What if someone had the biggest wings ever seen before but they were monochrome. Where would they rank then? Also where would someone with like rainbow coloured wings rank if they were rather small wings?

randomslasherwingau:

The hierarchy in general is as follows: 

1) Function (bare minimum, wings must WORK)

2) Color (the more colorful the better!)

3) Size (big is beautiful!)

So someone with very small wings that don’t work (meaning that cannot carry them in flight) is going to fall on the bottom of the hierarchy, no matter how colorful those wings are. 

Incidentally, having small non-functioning wings that are still colorful would be incredibly rare (in fact, I don’t know that it’s ever happened) because small wings are an indicator of stunted growth, and wings’ colorful plumage doesn’t develop until wings are full grown. If wing growth is stunted, so is color plumage development. It will almost always fall that wings too small to fly will also be monochrome, because the same condition that kept them from growing also kept them from developing their adult colors.

In the realm of functional wings, color matters more than size. Someone with very large monochrome wings is still a monochrome. Size is nice, yes, but color is nicer. No amount of size can make up for monochrome colors. 

Among those wings that are functional AND colored, things get far more nuanced. Some of it is down to preference, but generally speaking, if you have two people with, say, vivid red wings, the larger of the two is the more desirable. But if the smaller set of wings has a pattern of orange mixed in with the red, they’re going to be boosted because their wings have two colors instead of just one. 

The vast majority of the population has wings that are 1 color. Bright vivid colors that stand out more get more attention. Wings with two colors are preferable to wings that are just one color. Gradients are rare and very desired. Metallics and opalescents/shimmers are also very rare and desired. Wings with more than two colors are considered almost otherworldly (hence Patton’s popularity–his wings are practically godlike. He’s literally world-famous because of them. The fact that he’s dating someone who is not only monochrome, but has non-functioning wings, is absolutely scandalous). 

This is also a matter of aesthetic. Bear in mind that the hierarchy isn’t anything more than social ranking. Just like physical beauty in our own society, wing beauty is something that is ingrained in the society of the wing AU verse. A person with strong, beautiful wings will have privileges that someone with plain or monochrome wings will not, just like an able-bodied conventionally attractive person in our society will have advantages that someone like me (physically disabled, overweight, not conventionally attractive) will not. 

And just like in our society, there are people who do not approve of this. Logan is absolutely opposed to the system that pre-judges based on wings. It’s why he hides his (rare and beautiful and therefore very desirable) gradient most of the time and lets people think he’s a monochrome. He would rather they judge him by his accomplishments than his wing color.