A blog for my personal project having to do with people who have wings and the world they live in (especially the realistic parts of people having wings- no they can't fly!!!!)
This AU/world that I've begun creating is a dive into how humans and birds (and other flying/winged animals) anatomy can be combined, and the more realistic side of humans having wings.
Now!! Credit to @fantasy-anatomy-analyst for their posts about winged humanoids and such. Throughout this, I went to their blog for so much information, and everything is mostly because they made posts and looked into everything!!! I just took inspiration from their posts and adapted everything to suit my AU and world and built upon it. They have amazing posts on anatomy for fantasy-type beings, and I absolutely love looking through their blog, so please check them out!!!
Next, throughout this, if anyone sees plot holes, or something doesn't make sense, or has questions or suggestions, please send in an ask!! I absolutely love it when people indulge my interests!! I want to make this as realistic as it can be, while also diving into what a world where people had wings would look like. I've gone into a lot, but I know I could dive deeper, and if anyone wants to suggest anything or ask questions, I would absolutely love that!!
Now, below will be the links to different posts concerning different parts of this world. This will be updated as I continue to transfer my written notes to this blog :]
The hashtags throughout this that will be used:
#flyhighfacilities - just main posts concerning this world, the main one
#writing updates from mae - it's in the name! writing updates in terms of the little oneshots and stories
#mae's amazing notes - for specifically posts that have to do with notes, anatomy, world-building, etc.
Now, the following are links to different posts:
Bird anatomy post
Bat anatomy post
Insect anatomy post
Clothing post
Norms, accessibility, wing development, and furniture post
Hello to whoever has stumbled across my blog of insanity and OCs, and welcome! May you enjoy your time here, and may you lose your mind with me as I fall into the hole that is my self-inflicted pain of original characters and stories.
This is mainly for me to just rant about my OCs without overrunning my main blog, though I'm sure I'll manage to do that as well lol.
I'll most likely slowly post deep dives into my characters, since people (unfortunately) cannot just read my mind and telepathically understand everything without me having to form coherent sentences explaining everything.
Enough rambling, I'll get to the introduction below. Please stay and indulge my insanity, I'm very proud of my characters and stories and love rambling about them and love when people listen, interact, and even (very rarely) ask questions about the characters!!!! I promise I don't bite (I do, but don't worry, I'll be nice).
If you're stumbling upon this at random, I'm so sorry- but my name is Mae Mae (or just Mae if you prefer) and I use any and all pronouns! My main blog is @thevamp-bat !
I've got many OCs, and one too many (aka not enough) polycules among them, with my friend's OCs. Here, I'll ramble and rant and rave because these guys are my babies and I love them (even though I may torture them a lot) and will make anyone who decides to actually listen regret it because I could talk about them for EVER.
Just kidding, haha...don't leave, pls indulge me...
I'll slowly start posting stuff for each character as I go, and link them below! Same for any mini stories, oneshots, ideas, etc. Although for specific stories I'm currently working on, check out the following blogs:
@theyberotten (haven't posted yet, but I'm working on it) -> a blog about a shared story between me, my best friend, and my girlfriend called Rotten World. Essentially, mixing TLOU and RE with my own abomination of creatures and far too many storylines and characters for us to keep up with. As I grow the blog, we'll be having fun with the depressing, yet chaotic, story. So join me over there if that sounds interesting!
@flyhighfacilities -> my main project of a winged au, with the catch that they can't fly and the government is evil (duh). I haven't created a stuck in stone plot for the story, but am working on it while writing fun scenes I think of. If you wanna see how far I went to planning out that, join me over there and watch as I lose my mind (fun fact, I'm always losing my mind).
More may be created, but that's all for now! I've got an AO3 as well, ur_lil_star000, and have my own works posted, along with some fanfiction (specifically ST, but who knows! I might write more fics for other fandoms I enjoy). I've got a story over there with one chapter (the epilogue) posted, and while I may have put it on the back burner for the meantime, I hope to pick it back up later on! That one is called File No. 12-A / PROJECT SPARK.
For other works, here's some:
Hot Sapphic Smut... (sorry for the...direct title LMAO)
I need You (smut btw!!)
