#Selfish and narcissistic are not synonymes

[eterosis]

Can we please denormalize using names of disorders or mental illnesses as adjectives for neurotypical/non mentally ill people

[neechees]

One of my least favorite overused, misused words is "gaslight" bc it's been so far removed from its original context & meaning that it doesn't even make sense.ive seen lots of people say "I've been gaslighting myself" when it is impossible to gaslight oneself, it has to occur between two people

[projectjasper]

lovelies, since we are dealing with some really messy messy bitches in ofts, i just want to remind everyone that english is a rich language with a variety of adjectives to describe people, and the usage of words which actually describe already incredibly stigmatised mental health issues is truly not necessary. sociopathic, psychopathic, narcissistic, psychotic, etc. truly just don't mean what you are trying to convey. usually simply googling the word followed by "synonyms" should give you a variety of more fitting descriptors.

[psychotic-tbh]

Stop saying…

“Psychotic/Schizophrenic” when you mean: unpredictable, unhinged, unreal, etc.

“Bipolar” when you mean: polarized, scattered, fickle, unstable, etc.

“Delusional” when you mean: unrealistic, unreasonable, close-minded, stubborn, etc.

“[insert “R” slur in relation to intellectual disabilities]” when you mean: unreasonable, unintelligent/ridiculous, immature, etc.

“OCD” when you mean: particular, neat, overbearing, etc.

“Narcissistic” when you mean selfish, abusive, manipulative, etc.

Note: I’m NOT saying that these are synonymous. This is also not an exhaustive list.

[ghostfacetheballfondler]

by the way. telling people to not use ableist language isn't silencing abuse victims or taking away their language.

narcissist abuse is just emotional abuse but with an ableist coat on it. i don't care if people don't think emotional abuse counts as real abuse, why not advocate for seeing emotional abuse as valid abuse instead? you are just playing into the "emotional abuse isn't real" crowd by saying narcissistic abuse instead.

and if you are advocating for narcissistic abuse to mean abuse at the hands of a narcissist and/or someone with npd(instead of it being a synonym for emotional abuse), then my question is why do we need a word for this? and there is no unique or special way for people with narcissists or pwnpd to abuse someone. because woah! would you look at that? it is just emotional abuse.

we live in a shitty ableist world which will use any excuse to harm those with mental disorders. i don't care if someone has the best intentions, i don't care if someone genuinely doesn't mean to implicate pwnpd when they talk about narcissistic abuse, it will still hurt us, so get over yourself and fucking stop.

and before the "narcissist doesn't equal npd!!" crowd comes in, i don't care about your language games, fuck off. but even if we accept that statement as true, people with npd will still get harmed by such language. npd and narcissism are and will always be linked to eachother. if you talk about the evils of narcissism, people will connect it with npd.

even if we change the name of npd it won't help. dissociative identity disorder is still widely known as multiple personality disorder. antisocial personality disorder is still widely known as socio/psychopathy. why would npd be any different?

(and idk. i think it is kinda shitty to be like "hey let's change the name of a disorder because i am too stubborn to say selfish instead of narcissist!!")

edit: if this wasn't clear, stop saying narcissistic abuse because it hurts pwnpd! you already have plain ol' abuse, emotional abuse, hell, even selfish abuse too! telling someone to stop saying narcissistic abuse isn't silencing anyone from talking about your abuse when you can literally just change one word and be fine! holy shit

[skinnfart]

as a narcissist, i'm tired of being demonized by the media. almost every time i open a social media app, i see a post demonizing narcissists by using "narcissist" as a synonym for "abuser" or as an insult. it's always about the feelings of the people who supposedly got abused by a narcissist. well, what about my feelings? i hate always thinking that i'm the best at everything and that i'm perfect. i hate that my only way of not emotionally collapsing is by receiving narcissistic supply all the time. i hate that i can never form real bonds with people because i don't care about their feelings and don't see them as their own person aside from the relationship they have with me. the list goes on. everyone's so obsessed with demonizing us and calling everyone who has ever treated them badly or is just selfish a narcissist that they forget we are real people with feelings who deserve to be heard too. please, do better.

[velvetvexations]

This is an edited version of something I posted to r/DaystromInstitute, a Star Trek sub. I'm proud of it and, having deleted my account, want to preserve it here.

