yanqing & yunli except i headcanon yunli as audhd so itās yanqing and his disaster gf
iāve seen this one really really really sweet couple on insta, itās a nt guy and his audhd wife and theyre so sweet. he takes the time to understand her and how their brains are different and itās so lovely. anyways i kind of imagine yanli like that when their relationship develops more. especially because we got to see them outside of their squabbling in the last part of the tb questāthey work together well; they actually have grown to trust and respect each other (thereās also a dialogue if you choose to talk to yunli before confronting hoolay w/ feixiao where she compliments yanqing on his finishing atk and asks him to teach it to herāshe even lightheartedly admits he might be stronger than her), and i feel that their trust and respect will only grow more with time. and of course they will always squabble and pick at each other
so to elaborate on audhd yunli, first off we all know how blunt and stubborn she is. her thinking is so straightforward that even her fighting style is āsmash with big stick, everything dieā (she prefers brute force over strategy or dexterityādoesnāt mean she canāt strategize, i just mean to point out that even in her fighting she gets straight to the point which i find amusing). i adore her so much my beautiful autistic daughter. special interest is swords. yanqing gets an honorable mention because heās also obsessed with swords but i think heās just a sword nerd who collects swords while yunliās interest goes into the forging, the history, the personalities of the swords
yunli: we may both be obsessed with swords but i am obsessed with them in a much deeper and more autistic way than you could ever be
i have also considered though that yanqing could be headcanoned as having adhd; heās impulsive, and i do still love the idea from pjo of demigods having an advantage in battle because of their adhd. reminds me of yanqing, heās a hyperactive little dude bouncing all over the place in battle and idk. heās also just. a teenage boy. so idk, remains to be determined
anyways i just hc that in all parts of yunliās life except for anything having to do with swords sheās a complete mess and a ticking time bomb. everything in her room is a messāexcept her swords (and old mettle is given the most pristine treatment). sheāll ignore any expectations put upon her unless it has to do with swords or something else sheās a little interested in. she has a few safe foods she eats on rotation in mass amounts.
also im imagining her in school and all i can picture is the leg bounce and the thousand yard stare. +10000 aura she doodles swords on all her papers. every project where students are given enough creative liberty and freedom to choose their topic, you fucking bet yunli is going to talk about swords in one way or another. idk how school works on the xianzhou zuming or frankly anywhere in hsr, but i guess that doesnt matter and i dont really care
also her sense of justice and tunnel vision with cursed swords. itās so black and white to her (it has a lot to do with trauma ofc, but still i see that same kind of black/white thinking and extreme sensitivity to injustice as a trait on the spectrum).
i also would like to share headcanons about her sensorial and tactical development as a child lol. something about her screams sensory seeking. i use the korean voiceover, and i ADORE how theyāve voiced her and the direction they went. i havenāt listened to the english much, but from what ive heard she seems a lot more softspoken, which isnāt at all wrong or bad, it just is different than what i expected. in the kvo sheās got this monotone shrill going on that little girls with zero vocal control have and itās fantastic. i hc she has no sense of volume whatsoever, canāt perceive her voice and doesnāt realize sheās shouting, things like that. it really fits with how she acted in her story quest, sheās just absolutely tone-deaf, both literally with her voice and figuratively with social cues, reading the room, etc.
practicing with old mettle has got to be so fucking loud, sheās throwing that shit around and itās going CLANG CLANG CLANG and thereās no way she doesnāt have massive tolerance to high sensory input. for kids who are on the extreme end of high sensory needs, theyāll sometimes just seek out loud noises constantly, and of course, wonāt realize it might be disruptive to others because they donāt even feel like itās loud. so yeah yunli stims by throwing swords around because hell yeah. the fucking CLANG CLANG CLANG regulates her nervous system i just know itš£ļøš„
while some people are just born with dif sensory needs/issues, they can also develop due to your sensory experience, or lack thereof, as a child. kids who werenāt held/interacted with enough might have difficulty with lots of sensory input, while on the other hand (i dont know this one for sure, i am making a guess) i would think that a lot of exposure to excess sensory input might cause that kid to develop high sensory needs.
and thatās what i think with yunli would be part of her sensory issues, whether or not weāre even talking about autismāshe grew up in the forgery around all that constant noise, not to mention the traumatic cursed sword event which could have exacerbated the way all that affected her nervous system because it also messed with her emotions and trauma is stored in the body AND she was a child, yadda yadda :3
i could keep going but idk this has been in my drafts for so long bc i kept thinking of shit and i didnt even talk that much about yanli
the reason i see them as disaster gf and nt bf is because although weāve seen yanqing being a little shit, so much of that is about his maturity level as heās still a teen. i just feel it and canāt articulate it well, i just feel that heās got a calm spirit in there somewhere and as he grows heās going to become so measured and patient and self-disciplined and itās fantastic i want to see him grow into a fine young man (i know we probably wont but i can imagine itš). it feels like thatās the direction heās going with all the development from the recent tb quest, not to mention the parallels he has with jingliu
i hope this makes sense to others and not just me, for some reason i really see them as the wholesome nd girl and nt boy unlikely wombo combo cause yanqing has so much spunk and fire and yunli has so much spunk and fire but neurodivergently and they just burst into flames around each other but as they grow older it will wane and they will fan it down into glowing embers, soft and warm in the hearth; yanqing will hold her explosive spirit in his hands so gently, heāll admire and understand her like no one else because somehow he just gets her, and she thrives in his comforting warmth. and when yanqingās spirit crumbles and he loses that warmth and loses faith in himself, yunli can remind him of his strength and reinstall his sense of justice; she also brings the fresh autistic perspective of carefree innocence and autonomy that i feel yanqing needs in times where he might be overwhelmed by expectations or outside opinions. i just ugh i just . i love them i am going to throw up theyāre beautiful and i just think that autistic yunli being understood by neurotypical yanqing is something that is so important to. society at large ,