Will definitely be posting more, so subscribe to the AO3 account if interested!
All the slop over there is mine and made by me, and I'm quite proud of it, so be nice, pretty please ;]
Any questions? Send an ask over! If you have constructive criticism or suggestions, you can also send them through my ask box as well! I love chatting about my characters, stories, and writing, and welcome any (respectful) chatter!
As for # master:
#mae mae's ocs -> general tag for my ocs!
Will be adding more as I continue to post and such.
A little bit on Jason and his 10 years in Fly High Facilities, along with more on Emily and her time there as well.
First, would like to say Emily has been in the facility for far longer, as she had been thrown there instead of being put up for adoption when she was just an infant. The facilities are like a fucked up home for her.
Now, Jason:
First, he was "admitted" when he was 14, his father sending him because of the story of him killing his mom and Nick going missing. Bernard made up stories of Jason being abusive and temperamental, threatening to hurt Jaye; she wasn't necessarily conscious of the specific moment, and abuse and shit can change memories quite a lot. For Jaye, she sees it as a gradual growth until everything blew up. Her memory is also a bit fucked due to a head injury caused by Bernard when he attempted to take her out.
Jason was then tortured and tested on, beaten, and had a very traumatizing experience (yay!). Of course, the torture didn't stop at physical abuse, but psychological abuse as well. He was told his family hated him and manipulated (they did their best to brainwash him into believing he did everything he was accused of, and it worked as well as one would assume), and was told if he did get out, he would be found and killed.
Jason still escaped, but is a bit fucked up. He will also do anything and everything in his power to avoid going back.
Now, what exactly do these tests mean? The facilities were trying to figure out a way to advance the technology and enable people to fly with the wings they were given. If you know of Umbrella from RE, think bullshit like that but without the zombies and stuff. They did their best to alter the makeup of a person to allow for flight, but that always ended up in further physical disability or even death.
There was a specific serum that they would inject into every patient, designed to gradually strengthen the muscles and so on. They would give different patients a different dose, and the higher the dose, the quicker the growth; but, with growth too quick for the body to keep up with, came death. Ugly death.
The patients were used as pin cushions, hence the fear of needles and hospitals that Jason has grown to have.
As for cutting open the back and such, they would try to add or take from the muscle make-up, attempting to see what that would do. For Jason, they attempted to add muscle- but when that led to him declining in health, they removed some and injected him with far too many liquids for his liking.
The one side-effect from these injections and tests would be "superhuman" abilities, or mutations, as the doctors would call them. Jason specifically got enhanced and sensitive hearing, more like that of an actual bird. On top of this, due to the physical experimentation, his wingspan is about half or so longer than usual for a mourning dove (og wingspan is 17 inches, Jason would have about 25 inches instead). He's also got enhanced strength, and while not superhuman X-Men levels of enhanced strength, he is stronger than the average person, even when quite weak. When healthy and such, he's got bigger muscles than most his size and age. Though his sense of smell is entirely non-existent, both due to him being a mourning dove and the repeated trauma he's faced. As for his sense of sight, while it was quite good before everything, with the testing, it has only gotten better to the point that it is almost a weakness. When sleeping, he'll tend to open his eyes without being awake to scan for danger and such, his body always on high alert, no matter how much he tries to calm down (both trauma and experiments being the cause).
The testing essentially causes one to either decline in health rapidly or become more and more like their bird counterpart.
Emily has faced many of the same things as Jason, while also experiencing the same side effects of becoming more and more like a bat. Though, since she is a vampire bat, of course, I had to make her more and more like the human version (a vampire). She does feed on blood, and it's the only thing she can consume to sustain her, along with raw red meat. She feeds like a bat as well, which is making a cut and then lapping up the blood instead of sucking like most may assume a vampire does (and yes, she has the draculin that vampire bats have as well). As for senses, she's got echolocation as her main source of hearing, heightening her sense of hearing and making finding things while unable to see (or in the dark!!) so much easier. She's got a great sense of smell as well, being able to smell blood when drawn, or even when still beneath the barrier the skin allows. "Vampire bats have special receptors on their noses that detect infrared radiation. This acts like a biological thermal camera, allowing them to pinpoint warm, blood-rich veins just beneath the skin of their sleeping prey." So of course, Emily has this as well!!! Having fun with this one for sure... As for her eyesight, it's excellent in dark situations, but lacks sharp and colorful vision in the daytime or in bright situations. She's got sensitive sight, but mainly to light and movement.
