#kirin!yanqing au

[bunubun07]

Kirin!Yanqing doodles lol, I also have more thoughts

Kirin!Yanqing is mentally older than Human!Yanqing, more like Dan Heng's age or a young adult compared to Human!Yanqing's young teenager

bottom left is what Kirin!Yanqing looks like all menacing standing on Scalegorge's surface

middle is him begging for food (probably broken Jing Yuan's dining table in the process)

top left is what he usually eats, but also kelp and fruits from nearby trees

ALSO YIPEE!! I've thought of what happens post "yanqing's missing arc"

I think, with Samatha's (borisin monk) help they learn some of Yanqing's origins and he absolutely has an identity crisis, which triggers transformation #2 (since he feels unsafe to be human,) and causes him to become Kirin!Yanqing for a while

This time, it's right in front of the generals and their attendants without anyone else in the room, so they're freaked out, but make no move to attack

And Kirin!Yanqing doesn't attempt to run.

Jing Yuan slowly reaches out his hand

Kirin!Yanqing prods at it with his snout and than leans in for pets

And everyone sighs in relief as he just enjoys the pets, leaning down and poking at Jing Yuan with his horn

Later on Jing Yuan is able to successfully sneak Kirin!Yanqing to his home while also pocketing some loose hair from his mane

And Yanqing stays like that for a few days until he remembers human things

Jing Yuan shows Kirin!yanqing hair to him

And offers to head to divination commission to get the full truth

...I should write a fanfiction about this LMAO

[bunubun07]

seeing all the Yanqing AUs floating around made me want to make one of my own, so yaknow.....i'm calling this the kirin!Yanqing au

So the amborisal arbor is still a tree that can have “fruit” and Yanqing is one of those fruits (don’t think too much about that,) born with both abundance and the hunt’s energies interacting

To be more exact he’s like the equivalent of sap crystalized into a fruit but the sap is the abundance in the arbor and it has trapped hunt energy that remained after the arbor’s shattering

What’s the cool part is that he first comes out as a dragon (kirin like, I’ll refer to that form as kirin!Yanqing) and lives in scalegorge waterscape and it’s oceans for a while (between the third abundance war and his discovery,) learning about life on the loufu from Vidyadhara memories and from the Ambrosial Arbor’s “dreams.”

Eventually decides to go live on land because he wants to be able to “fly free in the sky,” so asks the Arbor for help

In this AU, the Ambrosial Arbor has self consciousness and isn’t really awake at all (only when it gets revitalized does it “wake up,”) so while it’s asleep it raises kirin!Yanqing via dream to tell him about what’s happening and history and ect.

And so Yanqing gets reborn into a Xianzhou Native and left on the shore - the process of rebirth causes the mara outbreak that leads Jing Yuan to discovering and adopting him.

Fast forward to post loufu trailblazer quest, between the wardance arc.

Yanqing’s been having weird dreams after the fight at Scalegorge, mainly of a voice calling to him, and the heliobi incident only makes those dreams worse. An underlying tension keeps prodding at him

Spending time flying about on his swords and looking at the Ambrosial Arbor helps with it, but General said he shouldn’t go near the Arbor, even if it’s sealed

…even if it feels like he’s abandoning something important.

Yanqing finds himself wanting to swim more and his ice powers feel stronger too!

Most of the wardance arc goes as normal

But during the Hoolay fight after Yanqing pulls the Jingliu move

Feixiao isn’t fast enough to arrive

And Hoolay slices Yanqing in half, right in front of everyone

He pulls the crimson moon stunt as Feixiao arrives to see the casualty and then Feixiao fight happens, but March and Yunli can’t fully fend off her in her moon rage with the loss of Yanqing.

Just as it seems that they’re about to lose their lives to a maddened Feixiao…

A blast of ice explodes out of Yanqing’s body and kirin!Yanqing flies out, dragging Feixiao away from the two of them as the rage subsides.

This is when the generals arrive to a half-dead Yunli and March, a beat up Feixiao, and an Abomination with no Yanqing in sight.

