obviously I have to ask for jin guangyao ♥️

How I feel about this character:

I LOVE him. He’s one of my absolute favourite kinds of villains - where there are just so many shifting layers to him, so many different and contradictory truths swirling around each other and any number of them could be true at any given moment. I love how adept he is at spinning every situation to his advantage, even when he’s taken by surprise, and how quickly and seamlessly he can shift from “gloating and murderous” to “desperate and victimized.” I love the little nuances in body language and facial expression he has - the cold malice that gleams in his eyes when he tells Xue Yang to kill NMJ, but the way he flinches when the blow actually lands; the lil “fuck you” bow he gives his dad when he’s tossed out of Carp Tower; the campy cock of the head he always does when he’s Villain Monologuing. I love the pathos seeded through his storyline, even in little moments (like when his dad won’t let him hold baby Jin Ling). I love how much he relishes murder... it’s extremely good. And I love how much credibility and sympathy he’s actually granted in the temple scene (as opposed to being immediately shut down by the other characters). 

And I also love his musical skills! It’s not everybody who can make a seamless musical arrangement to disguise an agitating song as a soothing song!

All the people I ship romantically with this character:

Xichen!!! The manipulation! The betrayal! I’ve mentioned this to you already, and it’s @coldwind-shiningstars who originally brought it up (to give credit for observation), but the fact that their story ends with LXC stabbing JGY, and then JGY saving Xichen’s life, even though given their characters you’d think it be the exact opposite. Poetic cinema *chef’s kiss*

And they just have so many cute little moments in between! The little bowing ritual they have! The fact that in the confrontation with NMJ at Nightless City, there’s a shot of JGY clutching the back of Xichen’s robes as he cowers behind him. The guqin flirting! 

Given his last words to Xichen, I do think JGY genuinely did care for him. And I think it frightened him, because he knows caring for someone is a liability, and makes him vulnerable. So there’s some nice delicious conflictedness there. 

JGY/NHS is also a very very good messed up ship and pleases me greatly. And while I don’t think JGY cared about Huaisang in the same way that he did Xichen, I do think he believed that Huaisang wasn’t a threat, and so didn’t mind indulging him a considerable amount. And the way he spits out Nie Huaisang’s name upon discovering his betrayal makes it sound as though he was genuinely shocked by it. 

(The Terrible Threesome of LXC/JGY/NHS is not, I should clarify, strictly a “triad” in its construction; it’s more like LXC/JGY+JGY/NHS. That said, in my headcanon-verse, there is a nonzero chance that they all ended up in bed together at least once.)

Oh and also, very very guilty JGY/Xue Yang hookup pls and thank you.  

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Do I.... have any relationships of his that I’m invested in that don’t involve sex in some way....? 

(Possibly NMJ, but I am, mmm, disappointed with the way NMJ’s prejudices get the better of him in a tense moment, and tbhhhh I’m not entirely convinced JGY’s feelings about that dynamic didn’t have a sexual tinge to them.... whoops)

My unpopular opinion about this character:

I feel like just, unabashedly loving him miiight be unpopular? But then again I don’t have a good sense of how villain-policey this fandom is. 

The opinion that he cared for Xichen might be unpopular, I suppose. 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

The part in the book you wrote about wrt his mom’s body/the general backstory of how he owned the temple would have vastly improved the temple arc in those last few episodes on top of providing some more depth to him. Do wish we got more of his mom/his relationship to his mom in general, though I’m not thrilled about having another dead mother.