While the doctors haven't found out how to make flight possible, they have figured out how to make one more like their bird/bat/insect counterpart, and have also found out how to incapacitate a patient with the different strengths and weaknesses they now hold.
That's all for now, but I will definitely be adding more as I think of more!
I've gone into some depth with characters and such, and here are my beginning notes. I will continue to add to this as I come up with more and such :)
Jason -> Mourning Dove: 12 inches -> 5'4"
Nick -> Scarlet Ibis: 25 inches -> 5'9"
Jaye -> Fruit Dove: 18 inches -> 5'5"
Viktor -> Steller's Sea Eagle: 41 inches -> 6'5"
Makade Ma'iingan -> Crow: 21 inches -> 5'7"
Jane -> Barn Owl: 14 inches -> 5'5"
Kylie -> Rufous Hummingbird: 3 inches -> 4'9"
Emily -> Vampire Bat: 4 inches -> 4'10"
Now, what about their stories and such...
Jason's dad, Bernard, sent him to a lab for further testing in terms of actual flight, instead of just the gliding they can do. Jason is 25 years old when he finally can escape, after being put in there at the age of 14 when his mother died and his brother, Nick, went missing (12 at the time, they're two years apart). It was essentially an insane asylum funded by the government that would test on its "patients". Jason essentially had his body cut up and sewn back up like a broken toy to fund the research, only gaining the smallest of abilities from these procedures. For Jason, he's an old OC of mine, and I will make sure to link rants of his background here later because he's got a fun backstory (evil dad, like cartoonishly evil, dead mom due to dad, suspected for killing Nick- who isn't dead, just missing and presumed dead). Though while Jason is accused and sent away for killing his mom, causing his brother's disappearance and alleged death, and being psycho, he was never actually sentenced or charged with anything (his father decided to admit him instead). But, surprise, surprise, his evil dad, Bernard, caused all this and was able to get off scot-free by making a deal with the facility (Fly High Facilities) and gov., essentially getting his crimes covered up and blamed on Jason. Upon this, Jason was also separated from his twin sister, Jaye, who went with their father.
Jaye was lied to, told that Jason was taken away for killing their mom and brother (yes, both twins think Nick is dead, so that'll be a fun reveal later). Due to this, Jaye has a very skewed view of Jason; therefore, she essentially hates him. By 25, she's starting her life as an officer, just starting her field training, when they're called for a search and rescue with an escaped asylum patient (Jason).
As for Kylie, she's an FBI agent who's been sent to babysit the situation because a classified patient has escaped.
Emily is another patient at Fly High Facilities, and was Jason's best friend while he was there. When he escaped, the two had planned to escape together, but Emily had gotten injured and told him to go without her. When the staff got her, they decided she would be great bait to get Jason back. After patching her up (barely), they made her promise to go out and get Jason. She's the bait, sent out to find him and trap him, which she doesn't want to do but is forced to.
Viktor, on the other hand, is relatively uninvolved in all this, until he finds Jason lol. He's a veteran working as a part-time bartender to get through college as a nursing major. He's on his way home one night from a shift, and finds Jason. From there, he ends up taking Jason in to help him! Gonna stop here to prevent more spoilers hehe...
Jane goes to culinary school and is friends with Viktor! She met him while working at the same bar. Her role in this has more to do with Emily.
Makade Ma'iingan is also relatively uninvolved...though he is Viktor's roommate, so it doesn't stay that way for long. He's going to the same college as Viktor, but for fine arts, majoring in illustration. He met Viktor through college, and the more they ran into each other, the more they got to know each other. Viktor had then put out a roommate ad for his new apartment, and Makade volunteered to room with him.
They know each other, they know the basic gist of what the other person does, but they don't make small talk. They come home from their classes, make their food, go to bed, and live among each other.
Little thing!! Makade steps in a lot to help Jason during late nights to help with wing health and stuff when Viktor is busy with other things.
