yeah this is a haikavetham art blog now. have wingfic art because I wanted to draw a scene from this fic of mine (over 9k words of self indulgent wingfic fluff)
this is sort of my own twist on the hanahaki trope, it deals with heavy topics such as mental health issues + self harm (not especially graphic), as well as quite a bit of flower themed body horror
i'm going to be posting my backlog of art i did to illustrate my mer AU fanfic soon. but i think it's very funny that i've been accomplishing my goal of getting people interested in marine biology through the power of video game yaoi. you all have fallen directly into my schemes
okay I have no idea if my other ask actually sent cuz Tumblr was being buggy but
I LOVE YOUR AU everything about it. its gives me a reason to research fish and I love all their designs. THEYRE ALSO REALLY IN CHARACTER which I love to see because I'm pretty picky about fanfic in this aspect, I realllyyy enjoy the slowburn cuz its really hard to find a slowburn kavetham fic for some reason. Anyway I was thinking earlier about the sharks in the fic I LOVEE THE DOG PARALLELS but I do think itd be really cool if there was shark mers I cant think of a sumeru character that would be a mer but i think Itto would be a thresher shark mer because they looks stupid and slap things to death.
I WANNA DRAW TEHM SOOOO BADDDD BUT THEY would be hell to render but this fic might break me outta my art block cuz I Wanna draw the fish sooooo badd
yes i did get your first ask!! i just have no executive function skills whatsoever and so am only getting around to answering it now. screenshotted the first ask so i can mention things from both without it being confusing. heads up this is gonna be LONG
first of all THANK YOU AAAAAA!!!! I've had so much fun writing this AU because i get to combine two things I really like (haikavetham and marine biology) into one. you should ABSOLUTELY research fish because fish are really cool. if you want some marine bio / fish books that will spark your interest in fish more i recommend:
The Shark That Walks on Land ...and other strange but true tales of mysterious sea creatures by Michael Bright
The Extreme Life of the Sea by Stephen R. Palumbi and Anthony R. Palumbi
The Brilliant Abyss by Helen Scales
And if you want fish facts mixed with memoirs...
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
Below the Edge of Darkness by Edith Widder, Ph.D. (currently reading this one, it's about bioluminescence in the deep sea)
Below the Edge of Darkness is the only one here I haven't finished reading, and I've cited both The Extreme Life of the Sea and The Brilliant Abyss in a nine-page research essay I did on the deep sea that occasionally I will sneak snippets of into the chapter notes of this fic. So these are books with the Amity stamp of approval. Okay anyway moving on.
i'm glad you enjoy the slowburn lol it's coming very naturally to me because it's very easy for me to write something other than romance (i'm aro-spec and have no idea what romantic attraction is but i figure its just queerplatonic yearing but with a desire to kiss and butterflies? idk). the only other kavetham slowburn i've read is Changes of State by GoWingOvaBoard which I have not finished because i keep forgetting it exists and it's long. it is REALLY good though, the characterization so far is excellent. i just have ADHD. there is smut in later chapters but i have been told it's pretty mild despite the E rating.
YIPPEE that they're in character i worry about that. i have a document with characterization notes i am building and refer to frequently. it's nearly 2k words at the moment. i am likewise very picky about characterization both when i read and when i write.
i've already planned out the different kinds of mer so there isn't specifically a shark mer (they're based on habitat primarily, taking inspiration from fish species adapted to those ocean zones), I DID go for a sort of shark vibe with Dehya's AU design, though. and Alhaitham's AU design does take partial inspiration from deepwater sharks along with the other deep-sea fish he's based off of. that said i do love the idea of thresher shark Itto.
i spent a while designing each type of mer!! i took that part of the worldbuilding from an older worldbuilding project of mine, tweaking parts to better suit the AU. one day i'll have something explaining all the different kinds of merfolk. i'll continue to sneakily drop my worldbuilding lore in the fic and chapter notes for now though
as for the regular sharks - i thought it would be really fun if they were like dogs. given many of them would have co-existed around merfolk for centuries they could have ended up like wolves and become partially domesticated. merfolk also hunt with trained sharks! like hunting/tracking dogs (fits especially well given sharks tend to have a great sense of smell)
if you draw the fish please tag me omg, i would love to see. i would make the yippee sound effect. and once again i am so so happy you like this fic!!! i write my silly things in the hopes that other people will go "oh i like this silly thing too" so i get very happy when other people do like my fics. i'll try not to go bald lol.
anyway thank you for lovely inbox messages!!! i have no idea what to say here now so i'll just default to my usual. Amity out. fish emoji
and i finally finished some fanart for this silly little au. drawing humanoids is not my specialty but regardless i hope you enjoy it! i had so much fun drawing them, their designs are so well made and very enjoyable to draw :DD <3
sorry this took so long whoops school is taking up all of my time </3
One thing I've been trying to figure out for a long time is what kind of system of medicine and healing did they have in the past sky kingdom? There isn't a lot to go off of but there are some things we can look at.
First off, it seems they had two different ways of dealing with injuries/illnesses: regular physical medicine--things like medicinal tea and bandages and crutches and stuff--and magical healing using light. First lets look at regular medicine:
There are a number of spirits that show signs of past injuries that have been treated: Wounded Warrior and Marching Adventurer have actual bandages on them so we know that the ancestors had at least some basic first aid knowledge--how to treat flesh/bone injuries and also eye injuries. Another example is Bowing Medalist during the 3rd Aurora memory:
Bowing Medalist falls off their manta during the race, is injured, put on a cot, and given a crutch to help them get around.
