Nick is fucking amazing and hits that threshold with me because it’s perfectly fucking clear that he’s alienating EVERYONE except for a few bad faith grifters like mapton, and he still has not had the lucid moment where it occurs to him that his shit isn’t working.
It’s amazing and terrifying how profoundly disordered Nick is. It doesn’t matter to me if the root cause is affluenza or a bad turn of a gene, the result is the same. He continually exceeds our expectations for the maximum level of stupid a breathing human being ought to be capable of, and so I am comfortable calling that a disorder
I think Nick might realize (some) of his mistakes in moments of lucidity, he's just too proud to admit it. The reason he doesn't unfuck himself is because he has the "okay, things have gone to shit, but I can fix this" mentality due to a combination of personal pride and drug mania. This is an example of what I think his thought process might look like:
-"Okay, that cuck relationship with Aaron was a bad idea and he's ratted to the Kino Casino. How can I fix this? Wait, I have access to his email, and I can also make him look bad!"
-"Okay, a lot of people are still siding with Aaron and I've lost a lot of viewers, and the email thing might get me into hot water. I need an ally at a time like this. How can I fix this? I can use my relationship with Masterson for more clout, and a start a "dabbleverse" where we shit on Aaron as a lolcow, therefore getting me my views AND discrediting Aaron!"
-"Okay, the dabbleverse guys are treating me like a pet retard, and they're all a bunch of losers too, which makes me look bad. How can I fix this? I'll just ride it out, do law reviews, try to be the top dog, then put this all behind me once I have my popularity back."
[Disclaimer, the above is not 100% accurate to Rekieta lore, but I think it gets my point across]
Without giving TMI, I've had a similar mentality at some point in my life. The mix of desperation and pride creates a head space where you think you can find a way out and back to normalcy without taking a hit, but really you just end up digging your hole even deeper. It's a constant swing between panic, desperation and hope.
Of course, without lying him down on a therapist couch (preferably with a lie detector attached to him) we can't know his exact thought process, what he's self-aware of and unable to fix, and what he's not-so-blissfully unaware of.
Oh and he's definetly NPD too, the DSM describes his behavior very well