Look, authors, if you don't know what the word means, don't use it!

[bladespark]

I keep running into Good Omens authors using the term "primary feather" when they obviously have NO IDEA what that means. I have read a story where Crowley tucked one of Aziraphale's primary feathers into his breast pocket. I just now read a story where Crowley "plucked out" a primary feather to gift it to Aizraphale for a casual purpose, when obviously any feather would do.



Here is a simple guide to angel and demon primary feathers. The primaries are the very largest ones towards the tips of the wings, I have noted the full length of them with helpful little red lines, since the primaries run underneath the primary coverts all the up to the "hand" of the wing. (The secondaries are the big flight feathers closer in to the body. Coverts are the medium feathers that cover most of the rest of the wing, with specific names for the various groups of them, and scapulars are the ones that go over the join of wing and body on the back.)

LOOK at those fucking things. I copy-pasted the line running the length of Aziraphale's longest primary next to his body for scale. It's fucking shoulder high on him. It's probably as long as I am tall. (I'm short, okay?) Nobody is tucking that thing in a pocket. And nobody is pulling one of those out without screaming. The shafts would be like an inch wide and are rooted deeply in the flesh of the "hand" of the wing. You might as well write about somebody casually pulling off a finger and handing it over, it'd probably feel about the same.

Just say "feather". Seriously. If you don't know what a primary feather is (and these authors obviously do not) then just say "feather". Crowley can tuck "a feather" from Aziraphale in his pocket. He can pluck "a feather" to hand over as a gift.

This specific one bugs me for how outrageously stupid it is, but it's an overall writing truth. If you don't KNOW for certain what a word means, don't fucking use it in your writing!

Comments

[musyc]

Pulling out primary feathers? YOW, OUCH. Maybe if one (or two, really) was shed during molting, you might keep those around, but pulling one out, noooooo.

... Though if one of them loses a primary on one side and walks around with a slight leaning because of the imbalance, I might forgive. XD

[ilyena_sylph]

Omg yes THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

[cloudwrack]

Now I want fic where either Aziraphale or Crowley breaks a primary and the other has to imp in a shed feather of his own as a replacement (because whichever one it is foolishly doesn’t save his moults). But yes, this! Hang on to those primaries! DEFINITELY don’t go pulling them out! /winces

[bladespark]

I've read one! There was even a picture of Crowley with one ridiculously white primary. :D Hell if I could find it again, though, I don't think I bookmarked it.

[cloudwrack]

Hah, I should’ve known it would already exist in a fandom the size of GO! That’s a great mental image. :D

[general_radix]

Not in the Good Omens fandom, but now I'm gonna be on the lookout for this if I come across fic. XD; (And now I know not to have any of my angel characters do this.)