#sotrl haya

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What a shame… you always had such beautiful hair

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oooh cruel and painful hair cutting scene?

Okay, so this one requires some context (actually, all of them do, because everything I write is very far removed from canon and is OC-centric. Not my fault LoK canon sucks for the most part and my own characters are much more fun to play around with). In my main AU, Seeds of the Red Lotus, my Mingzan child OCs were left with Haya, Ghazan's older sister, when their parents left for the South Pole to kidnap Korra 13 years prior to the show's events. But what they didn't account for is that Haya was still fucking pissed at Ghazan for leaving her when he ran away as a teenager, so she began seeing his kids as proof of him abandoning her for the RL and for that swamp rat (a.k.a Ming-Hua), and started taking out that unprocessed anger, grief and prejudice on these poor innocent children :(

Suiren, Mingzan's eldest, was generally extremely sensitive to a lot of things even before due to her autism, but obviously it was only exacerbated by Haya's abuse. One of Haya's methods to get Suiren to maintain eye contact was to pull at her hair, which led to her realising hair pulling got Suiren to behave, and eventually it was done so much that it developed into a full on trigger and a foolproof way to get Suiren to dissociate as a defence mechanism :/ And that's bad enough on its own, but a side effect is that now even the smallest tug at Suiren's hair triggers her, even the ones that occur during hair brushing, so now she neglects it which only makes Haya even more mad at her for her hair being all messy and tangled. She said that if Suiren didn't pull herself together and sort it out, she'd just chop all her hair off, which Suiren can't allow because it's one of the last connections she has to her mother.

Now, in actual canon, said haircut never happened, but almost a year ago now I was feeling particularly evil and decided to write a small AU about what would happen if it did (yep. A whole separate AU to torture an 8 year old child more than I already do. Idk what that says about me as a person but it can't be good). I then never finished it because my mental health is a little bitch that won't let me write, but I really want to delve into the aftermath of said event so hopefully sharing a part now will give me the push I need to continue once things stabilise a little. So now, after that obnoxiously long explanation, a snippet of the fic itself (under the cut, because this is already long enough):

(TW for child abuse, dissociation and general awfulness)

Suiren kept fighting even as Haya pinned her in place. She didn’t care if it would result in more punishment later on, nothing could be as bad as what Haya was about to do if Suiren didn’t manage to get away. At one point, she almost managed to bite at Haya’s hand, which earned her a slap to the face.

“It’s like you’re trying to make this harder for yourself, Girl. We could have been done already if you just stayed fucking still!”

She moved her hand from Suiren’s shoulder to grab a strand of hair next to her face, pulling slightly. Suiren despised the involuntary freeze of her entire body. Haya brought up the scissors, slowly, and measured out the length, stopping at just above Suiren’s chin.

Suiren forced herself to meet Haya’s eyes, trying one last time to get through to her, get her to show mercy just this once. She wanted to say something but her tongue wouldn’t obey.

For just a moment, it almost seemed like it worked. Haya’s eyes widened, she stared down at Suiren with an almost horrified expression, her hand, the one holding the scissors, shook.

Then, she blinked and it was gone.

She drew her eyebrows together in focus as she made the first cut.

Suiren watched the hair fall onto her chest in what felt like slow motion. She didn’t want to look at it, to be reminded that this was all real and not yet another nightmare, but couldn’t force herself to turn away,

Haya grabbed another strand.

‘Please,’ Suiren wanted to scream, ‘You’ve made your point. I’ll behave now, I’ll be good, you don’t need to do this. Please let me go.’

But Haya would never listen to her, she’d only be wasting her breath. Tears burned at her eyes and she struggled to breathe around the lump in her throat as Haya kept cutting, more and more of her hair falling to the floor. Having gained confidence in her actions, Haya increased her speed.

Something inside Suiren, some persistent sense of spite that somehow hadn’t died off yet, urged her to keep fighting. Haya had her securely pinned down, ensuring the wouldn’t move, but when had that even been enough to stop her?

