I am SO insane about Genshin lore

To also go "Ehhh, I think I'll require some humans to die for me if they want me to bother getting up."

Even in his ambivalent-to-life post-Cataclysm daze, we know that Flins deeply valued his past human companion(s), and--in fact--that it was the loss of these human companion(s) that drove him into despair in the first place. I just can't see anything in his characterization that justifies interpreting him as a character who would willingly use spells requiring other people, especially innocent humans, to be harmed for his sake.

To me, this is like headcanoning Baizhu as someone who would sacrifice other people to gain his own immortality. That's just not... the point of the character...? Like, Flins has always, always been the type of character to take harm onto himself in order to avoid even remotely inconveniencing others. Viewing him as someone willing to exact a blood price just to grace the world with his presence feels so completely antithetical to who this character is... 😭

I'm much more inclined to think that the ancient seals Flins set up were designed to only be broken by incredibly powerful magic--but that it just so happens that human will is, in fact, one of the most powerful "magics" in all of Teyvat, the driver of fate and the force that draws the gazes of gods and monsters alike. Seeing such a sacrifice, such an intense will to live and plea for aid, there's no way Flins could have stayed ambivalent and kept sleeping even if he wanted to. But the circumstance "ritualistic bloodshed woke me up" does not automatically mean "I intended for someone to get slaughtered on my tombstone," and I'm continually confused about whether I'm enjoying the same character as other people when there are so many fans out there who seem convinced Flins is the kind of person who would ever say "Humanity will have to pay the price in blood if they want me to help them."

1- You should make Ineffa the main character of the fic. If you’re writing a fic that’s not about Ineffa at all and she’s only tagged because she briefly shows up in one chapter for about two paragraphs, you should change the entire premise of the fic to make it about Ineffa. Everything should have Ineffa as the main character I think (this is mostly unserious and I am simply biased about her and i want to read more stories about her)

2- Play The Journey Home. If you are unable or unwilling to do so for any reason, watch a playthrough of it somewhere. The full thing, every single line, without skimming/skipping dialogue (except for like, speeding things up). I’m serious. This quest is more important to understanding her character than like, playing every single Nod-Krai archon quest and reading all of her character stories+voicelines. Combined, perhaps. If you take away nothing else from this post at all, please just play/watch The Journey Home I promise it’s worth it

3- Consider how her identity affects her in the context of the fic. How does her perception of herself affect her? Does she consider herself a Dragonlord? Does she reject that identity? Does she want to learn more about her past, or does she want to run away from it? Does her core being a sovereign ruler affect her in this fic at all, or is it entirely irrelevant? (you should make it relevant. you should mention it multiple times and have it be important to the fic. then again, I am incredibly biased)

4- Make her a robot!! Make her resistant to some environments and entirely vulnerable in others (meant to be about the weather but. can be anything)!! She has gears and wires and circuits and drive rods and a bunch of other components inside her that are only compatible with each other because Aino is a genius! Her eyes glow and flicker for a bajillion different reasons and she can record things and her omnidirectional environment monitors (yes, that’s what the ear thingies on her head are called) tilt down when she powers off!! She does have a lot of humanlike characteristics and she does physically look like a human to some degree, but a lot of these things are only because 1- Aino specifically designed her to be like that and 2- Ineffa might just be observing and copying things from others, and doesn’t quite understand why people do the things they do.

5- Ineffa the Multifunction Robot for Domestic Applications has existed for probably less than two years, and the “malfunction” has existed for around 2000 years, but the vast majority of that time was spent wandering around what is now known as Nod-Krai without much stability or guidance, without anything to consider a “home” at all until she was reawakened and Aino built her. However, CL-11 Mirror of the Dawning Morn has existed a lot longer than that, and she probably knew an extensive amount about humans and how they act and how they lived their lives + how they’ve changed over the years, and there’s no way Ineffa simply forgot every single thing about her past. She has thousands of years worth of knowledge in her core, and she does need to get caught up on everything that exists in the modern-day, but it’s not like “Ineffa” woke up and knew absolutely nothing at all about anything beyond what information Aino specifically gave her.

6- This mostly applies to ship fics but can be about anything. When CL-11’s home was destroyed, and she had nothing left, the thoughts and emotions that resulted she perceived as a “malfunction” and tried to destroy. Yes it is probably more likely that Ineffa has learned to manage her emotions, but it is far more interesting to think about the idea of her actively trying to remove/suppress/avoid any thoughts and feelings she perceives as “illogical”. Unfortunately she cannot split herself in half again, so she just has to act in a way that is vastly different from the Ineffa we have seen so far.

7- Ineffa is a robot who is programmed to do things and was meant to follow commands, but her core is so advanced that she is fully sentient and self-aware of her existence, and has free will. I don’t have much else to say about this, just something to consider

8- Modern AUs. Unless if in this au it would make sense if Ineffa is a highly advanced sentient humanoid robot with a combat module, odds are she’s probably going to be a human. What I usually see happen is that Ineffa’s robotic aspects are equivalented as her being generally interested in robots/computers + her mannerisms of speaking may be similar to canon because. She likes talking like that for fun and/or she’s neurodivergent. Things like this do work to differentiate her from other characters! However, it would also be incredibly interesting if her being a dragonlord was also somehow adapted into the fic. Maybe she can’t be a dragon or an ai, but certainly at least her absolutely insane family structure and the chaos that is the dragonlords + xiuhcoatl could theoretically work in a modern au. Ineffa has a past and an identity that she has a complex relationship to and there are some fascinating ways she could have a fleshed-out backstory involving this. As for CL-11… my solution is to give Ineffa DID/OSDD. Ineffa wouldn’t be able to be a computer system, but she could still be a system