the endless void

now that 3.7 is officially over and we’ve bid amphoreus a “see you tomorrow!”, i feel i can finally approach all the cyrene discourse floating around

so, the opinions on her are extremely, EXTREMELY varied, and we just can’t talk about it without being aware that elysia also exists in the hoyo fandom consciousness

some like her because they see her as “another elysia”, and they will “love elysia in every universe”

some say cyrene is a cheap knockoff of elysia who is completely missing what they loved about elysia (namely, close connections with the other flame-chasers to add legitimacy to her ‘love’ narrative). these people are also usually disappointed that her design looks more like HoHE than smolrene

some say cyrene is mostly waifu-bait, pointing to marketing with caelus + her dedicated relationship with trailblazer

some like cyrene as cyrene (honestly the minority of what i see, which is a shame)

it boils down to how elysia looms over cyrene, making us as a fandom view her mostly in elysia’s shadow. hoyo themselves keeps inserting elysia’s motifs in cyrene, making her reference her counterpart much than any other expy (the TruE melody, “this is a story about love”, concept of ego). that’s why cyrene deals with this kind of discourse way more than acheron or the other blatantly variant chrysos heirs (phainon-kevin, hysilene-eden, cipher-pardofelis)

yet after playing 3.7, i feel anyone who played the quest with an open heart couldn’t come away thinking “cyrene is just a second elysia”. her core themes and approach have echoes of elysia but are mostly unique. i would argue that cyrene is as reminiscent of elysia as cipher is to pardofelis- very similar aesthetic and demeanor, but with incredibly different stories and internal landscapes

the main criticism, “cyrene doesn’t have close relationships with the chrysos heirs unlike elysia”, is hollow. it misses the point. if cyrene’s story was trying to convey elysia’s love for humanity, then yeah, it would be doing an awful job. but believe it or not That’s Not The Point Of Her. in fact, the whole point is that she CAN’T be part of the story. she is constantly killed before it begins, robbed of the chance to go through a character arc along with the other chrysos heirs.

cyrene is not an elysia that loves all of humanity, cyrene is an AUTHOR who loves the stories and characters she’s written. they plaster it all over her- ‘as i’ve written’, ‘this will be a romantic STORY’, RMC’s quill, cyrene telling herself stories, etc. as such, her undying love for the chrysos heirs is not that of a friend, but more like a love for characters. and i feel hoyoverse fandom, of all groups, should empathize with loving characters more than anyone!

cyrene’s journey is about the power of stories, which contain echoes of their author. stories are like fake memories we create, and just like real memories, they can affect who we are or give us courage to face our lives. “cyrene” is the pen name she gifted to her past self, cementing her identity as an authors. she’s someone who cries at moving stories, and hopes that the story she tells will move others, too

“But maybe… in these unchanging retellings of the story… my “lament” might be able to touch upon the divine and reach THEIR tender heart. I hope what flows out from that cut will not be blood, but a tear, warm and wet. And that tear would fall… and create the first ripples. Then, people would see every beautiful thing reflected in that ripple.”

that act of storytelling is where her chosen pen name comes from- it means ‘ripples of past reverie’, the ripples that come from the story. (also that quote is meant to parallel the way phainon scratched nanook’s face! with hatred, phainon yielded blood. with lament, cyrene wanted to move the aeon to tears— to affect the universe at the same grand level phainon did. but little did she know that the aeon that gazed upon her… well, that’s another story)

now, another point— people point to cyrene’s whole, “i’m a cute girl~” schtick and say it’s a budget version of elysia’s. but that’s not quite it. what the two have in common is that they act the way they do because it’s a manifestation of the things they love. however, cyrene got it from directly observing ‘someone else’; from trying to live up to an ideal. elysia’s like this because it makes her happy, cyrene’s like this because she’s hurting inside, ‘fighting against the pain of separation’, trying to say goodbye with a smile so the memory of it is a happy one. cyrene smiles to hide all the tears she has inside and make the story more beautiful, elysia smiles because she’s just that happy to be alive in the beautiful world of humanity

“But I’m no author. I’m a girl who’ll never grow up. I only tell stories that people like to hear. In them, the world tucks away its scars and smiles for all to see.”

it’s not a performance, exactly. it’s not like the way aventurine’s always hiding his anxieties. you’re not meant to think that cyrene is a perfectly happy girl without sorrows. rather, she acts this way in service of the story she’s telling. and maybe you’ll know that the story is not completely true, or it’s missing some sad parts, but it’s still a beautiful story.

there’s a lot to be said about her storytelling theme since it ties into amphoreus as a whole. for example, she’s the “original nouspore”, the seed from which all the other characters came. and the thing is, that’s how it is when you write. every character has a tiny piece of you, but they gradually become something else entirely. it’s also like, amphoreus has a chance to be “real” bc they’ve spread the story throughout the HSR cosmos, but that’s legit what’s happening in reality. these characters feel real to us fans bc we all resonated with their story, and they generate so much real world conversation and emotion and fanart and the like. it’s a love letter to storytelling <3

as for her visual design, it’s meant to represent cyrene when her primum mobile was “love”, before she traveled back in ‘time’ and became the original Philia093 (“lament”). so in that design, we see her at her highest point. that “seed of memory” has basically JUST learned what it means to love. she loves the characters and the story, she loves trailblazers she’s just met. and then at the end of 3.7 she finally ‘loses’ for the first time (she realizes she’ll never get to journey the stars liek she wants to, she’ll be stuck in that time loop keeping causality closed) , and that’s why her track turns to “lament”. so, the playable cyrene we get is the most beautiful moment of her story, with a matrimonial theme to drive home the idea of ‘love’

personally, since cyrene’s biggest theme is storytelling, i would have liked to see morr of that in her animations. we get a hint of it with how she looms over that world she ‘wrote’, blessing the shards of remembrance- the stories of those characters. but otherwise it’s mostly march 7th inspired bow and arrow, and then the marriage stuff. and i think that suits who cyrene is at that moment, but it doesn’t tell us as much about her whole story. it’s a shame how the design primes people to compare her to elysia + obscured a lot of cyrene’s own traits. also i don’t like the matrimonial theme as much for her, since she’s supposed to be more about stories/characters than direct human relationships

“I remember that tree in Aedes Elysiae… It grew all alone... unable to go anywhere. It watched the sea in silence, dreaming of a faraway shore it could never reach... But now... A tiny boat sets sail. It carries a seed of hope, plucked from the tree, and heads into the great beyond... Even if the boat's shadow fades quickly from sight... The tree knows that its wish will bloom on the other side of the sea... In that moment... it must feel happiness, right?”

Abstracting herself as a tree (peach mentioned EGO blooming into a ‘beautiful tree’), as she’s overcome with tears, coping with how she won’t get to be part of the cosmos, how she’ll be stuck in this eternal loop of causality, she tries to tell herself to feel happy because As I’ve Written is out in the cosmos, planting the seeds for Amphoreus to become real, fulfilling her dream (the twelfth day of the eleventh month thing). it’s just. it breaks my freaking heart, like she’s pleasing to feel happiness, “Love”, in that moment, but her heart keeps “Lament”ing

“Once the anchor is placed, what awaits us... is thirty million lifetimes of reunion.”

always desperately focusing on what she loves and looks forward to.

You ask fate, what is divinity? And she says... “Look, how beautiful you are!"

From what I remember, I thought the main reason firefly was always in Sam mode was, yes, because it’s her stronger form, but also bc it stabilized her els while she was doing missions. In her myriad celestial trailer (the 2d animated one, idr if that’s the right name) I thought that’s also why the cavalry wasn’t supposed to exit their armor for long. Because it weakened them further, and they weren’t supposed to die when not fighting the swarm.

Yes, the cavalry was meant to burn itself out, but moreso because they were made to die fighting; if they weren’t in battle mode, they’d only die quicker, and thus would defeat the purpose of making them in the first place. The els was meant to stop them from living a “normal” life away from combat. If they weren’t in combat (in the mech), then the dresses would progress faster.

Also, and i dont remember where this is, but i thought whenever an “icy medical cabin” was mentioned, i thought it referred to Sam? And her line when returning to a safe zone “let me stay longer in this body” I also thought was in reference to Sam? Like, in both cases, she wanted to live as “firefly” both in body and mind, instead of being forced to stay inside of Sam for her own health.

In 3.8, I also thought the reason firefly faced death 3 was because she used up so much power when fighting the swarm mech and tanking the stellaron that it overpowered whatever stabilization Sam provided her, and she quite literally burned herself out and enhanced the illnesses effects.

Again, It has been a long time since I looked into everything properly, and I don’t have the chance to double check in more depth right now, so I could be wrong about this and misremembering (shitty memory sucks). But I thought Sam helped to stabilize firefly, and she didn’t like it because she wanted to live a normal life, not because the mech made her els worse.

-side quest anon

I HAD A WHOLE HUGE REPLY TO THIS AND THEN TUMBLR GOT MEAN AND ERASED IT QWQ

Take two, this ones going to be shorter (more concise) and it’s going to annoy me but whatever. Tumblr is mean to me chat.

Okay so basically, the suit is more like, temporary medication. It doesnt actually do anything to help the illness, just more or less slow it down.

However, it makes ELS more painful to experience.

Its cruel, and honestly feels unnecessary.

The lifepod basically acts as actual treatment, it wont cure the illness permanently, but it will help. The mech doesnt properly help.

The difference between a surgery and then like taking some ibuprofen, basically.

ELS is also a age based illness. It activates fully and starts the process of killing the person at a certain age, like 30s or so. The lifepod is liable to have some kinda age-stasis thing or smth, because Firefly looks the same age as she was in the past, and we’ve seen what an older Iron Cavalry looks like.

As for the ‘stay in the mech’ rule, thats not a thing for their own sake.

Its to keep them under control, and keep them as something other than people. Out of the mech, they can humanize themselves- to themself and others - in a way that is unwanted.

The Iron Cavalry were only ever considered as war-fodder to throw at the swarm. Not people, and their creators wanted them to remain as such.

Firefly doesnt like being Sam (though she’s accepted him as apart of her) because she wants to live a normal life, and one without pain. Neither thing Sam is conducive towards.

As for the Stellaron and Firefly’s third death, it wasnt the Stellaron itself that caused her ELS to speed up so aggressively, but rather the Propagation which the Stellaron had attached itself to.

Firefly took out the Harbinger of Death, but the Swarm was still returning in accordance with the Stellaron- with ‘her wish’ (to live). So Firefly took it unto herself, replaced the Harbinger as the head of the swarm (hence the purple) and iirc lead the swarm in a kamikaze move to aid in breaking through the layers of the dreamscape. And then, after giving Trailblazer that final push, she went off to die slowly alone while everyone else was distracted.

(Ignoring Trailblazer pulling their Terminus bullshit, thats not the important bit here.)

Thats what the whole “If embracing fate (her death), is another form of resistance (defeating Sunday) then this time, i shall embrace death! (sacrifice herself)” was. Basically she’s sacrificing herself because of course she is, she’s a Stellaron Hunter, and those idiots have the worst fucking self-preservation especially when the others are in danger-

But yeah. In short, the lifepod works as genuine help, the suit as temporary help, and it was the concentration of propagation that caused her 3rd death alongside her own self-sacrificial tendencies.

Also imo, ‘icy medical cabin’ fits better with a lifepod, than a iirc, canonically really hot (temperature wise, but im willing to hear the other way out) mecha.

One of these days, Trailblazer has gotta introduce Ruan Mei and Firefly like seriously, the woman is RIGHT THERE, she’s just busy being gay with Herta, but istg she can cure Firefly with not much of an issue, come on man-

kaveh is rich? the world really must be ending

But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.

So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.

And it broke him.

It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.

He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.

But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.

And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.

But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.

It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.

But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.

Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.

The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.

This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.

And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.

I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.

Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.

And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.

And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.