before she noticed the eyes on her. “Sorry, darling, but if you are hoping to touch you’re going to have to wait for my break to be over.”

[chaoticfoxes]

Location: Beach Date: Monday April, 5 Time: Afternoon (open)

Myrtle Beach is really different from the beaches in San Diego, but Claudia prefers it in a way. The water is warmer for one thing, but usually when she goes to the beach at home, she’s by herself, just trying to get away from the house. It’s a lot more fun with her teammates. It’s a whole experience like this--staying in the same rental house.

As much as she tries her best to avoid San Diego, she has a few ideas of where she would bring the Foxes if they went home with her. She could take them to La Jolla Cove Beach to see the cliffs and go snorkeling. After, they’d get gelato Bobboi Natural Gelato. It’s a pretty picture, but one that will never become reality, because that’d also mean introducing them to her parents.

She invited Colin, which means she’d also let anyone else go if they asked, but a trip with the entire team? That sounds like a disaster, and she isn’t going to put the idea in anyone’s head. Her reputation is always going to follow her, but since becoming a Fox, she’s done a pretty good job at silencing any talk about it. Reporters gave up asking her about it, and none of the Foxes ever bring it up. She wants to keep it that way.

Myrtle is better. There’s plenty to do. Claudia could also throw in some team building into the week, but mostly she’s been letting people just do what they want. It’s kind of already team building in itself. 

The water hasn’t fully warmed up yet, but that doesn’t stop Claudia from swimming anyway. After she submerges herself, it doesn’t take long to adjust. When it’s nearing noon though, she’s ready to reapply her sunscreen and lay in the sun. Wringing her hair out, she sits on her towel and grins at her neighbor. “Are you getting in? It’s a little cold, but you get used to it pretty fast.”

[chaoticfoxes]

Location: Fox Tower Date: Sunday, November 29th Time: Evening (open)

In retrospect, Claudia could’ve had a worse Thanksgiving. If anything, it was just an uneventful week where she either hid in her room or walked along the beach. Her and her parents have built a kind of distant rhythm by now, they make awkward small talk over meals, but mostly they’ve learned to just leave her be. 

Her mom did try to offer to take her Black Friday shopping to get some discounted sports wear, but Claudia turned her down, figuring she could just get what she needs online. The idea of elbowing herself through a crowd of people off of the court wasn’t at all appealing to her, and her mom always tries too hard to help pick things out she might like, rarely ever getting it right.

It probably sounds so petty and ungrateful to an outsider. “Boohoo my parents want to bond with me and buy me nice things.” Claudia knows how it looks, but it’s not that simple, despite the picture the media tried to paint--a family reunited with their long lost daughter. It’s supposed to be the perfect happy ending. No one wants to talk about how Claudia already had a family. They frame Miranda to be a monster, but for the majority of her life, she was her mom. However fake it was, that feeling just doesn’t go away, because she found out the truth.

Thanksgiving at the O’Shea household wasn’t anything extravagant. Martin rarely made it home for the holidays, leaving a very fragile Miranda behind to try and make the occasion special for her daughter. Sometimes she’d try to cook, but usually she ordered a feast of Chinese food, and they’d sit on the floor and eat it off the coffee table while watching Christmas movies. It wasn’t traditional, but it was familiar and comfortable--a far cry from the holidays she has now. 

But Claudia paid her dues and showed her face then she got on the earliest flight back to Palmetto, her actual home. She wishes she could’ve stayed behind and done dinner at Abby’s with the others, but it’s just easier to go home than deal with hurt feelings. 

With her suitcase in hand, she heads to the Fox Tower, feeling groggy and a little gross from the six hour plane ride. She digs around in her pocket for her key, but comes up empty, realizing she must’ve packed it in her suitcase or thrown it carelessly in her backpack. “Shit,” She sighs and reluctantly starts her mission of finding it. Just before she resorts to opening her suitcase right there on the pavement, the door to the Tower opens. 

“My hero,” Claudia says with a slightly breathless laugh, “I think I packed my key on accident. I was about to throw my underwear everywhere to find it. Can you hold the door for me?”

[chaoticfoxes]

Location: Hotel Party Date: Friday, December 11 Time: Post-game (open​)

Claudia’s sitting cross-legged on someone’s bed, basking in the afterglow of their win and just taking in the crowded hotel room with a drink in hand. At this point, she’s not even sure which hotel room this is, because they’re constantly switching roommates and they’ve been bouncing all over the place tonight, but she’s sure whoever is meant to sleep here tonight doesn’t mind her sitting there. 

She’s sore and exhausted from such an intense game and playing her absolute hardest, but it’s all a distant inconvenience that’s easy to ignore when she’s so happy they won. She wanted to have faith in herself and her teammates, but she definitely reached a point where she thought for sure they’d end this season feeling humiliated and unmotivated. 

Claudia hopes now that their season ended on such a high note that the others will actually be excited for next year and take practice seriously, even if there aren’t any games to prepare for. She still thinks it’s okay to have a lighter spring semester, as long as they don’t slack off. That won’t help them actually make it to the Championships for once.

It’s ingrained in her to plan ahead, especially when she’s trying so hard to become the next captain, but she doesn’t want to spend the night after their first win worrying about what’s going to happen next. They’ve been working for this all season, and she just wants to celebrate. At the end of the day, the media will still treat them like an embarrassment to Class I Exy, but they lost a captain and two players, and they still managed to pull through. That’s an accomplishment in Claudia’s eyes.

