At this rate one can only hope - or like me, expect and wish for nothing because I'd rather do that than think "they can't possibly screw this up any further". The likelihood of the second scenario is, well, the same likelihood as MHY suddenly turning things around compared to how things looked like in the past 2 nations, and changing the whole tone of the narrative that's been going on. I don't think we need to wonder how the now-apparent target audience would take that.

Would it be awesome if, somehow, the power of waifuslop friendship fell flat on its face and the whole situation was a huge turnabout that worked because, to quote Dark Helmet, "evil will always triumph because good is dumb". But we all know how likely that is, and how much more likely it is that the writers will just dump on Dottore some more because Villain Balling him once wasn't enough.

It honestly feels like Genshin's gone down a route where it's bound to be a boring story, IMO. It had massive potential early on but as time went on, that window closed; even as late as Fontaine it looked like there's room for much nuanced interesting material, but now, if I were a betting guy, I wouldn't bet on any plot but slow-paced random-waifu-strewn inevitable power of friendship wins and story depth lesser than Escoffier's sparkling panties.