here's another thing
Sep. 3rd, 2013 11:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oneinfiveAS BEFORE I was rambling at Terra at work today instead of working (inbetween working!) and wrote a thing about Nikolas and I am sharing it! Now!! Or at least stuffing it here for posterity.
Like before this is completely informal and not at all formatted so apologies for a lot of no caps or ALL CAPS and the like.
Anyway I was going to essay on his relationship with Gilbert and about half of it (the second half) is that, but the first half is about his dodgy cagey "I'm not a good servant/friend/I'm a liferuiner" bullshit he does in threads a lot!
I'll save this for Boxy for later too lol
OKAY
I AM LIKE 99% SURE NIKOLAS WILL COME TO LOVE GIL which is not the same as being IN LOVE with Gil, which is probably not going to be a thing.
for one thing. I think Nikolas is that guy who would genuinely love all of his friends because he has so few and he really relies on them when he's able to make and keep one
and he also sees himself as a burden for that reason. that's part of his whole complex about being clingy
he's aware that he's a mess who needs a lot of support and really cannot offer much in return and he doesn't like that about himself. (hence his mini freakout in Winter's room about IT WAS A MISTAKE TO COME HERE I'M BURDENING YOU)
(as you know. since you wrote it lol)
this is actually kind of worse in Court because people he meets have way shittier lives than he had and he's kind of like WELP
YEAH I WAS ABUSED AND NEGLECTED AND FUCKED UP AND I HAVE SOME DEAD FAMILY ISSUES AND I DON'T WANT TO BE THE GREAT AVIS
BUT I GUESS YOU'RE THE LAST SURVIVING MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY AND WERE AN ABUSED CHILD SOLDIER?!
or OKAY I GUESS YOU'RE AN IMMORTAL WHO HAD TO CUT OFF YOUR OWN ARM TO BREAK A CONTRACT AND YOU SPENT DECADES IN THE ABYSS AND LOST ALL YOUR MEMORIES?!
and he's totally not equipped to support people through that shit other than . . . by having sex with them really to help them forget it's a thing . . . which is kind of awkward and unhealthy but hey it works!!
anyway that all just sort of feeds into his whole. being a user/seeing himself as a user and whatever Nikolas Avis uses, he also abuses
even though that's not what he wants it's just kind of. "I need to get my own shit together before I can help anyone else but I need help to get my shit together, this is kind of awful for other people"
THE THING IS. that he doesn't realize it but he actually does help and is good for people sometimes!
Nikolas doesn't realize this. he PROBABLY WILL eventually and if/when he does that's going to be . . . pretty dere and amazing for him
oh my god I wasn't just a leech on someone's life?!
anyway because of those complexes he is intensely grateful of whatever friends he does have and make and he doesn't take them for granted (he forces himself not to because he knows his natural compulsion is to kind of do exactly that and he knows it's unhealthy)
and I do think he's that guy who really deeply loves his friends like family once they manage to get past all the hurdles of navigating how fucked up he is and not get driven away by him, or come out of it feeling like it's an uneven relationship
OKAY THAT WAS PART 1. PART 2 WILL BE MORE ABOUT GILBERT
for Gil specifically. Gil is really good for him and is the closest thing he has right now to a normal healthy friend who isn't either like completely entangled in intensity, or still several walls shielded from him, etc.
and he is good for Gil too which he doesn't realize yet but that will probably eventually come! and that will be a huge thing for him
the thing with Gilbert is that he's panicking less than he would in a similar situation with someone else because he can take refuge in their life circumstances and that's making things easier.
like during the roleplay event thing. THEY HAD REALLY EXTREMELY FEELINGSY DERE SEX AND IT WAS COMPLETELY AWESOME
and after it he was a little bit like o__o
but at the same time. he's completely in love with Winter and he knows it
and Gil is completely in love with Hatter and/or Oz and he knows THAT
so there is this core there of "okay that felt amazing and it was definitely something different, but I do KNOW I'm not in love with him because I'm in love with Winter and it is definitely not the same feeling, and I do know he's not in love with ME because he's in love with these other people and he doesn't seem to treat me the same way either"
and there's refuge in that! he's not entirely sure what happened between them there but he can know it wasn't being in love! and anything else is a little bewildering and new but it's not a panic trigger so he can handle it mostly, other than being a little HA HA! FWIPPY! deflecting about it
but at much more of a minimum level than he would be in a situation where he was actually concerned he was developing Feelings.
(he is a little more tweaked about accepting the panic button actually than the SUPER FEELS SEX because the panic button is much more directly "here is a device that will allow you to become a burden on me if you so choose")
he IS developing Feelings but they're not "falling in love" and honestly he just sort of has preemptively shoved away the very idea of that because lol falling in love with men who are in love with other men. LOL NO THANKS NOT AGAIN.
(plus he is such a man himself. so.)
and it doesn't seem like Gil is having that problem either. so it's just completely off the table
and the fact that it's completely off the table and he's able to have some distance from that fear is what's allowed him to start accepting Gil as like A TRUSTED FRIEND AND FUN TO HANG WITH and his skittishness about THAT is a completely different thing but still mmmmostly in check for now
tl;dr Nikolas totally comes to love his friends which is still pretty intense for him and he's still twitchy and worried about it and doesn't want to burden them with that when he knows his brand of love can be a little overwhelming and one-sided
but he has a nice shield in place when it comes to actual "in love" feelings with Gil or anyone else, so he's managing to keep himself pretty controlled even when stuff like Feelings Conversations or Feelings Sex happens
without slipping into LOVE PANIC!! because he knows well enough to know that's not it.