Another very interesting bit of lore comes from Peeking Postman's traveling spirit hint (in the past, traveling spirits were teased using lists of random trivia about them):
So in the past sky kingdom, there were infirmaries where people could go for treatment.
We know from Tiptoeing Teabrewer's memory (and Tender Toymaker's quest) that tea was used for treating (or at least for soothing) ill people.
One last thing before I talk about the elephant in the room: during the Season of Bluebird, the grandparent's quest/memory takes place in orbit and is about unborn baby sky kids choosing their life goal/destiny. One of the sky kids that the players assists has the destiny of "I'm going to invent machines that heal the sick."
That immediately got my interest and it brings up the question is Blue Bird taking place in the past (implying that sky kid lived in the past and therefor past sky people had machines for use in medicine) or is it taking place in the present (implying that the sky kid is born in modern times and our current generation of sky people will at some point invent machines for medicine in the future as the kingdom is restored).
It is possible that they had medical technology in the past more than just bandages, crutches, and tea--they did have electromechanical/magical technology such as the light towers in the Two Embers city (and all around wasteland) as well as the forcefields in the Reef/Abyss quests. We don't see any evidence of medical tech through the spirit memories or questlines, but perhaps as the kingdom declined, so did the medical technology and there wasn't much left by the time most of the quests/spirit memories occurred. We just don't know.
Anyways it's time to talk about the elephant in the room: crystallization.
Crystallization is an illness that plagued the civilization in the past and is a constant threat to modern day sky kids as well. Crystallization is caused by lack of light (like a vitamin deficiency). Exposure to darkness can steal/destroy a person's light which causes the light deficiency that leads to crystallization. The only effective way to treat crystallization is with light.
But in the past, Light was also used for defense against the darkness. The land was unsustainably harvested of almost all light (causing the crystallization illness in people) in order to defend against the darkness (and power the Eden crystal??) (watch the in-game Two Embers projector creator commentary for more info). So there were two competing needs for light: defense and for healing. Neither could be neglected but neither could be sustained.
Because of this, I suspect light was rationed--the majority of light collected going to the kingdom's defense and the minority allocated to healing. That's why in the Two Embers, entrance to the Cloister (where the healing light spring is located) was strictly limited and most ill people were treated at the door then sent on their way.
The limited healing light resource was likely distributed in a way that could sustain the most people for the longest time--giving people enough light to prevent their crystallization illnesses from progressing too far/too fast, but once a person's illness got too advanced (crystals on their torso, head, mask, and/or lungs), they couldn't get enough light to effectively treat them and they would die (like Tender Toymaker).
So exactly how was light used to heal people in the past? Two ways: just hanging out in the sacred spring and absorbing the healing light that fills the place, and direct healing.
If you go out of bounds outside of the cloister through one of the windows, you can watch people get healed. First the people stand in line, then kneel down, then they turn shiny, stand up, and walk away.
In the oob, there aren't any vault workers, but we know from Two Embers movie that it was the vault workers who were tending to the sick people (see earlier the screenshot in this post of folks standing in line on front of the cloister)--so I imagine it went something like this:
Finally, let's talk about the people who were the doctors and healers in the past.
Vault workers are the folks who take care of the sick and injured during Two Embers movie and in the Last City in-game. But who exactly are the vault workers? What exactly is the Vault? Is it a university where sky people can learn stuff and be trained in different higher-level jobs like engineer, astronomer, doctor, etc.? Do the healers wear the vault robes because they still belong to the vault even if they live and work somewhere else?
There is one other medical professional in Sky and it is this guy vv #favespirit #savedthebestforlast #myparent
If you know me at all, you've heard me talk about this spirit before--the Seed of Hope is a medic who ran around rescuing soldiers at the end of all things after the city had already fallen to darkness during Aurora's 4th quest. Lore from the wiki about Seed vv
"The poisoned soils of that field tore away all you knew, save one truth. You held fast to it, risking the only thing you had left. Because even the deepest shadows would not stop you from reaching to save what light you could."
Anyways that's all I have for you all today. If you've made it to the end, thank you very much for reading this; it took me all day to put this post together.
this is from last year in august but i finally got around to coloring it!!!! evil artstyle jumpscare but I'm too lazy to redraw everything.
also as a quick thing i did not address in the comic — damaged lifelights run the risk of being unable to produce honks
honking with a damaged lifelight may result in shrills rather than honks, akin to a wheeze. in some cases it's painful, in other cases it's not. in meteorite's case, while honking itself isn't painful, he is embarrassed by the shrill he creates and thus accustomed himself to simply not honk at all.
Hello! I hope this isn't too much of a bother to ask. I only recently found your sky lore theories and other similar blog posts on the wiki and it's been a really fun and immersive read!
That said, and though you did say in one of your posts to feel free to do so, I still wanted to check with you if it'd be alright for me to take inspiration from some aspects of your lore posts for a fic I wanted to write (trying to look up lore about sky was actually how I found your blog posts in the first place)
The tinies for the haikavetham mer AU, I love drawing them in this style. Side note I know Kaveh is technically the slightly taller one as a human but having him be a long noodle fish was funny to me
gummygunk
germansingergirl
origamiaround
prguitarman
dededos
janainaart