“It feels like someone should give a toast,” Claudia says to the person closest to her. Maybe it should be her if she really is going to be captain, but the petty side of her wants to save her best speeches for when the title is officially hers after having to wait so long. “Here, want to sit?” She offers as she pats the spot next to her, “Unless, this is your bed then thanks for letting me sit here.”

[chaoticfoxes]

Location: The Foyer, Dolphins’ Court Date: Friday, November 20th Time: Press Duty (closed for @go-foxes​)

The Foxes already know they aren’t going to the Championships, but now they just had their seventh loss of the season, and it’s fair to say that Claudia isn’t looking forward to press duty. At this point, she can’t blame the reporters if all their questions are just variations of “what is wrong with you guys?” She thinks they more than earned their judgement and bemusement, considering their track record, and this time they were so close. The Dolphins were supposed to be one of the teams they had an easier chance of beating, and they were even given an second chance with overtime, but once again, they just couldn’t do it.

Claudia doesn’t want to field all the negative questions that are bound to be asked, but she’s glad it’s her and not Kent and Indigo again. River seemed to handle their press duty fairly well, they were even brave enough to talk about their home life, something Claudia has never been able to do, but she doesn’t know how well they’ll handle it this time when the reporters will probably be more brutal. 

As they walk to the foyer, she does what she always does even when they have no dignity left, she puts on her brave face and holds her chin up high. Her record isn’t squeaky clean this time either, but at least it’s just a yellow card and not a red one--nothing that should earn too much attention, but maybe they’ll latch onto that along with everything else. 

When they take their places, there’s a dull roar of noise as the reporters talk among themselves to decide who gets to grill them first. Eventually the first one steps forward, and asks the question that’s on everyone’s mind. 

“After your last game, the Foxes officially lost their chances at moving forward to the Championships. Given today’s performance, is it fair to say that there’s a lack of motivation to keep trying? Have you given up?”

Claudia tries not to visibly react, but she can’t stop the deep sigh from escaping her lips. She didn’t expect any kind of cushion, but it just seems cruel to start off with a reminder of their failure. “No, we haven’t given up,” Claudia replies simply after stepping up to the mic, “Even if we won’t be playing in the spring, we want to make the best of the few games we have left. I don’t think anyone wants the season to end without winning a single game.” 

"River, the Foxes had the chance to come out on top during overtime. What happened with that last goal? How does it feel knowing you were so close?”

[chaoticfoxes]

Location: Hotel Lobby Date: Friday, October 16th Time: Late Night, Post-Game (open)

The hotel lobby is nearly silent where Claudia is perched in an arm chair, the only sounds filtering through the large room are the staff talking quietly amongst themselves and Claudia’s furious typing. This is probably the definition of desperation, but well...at this point she is desperate. Earlier in the year, she told Grayson she would make a PowerPoint for Wymack to map out all the reasons she should be captain, and that’s exactly what she’s doing now in the middle of the night. 

She chose the lobby for her late night project, so her typing wouldn’t wake up Marley, and it feels less claustrophobic out here than the hotel bedroom. Claudia isn’t so naïve that she thinks she can just fix the Foxes, but something has to change. Time isn’t helping them it’s only making things worse. Charlie’s injured, the strikers are a disaster, and Bryce’s absence still felt by the whole team. They need a captain again, and now that Charlie will most likely will be out for a few weeks, her chances seem even higher. Claudia knows that’s a selfish thought, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

She yawns as she stares down at her laptop screen. She’s tired, but considering she didn’t even play, she has a few hours left in her. She can sleep on the bus. Claudia doesn’t think Wymack will be impressed by fancy animations, so she sticks to the facts, looking up her own stats and even including a few YouTube links of footage of her playing, just like she did when asked to join the Foxes in the first place.

She sees someone approach from her peripheral and doesn’t even say hi, just turns her laptop in her lap to show them the screen. “What do you think? Is “willing to kick Kent’s ass across the ocean” a good argument to be captain?” Claudia asks, not bothering to be coy about it anymore. 

[chaoticfoxes]

Location: The bus Date: September 18th Time: After the game (open)

Claudia rests her head against the bus window, the vibration against her skull causing her cut chin to twinge in pain that she stubbornly ignores. She didn’t have high hopes for this game either, but it still doesn’t feel good to walk away from another loss. At least it was a closer game this time, and they scored more than one goal. A slight improvement, though not enough to free them from another Saturday practice. Claudia can’t even be mad about it, they obviously can’t afford the free time. 

She’s glad they aren’t sticking around after this one, and that the bus ride isn’t long. It’s long for her to pick apart everything that went wrong though--Jen and Parker hogging the ball, Indigo narrowly escaping another yellow card, Casey and Jen flagging, and, of course, her own injury getting her off the court. There’s so much they need to improve on, and not enough time to do it. What they really need is more strikers, but that won’t be happening until next year.

Claudia sighs and forces herself to sit up, glancing around the bus. A few people are noticeably absent, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out where they went. As if Kent, Colin, and Sterling would give up the chance for a night at Eden’s. Claudia doesn’t know how they do it, and honestly she doesn’t want to, she just wants to sleep. 

She turns to the Fox sitting behind her, forcing an attempt at an amused smile. “I bet you ten bucks someone’s going to puke on the court in the morning,” She nods towards the empty seats. Maybe she’s trying to lighten the mood a little--before they have to reconvene all over again in the morning.