I will be adding more to this, especially since I don't have anything for Nick right now and there's still more I'm thinking of! If anyone has any ideas, lmk!!!
NOW!! QUICKLY!! This is not set in stone; this is more or less what I've come up with. If anyone has other suggestions or would like to brainstorm a better idea or way to handle this, please reach out!!!!!!
Evolution is...not the right word for this, because I have no idea how that would work?? Considering that would mean humans and birds and bats and insects mingled and??? I don't??? Think that's uh....possible? So instead, let's do experimentation on DNA and eugenics!! Some Umbrella type shit, y'know?
Doctor and scientist Dr. Matthew Nichols first started the study of giving humans wings. Originally, it was simply seeing how possible this would be. After some research, Dr. Nichols would be able to get together a research group funded by the government. They would research adding wings to people in 2026, Aug 20th. They would then move on to testing and creating ways to make people grow bird, bat, and insect wings through biologically engineered "evolution". Eventually, after years of research and testing, they'd finally crack the code. They had created a serum of sorts. Injecting this into a human would cause a slow growth of wings. Then, slowly, people would get this injection (nothing was forced by the gov., but let's just say not every injection was...voluntary). After another set of years, people who chose not to get the injection would "die out", and eventually everyone would have wings in their DNA and growing on them. The serum is something that is passed on through genetics. Different wings depend on the family and what they start with, and so on.
DNA and genetics are weird, but let's pretend all this makes perfect sense. Wings become a normal thing, and everything, such as how kids come out with what wings (which develop later on, but the overall genetic code and such), is like blue vs. brown eyes and other traits. The species of wings, etc., all depend on the family. Bigger bird wings (hawks, eagles, etc.) lead to bigger builds and people, and vice versa. Finch genes = smaller people. So, size goes hand-in-hand with bird species and genes.
A rough chart for size and such below:
(Might change this or edit it, we'll see...)
When it comes to different bird species, people mingle, and their kids take on the dominant trait/bird species (although sometimes the recessive gene is taken, as per how normal genes and such work). "Hybrid" kids are a result of the two traits combining; it's very rare.
I might go more into this, but for now, this is all I have!!
Social aspects! A fun part of this was how bird, bat, and insect norms would apply to the human society, and how to work around the wings in terms of accessibility and furniture!!
First, let's talk wheelchairs:
Quite short, yes, but I felt the need to adapt a wheelchair for this world and got the idea from @/fantasy-anatomy-analyst once again!
To continue from this, let's dive into comfort and such!
Let's talk about why it'd be better to hold the wings upright (good posture and shit). It's better for the back, takes up less space, and offers overall support. This is mainly just a basis to then go into the rest.
Seating!
Stools:
Mostly the same
Somewhat high to accommodate primary feathers and the overall wing
Most have at least one step.
Yes, they can lie back, feathers aren't that danty, but leaning back wrong can be harmful to muscles or feathers depending on the situation.
(An illustration below ;3)
Now, what about trauma and the way it may affect someone's wings:
"Drooping wings" are a real thing that appears in birds (and some bats I believe?) that is caused by head trauma, but if it's more psychological trauma, someone could stress-preen (also known as over-preening), which is plucking healthy feathers until skin is exposed (similar to disorders like skin-picking! Can be caused by stress, traume, or even a symptom of OCD). This would be a form of self-harm, as it is quite bad for the wing health and overall health due to the risk of infection and permanent damage to the feather follicles and such.
As for bats, they could over-groom their fur or parts with fur, removing it and revealing the skin, which is a stress-response, but a bit less similar to self-harm or the riskiness of over-preening.
As for grooming for insects, they keep their antennae clean (as you've probably seen bugs do), and a form of over-grooming could be excessive pulling on the antennae and causing pain or irritation.
Now, one of my favorite topics in terms of this world and social norms, preening!! Social preening and family preening are very important social norms in this world. This can be done in friend groups, between partners, and close families for both bonding and hygiene. Someone who lives alone would invite friends over so they can all preen each other (preening parties or get-togethers). A group of people living together could just idly groom each other while watching TV or discussing their day, possibly gossip preening circles as well. Tools would be sold to help people with getting hard-to-reach places without help from others, in case someone doesn't have anyone else in their life to help them- it'd be a small industry, but a useful one.