Dukat is a fantastic example of Narcissitic Personality Disorder

I'm an individual with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It's very, extremely frustrating to see people claim everyone from Dolores Umbridge to Donald Trump also have NPD because they're like, just the worst. NPD doesn't mean "selfish", or "controlling", or even "self-absorbed", and certainly is not a synonym for abusive, despite all the self-help books that say sniping a narcissist who came within eight hundred yards of you is legally permissible under Stand Your Ground laws.

You might expect me to not be so appreciative of Dukat, who is, after all, a pretty horrible person. I actually have a worse opinion of Dukat's supposed nobility than many, as fairly often the fandom prefers to back the idea that he really was a misguided anti-villain who only succumbed to devil-worshipping when the writers assassinated his character.

Well, unfortunately, it's harder to recognize authentic NPD traits in heroes, and "recognize" is a term I use loosely, since most writers certainly didn't have NPD in mind at all. Nonetheless, I love Dukat because he exemplifies a nuanced, if not overly flattering, portrayal of a personality disorder that actual human beings deal with, and 99% of the time is just flattened into a thing you call people you don't like.

As a child, one thing that did a lot to mitigate the more negative social aspects of NPD was having it imprinted on my brain by anime and video games that being a Hero and as good as possible was the best thing to be. While praise and attention in general does scratch a powerful itch too, once my child-self internalized the values of the media I consumed - helped along by also being autistic - the standard for which I judged myself was set. I would literally cry if I accidentally picked up dark side points in a Star Wars game.

I think Dukat went through a similar process. Not all narcissists cling to a model centering morality, but Dukat, for one reason or another, did. He sincerely believes everything he does is altruistic and fair, and more than that, he wants to be altruistic and fair, having misidentified the origin of his cravings.

Another thing that helped me a lot growing up was a book called The Screwtape Letters. If you're unfamiliar, it's by CS Lewis and is presented as a series of letters from a high-ranked demon to his nephew, who works as essentially a shoulder devil attempting to guide his patient into sin and disconnection from God. I feel like Lewis would probably be annoyed with me not getting anything properly Christian out of it, but it is an amazing manual for teaching you how to examine your own thinking and subconscious impulses. It started me down a path of being very self-aware, which made it easier to navigate NPD, because I'm incapable of tolerating the flaws in my internal logic that I'm able to catch. If I may be excused for saying so, I think I do a decent job on that count, with the downside that I'm often far too hyper-critical and it results in regular anxiety.

But Dukat never learned that skill. As a result, his attempted nobility clashes with his other competing impulses, and all his actions are reinforced, rather than rejected, by his conscious, which his NPD assures him is being followed to the letter. As Lewis said:

The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point may be sated; and since he dimly knows he is doing wrong he may possibly repent. But the Inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely more because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations.

Dukat's inner struggle is fueled by the need to be a revered benefactor while also having served at the head of the bastard offspring of the Iraq War and Holocaust. His solution at the time was to make it more like the Second Boer War, the conflict that originally popularized the term "concentration camp" despite the fact that those concentration camps weren't even meant to eliminate the thousands that were killed in them.

DUKAT: So in my first official act as Prefect, I ordered all labour camp commanders to reduce their output quotas by fifty percent. Then I reorganized the camps themselves. Child labour was abolished. Medical care was improved. Food rations were increased. At the end of one month of my administration, the death rate had dropped by twenty percent. Now how did the Bajorans react to all this? On my one month anniversary they blew up an orbital dry-dock, killing over two hundred Cardassian soldiers and workers. "KIRA": We didn't want a reconciliation. We wanted to destroy you. DUKAT: So I had to order a response. But even then it was a carefully tempered one. I ordered two hundred suspected members of the Resistance rounded up and executed. Two hundred lives for two hundred lives. That's justice, not malevolence. Justice.

Throughout the episode the Kira hallucination embodies the disrespected and ingratitude he feels he gets for being "nice". Cardassian values, attitudes, and objectives came first. Dukat, however, was smart enough to understand some of what was being done to Bajor was wrong, but not quite able to tear himself away from his own identity as a Cardassian and the protagonist of the universe. That was just too much to totally upend, as would be required to fully comprehend the reality of the situation.

So he tries, in his own way. Because he wants to be a good guy, the hero, the main character, and he truly believes that he is. Unfortunately, it remains pointed solidly in the direction of his own ego. He's unable to recognize that to err is Cardassian, but repentance divine, because he's already invested in so much. His identity as a Cardassian, his own past actions, his impulsive grabs for power, and being convinced he's such a good man shields him from thinking critically because it would necessarily mean criticizing himself. Dukat can only truly appreciate that he's made mistakes when it makes him feel like he's being the bigger man willing to compromise and graciously admit fault, but he was in charge of the Occupation for twenty years. It's hard to walk back from that.

