Wing Grooming

Tropes and genres
Synonym(s)	Preening
Related tropes/genres	Wings in Fanworks, Wing Kink
See also	Angels in Fanworks
Related articles on Fanlore.

Wing Grooming is a trope where characters have wings, and those wings need to be maintained by grooming them. Characters will often require or invite the help of a love interest in the activity. This may include canonical characters with wings, or characters who are given wings.

Many Wing Grooming fics make use of a variety of secondary tropes common to the genre, among them:

• Wing Oil: The winged character requires oil to lubricate their feathers/wings, leading the partner to stroke the oil through the feathers. The winged character may possess oil glands of their own for this purpose, or they may use specialized oil grooming products.
• Cultural Differences: If paired with a non-winged character, the winged character may struggle with communicating the intimate implications of allowing someone else to touch their wings.

This trope may overlap with Wing Kink, where the wings are an erogenous zone and caressing them produces pleasurable feelings.

Unsurprisingly, fic writers in fandoms with canonical winged characters tend to be the ones that most often make use of this trope.

Example Fanworks

Fanart

• Maintenance by k500yen (Hazbin Hotel, Lucifer/Lilith, 2025)

Fancomics

• local deer man wants to learn a new skill to impress,, better ask some specialists on the matter 🍎🦌 (Twitter [Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Bonus], Instagram [Part 1, Part 2]) by novahee (Hazbin Hotel; Alastor/Lucifer, Charlie/Vaggie & Angel Dust/Husk; 2024)

Fanfic

• this love doesn’t have a place to go by ReverentPetals (Hazbin Hotel, Charlie Morningstar & Lucifer Morningstar, 2024)

Example Art Gallery

• 

  Crowley Grooms Aziraphale by StephanieLamb (Aziraphale/Crowley, 2011)

Resources

• Wing Grooming tag at Archive of Our Own
• Wing Oil tag at Archive of Our Own