People can go a while without preening before it starts to become dangerous, but it'd be uncomfortable and itchy (3 days at the most). Hair salons, spas, etc. would have preening help or offer the services for those who want to be treated nicely, or for those who want someone to do it but don't have others who can and would rather not do it themselves. Salons would also offer different sections or services for bird, bat, and insect wings.
There'd be preening centers for the unhoused or underprivileged communities as well, offering free preening services for those in need of it. There would be different centers for different wing support and different problems, and cleaning.
Preening would be especially important for bird-people. Healthy families preen and groom each other, parents preening kids or themselves, etc. Preening another is a bonding experience and offers trust to all involved.
Now, a quick little detour to look into a bit more information concerning why these people wouldn't be able to fly. For one, as mentioned beforem there's already a lot of muscles and added bones, and if we wanted to add flight as a possibility, more muscles and more bones would have to be added to prioritize both arms and wings. Or, we'd replace arms totally with wings, and while that would be fun to look into, I'm going to stick with the no-flight version.
Along with that, birds have hollow bones to help make flight easier and lighter for them, allowing the movement to be more fluid and less of a hassle. While the bones connected to the wings and within the wings would be hollow to assist with small things (gliding, weight, and catching themself when falling, and such), if all bones were hollow, then it wouldn't support the muscle mass or the overall weight of the person.
Next, it would break the square-cube law. Yes, I'm getting technical and shit! Look at me and my big smart brain... Anyway, the square-cube law is when an object undergoes a proportional increase in sizem it's new surface area is proportional to the square of the multiplier, and its new volume is proportional to the cube of the multiplier. This means that as an object gets larger, its volume increases at a faster rate than its surface area.
For example, if you double the size of a cube, its volume becomes eight times bigger, but its surface area only becomes 4x bigger. Large animals have proportionally smaller surface areas for heat dissipation compared to smaller animals. It's harder to build taller skyscrapers because the weight increases faster than the strength of the building materials. The relative strength of an animal is greater than that of a human, as its muscle strength scales differently with size.
FUN FACT!!!!! Dinosaurs broke the square-cube law. The development of hollow bones allowed dinos to "break" the law as they weighed much less than would be expected and thus could support larger sizes without collapsing under themselves.
But, overall, humans would not be able to fly with wings. We're too heavy, and our muscles wouldn't be strong enough to lift us, especially since it's just the wings holding up the body weight. We'd also need a HUGE wingspan (around 25+ feet). We also don't have air sacs, and while I may have added bones and shit...I don't wanna do all that.
Also, my world, my rules fuck off!!!! (haha lighthearted haha sorry haha)
Now, before I finish this post off, let's go over wing development!
Wing development comes with puberty, and is painful in a manageable way, like periods or growth spurts; there are products to help.
Phase 1:
Red rashes form around the area where wings will sprout, along with where feathers will grow later.
Phase 2:
Rashes will turn into lumps with bits of calamus (quills) growing in between the areas.
Phase 3:
The lumps will begin to move as the wings trying to develop. Finally, they will split the skin to bloom
NOTE: After the wings split the skin, they come out without feathers, like just being born. Sometimes they might have bits of fluff or calamus on them.
Phase 4:
After a week or so, fluff will flourish, preparing for the feather development.
Wings will continue to develop over the next 3 and a half years. Feathers grow with wings around the rest of the body. It's the same development for other wing types without the feather development.
For school, kids are given time off during phases 1-3 without any punishment or consequences, and once wings have sprouted and aren't as tender, they go back.
In terms of colors (male - more colorful, female - less colorful), it's the same rules as birds. Though every species is different, the rules are realistic for bird things.
The same goes for bats and insects, as the color and such is pretty simple.
As for courting, humans would adapt to some of the courting traditions birds have, from a realistic standpoint. As for mating patterns, geese and swans mate for life: divorce rates for those bird/human species genes are far lower than bird/human species genes of birds that don't mate for life. Now, when we look at cross-breeding, it's similar to how interracial couples are viewed: controversial. For typical crossbreeding patterns, it usually occurs in the same bird family (crows with ravens, or other blackbirds), but then some, such as an eagle with a hummingbird (or something), are viewed as controversial and such.