And I should know, because even understanding I'm the one at fault, it's pulling teeth to force myself through accepting I did wrong, much less admitting it to someone else. I don't want to be someone who fucked up, no matter how minor. Pulling teeth. Quite a lot of NPD can be described that way, in fact. While half-brained wannabee psychologists present narcissists as being sociopathic manipulators who skillfully terrorize those around them, most of NPD is horrible, chest-thumping anxiety. It's not fun at all to want to break my controller in half every single time I get got in a game of Splatoon, even when the round is far from over.

Most Cardassians involved with the Occupation seemed to be either outright monsters or falling under the "banality of evil", like Damar. They considered the Bajorans as, at best, a bunch of backwards hicks who needed to shut up and listen to their betters. Dukat, though, fetishized Bajor and the Bajorans themselves, as quite creepily seen in his string of Bajoran lovers and his dogged pursuit of Kira throughout the show (which horrifically took Nana Visitor putting her foot down to keep from being canon!). He pursed his tenure as head of the Occupation with the zeal of someone who truly wanted his subjects to see he was doing all this for their own good.

The Dominion and most other Cardassians don't give a fuck if your subjects like you except insofar as it's convenient and makes them less likely to rebel. That's the Dominion's whole thing, they just want control, and if the carrot doesn't work they'll shrug and without a hint of emotion give you the stick. It doesn't matter to them how they're in charge as long as they are. When Dukat makes his point about having only executed two-hundred (suspected!) members of the Resistance, the Weyoun hallucination comments:

"WEYOUN": The Dominion would never have been so generous.

It's telling that Dukat is fixated on the contrast between him and the people he allied with enough for it to show up in his breakdown. Just a little before that, Dukat says:

DUKAT: Major Kira knows full well I made every effort to heal the wounds between Cardassia and Bajor. Since the very beginning it was my intention to rectify the mistakes of the past and begin a new chapter in our relations.

Dukat is capable of saying, vaguely, abstractly, "mistakes were made", but it infuriates and honestly baffles him that it's not enough for him to be recognized as the most brilliant and loving extraterrestrial patriarch the Bajorans could ever wish for. In an earlier episode, he has this conversation with (the real) Weyoun:

WEYOUN: If you ask me, the key to holding the Federation is Earth. If there's going to be an organized resistance against us, its birthplace will be there. DUKAT: You could be right. WEYOUN: Then our first step is be to eradicate its population. It's the only way. DUKAT: You can't do that. WEYOUN: Why not? DUKAT: Because! A true victory is to make your enemy see they were wrong to oppose you in the first place. To force them to acknowledge your greatness. WEYOUN: Then you kill them? DUKAT: Only if it's necessary. WEYOUN: I had no idea. DUKAT: Perhaps the biggest disappointment in my life is that the Bajoran people still refuse to appreciate how lucky they were to have me as their liberator. I protected them in so many ways, cared for them as if they were my own children. But to this day, is there a single statue of me on Bajor? WEYOUN: I would guess not. DUKAT: And you'd be right. Take Captain Sisko, an otherwise intelligent, perceptive man. Even he refuses to grant me the respect I deserve.

Weyoun ends the scene laughing at Dukat. Because he was just advocating they exterminate all life on Earth, and yet he's amazed, truly stunned by how crackers Dukat is. The sheer depths of Dukat's psychological need for validation is as clinically fascinating to Weyoun as it is to the audience.

As it is to me, anyway. Like Narcissus and his pool, I peer into Dukat and see myself. Unsurprisingly, he's one of my favorite characters.

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

i’m just dropping by and i wanna rant a bit about just how much i hate that people have turned the word “narcissistic” into a synonym for toxic or abusive. even if we’re ignoring the ableism towards people with NPD (which we shouldn’t), people are still not using the term correctly? they’re not evening referring to someone who is egotistical or selfish, they’re just straight up using that word for any person who slightly pisses them off.

[necronatural]

Okay I think the thing that hits for me with Dead Plate is like, it is a queer game. Is the point of it.

