THANK YOU CHEWY 🩷 I love him a lot and just like in canon I really do think I understand him in a way no one else does. I think he's quite misinterpreted as a character and often dumbed down to being the silly crazy clown in love with fyodor, which? Is sadly pretty ironic. You'd think a character who's already so misunderstood in the source material would be treated with more care and attention by so called fans. It's okay, though. This just makes me like him more. If I'm the only one who understands him then I'm the only one who can genuinely love him, right?

I like dissecting his brain... I think people tend to see him as thoughtless or carefree because of the persona he acts out, which? Just. Isn't true at all 😭. I think it's kind of funny because that's the reasom he gives to his victims on why he commits such horrible crimes. But like. If a person were to understand the process behind his motivations at all they'd understand he's, like, just the opposite of thoughtless or carefree.

What he wants is to be free of all forms of control; emotions, morality, rationality, instinct, everything. It's why he joined the Decay, not because he finds cruelty thrilling, but because he's repulsed by it. By all means of rationality, a person wouldn't willingly engage with something they find repulsive. He knows that! He acts directly against this rationality.

Now. I don't know about you but that sounds like the opposite of carefree and maniacal. It sounds like he cares a lot. What's ironic is that his trying to escape all this is pointless. He's desperately trying to prove something to himself that just can't happen. I really liked that point in the manga where he was talking about his free will in front of others, yet he was. Being controlled. by The Page to say it!!! Everytime I reread that chapter I kind of pull my hair and and sob the poor thing. He tries not to be controlled by anything but I don't think he'll ever escape his "cage."

He's also alone. For obvious reasons. Nobody gets how this guy fucking thinks. I think this actually helped him a bit with his "freedom" since there's no emotional attachment to anyone and hence nobody in particular influencing his judgement. But then Fyodor comes in and says "Splendid. In opposition to God, you are fighting to lose sight of yourself" and actually might I mention Nikolai was never actually that close with Fyodor but this changed everything for him.

And actually I mean Nikolai cares for Fyodor but I think he cares more for what Fyodor represents to him. Before Fyodor turned out to be the rizzler in disguise he was planning to kill himself because going against your natural instinct to live is the ultimate act of free will... But now he's attached to someone. And nobody in their right mind would willingly kill the one person they care about. But that emotional attachment is a form of control... So wouldn't killing Fyodor... be... the ultimate act... of free will...

And what I really like is how Nikolai reacted to Fyodor's "death." HE'S SO CONFLICTED? And he isn't free. That's just tragic. He said "Now all I want, is just..." and it doesn't matter what he wants really so much as the fact that he wants at all. He wanted to kill Fyodor to prove himself free, but he isn't free. at all. In fact the emotions that kept him from being free, that he was to rid himself of when he killed Fyodor, are stronger than ever

I feel like I sound like a lunatic hopefully this makes sense and I didn't say the same things over and over again. I was stuck earlier but I went out for a bike ride and suddenly it's all come to me. There's your 5 paragraphs TLDR I LOVE NIKOLAI GOGOL. he is my darling husband