Like before this is completely informal and not at all formatted so apologies for a lot of no caps or ALL CAPS and the like.
Anyway I was going to essay on his relationship with Gilbert and about half of it (the second half) is that, but the first half is about his dodgy cagey "I'm not a good servant/friend/I'm a liferuiner" bullshit he does in threads a lot!
I'll save this for Boxy for later too lol
OKAY
I AM LIKE 99% SURE NIKOLAS WILL COME TO LOVE GIL which is not the same as being IN LOVE with Gil, which is probably not going to be a thing.
for one thing. I think Nikolas is that guy who would genuinely love all of his friends because he has so few and he really relies on them when he's able to make and keep one
and he also sees himself as a burden for that reason. that's part of his whole complex about being clingy
he's aware that he's a mess who needs a lot of support and really cannot offer much in return and he doesn't like that about himself. (hence his mini freakout in Winter's room about IT WAS A MISTAKE TO COME HERE I'M BURDENING YOU)
(as you know. since you wrote it lol)
this is actually kind of worse in Court because people he meets have way shittier lives than he had and he's kind of like WELP
YEAH I WAS ABUSED AND NEGLECTED AND FUCKED UP AND I HAVE SOME DEAD FAMILY ISSUES AND I DON'T WANT TO BE THE GREAT AVIS
BUT I GUESS YOU'RE THE LAST SURVIVING MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY AND WERE AN ABUSED CHILD SOLDIER?!
or OKAY I GUESS YOU'RE AN IMMORTAL WHO HAD TO CUT OFF YOUR OWN ARM TO BREAK A CONTRACT AND YOU SPENT DECADES IN THE ABYSS AND LOST ALL YOUR MEMORIES?!
and he's totally not equipped to support people through that shit other than . . . by having sex with them really to help them forget it's a thing . . . which is kind of awkward and unhealthy but hey it works!!
anyway that all just sort of feeds into his whole. being a user/seeing himself as a user and whatever Nikolas Avis uses, he also abuses
even though that's not what he wants it's just kind of. "I need to get my own shit together before I can help anyone else but I need help to get my shit together, this is kind of awful for other people"
THE THING IS. that he doesn't realize it but he actually does help and is good for people sometimes!
Nikolas doesn't realize this. he PROBABLY WILL eventually and if/when he does that's going to be . . . pretty dere and amazing for him
oh my god I wasn't just a leech on someone's life?!
anyway because of those complexes he is intensely grateful of whatever friends he does have and make and he doesn't take them for granted (he forces himself not to because he knows his natural compulsion is to kind of do exactly that and he knows it's unhealthy)
and I do think he's that guy who really deeply loves his friends like family once they manage to get past all the hurdles of navigating how fucked up he is and not get driven away by him, or come out of it feeling like it's an uneven relationship
OKAY THAT WAS PART 1. PART 2 WILL BE MORE ABOUT GILBERT
for Gil specifically. Gil is really good for him and is the closest thing he has right now to a normal healthy friend who isn't either like completely entangled in intensity, or still several walls shielded from him, etc.
and he is good for Gil too which he doesn't realize yet but that will probably eventually come! and that will be a huge thing for him
the thing with Gilbert is that he's panicking less than he would in a similar situation with someone else because he can take refuge in their life circumstances and that's making things easier.
like during the roleplay event thing. THEY HAD REALLY EXTREMELY FEELINGSY DERE SEX AND IT WAS COMPLETELY AWESOME
and after it he was a little bit like o__o
but at the same time. he's completely in love with Winter and he knows it
and Gil is completely in love with Hatter and/or Oz and he knows THAT
so there is this core there of "okay that felt amazing and it was definitely something different, but I do KNOW I'm not in love with him because I'm in love with Winter and it is definitely not the same feeling, and I do know he's not in love with ME because he's in love with these other people and he doesn't seem to treat me the same way either"
and there's refuge in that! he's not entirely sure what happened between them there but he can know it wasn't being in love! and anything else is a little bewildering and new but it's not a panic trigger so he can handle it mostly, other than being a little HA HA! FWIPPY! deflecting about it
but at much more of a minimum level than he would be in a situation where he was actually concerned he was developing Feelings.
(he is a little more tweaked about accepting the panic button actually than the SUPER FEELS SEX because the panic button is much more directly "here is a device that will allow you to become a burden on me if you so choose")
he IS developing Feelings but they're not "falling in love" and honestly he just sort of has preemptively shoved away the very idea of that because lol falling in love with men who are in love with other men. LOL NO THANKS NOT AGAIN.
(plus he is such a man himself. so.)
and it doesn't seem like Gil is having that problem either. so it's just completely off the table
and the fact that it's completely off the table and he's able to have some distance from that fear is what's allowed him to start accepting Gil as like A TRUSTED FRIEND AND FUN TO HANG WITH and his skittishness about THAT is a completely different thing but still mmmmostly in check for now
tl;dr Nikolas totally comes to love his friends which is still pretty intense for him and he's still twitchy and worried about it and doesn't want to burden them with that when he knows his brand of love can be a little overwhelming and one-sided
but he has a nice shield in place when it comes to actual "in love" feelings with Gil or anyone else, so he's managing to keep himself pretty controlled even when stuff like Feelings Conversations or Feelings Sex happens
without slipping into LOVE PANIC!! because he knows well enough to know that's not it.
