Matthew Woodward
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Behind The Scenes: The First Quidditch Match
🕑 Added 2020-09-12 00:10:21 +0000 UTCSo as many of you may know by now from the recent stories I’ve posted, I’m a HUGE fan of Harry Potter. It was such a big part of my childhood and it’s never left me since, and never will. One of the main things I loved about The Philosopher’s Stone (or Sorcerer’s Stone, depending on where you live) was the Quidditch scene. I’m not a fan of sports in the slightest in real life. However, when it came to Quidditch, I fell in love with it! I think it was originally cuz of the idea that they were flying on broomsticks, since I loved the thought of flying. But now I’ve grown to love the game more for its competitive side and the fact it has a few different play styles to offer in one match.
And since I’m a giant Harry Potter nerd, I HAD to get art themed around it — especially around Quidditch. I always loved the idea of being a Seeker, so I decided to let Matthew be it for Ravenclaw. I wanted the first story to be centred around his first ever game, so it shows what kind of person he’s like in such a pressured situation. He’s full of anxiety and constantly worries about a lot of different things, but he still thought the idea of playing for the team was super fun. Everybody’s gonna have those nerves during their first game, and you don’t really think that everyone else would feel the same...that’s where Jan comes in to help out.
Jan is the Captain and sole female of the Ravenclaw team who is one of the three Chasers. At this point, Matthew’s in his third year and Jan’s just a year above him, so they’ve known each other for a few years prior to the match. She knows him very well, and instantly noticed he was tense when they were all getting changed in the locker room. So, being the good friend she is, reassured him to take some of that stress off his shoulders. And that wink she gave him at the end of their talk: well...she might have a thing for him~
By the time the match has started, the story begins to follow Chazra’s commentary. I chose to describe what was going on through his voice cuz it’d be rather boring to hear every single detail and action of the players. If I did that, you’d be there all day reading it and it’d get pretty repetitive. You don’t wanna stick around and describe everything, otherwise it doesn’t leave much imagination for the readers to have fun with.
Fun Fact: all the people in this story are real friends of mine in the furry fandom — every single person! The friends mentioned in the Great Hall, Chazra the commentator, and all the players from both Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. Before writing the story, I asked a bunch of friends if they’d like to be featured in these stories and what they’d be doing in Hogwarts. Whoever wanted to be a Quidditch player would end up joining the team of their house!
For the pic itself, I wanted to have Matthew chasing after the snitch cuz, y’know, he’s the Seeker! Originally, it was just him in the pic, but it seemed rather empty, so I asked Jailbird if she could add extra players in the background and she happily obliged. The point in the story where the pic takes place is the moment when Matthew takes a shortcut to the snitch and takes it from another direction, rather than chasing it alongside Javen (Hufflepuff’s Seeker.)
Matthew’s broom is an original design I came up with for the Wizarding World called the ‘Windsurfer.’ It was given this name due to its white straws and ability to turn directions fluently and swiftly, with little effort. I wanted this broom to not be the best kind in the world since it would be typical and OP for someone to write that in for their character. I wanted it to be a good broom, but FAR from the best, giving room for a challenge to make things more intense, which I tried to do by having him go up against a Firebolt owner. The speed of the broom has roughly the same as the Nimbus Two-Thousand-and-One, so it’s definitely NOT the fastest in the world. But as you see in the story, Matthew thought outside the box and managed to beat a Seeker who owned one of the fastest brands. A good message to show that you don’t need to be the fastest to win the game for your team. It all comes down to skill at the end of the day.
For their outfits, I decided to use the design the characters had used for The Prisoner of Azkaban and The Half-Blood Prince movies. They seemed more modernised and I generally just liked the style a lot more than the ones from The Philosopher’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets, and I was VERY happy with how the robes looked in Jailbird’s style!
Some people have asked me: why not have Matthew NOT catch the snitch, so then he has a goal to work towards? It’s cuz it wasn’t the message of the story I was going for. The message I had in mind was that it’s not about winning — it’s about doing your best, and having fun while doing it. And considering most third years don’t make the Quidditch team, it showed Matthew was rather talented with a broom. He took flying lessons for the first two years at Hogwarts so he could work up to playing the real match. And as you saw in the story, it totally paid off!
So, there you have it! That’s a glimpse into how this first Quidditch story was made! This is the first one I’ve done and I plan to write many more of these for previous and future pics, so stick around for that stuff if you’re interested!
Thank you so much for reading, and have a great day! <3
– Matthew