And let’s just say some bad assumptions are made and Yanqing has to run

Strangely, it seems like everything on the loufu associated with the abundance is helping the abomination

Like abominations are attacking the knights that are actively chasing down kirin!Yanqing, birds are flying into starskiff windows, roots are tripping up knights on the ground, ect

And he jumps into scalegorge, disappearing into the ocean

A few days later a younger Yanqing, confused and covered in abundance energy, is found wandering around the shore

And uh…things happen

About kirin!Yanqing

If human yanqing is hunt, than kirin yanqing is abundance 

Kirin!Yanqing at first barely has memories, just vague vibe sensors about people

Swapping forms for the first time causes him to forget memories, over time he recovers them while in the other form

Basically, he needs to spend time in one form to remember the events of the other form. The more he swaps forms, the more he'll remember from the time spent in other form

Kirin!Yanqing has like frosty ocean associations, and can live underwater

At first (without human Yanqing memories,) he doesn’t understand human language, because he doesn’t have a synesthesia beacon.

He does have impressions of human Yanqing’s relationships, which is why upon emerging, he saves March and Yunli, and flees instead of fighting.

The Arbor, awake, helps him (again) to change, but this time leaves instructions in the form of a leaf only possible to read by the denizens of abundance.

Which a certain monk, being escorted by Yukong, passes by a reformed Yanqing with the leaf in his hand sees…

I have more thoughts but I’ll stop there for now please let me know if yall wanna hear more.

[bunubun07]

Alright, funny design notes mainly under cut

If you could not tell Kirin!Yanqing is based on Japanese Kirin and a bunch of other influences, like seawings from wof.

I'm aware the loufu is china-based, but 1) I found Kirin designs to be more 'waterlike' and ‘deerlike’ which fits with this AU lore better and 2) I'm chinese american and I'm okay with this LMAO

The pink circles are aspects based on Lan, the red are aspects based on Yaoshi.

Lan: The horns above Yanqing's eyes, the star+bow markings, the horse body, and the tail horns

Yaoshi: Blond hair, the circular markings, the wheat-like blue strands from several parts of his body

Since Yanqing was born from the Arbor, he can run Abundance energy through specialized organs, which form his wings+tail. Most of it is passively absorbed in the environment and stored in his hair

Kirin!Yanqing's tail is broader for easier swimming, and his feet are webbed as well

The bright blue marks are bioluminescent and glow, he also has a third eyelid for seeing underwater that glows bright blue as well. These marks can be inconsistent but they usually go abundance -> abundance -> hunt

The strands are actually sensory organs to sense movements in water, they can glow as well - they work on land, but not as well

OG post for comparison

[bunubun07]

Kirin time

[noimnotdeadyet]

AYO WOF MENTION???

combined with Yanqing and Kirins we winning today guys thank the lord I wasn't the only one hhhhhhh

the number of references here...

*runs to my sketchbook*

I need him and Chimera!Yanqing to be in a frame together amen

Alright, funny design notes mainly under cut

If you could not tell Kirin!Yanqing is based on Japanese Kirin and a bunch of other influences, like seawings from wof.

I'm aware the loufu is china-based, but 1) I found Kirin designs to be more 'waterlike' and ‘deerlike’ which fits with this AU lore better and 2) I'm chinese american and I'm okay with this LMAO

The pink circles are aspects based on Lan, the red are aspects based on Yaoshi.

Lan: The horns above Yanqing's eyes, the star+bow markings, the horse body, and the tail horns

Yaoshi: Blond hair, the circular markings, the wheat-like blue strands from several parts of his body

Since Yanqing was born from the Arbor, he can run Abundance energy through specialized organs, which form his wings+tail. Most of it is passively absorbed in the environment and stored in his hair

Kirin!Yanqing's tail is broader for easier swimming, and his feet are webbed as well

The bright blue marks are bioluminescent and glow, he also has a third eyelid for seeing underwater that glows bright blue as well. These marks can be inconsistent but they usually go abundance -> abundance -> hunt

The strands are actually sensory organs to sense movements in water, they can glow as well - they work on land, but not as well

OG post for comparison