It’s wonderful to hear from you again! It means a lot that you would read these works, and I appreciate your thoughts on Nietzsche. Indeed, I just turned in a paper on Nietzsche to Dr. Cadell Last precisely on connecting Nietzsche to “self-mastery,” which will be featured in the Anthology to be published in 2023. If you get a chance, you can find my presentation, “The Overman and the Allegory of the Cave: The Problem of Intrinsic Motivation and Living as the Children of Zarathustra,” here (but please feel no pressure to give it a listen):

https://philosophyportal.online/thus-spoke-zarathustra-2022

I think Book 5 of The Gay Science is uniquely useful for determining Nietzsche’s overall projects against “bestow centrism” (as I call it), which indeed aligns Nietzsche with Hegel. I agree that Nietzsche doesn’t lead to authoritarianism, as I think is very clear in Book 5. Anyway, it’s always great to hear from you, and thank you!