#wingsau

Wing AUs aren't something I've read much of, mostly due to the fact that there aren't many for Twilight that I know of but I am intrigued by the concept. I did touch on the idea a little in Iron and Stone, where Jasper was made into a demon. In that case, his wings are very horror-story esque: impossibly black, tattered, and made of bone - and they only appear when he's in his demon form, looking only like very prominent shoulder blades in vampire/human form.

But if you want to talk about Wing Aus closer to canon, I think you could do some insanely cool things. Like, what determines wing-type? Is it where you were changed (like Minecraft biomes and rabbit colours)? Is it the age/time of change? Is it reflective of the origin of vampires? Is it who changed you? Some kind of belief system that determines the colour, make? Something closer to a reflection of your soul ala daemons? Or is it reflective of hair/skin/eye colour? Maybe when you change into a vampire, your eye colour transfers to your wings because your eyes are now yellow or red?

And like, wings are very thin, so you'd be able to see through the membrane to the veins - would the colour of the venom in the tissue determine colouration, or the fact that vampires are technically dead just give all wings a kind of blue-grey colour? What would the 'argument' be for feathered wings when humans have hair?

The horror-lover in me leans towards something that is reflective of each of the Cullens' deaths. I love the idea of Jasper's being red-tipped because of all the blood he spilt. Esme's being quite small and rounded, but made up of a patchwork of broken bone and a rock-like appearance for her suicide attempt; Emmett's being scarred up underneath a very thin layer of bear fur; Jasper's being leathery and sandy, criss-crossed with scars and bite marks.

If you're more of a feathered wing lover, I would lean heavily into meaning being written into the colours, maybe even changing depending on season/moods - Rosalie's pink wings darken to burgundy when she's mad; Carlisle's wings being devoid of colour close to his body because of how much he starved himself in the beginning; Alice's going entirely transparent when she's having a vision; Bella waking up with skin-toned wings because newborns' wings take around a year to find their pigment.

Thank you Anon, I'll probably use this for something in the future.

As for Soulmark AUs, I fucking love them. Give me symbolism, give me marks and proof and the old red-thread of fate. Obsessed. I wrote And Found as my first foray into Soulmark AUs, but I've contemplated them more and more. Again, I ventured into horror territory with Alice inheriting all of Jasper's scars before she meets him. The idea of Jasper facing down this tiny vampire with every single bite mark, every scratch and scar, because they're a matching set is both beautiful and tragic. Alice doesn't see anything wrong with their scars - it's how they know they belong together; she feels beautiful because she thinks he is beautiful.

But Jasper is just ashamed that he did this to her, that she's got all the markings of a war she never fought. That everyone who meets her thinks that she's tethered to a monster that disfigured her.

It could be an excellent source of angst. Emmett's bear attack scars across Rosalie's torso - they heal on Emmett as he changes, but they're on Rose for life. Carlisle with a ladder-like scar on his side, from where Esme fell against the rocks and her rib cage snapped through her flesh. James' bite splitting Edward's hand open in the ballet studio; the ragged, messy scar across Bella's abdomen that Edward inherits from Ness's birth... so fucked up, I love it.

Honestly, I love soulmarks so much, I have many ideas I've never really done much with - Maria identifying Jasper's mark when he's turned and disfiguring it so he never knows that he has a soulmark; the idea that for whatever reason, Alice and Jasper don't have any visible soulmarks and are choosing their fate. Or even an insanely fucked up one where meeting your soulmate as a vampire is a form of 'redemption' and can be used to restore certain aspects of humanity - but the knowledge on how to trigger the 'redemption' has been lost for centuries.

Good times.