#i just saw eureke's take that fabian plays trombone and has to learn to be less obnoxiously loud and i love it

[allsevenmaidens]

Marching Band AU

@elsie-writes inspired me, so here's MORE (didn't want to double the length of their post):

-Penny is saxophone section leader, and Riz absolutely chose the sax and marching band because of her. That, and so he could learn gritty film noir songs

-Riz plays alto sax and is tiny enough his first year that he has to march with a harness and not a neckstrap (harnesses distribute the weight of the instrument across your shoulders and back, neckstraps have it all resting on your neck- really, a saxophone's weight when you march is mostly held up by your right arm, with the sax resting on your right thumb.)

-Riz and Penny get super competitive over who has the worst tan lines. They never take off their neckstraps or gloves and they wear mid calf socks with shorts. Sklonda begs them both to reapply their sunscreen throughout the day.

-Ragh plays tuba!! And he makes walking around with a full tuba on his shoulder look easy.

-Adaine plays mello. Aelwyn is an orchestral french horn player, Adaine has been taking french horn lessons for years. Their parents heard it was the most difficult brass to play. Adaine bombed her youth orchestra audition, saw a notice for marching band, and figured it was better than nothing. First rehearsal, the band director signed her out a mellophone (french horn equivalent in marching band, looks like a big trumpet). She's never looked back, and she is thriving being able to pour her air into playing out loud and proud on an outdoor field. Adaine starts off with a horrible horn angle but eventually is one of the most solid members in the band. (That's how Adaine gets strong!)

-Gorgug has an out of the full-band physical warmup to tune the drums. Picture a tall teenager surrounded by a circle of drums of all shapes and sizes. He hits one a few times, looks thoughtfully, continues hitting it and turns some imperceptible screw, hits the drum at the same time as the drum next to it, shakes his head, adjusts the screw and continues on to the next drum. If anyone's instrument breaks, they take it straight to him.

-Gorgug helps tape the field. He's always there early because he and Zelda carpool and if he's there then he's helping the drum major team.

-Fabian has been known to show up with coffee for his whole section on mornings when they're loading the buses for parades especially early

-they only do trumpet duets in their shows, never solos, because whenever they tried Fig and Fabian got super competitive and showed off a ton in their solo auditions and then separately went to the band director to forfeit and begged them to give it to the other person because they've been working so hard and they really deserve it.

-Gorthalax drives the equipment trailer

-field show themes include "Dragon's Curse" and "Journey Through the Nightmare Forest"

-Ostentatia Wallace and Sam Nightingale are the heads of band council- they throw the best bonding events and resolutely turn down Fig and Kristen's requests for thongs as bandwear every. single. year. PLEASE stop submitting that, there are children present. (They pretend they mean toe thongs for the winterguard, but no one here was born yesterday.)

-they all sleep in a school gym for a week when the band is out of town every summer and Fabian and Ragh get tents banned for everyone

-Fig and Adaine and Kristen and Tracker hypothetically all have their own beds, but what they really have is a shared air mattress island where they all snuggle

-The chaperones are always weary when they figure out room assignment requests for band camp. People who want to room with a friend or two aren't usually a problem. Seven best friends usually are, especially when the eighth person on their rooming request is Tracker, and they've already made covert plans that she and Kristen are going to alternate whose room they stay in each night.

-guard meetings run late after every rehearsal and they're the last ones in the block before parades because Kristen gives long rambling pep-talks (?) reminders (?)

-Fig and Fabian are in crisis mode over how to get Torek, their trumpet first year who is way cooler than them and already super good at marching somehow, to respect them

-Zelda can go down the horn line (literally you put all of your instruments on the ground in a line, sorted by section) and list off who every single instrument belongs to

-Gorgug and Zelda sit together on the bus to performances and watch DCI shows and discuss score increases between competitions in great detail (part of the reason Zelda learned to spin was because she can't join drum corps on flute)

-Tracker and Ragh are bassline buddies and bonded because tubas and bari saxes play a lot of the same parts and march near each other in field shows

-Kristen's little brothers were the banner carriers for a while (usually non-band members, they walk at the front of the band in parades and carry a banner with the band's logo)

(Band is great and I don't talk about it enough! I did 5 years, and spent 2 as saxophone section leader. Or, as I liked to call it, "saxtion leader.")