Now, I am fully crediting these ideas and such to @/fantasy-anatomy-analyst! I'm just putting ideas into words and tried to draw replications in my notebook, which turned out.......uh, fine I guess? Overall, the clothing and such all go to them, as I only added my own ideas after looking through what they had and built upon it.
Winged humanoids with feathers and bird wings do have space between the wings and tail where you can add a belt. The basic structure is a halter top that fastens behind the neck and then against the waist, with a big open space between, so the wings are unobstructed. A belt can be added to attach a skirt or pants, which would be stepped into and pulled up to the base of the tail. Or, the whole outfit could be a dress or jumpsuit that would be stepped into and then fastened at the waist and neck. Sleeves can be added, but they would require some specialization to stay up properly due to not being able to attach to anything behind the arm.
Winged humanoids with bat wings do not have space for a belt, so their clothing is a little more shapeless. Think of a halter top jumpsuit, or dress with an open back all the way to the tail/butt. These would be stepped into, pulled to the base of the tail, and then fastened at the neck.
For staying warm, feathers (so bird humanoids) should be good enough, but if not, a panel would fasten to the back of the neck and back of the waist; it would require help to put on. For bat wings, there's no waist, so a cape attached to the neck with weights in the hem to keep it in place would work best.
AGAIN!! For far better art and a far better explanation, check out @/fantasy-anatomy-analyst!!!
Hoods would be easy to add to a halter top for winged people; it's just a normal hood that might have to open in the back a little to go over the head and neck properly. All types of winged people should be able to wear things like gloves and shoes perfectly fine. There are also wing covers, but if one has a bird wing, it's recommended NOT to wear wing covers due to them disrupting the feathers. As for wing covers for bat and insect wings, they'd go over and be made out of a non-irritating material and sit over the wings to protect them from the elements.
Clothes for insect wings would have soft materail for around the wings due to them being far more fragile.
Some more ideas and such:
Collared open back: held up by mostly the collar, where it attaches in the front.
A track shirt could be short or long-sleeved, with zippers above and below wing areas along the spinal region connecting the clothing. Could also be tied or buttoned rather than zipped.
Double suspenders: suspenders attach to what the individual chooses to wear as bottoms, and can also be something like overalls.
Merged suspenders: similar to the double, but merged at the top.
Button top: pulled up from the bottom, it buttons up top, above the wings.
Slitted clock: slits go all the way down. Works for coats, cloaks, capes, etc.
Fancy clasp back: complicated. Goes on from above, and the bottom part clasps together and holds tight below the wings.
This one was very fun, and props to my girlfriend for helping me with some ideas and such, considering they love bugs.
Again, so much credit to @/fantasy-anatomy-analyst (I feel bad tagging multiple times...tagged them in the pinned post) to this and everything, please check out their blog!
So, a direct flight (such as dragonflies) is the easier version to adapt to a humanoid torso. Just anchor the wings by the shoulder blades and put extra muscles on the sides to move them.
Next, we'd have an indirect flight, which is how all other insects work (such as butterflies and such!). This includes extra work like figuring out how to put a functional back plate on a humanoid body. A cartilage back plate would be between the shoulder blades.
(I did so well with this art, I'm genuinely so proud of myself like broooooo look!!!!)
The wings would be made of a very different material from real insect wings, like cartilage frames and keratin surfaces. Insect wings also have a lot of veins running through them, which gives them their stained-glass-window look.
Quick note on direct vs indirect flight!!
Direct flight insects:
Dragonflies
Mayflies
Damselflies
Some cockroaches
Indirect flight insects:
Butterflies
Beetles
Flies
Moths
Many other insects!!
Now to go into individual bug details and overall notes concerning this:
People who have bee/ant DNA and wings usually have big families and will gravitate towards each other and create communities.
As for butterflies/moths, they have wings with scales (fun fact!), and dust does come off like actual butterflies and moths.
As for fuzzy wings and insects, people will grow fuzz around the wings, and similarly to how feathers with a bird-humanoid would work, or the fur with bat-people.
