WEI WUXIAN

WEI YING'S CYANOPHOBIA

We ALL know that it was a trauma response he developed after his time on the streets. In fact, it's the ONLY explicit sign of trauma from that time of his life in canon. I mentioned in the original head canon post that his default response to merely seeing a dog is to run away screaming his head off, and we only ever see him stop running when there's nowhere left to go or when someone is there to hide behind. Other times we see him dealing with his fear, he's either trapped with it  so he curls into a ball shivering the whole time, or he has a safety net present to protect him . What this tells us is that the way WWX responds to a tangible threat is to seek safety, be it by fleeing and physically getting to safety, curling into a ball to protect himself, or have someone else present to protect him.

it should be noted that he developed this fear as a child, so his reaction being kinda childish isn't really that weird, especially if I'm pulling ADHD into the mix. Therefore I'm holding back on the salt but it's on thin ice.

The reason why I personally see his response to his fear as possibly influenced by his ADHD early in his life is simple: It's an extremely active response, and as we know, WWX is a very active person by nature, both physically and mentally. Yes, he most likely had to run away and beg for help as a child during his encounters with the dogs and that might have just been ingrained into him, but real people, including children, who have suffered similar trauma don't often react like that. Yes, phobia responses almost always boil down to "fight or flight", but even in "flight" response, you'll find that WWX's reaction is actually fairly uncommon. It does exist, but uncommon. When it does happen, it's usually if the object of fear in question is already coming towards them, OR, when an element of surprise is involved.

 With what we've seen with Fairy, WWX tends to run even before being chased, in fact his running and screaming is what causes Fairy to give chase at all. In these scenes, we see that he didn't expect Fairy, so there's the element of surprise present, however minor. It gives him no time to mentally prepare for it, and since we know WWX reacts to anger explosively[i will mention this in the next one ], which I believe is a symptom of his ADHD, it's not a stretch to believe that he responds to fear in a similar way. That this particular fear causes him to be much more irrational than usual, and his "usual" is being an infuriatingly calm and sassy genius in the face of death itself.

 Also, as WWX went through his trauma with dogs specifically in his developmental years, having what's basically an emotional amplifier built into his brain must've contributed to his fear ending up this bad.

 I do think the way Wei WuXian reacts to his fear of dogs may have some influences from typical ADHD symptoms and responses. i am not sure about this .