Not soft, actually. I wish. Turns out, feathers are real fragile, actually? And they can bleed? [Ronstadt gave Steven plenty of warnings about that and now he's honestly kind of terrified he'll accidentally break some feathers and bleed out.

But you know what? Beck seems to not have recognized just why Steven's wings look so 'painterly', which simply will not do.]

The influence is Egyptian. It's the kind of wings you'd usually find on depictions of Horus. You know, most commonly known as the god of the sky, including sun and moon. Which is different from the god of the night sky- that's Khonshu. Bet he hates Horus, come to think of it. More than he hates all the other Ennead. But anyway, you'd sometimes see wings like this on scarabs beetles, too. Scarabs were all over, in jewelry and such. And engraved into sarcophagi or tomb rooms. People saw it as an amulet of protection against disease and death. And it was interpreted as a symbol of resurrection, too. But don't think of the heart scarab, though. Those didn't have wings. But they're fascinating little trinkets. They'd place 'em on the heart of the deceased, right? So when they got to the afterlife, the scarab would bind the heart to silence while it was being weighed in the Duat- the underworld. That way, the heart couldn't bear false witness against the deceased and influence the scales. Brilliant, right?