As Haya, with her guard seemingly down, moved to the hair on the other side of Suiren’s face, Suiren gathered all her strength to try and push her off again.

All she succeeded at was getting her right cheekbone nicked by the blade, a result of turning her head too suddenly at precisely the wrong time.

However small, the spot where the scissors broke her skin hurt more than most bruises. A single drop of blood tickled her cheek as it rolled down it. Haya stopped and grabbed her by the chin to inspect the damage. 

“Now look what you’ve done,” she hissed, then forcibly turned Suiren’s face to grab more of her hair and pull harder than she ever had before.

The last thing Suiren registered was Haya struggling to cut through a thick, knotted, matted clump. 

She faintly heard the non-stop snipping, too quick to ensure the cuts would be even, felt the fallen strands against her skin, but the welcoming blankness of her mind pushed it all away. She shut her eyes tight and tried with everything left in her to imagine a place far away from Haya’s house, where she would be safe, where no one would ever touch her again. 

She didn’t know how much time passed, but eventually, Haya let her go.

[malachitezmeyka]

You ever have your narrative haunted by a character who isn’t even yours

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First posted piece of 2024 featuring Ghazan’s older sister Haya, take 2!!

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In another world, fate was just a little bit kinder

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Rough concept of 14-year-old Haya, which I’d call a quick sketch if I hadn’t spent almost two hours on it

Alternatively: Photos taken moments before disaster (read as: a few months before her parents died)

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Young Haya WIP ft. backstory rambles in the tags

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Here *throws random and actually much more important than I realised at first OC redesign at you after two and a half years since the OG*

Meifeng, Ming-Hua’s cousin! I just randomly remembered that she exists while putting together my OC family tree and since the only art I have of her is… nearly 3 years old and mediocre at best, and Kat and I have recently spent so much time focusing on Red Lotus siblings, I thought “Hey, why not redraw her? Just because she’s a cousin and not a sister doesn’t make her any less special than Lien-Hua, Summiya, Aiza or Haya!” (On that note… Nia give someone a brother challenge. The only one that counts is Aiza and she’s only a brother half the time)

Some headcanons about her, both new and old (the old copy-pasted over and slightly edited to save everyone the second hand embarrassment of going to look at my old art), which will go under the cut because this has gotten LONG:

Old:

Older than Ming-Hua by around 10 years

Her dad is the older half-brother of Ming-Hua's mom who’s… not the most fond of their side of the family

Has never left her home in the Foggy Swamp Water Tribe

Master healer, specialises in children. Can't have any of her own because of the high pollution levels in the swamp which is why she puts all those motherly instincts into teaching and caring for kids

Got a scar on her leg while saving Ming-Hua from some wild swamp creature when the latter was a child who was absolutely convinced she could handle everything herself and never listened to anyone. Ming-Hua still insists she had everything under control that day

She tried to understand Ming-Hua's perspective on things, she really did, but ultimately tribe mentality and fear for her cousin’s safety, believing her not to be nearly as capable as she claims to be, won over

Attempted to stop Ming-Hua from running away but was, obviously, unsuccessful

Was the one consoling Nuying after Ming-Hua left

Helped Suiren learn waterbending and held genuine affection for the girl, although she ultimately refused when Suiren begged for the chance for her and Midori to escape from Haya and live with the tribe. She thought that while Suiren would most likely adjust well, Midori was simply too Gaoling to survive in a place as dark, damp and isolated as the Swamp. She regrets that decision every day since she found out Suiren became an assassin

Mourned Ming-Hua more than anyone else in the tribe when informed of her death

New:

Was the one who babysat Ming-Hua a lot when Nuying was going through one of her depressive episodes after Cadeo left, and Ming-Hua actually enjoyed spending time with her because she was a lot less overbearing and protective than her mother. Was the first person to start calling her Ming. Sometimes Ming-Ming, but Ming-Hua had a tendency to deliver a very hard kick to the shins every time she tried that

