#a wing is not a hand

[inkskinned]

for months i had this obsession with wing shape.

the majority of feathered wings have an underlying musculature almost akin to a thumb. the primary feathers - sometimes called "flight feathers" - are those long feathers that seem to "hang off" of the wing. they're actually connected to the "hand" (literally the manus) of the bird and can be individually rotated. they are responsible for the majority of thrust during the downstroke, and while the number of them depends on speciation; the majority of birds will have between 9 and 11 of these feathers (as opposed to secondary flight feathers; their shorter partners, which vary from 6 to 40).

i started attaching them to the silhouettes of people, drawing angels tumbling out of buildings and running late to work and skipping class to smoke outside of a 7-11. i drew angels eating apples and doing their homework and pushing their hair back from their eyes and holding a pencil. the margins of all of my poems had feathers raining down the side of the page.

i was in the worst depression of my life and had decided i was giving up on the idea of freedom. i would be a happy wife to a mediocre husband and the angels would come and pass their wings over my eyes and let me feel nothing but numbness. i would have a life like an echo. i would never enter my body without knocking first - it would carry all this weight, and i would be sleeping peacefully, my soul somewhere out there, flying with wings.

she laughed and came over and sat next to me, and smelled of lavender. whenever she talked, a strange harmony stole into my heart; something that was only memory and no words. not an echo - an answer.

inside of her sketchbook were hundreds of pictures of birds.

[heartnosekid]

hearsey's owl moth (brahmaea hearseyi) | ofmoth_andflame on ig

[lavendersageicedtea]

Me and my bfs long quiet and spectre cosplays!!!

[fluffsnake]

[galaxyspeaking]

Oh my darling, we’ve been dancing since the start

[nipuni]

😔 Oh Crowley..

[roadkill-creatures]

[trashmancer]

(insert “Electric Feel” by MGMT joke here)

[hymnoeides]

I saw your tags for your Apollo design and now I can't stop imagining him cracking his back and he ends up glowing like a light stick for a while skfhdjfk

HAVEJWHAJWNS I mean, there must be a reason that sunrises are often called the crack of dawn//dragged off stage

Still getting a feel of his design here…

[mizzyislost]

youre interrupting them

[shiny-miltank]

Lugia comm for a patreon member! Like me a giant seagull <3

[bogcreacher]

peace and love on planet earth

[heartnosekid]

african peach moth (egybolis vaillantina) | source

[ionomycin]

Welcome home

[tangledinink]

Will Swannie miss his wings? He’s been like that for about a year now, he probably gotten use to the wings and the pain in his calves/legs…would Donnie get like….phantom pain or something because of the missing wings? Would he in some way try to get them back or have a reminder of them? Will Donnie even try or want to dance again?

donnie doesn't usually dance on pointe anymore-- it was a rare occasion pre-curse, and now post, the physical demand is typically too much for him to handle. but when your little brother knows levitation magic, anything is possible for a special occasion.

generally speaking, though?

there's no way he's ever gonna want to stop dancing.

[ swanatello ] [ prev ] [ fin! ]

and... that's it! that's the end!

... well, the end of the main storyline, anyway! the end of the story for swannie that i wanted to tell. the au will still be around! <3 swanatello has pretty much always been built on the asks i've received about it, and i still have more tucked away in my hoard that i intend to get to at some point or another as little bonus side stories, and my askbox is always open as well...! and on that note--

thank y'all so, so much for your support on this magickal girl journey. i NEVER expected to get the amount of love or attention that i did for my silly little donniesona that was based on a pun, but i had so much fun with this comic and am so grateful to y'all <3 like i said, this entire au was really powered by the amount of asks i received about him and his story, and it was really such a fantastic experience for me all around. not including any non-canon crossover content, this comic is approximately 965 pages long! definitely wasn't my plan when i doodled him for the first time as a goof, haha.

thanks, gang. <3 i hope you enjoyed the ride, too.

[smatterbrained]

First meeting