AHHHHHH

If you write a character with wings, any character with wings, then please know that I love and appreciate everything you do, because winged characters are amazing and you simply cannot go wrong with them. Please don’t feel like I’m dissing anyone for “doing it wrong,” because at the end of the day this is all fiction and we’re all just here to have fun!

That being said, I am a massive bird nerd, and there’s a lot of truly fascinating aspects of being a bird/bird-adjacent that I would love to see explored more thoroughly in fiction!  I’ve done some extra research to make sure I’ve got my facts straight, and now I’ve written it all up into a handy little guide for some things you can slip into your stories to add that delicious level of realism that can be tricky to achieve when we’re talking about something as fantastic as people with wings.

DISCLAIMER that I am not an expert! The only birds I’ve ever owned are chickens and ducks several years ago. I’ve done a fair amount of research and fact-checking, but please do not take everything I say at face value in regard to real birds. This post was written with purely fictional applications in mind. If you have a problem with your bird IRL, talk to a professional.

PREENING

While there is some removal of loose feathers and picking out debris, it’s not nearly as large a part of preening as most stories would have you believe. Preening involves fluffing and shaking feathers, which helps feathers lay comfortably and “zip up” the barbules. Each feather is oiled, which helps keep them strong and flexible, as well as adding some important waterproofing to the plumage. And, feathers are manually arranged to lay in the best position for flight. Minor adjustments are usually made throughout the day when a feather becomes displaced, so preening never really ends.

Preening can also be done to form social bonds with other birds, in which case it’s called allopreening. Allopreening usually focuses on the head and neck, but since most winged characters don’t usually have feathers other than their wings, some artistic liberty may be necessary in this case.

Real birds have their preen oil gland located at the base of their tail, but this may not be a convenient location for humanoid characters. Consider having glands in the wrists or neck instead. If you enjoy having scent/pheromone elements in play with your hybrid characters, then perhaps the oil gland also doubles as a scent gland! (This opens the door for some really fun implications with allopreening.)

If you aren’t too keen on the oil, then you’ll want to go with powder down. Powder down can be scattered across the body or grow in specific areas. Powder down are specialized down feathers that disintegrate into a fine powder, which is brushed through the feathers and does the same thing as preen oil.

Artificial/substitute preen oil is something that I have seen in a scant handful of stories. I would advise staying away from it, simply because it’s hard to believe a creature with feathers is unable to properly care for them without manmade products. I don’t know about anyone else, but it immediately breaks that suspension of disbelief for me. That being said, it’s still a very fun concept to keep in mind, especially if a character becomes somehow unable to produce their own oil.

TL;DR: Preening is a Process that needs to be done every day, and if it is not done properly then those wings will not be healthy, warm, or flight-worthy.

MOLTING

Molting is the process of losing old feathers and growing new ones. Some birds have just one complete molt once a year, some birds have a partial molt and a complete molt, and a handful of birds have two complete molts a year. Fun fact, larger birds have molts that take longer because- surprise surprise! Larger feathers take longer to grow. You can probably guess what this means for your character with a 30 foot wingspan and primaries longer than their arm!

Molting can also be caused outside of the usual cycle by stress. What exactly stresses out a winged humanoid is probably different from what stresses out, say, a chicken, but some common denominators could be malnutrition, predation, or an unhealthy environment.

Before molting, feathers may look worn down and scraggly due to how old and used they are. During the molt, plumage WILL look a mess! After the molt is finished, plumage will look glossy, clean, and fresh, with especially vibrant colors. Right after a molt is when your character’s wings are looking their best!

Molting is usually done in such a way that flight is still possible, but some birds do molt enough feathers at once that flight is not an option. Which route you take is up to you, but personally, I’m pretty partial to the emotional and physical vulnerability caused by becoming completely flightless once or twice a year!

PINFEATHERS/BLOOD FEATHERS

Pinfeathers and blood feathers are actually a part of the molting process, but I felt like they deserved their own section.

When a feather first grows, it’s wrapped up like a burrito in a waxy sheath. This sheath will be removed during preening once the feather is fully or nearly matured. Pinfeathers can be irritating, especially when they’re in hard-to-reach places. Your character might ask help from their friends in getting the hard-to-reach, itchy pinfeathers!

A blood feather is almost the same thing as a pinfeather. When the feather is still growing, the shaft is filled with blood in order to supply nutrients. If a blood feather is broken, then that can be a real problem as it will start bleeding and it won’t stop very easily. In the real world there are clotting agents available for bird owners to use in case of a broken blood feather. It’s important to stop the bleeding as quickly as possible with pressure or a clotting agent. Once the bleeding is stopped, the feather will hopefully heal.

Plucking a broken blood feather is a last resort! It can cause tissue damage and is extremely painful, possibly even traumatic. Depending on the situation and setting of your story though, plucking a broken feather may well be the only option available.

(A plucked feather will regrow before the next molt as long as no permanent damage was caused to the follicle when it was removed.)

STRESS BARS

Stress bars are visible bars across the feathers. They’re caused by, you guessed it, stress! They can only be formed while the feather is growing, and they’re a sign of very unhealthy conditions for the bird. Stress bars are a point of weakness along the feather, and are much more likely to break. They’re usually paler than the rest of the feather, and often have uneven edges. Furthermore, if you character has stress bars, then it’s likely that all of their feathers are “off” in color. Plumage will be less vibrant and glossy due to poor health.