While wings are a different material from real insect wings, people with insect wings do have to be more careful due to having fragile wings.
Transplants can be done, but are rare due to limited access to healthy wings and the fragility surrounding said procedure.
Now, insect-people do have antennaes, which are retractable or can be brought back against their head for safety reasons. They also have multiple eyes, depending on the bug type! They've also got long, skinny ears, and scales/fuzz depending on insect type.
Now, this! This is a lot easier because humans and bats have a relatively similar skeletal build.
Bats have really narrow pelvic bones, and they look kinda bowlegged, but the shoulder is extremely similar to one from a human. All we have to do is make two shoulder blades! Meaning these bat humanoids will have a more normal chest compared to the bird ones, but upon reflection, the birds having a puffed out chest makes sense as well, especially when you add feathers and such!
As for motion, it moves similarly to a human hand and arm, but is more restricted due to joint placement. They can bend their wing fingers and kinda flip the corner of the wing forward, so that's pretty cool! Bat wings are essentially more expressive than bird wings.
Now for the muscular system. For bat wings, we keep the trapezius mostly the same, as well as the deltoid. The main pectoral has to curve down a little to make space for the arm shoulder.
The main determining factors of wing shape are finger lengths and the space between the armpit and the bottom anchor of the wing membrane. For a bat, that second part is determined by leg length, because their wing membranes connect down to their ankles. But, for bat-people, it would be tail length instead. The longer and straighter the second finger is, the longer and narrower the wingtip is. The length of the fourth finger determines how broad the wing membrane is, since it is the anchor between the body and the end of the wing.
Also! The first finger might be very close to the second finger, making a narrower wingtip, or it might be more separated, and that affects how wide the wingtip is. Sometimes there is more membrane between the thumb and first finger, sometimes there is no membrane there, but there is always going to be a membrane between the wrist and shoulder that keeps the wing edge straight.
When folding the wing, it can help to think of it like bringing your hands to your shoulders and then folding your wrists in. All the fingers kinda curl together, and the wing will fold around the front of the body somewhat. The membrane is flexible and will simply shrink inwards, with no pleated folding. The texture of a wing membrane is actually kind of weird as well. And in flight, while it doesn't matter too much for this world, it's important to remember that the whole wing moves. The motion does not come from the shoulder alone, but also from the elbow, wrist, and fingers (this is nice to keep in mind when discussing how a bat-person may move their wings even if not in flight)- everything works together, for precise steering and speed. The fingers do curl during flight on the upstroke!
I would like to quickly add that they have fur that spreads down their neck, jaw, back, shoulders, and arms, along with bat-like feet and bat-like nails; their facial structure also fits a bat's structure a bit more, along with bat ears and bat-like teeth, depending on the bat species.
That's all for bat-people anatomy, and like I said, it was quite short!! Next is insect wings :]
Hello! This will be a review of bird anatomy and human anatomy, while also giving a brief intro and explanation of this story.
In this world, people have developed wings. The only thing is, they can't fly. Realistically, people can't be able to fly with wings; it's not realistic for someone to support their own weight in the air for long periods of time, but the weight of the wings (which would have to be massive to have the correct wingspan in the first place) would be far too heavy for someone. Carrying your own weight with just the wings (which are really two extra limbs, so imagine arms with more meat and such to them) would be quite difficult, unless you had superhuman abilities or something.
Now, for the anatomy of a person with wings, bone density would be increased to handle the weight of the added limbs, and back muscles would have to be strengthened, along with adding more to make sure the wings are supported and movable, and not just dead weight.
The supracoracoideus (the muscle that helps raise the wing) acts as an antagonist to the pectorals. This muscle is located below the pectoral muscles ventrally (front side). Together, these 2 muscles constitute about 25% to 35% of a bird's body weight. Besides the supracoracoideus, numerous other small muscles of the wing allow a bird to control flight. Other muscles that play a more critical role in flight are the skin muscles! The involuntary skin muscles, for example, which are attached to almost every feather follicle, can raise, lower, or spread feathers sideways to assist in flight maneuvers. While this will still be a thing with the humanoid wings, they aren't nearly as strong as they would be if the people could fly (another reason why flight isn't very easy or possible).