If you look at the surrounding info that Rody is a homophobic bisexual, Vince is gay, that the game is made by queer people & Vince's motivations were all about his own skill, it boils down to:

A perfectionist narcissistic gay man is concerned about if his food is meeting his own standards. He rejects a woman, and then uses her to earn the approval of a man he's both attracted to and had placed on the pedestal of 'target demographic' for his work. He exposes a very vulnerable part of himself to the man and is violently rejected.

That's just vibes. As for the literal events that actually take place, Vince, a selfish person, views the value he gets out of Rody's perspective as potentially synonymous with love; not love for Rody, but Rody's power to give his work value. Hence the tragic word of god info that he ended up being haunted by the fact he killed them for no reason, while if they never met, he would have died old and unloving after a long and prosperous career. In both universes, he is unable to consider anything but his own superiority and his career as a way to define himself. He does not think to grapple with his desires because he's blinded by his pride and ambition.

I think the bones of the story and the details both contain a very like...totally non-romantic, totally non-platonic queer viewpoint. despite the central storyline being about ego, every layer seems to speak to the underlying gay experience. And I think that reading really lends itself to the quality of the overall structure imho.

[quitblamingnarcissism]

"But I'm not talking about Narcissistic Personality Disorder when I mention narcissism."

Well, most people who mention narcissism are, so even if you're not intending it in an ableist way, you're still using the same language that ableists use.

A lot of posts about narcissists treat them as if they're physically incapable of caring about others, which implies that it's a mental illness. If you were using "narcissist" as a synonym for "selfish asshole" and not as a reference to mental illness, you'd treat them as if they're capable of caring about others but choose not to.

[mischiefwrites]

This is something I wanna talk about because I have seen writers/artists/oc creators do and I want to talk about it because it really rubs me the wrong way.

If you're wanting to make a "sociopath" or "psychopath" character, what you're really creating is a character who has ASPD (Antisocial Personality Disorder, or Dissocial Personality Disorder) which is NOT synonymous with villainy. Your character is not automatically a bad person or a villain solely because they have ASPD. If you're going for the emotionless, cold-hearted, doesn't care about anyone type of villain, then you can just create that by itself without tacking a mental illness onto it. There's really no need to call every single character that has those traits a "sociopath", not only because the term is outdated and is often taken offensively, but also because it's lazy and insulting character writing/analysis, and very stereotyped for what ASPD actually is. It's also just insulting to those who suffer from ASPD, who may be greatly impacted or disabled by their disorder, to see people use "sociopath" to mean "evil murderer selfish bad guy character."

You're automatically creating a character with a complex mental illness, and possibly a lot of ongoing childhood trauma if you're planning to create a character that's a "sociopath", aka a character with a personality disorder. You ARE obligated to research this illness and obligated to challenge whatever prejudice or preconceived bias you have around ASPD, or else you're never gonna truly come close to understanding your antisocial character. You're obligated to write a PERSON who deserves to be as complex, nuanced, capable of good and bad, etc as any other character regardless of what disorder they may have.

One of my most fascinating and favourite characters has ASPD, and I would've truly sold myself and his character so much shorter than what's forgivable if I treated him the same way I see some other creators treat their "sociopath" characters. Characters with stigmatized disorders deserve so much better than what's often done with them, and those with stigmatized disorders deserve so much better than the same trope we've seen 100 different types and then the label of their disorder just slapped haphazardly on top of it.

This also goes for characters who have NPD aka Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I don't accept prejudice against personality disorders on my blog.

[specialagentartemis]

I get what ur saying but equating special interest (as an autistic term) to "personal interest reading" and like, a quirky little interest feels kinda... off. I truly mean no offense by this, but I'm getting a degree in cultural anthropology, which is my special interest. Like, it feels dismissive to say those things when plenty of autistic people are pursuing degrees in their special interests.

Obviously not all of us are, obviously a lot of autistic people do just research it in their free time, but your phrasing very much feels othering and as though you think academic field of study and special interest are mutually exclusive.

You know, last night when I turned off reblogs on that post I also made a tumblr post that said “what’s the over/under that I wake up to an anon asking me why I hate autistic people and think they can’t get degrees” and then I deleted it because I thought it was too mean. And yet here we are and what did I wake up to find.

I admit, my phrasing in that comment was flippant and irritated and did not acknowledge the breadth and depth of what a special interest experience is, because I was responding to one of dozens of people who were doing exactly what was annoying me in the first place on my post: acting like the only reason someone would get an academic degree is because they are autistic, and degrees are inherently synonymous with Special Interest.