There’s a lot of potential use for stress bars in fictional scenarios. I’ve only ever seen them used in one story, which is really a shame! They’re visible proof of longterm stress, injury, or illness, almost impossible to hide from someone who knows what their friend’s feathers usually look like. It’s like asking your friend why they’ve got bags under their eyes, except stress bars are a lot worse.

IMPING

Stress bars can mean broken feathers, which seems like a great segue to talk about imping. Imping is the process of grafting a healthy feather onto what’s left of a broken feather. There are some informative videos on YouTube if you want to see what it looks like, but the basic process involves cutting the new feather to fit and inserting a thin rod inside the shaft of both feathers to connect them.

Imping is not only a really cool real-life thing that deserves more spotlight, it also offers some amazing potential for stunning mismatched wings. Perhaps your character has crow wings, but they’ve been imped with parrot feathers and now their wings are a stunning mix of rainbow and jet black. A very rich and/or vain character might even break feathers on purpose just to get them imped with something far prettier than their natural plumage.

(To be clear, I do not know if you can mismatch feathers IRL. I imagine that it would be very difficult to find the right size and shape feather from a species that is not the one you’re trying to imp. Luckily, we can do whatever we want in fiction :D )

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now! Incorporating one or more of these details into your work can really help to make it feel like your character’s wings are a part of them, not just a pretty, occasionally useful ornament attached to their back.

I may write up something on body language with wings and feathers next, so if you’d like to see it, then please let me know! 

Please, please I’m begging non UK folks- to simply know this.

If the right to protest was lost in the US it’d be all over the internet. But nobody is here for UK folks. 

This is just as trans people and gay people and marginalised races and poor people are being hit with economic and social harm and are more likely to protest. 

This is a NEW development from Boris Johnson, who is a dangerous fascist. We have had the right to peaceful protest for over a hundred years, and yes, of course the government has found ways to agitate them before. But this is now literally enshrined in law, and those of us not taken in by his funny clown hair and cult of personality have been watching this coming. This is being combined with crackdowns on everything from Celtic nationalism to cuts to trans healthcare and rights, and that’s not even touching on what this government has done to disabled people in this country.

Heres a not so friendly reminder, as an lgbt metis person, i dont give a single fuck what your blog is themed or if this is too painful for you to look at. Reblog this post. Reblog this post with the sources of the 751 children who were found.

Your compliance and silence as well as the compliance and silence of your ancestors is what allowed these schools to open and kill first nations children. The children of MY people.

Dont follow me if you cant reblog this post or the one with sources to your political blog or your most popular blog. Add trigger warnings if you must but if your political blog is only focused on the harms you personally face like being lgbt then you need to see some bigger pictures and stop being afraid of angering your racist mutural or actually saying some shit about racism. If you can reblog some antifa graphics or add blm to your bio to be a surface level ally, you can reblog some sources on the genocide first nations people faced and still face today.

They were CHILDREN.

disclaimer: I am east asian. if anyone who is not white sees anything wrong with my phrasing, inaccuracies, or insensitivity, or something I missed, please feel free to add on. I'm just one person with one perspective; none of what I say should be taken as The Singular way to draw an Asian character. if you havent done so already, please take the effort to expand your view of Asian culture outside this one tutorial.

Back in the 1960s, a Harvard graduate student made a landmark discovery about the nature of human anger.

At age 34, Jean Briggs traveled above the Arctic Circle and lived out on the tundra for 17 months. There were no roads, no heating systems, no grocery stores. Winter temperatures could easily dip below minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

Briggs persuaded an Inuit family to “adopt” her and “try to keep her alive,” as the anthropologist wrote in 1970.

At the time, many Inuit families lived similar to the way their ancestors had for thousands of years. They built igloos in the winter and tents in the summer. “And we ate only what the animals provided, such as fish, seal and caribou,” says Myna Ishulutak, a film producer and language teacher who lived a similar lifestyle as a young girl.

Briggs quickly realized something remarkable was going on in these families: The adults had an extraordinary ability to control their anger.

“They never acted in anger toward me, although they were angry with me an awful lot,” Briggs told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview.

Traditional Inuit parenting is incredibly nurturing and tender. If you took all the parenting styles around the world and ranked them by their gentleness, the Inuit approach would likely rank near the top. (They even have a special kiss for babies, where you put your nose against the cheek and sniff the skin.)

The culture views scolding — or even speaking to children in an angry voice — as inappropriate, says Lisa Ipeelie, a radio producer and mom who grew up with 12 siblings. “When they’re little, it doesn’t help to raise your voice,” she says. “It will just make your own heart rate go up.”

Even if the child hits you or bites you, there’s no raising your voice?

“No,” Ipeelie says with a giggle that seems to emphasize how silly my question is. “With little kids, you often think they’re pushing your buttons, but that’s not what’s going on. They’re upset about something, and you have to figure out what it is.”

Traditionally, the Inuit saw yelling at a small child as demeaning. It’s as if the adult is having a tantrum; it’s basically stooping to the level of the child, Briggs documented.