The trunk and tail muscles are few, but extremely mobile and complex. One of these muscles, the pygostyle, supports the tail feather and controls its entire range of movement. Pectoral muscles for the down stroke, but to move the wing up, they have secondary muscles under the pectoral that loop around the shoulder and anchor at the back of the wing to create a pulley system. Very interesting, right? When researching bird anatomy for this, I kinda fell in love with birds, so I can thank this whole AU for my love for birds.
Now, what about humans?
Please ignore my shitty drawings lol, I was not trying to make it look pretty, just trying to get the anatomy down and such...
While humans have a pectoral muscle at the front to move the arm forward, and other muscles at the back to move the arm backwards, birds have a very different set-up, as we saw previously.
The following is all from the anatomy person I mentioned in the intro! Their posts go into far more detail, and I've been going there to dive into this more, so please, please check out their blog!
Anyways, the wing pectoral and up-stroke muscle loops around to anchor at the back of the wing shoulder are depicted in the image above to the best of my ability... The arm muscles are a bit smaller, but due to prioritization, they're bigger than the wing muscles. The pectoral muscle connects just to the top part of the keelbone (we'll go further into skeletal build in a tad, don't worry!), layered over the up-stroke muscle, and the back muscle for the arm goes under the wing pectoral to the spine, avoiding overlap with the wing. There are also muscles from the neck down to both shoulders.
Now bones!!!!
Focuses on combining human and bird anatomy: Collarbone vs. wishbone, sternum vs keel bone, and shoulder blades vs placement. We'd have to modify the pelvis and tailbone for the tail as well, but that's a bit easier than...the mess that will be the chest.
Birds don't have a normal collar bone. The wishbone is a V-shaped bone that curves up from just above the center of the torso and back towards the shoulder blades. It becomes a little flatter on a human figure than on a bird. Then, the keelbone is added. which has a raised ridge at the center for the wing muscles, and, when viewed from the front, it looks like a shield for the ribs! Friends have pointed out that combining this makes the person's build look like Elon Musk...and idk how to feel about that lol!
Now shoulders... There will be two!! Haha....
The arm shoulder will be brought forward and down. This opens more space for the wings in the back. The wing shoulder is near where the original arm shoulder was, but farther back, so it's behind the torso. Long skinny shape at the wing shoulder, more triangular at the arm shoulder. The arm has its own shoulder blade, done by modifying an upper rib.
The ribcage has been changed to include a small shoulder blade, a raised collarbone similar to a wishbone, and a keelbone at the center front of the ribs (see the Elon Musk build?? Ya....). The collarbone connects to the wing shoulder blade, which is long and skinny, and goes behind the first wing bone. The only other change to the skeleton is a smaller, thinner pelvis with a tailbone that sticks out behind.
Speaking of tails!!
While these people won't be able to fly, tails are useful for more than lifting and steering! They also help with balance, especially when it comes to these humanoid builds and the massive limbs on their backs. Let's talk about wing structure to better understand everything...
We've got secondary flight feathers that overlap with the primary flight feathers, and a layer of coverts that match up with the flight feathers, a little thumb-like bit of feathers called the alula, and another set of coverts along the top edge of the wing. Where the wing connects to the body, we have the tertiary feathers to cover the "seam". On the inside, we have the primary flight feathers overlapping the secondary, a layer of matching coverts, and one layer of softer coverts along the top edge of the wing. The feathers that connect to the body are much softer, and they're called the axillaries. The primary flight feathers anchor to the bones of the "hand," while the secondary feathers anchor to the "forearm" bone. Flight feathers are way longer than you think; most of their length is covered by other feathers, and their shafts are embedded into the skin of the wing so they can anchor at the bone. Yes, wings spread out along the body, but feathers aren't just on the wings, spreading across the back, shoulders, chest, butt, neck, arms, tail, and jaw.
Yes, bird-people have tails, and bird-like feet and talon-like nails as well! They also have pointed ears, but they're covered by feathers and usually hard to spot.
That's all for bird x human anatomy, next post will dive into bat x human anatomy, which is much easier to combine!!