Never left Nuying’s side when she got sick in the years following Ming-Hua’s disappearance, no matter how much everyone, including her own father, told her to stay away, there’s nothing she can do to help her. In her final moments, Nuying was delirious with fever and called out for Ming-Hua. Meifeng didn’t have the heart to remind her that her daughter left so instead let her hair down, covered her own hand in water and told Nuying that she was “right here, mom. I’m right here” and stayed like that until Nuying passed

When Ming-Hua returned, Meifeng was the one to break the news to her. Later, when Ming-Hua asked how and when it happened, she couldn’t quite stop herself from snapping at her because she should have been there, Meifeng shouldn’t have had to pretend to be her so her mother could die without worrying about where her daughter was. Their relationship never really fully recovered after that fight

Still, she had met Suiren when she was little on the rare occasions when the Red Lotus passed through the Swamp and Ming-Hua chose to take her daughter to visit the tribe. She never met Midori, but she did see Ming-Hua pregnant with her once

Didn’t know about Ming-Hua’s imprisonment until an 11-year-old Suiren told her because world news don’t reach into the heart of the Swamp. She just thought they had decided to stop visiting. The news crushed her but… a part of her couldn’t help but go “you should have fucking listened to me when I told you to stay, then this wouldn’t have happened”

Her teaching Suiren waterbending involved mostly the basics of combat (she herself doesn’t know much of it since she’s a healer), plantbending and healing. Suiren reached her level of mastery and proficiency as well as figured out icebending on her own through sheer determination and spite (she’s so much like her mama 🥹🥹🥹)

Is the only one from the tribe Suiren had ever confessed to about being an assassin. That knowledge broke her heart and she spent all those years absolutely terrified that Suiren would meet Ming-Hua’s fate. When Suiren stopped visiting at one point (when she left for her mission to kill Kuvira, got injured, recovered at ATI, reunited with her parents, broke Kuvira out and started living with her, etc etc) she had assumed that it really did happen, until Suiren randomly showed up one day with Kuvira in tow (Meifeng did not approve bc of the whole spirit vine thing 😅)

Absolutely reunited with Ming-Hua at some point and it was an extremely emotional moment

Ripped Cadeo a new one when he suddenly appeared looking for his daughter after 45+ years after it became common knowledge that the RL are all alive and no longer wanted by the law

All in all… quite an interesting character that I really should do something with at some point, bc how come Ming-Hua’s family is the only one to get 0 attention in our discussions?? #justiceformeifeng2024

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Honestly, one of the main reasons I’m still dead set on finishing AIDIB is because once the AU progresses, we’ll eventually get to see badass bloodbender Suiren

Bonus, Live Kuvira Reaction:

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Best sisters, in any universe

(A.k.a: ever wonder what happens when a mermaid and a human have kids together?)

((as always, click for better quality))

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What if Suiren and Midori inherited their paternal grandmother’s curlier hair?

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Naming OCs actually sucks so much sometimes, especially when the creators of the source material have no fucking idea which culture they’re drawing from

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Sometimes I wish I wasn’t 12 when I came up with Suiren and Midori cause why the fuck do both of them have Japanese names

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Me whenever my grandma does something shitty: You know what? I bet Zhi would NEVER do this

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Last week I was given the choice of whether to spend the last month of summer with my mom or go with my dad’s SIL to Uzbekistan, and I picked my mom for obvious reasons: a) I haven’t seen her in almost a year and I miss her, b) Uzbekistan means either my overbearing grandparents or dad’s SIL’s relatives who I’ve never met, and c) it’ll actually be a chance to relax rather than be subjected to my grandma’s clean freak tendencies

HOWEVER, an extra bonus point to why I’m happy to not be going to Uzbekistan is that after all the writing and headcanons I’ve created, I don’t think I would be able to look my actual, real life Aunt Haya in the eyes

[malachitezmeyka]

I have. SO MANY THOUGHTS about toxic codependent sibling relationships and the parallels between Haya & Ghazan and Suiren & Midori, and I really want to write a meta analysis digging deep into the depths of it all but it’s half past 4 a.m and my brain barely functions, so for now here have a Haya-related meme I made: