#Lupus Aureus Chapter 2
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please only read this if you finished cyno’s story quest!
I absolutely loved the story quest and cyno’s dynamic with everyone else but cyrus left me a bit disappointed… not in his character overall but in his actions. he had good intentions but took cyno away from his origins, denied him answers when cyno asked (cyno said he asked many times about hermanubis and the temple and cyrus always avoided answering him) and since cyno suffered under hermanubis it would’ve been his right to know where it stems from since he couldn’t recall… cyrus probably did it to protect him but he cut cyno off from his culture and people. Bamoun and cyrus owe cyno and sethos a lot in my honest opinion and cyrus still kept avoiding answering cyno at the end of his quest (cyno even calls this out) which just shows me he didn’t learn anything at all from the events.
he also had the option to try and reach out to cyno’s biological parents because they might’ve given him away to provide a better life for him (but I have to say as a middle easterner I’m tired of this poor parents give their children away etc etc narrative we had the same with collei)
cyrus also didn’t feel responsible enough for sethos after taking everything away from him or even leaving him behind back then even he knew it’s bad for him.
cyno and sethos both suffered under the actions of cyrus and bamoun and deserve so so much better cyno is a perfect example of ethnic children being taken in by white people and having their cultures and roots taken away from them. not to mention we know that cyno did maybe have a better life in the akademiya but he was still surveilled and treated like a lab rat and discriminated and isolated until he met tighnari
sorry for this little rant. I still appreciate everything cyrus did for cyno but I think this is also an important part of his very flawed character and ideals. in the end of the quest it even felt like he was manipulating cyno by showing him the photos which he “miraculously” found again showing him “look who raised and took you in”
Sorry I just saw this! First, please never apologize for sending me long asks, I love them! Also congratulations anon, I successfully had to log onto tumblr on my PC to type out this response lol. This is... very long, longer than your ask. I'm so sorry, this is the first post I've made with my thoughts on the quest, so it's going to be a bit of a ramble in return and probably not totally coherent.
Okay, so, full disclosure, I am super white. I mean I look like Barbie sort of white. That means that I don't think I can have any constructive input on the trope (arguably cliché) of middle eastern and BIPOC+Asian characters giving away (or selling, in Cyno's case) their children, so I will definitely defer to your discomfort with the concept. It's definitely a pervasive trope (see: Collei, Dehya, Cyno) and not just in Genshin Impact. It's something that is absolutely worth bringing up and thinking about, and I bet most people didn't even consider it, so thank you for voicing it as something you've noticed! Because of this, I don't feel comfortable talking about whether or not Cyrus should have looked for Cyno's parents, because it's very wrapped up in the narrative vs the damage of the trope, which has a lot to dissect and would be better done by somebody more educated.
As for the quest, I think I've gotta split this into two parts to have my thoughts make sense. God this is so long.
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First, as a basis, the whole thing with Hermanubis is actually so fucked up from the start even before we can get to Cyrus and Cyno. I mean Hermanubis was an advisor to King Deshret, right? (Also that was two-thousand years ago, but he only died five-hundred years ago? Did I misunderstand that? Was he immortal? The timeline in this game could use an entirely different post because between Cyno and the Hearth kids it makes zero sense, but ANYWAYS-). Presumably, having witnessed this, Hermanubis knows the danger of Forbidden Knowledge and fucking with things that should not be fucked with.
After the fall of Tulaytullah, the Temple of Silence moved to the rain forest but left due to corruption, right? So you'd think they would have agreed on the basic Cardinal Sins of the Akademiya. But now, four hundred years later, the Temple of Silence's attempt to ressurect Hermanubis breaks at least one of those sins (tampering with life and death), and arguably two more (interfering with human evolution and/or attempting the forbidden and fearing none.) I really can't imagine Hermanubis would be happy with their actions. This is like the Akademiya trying to ressurect Rukkadevata (and boy do I have a fic I want to write that digs into those parallels of Cyno and Nahida.)
The very basis for the experiment they did on Sethos and Cyno is so unethical and corrupt. This killed adults so they thought, hey! It's not going to kill the children, right? Lets do it on them despite the negative effects (headaches and fevers). Bamoun's children even volunteered Sethos, which, again, is so fucked up.
Narratively, the quest didn't focus on this at all. It was never framed as something negative or messed up like you'd think it would be? I imagine it's because they didn't want to paint Bamoun and Cyrus as bad people or Sethos as indoctrinated. (What's interesting to me is how differently some situation are treated vs others in different quests. Arguably, Wriothesley, Arlecchino, and Cyno have parts in common that are condemned to totally different extents depending on the character, but that could be it's own post too).
We can talk about Cyrus taking Cyno and whether or not that was a good decision (removing children from their culture is never a good thing but we'll get to that) but we also can't really get into it without first talking about how the entire thing was absolutely horrid and wrong from the start. We're starting the conversation about Cyrus from a remarkably low place.
Okay, onto Cyrus and the quest. I actually think it's okay that Cyrus is a flawed character. We already knew he was super strict when he was teaching Lisa and Cyno, and we knew he was into some unethical shit since we already knew he was part of the experiments on Cyno, albeit not to this extent. (Also Naphis knows all about this so what does that say about him? All the Sages are so sus, but, I mean, isn't that just government?)
Here's the thick of it. Was Cyrus taking Cyno to the rain forest a good decision? I don't know. We just don't know enough about why he left and took Cyno. The quest didn't frame the action one way or the other, nor did it give the reasons he left or Bamoun didn't go after him.
There's generally three ways to frame this. 1. Cyrus was a saviour for taking Cyno from an abusive environment. 2. Cyrus was awful and stole Cyno's power for himself. I don't think either of these make sense, since in either case, I think Bamoun would have gone after them. I think most likely is 3. There were conflicting needs.
The one I'm leaning towards right now is that The Temple of Silence was desperate and willing to push harder than they should, even if it was going to harm the children, so as an outsider with a different perspective and more objectivity, Cyrus stopped the experiment. He knew Sethos wasn't at risk of being harmed nearly as much as Cyno because Sethos had a family there already looking out for him. Cyno didn't. People care less about a child who isn't part of their community vs one who is. So he took the child who was far more likely to be harmed, and left. Taking Sethos would have been even worse than just taking Cyno, imo, since it would be taking Sethos away from his family, whereas Cyno was already taken from his family. Bamoun realized the same thing in hindsight, which is why he let Cyrus and Cyno go. But again, that's just a headcanon about what happened.
As for the rest of the problem. While as previously mentioned, I'm very white, I'm also Canadian (I promise this is relevant). A bit of Canadian history here for those who might not know, Canada once had something called Residential Schools. These were boarding school for indigenous children who were forcibly taken from their parents to be "educated." There was a lot of abuses in them and I cannot over represent the amount of damage it has done to the indigenous peoples of Canada and the country as a whole, but the main reason I bring it up here is because of the way the government tried to kill indigenous culture through their children. While I don't think this was Cyrus' intent at all, it is a real world example very close to my heart of the damage it does to children to be cut off from their cultures. We see it in fostering and adopting children as well. Indigenous foster children are best kept with indigenous foster families when at all possible. Foster parents are told to try their best to keep their foster children connected to their cultures in the home but that isn't always achieved, nor is there always even an effort made. Mixed race families often practice both cultures with their children because know how important it is.
The fact that Cyno was completely cut off from the desert is wrong, and it would have been very difficult for him to face the discrimination for being a race that he has no cultural connection to. It's something Cyrus absolutely should have done more about. I mean The Corps of Thirty are eremites even if they aren't from the desert! Cyrus could have reached out to them on Cyno's behalf to introduce him to people who share cultural aspects (young!Dehya and Cyno friendship anyone?). He could have taken Cyno to Aaru Village (young Candace and Cyno friendship?) or at least spent time in Caravan Ribat. The only reasons I can think he didn't is because he was trying to keep Cyno away from the Temple of Silence out of fear they'd come after him (well intentioned but still harmful), he didn't think about it (obliviously harmful), he didn't have the time (willfully neglectful).
Cyrus also absolutely should have told Cyno about The Temple of Silence and Hermanubis, especially when he got a little older (although I'm for raising children with that sort of knowledge. Secrets only hurt later). Assume best intentions, he was pprobably trying to protect Cyno, maybe because he wanted Cyno to find his own path instead of the one the Temple of Silence laid out for him, but I still think that was a mistake to keep it a secret.
Cyrus is a very flawed person, but so are a lot of parents. That doesn't mean that his actions were right or justified, but it does make him an interesting character. It also makes his relationship with Cyno interesting. Canonically, Cyno isn't angry. He's already struggled and come to terms with who he is and what his power means, but I still think he and Cyrus need to sit down and have a long conversation. Cyno deserves answers about Cyrus' motives and decisions and they need to talk about Cyrus trying to protect Cyno vs Cyno not needing that protection, ways Cyrus should have acted differently, etc. I'd love to see somebody explore it; it would be interesting to see since it's definitely overdue, but I don't think I could do it justice.
I don't think it's wrong of Cyno to forgive Cyrus. We as the outside observer can say, "whoa, that's fucked up," but I don't think Cyno is necessarily wrong in how he feels. Like I said, he's already dealt with a lot of this already and is remarkably resilient. I think the hardest part of all this for Cyno would probably be Sethos, because that's definitely going to be a ton of messy emotions, but that doesn't have to reflect on Cyrus. It could, of course, and if somebody wanted to write Cyno as being angry and fracturing their relationship, that would be a valid way to go, but like, idk, I know a lot of people who made really bad decisions when raising their kids, and their kids still forgave them. Not always, and being a parent doesn't mean somebody deserves forgiveness for their mistakes, but I think it shows how resilient Cyno is that he bounces back from this so well. It shows his strength in his how convictions and beliefs, which is really interesting when compared to characters like Sethos and Kaeya (and man are there a lot of similarities between Cyno and Kaeya).
I also don't think finding those photos was intended to be Cyrus manipulating Cyno, but I can see how it feels that way. Since the quest was about Cyno, it felt like a nice narrative way to tie it together by reflecting on Cyno's childhood with Cyrus, but I think it really depends on how you view the entire situation and whether you think Cyrus should have taken Cyno. It's definitely a valid take and something that's okay to feel uncomfortable about.
This is where people might disagree with me, but Cyno grew up loved. He had a lot of challenges and Cyrus made a lot of mistakes, and love doesn't fix how fucked up it all is (lots of adopted kids are loved and still hurt by not having a connection to their culture), but Cyno has already accepted all of this and ultimately, he has forgiven Cyrus for his mistakes. I think that's what the photos were trying to depict.
To me, the entire quest does a very good job of using Cyno and Sethos as foils of each other. They're both paying for the decisions of the people who raised them, and neither are right or wrong, just different. It shows Cyno's growth as a person vs Sethos who hasn't yet found his way. It shows that neither Cyrus or Bamuon made the right decisions, nor were they evil people. They were doing the best they could at the time, and they both fucked up, and now it's up to Sethos and Cyno to figure it out, but they both still love their family despite whatever mistakes were made.
I hope this rambling essay length response is satisfying lol
#genshin#cyno#professor cyrus#cyno & cyrus#cyrus posting#em talks#asks#cyno story quest spoilers#genshin spoilers#Lupus Aureus Chapter 2#Lupus Aureus Chapter 2 spoilers
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your general cyno headcanons?
Cyno Head-Canons (in general)
Firstly, sorry this took so long but I wanted to play and inhale all the lore from Lupus Aureus Chapter 2 before I share my Cyno head-canons to not say things that dont make any sense with his lore (or to repeat stuff that his lore already confirmed)
Secondly, omg, I never thought somebody would actually request head-canons but I'm happy somebody did. I don't know where to start but :3
Thirdly, I'd like to add that things mentioned here are NOT canon. Head-Canons are what one imagines to be "canon" for a character/series but is not (obviously some head-canons can become reality if it is later confirmed by the creators but that chance is soooo low, so don't see this as anything canon even if most of it might be based on canon in-game events)
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I'll throw some minor and short points at you before I go into detail about some Head-Canons I have... >-<
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Cyno's a complete workaholic and nobody can stop him
Cyrus and Cyno act like "Student and Professor" when in public but they call each other "Dad/Father" and "Son" in private
When Cyno is stressed out he'd chew on his nails or pull on the skin of his lips without even noticing
He can swim, but he dislikes water if it's too deep for him to stand in safely
Cyno, at least once in his life, encouraged Collei to do something plainly stupid
If he fears something, it's Tighnari's or Cyrus' wrath
If he ever ecountered the deepest emotional low ever, he'd cut off his hair to cope with it
He's a calm drunk: If he's drunk, he's completely quiet, just minds his own business and gets really sleepy
Taj is like an uncle to him; when Taj had died, it hit Cyno harder than one would think and he cried in his room and at Taj's grave on ungodly hours so nobody would see
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Now, I present to you things I think about at 3AM when I can't sleep:
Cyno is Collei's father figure / adoptive father
Cyno adopted Collei at some point, in my opinion. He takes care of her, visits her and I'm sure she means a lot to him as well. For everybody that hasn't read the official Genshin Impact Manga: Cyno was the one to seal the Archon Residue in Collei and took her to Sumeru so she could fullfil her dream to cure Eleazar. They also have a lot in common and I think Cyno sees a younger version of himself in Collei and he's so proud of her to see her grow and live her life.
Cyno was bullied as a kid
Knowing that Cyno grew up in the Academiya after Cyrus took him in and that scholars don't think all too good about people from the desert, I think Cyno received a lot of mean comments during his time as a scholar. Canonically, the matra are also not treated kindly by the scholars, but since Cyno is an adult now and seemingly unbothered, even fancies what the scholars say, he just learnt how to deal with the comments...
Lisa and Candace are "big sister" figures to Cyno
Cyno and Lisa seem to be very close, especially with their connection to Cyrus. I like to think that Cyno sees Lisa as his older sister and she also sees him as her younger brother, mostly taken from how they interact with each other in the official Genshin Impact Manga, Lisa trusts him and Cyrus from the Academiya the most.
Candace meanwhile just acts overly sisterly towards him, she worries about him, looks after him and scolds him if he does something reckless. They just give off "big sister-young brother" vibes from how they've behaved around each other during the Sumeru Archon Quest and the Lupus Aureus Acts.
Cyno has Lichtenberg Scars on his arms
If you don't know what Lichtenberg Scars are: Those scars are inflicted by lightening strikes and look like tree branches. Hermanubis himself also had Electro powers or powers that inflicted lightening, therefore I also think that this applies to both Cyno and Sethos
Childhood Trauma
This is the point where I bring up the things Collei and Cyno have in common. Both were sold or given away to somebody by their parents; Collei was given away to the Fatui and Cyno was sold to the Temple of Silence as vessle. They've both been used for experiments and most likely endured painful experiences + they were severly sick in their childhood as Collei suffered from Eleazar and it's symptoms while Cyno suffered headaches, fevers and probably some minor injuries he can't remember. As Cyno said himself that not everybody could probably endure what he and Sethos had to go through, I believe he meant both physical and mental pain which explains why he lost so much memory from the time at the Temple - it was his mind, perhaps even Hermanubis, protecting Cyno from the upleasant and traumatic events he endured during that time (that is called "dissociative amnesia"). I also believe that little Cyno (and Sethos) must've been terrified during that time and it mustve been hard for older Cyno still, probably even after Cyrus took him to the academiya.
Cynari (Cyno x Tighnari, yes, the ship, skip this if you want <3)
Inhales - I don't think I need to explain that canonically speaking Cyno and Tighnari have multiple times described themselves as their best friends. No, you dont have to like the ship and nor do you have to agree with the ship since it is NOT CANON, hoyoverse can't and won't put any same sex romantic relationships or general romantic relationships between playable characters into their games anyway for obvious reasons, the most they will do is hint at them like they do with Xingqiu and Chongyun or Ningguang and Beidou (the characters are written that way to leave us imagining, not to confirm anything). However, I'd like to think that they are in a loving relationship because of their chemistry and that both act as Collei's parents (Dads). I know this means nothing, but the way they worry for each other, care for each other, act towards each other and think about each other simply fuels my brain with "Look at those two idiots being in love".
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Honestly, I just wrote my mind because general head-canons take up a lot of my mind and I feel the need to explain myself so people understand what I mean or where I'm coming from ;-;
So, sorry for the wall of text, ehe.....
ERM!!! I'm free to discuss things in the replies or dms if you want!!
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