Good for you that you are getting an academic degree in your special interest! That’s great. I’m glad for you. However that was not even slightly the context of the scenario I was talking about in my original post. And it would be nice if my knowledge about Archaeology was not assumed to arise from my biologically innate special-ness (which was also assumed). It would be nice if people on Tumblr would stop talking about expertise as if there were two kinds of people: autistic people, who are naturally biologically gifted with knowledge, and Neurotypicals, who are incapable of having interests or passions or knowledge. It would be nice if people would stop armchair diagnosing strangers based on one interaction. It would be nice if tumblr could respect people for research, experience, and dedication, without assuming that it’s only legitimate if you have a biologically unique Special Interest and casting suspicion on anyone in academia. It would be nice if we could stop assuming that simply being autistic and having a special interest automatically makes you an expert if that kind of experience and rigorous research isn’t there.

I have an internet friend whose special interest is dogs and dog training. I don’t trust them about dogs because they’re autistic, I trust them about dogs because they have years of experience raising and training and learning about dogs. Regardless of whether your interest is a Special Interest or not, experience and dedicated research (whether in a university or on your own with rigorous checks that you’re actually learning things that are true) are what makes your knowledge legitimate, not whether you were born with the correct type of brain. Bioessentialism isn’t cool even when it tells you that you’re the Better kind of person. Especially then, actually.

It’s also very funny (derogatory) to me that this is the website that CONSTANTLY passes around PSA’s to the tune of “Your selfish ex isn’t a Narcissist just because they’re selfish! You don’t have OCD just because you like things to be clean! Being nervous before public speaking is not the same as having an anxiety disorder! ADHD is more than just getting distracted!” And then turn around and go “if you are interested in/knowledgeable about something that means you’re obviously autistic.” And see no contradiction and get mad when I make a frustrated post about it.

Some people have Special Interests AND a degree in them. It’s pretty common and that’s great. Some people have special interests and do NOT have a degree in them. That does not make you any lesser of a person but you gotta show your knowledge is thorough and accurate in other ways, then, if you want to be taken seriously as an expert. There are absolutely experts who have autistic special interests and no formal degrees but you still gotta show your work rather than taking it for granted. Some people do NOT have special interests and DO have a degree. This does not mean they are actually secretly autistic or that their knowledge is lesser than someone with a special interest. Some people do NOT have special interests and do NOT have a degree but have experience and expertise in other areas. That is also fine, and believe it or not, happens. You may observe that there is not a direct correlation here.

This isn’t about balking at being compared to autistic people, as someone else in the notes accused, and this isn’t about saying “academic field of study and special interest are mutually exclusive”. I did not in fact say that. I just did not want my academic field of study reduced to an internet teenager’s armchair diagnosis which is the situation that the original post was about and a lot of people on tumblr enthusiastically agreed with.

[livingfictionsystem]

Kind of an odd rant, and please feel free to ignore this, but I think it's just kind of messed up that psychologists decided to call npd that. It's kind of like how in the early 20th century, doctors just called every intellectual disability 'idiocy' or 'feeblemindedness' and attributed them overwhelmingly to racial minorities. 'Narcissism' entered the English lexicon as a synonym for selfishness in the 16th century, and then in 1914, Freud tied it spuriously to a personality disorder, and the label stuck. I think much of the friction we see around words like 'narcissist' reflects their changing use, and I really wish the people putting it in the DSM in the 70s had done things differently.

I ~nearly~ completely agree, but if people would strip Narcissism to the bare myth, it actually isn't too insulting at all.

Narcissus wasn't abusing partners, not conquering lands, not gaslighting the masses. He wasn't even depicted as a monster. Narcissus was simply so utterly preoccupied with himself that it destroyed him. All he hurts is himself, trying to achieve this illusion of perfection that isn't even truly "real." Considering suicidal and perfectionist tendencies are startlingly prevalent within the cluster B, and how Narcissism is really more self-obsession than self-love, the Greeks, as usual, were onto something.

Also, if you were to look into the whole of the myth, Narcissus was cursed with this fate after refusing two people who'd become infatuated with him. He was punished by the gods for refusing the advances of people he simply wasn't attracted to.

Narcissus was canonically only sixteen years of age.

But over the years, Narcissist came to mean Egotistical, Selfish, and then, when Pop Psychology got ahold of it, Abusive and Manipulative.

Then later on, it became a term used to stigmatise or "curse" anyone who happened to disagree with the term's user. So, I suppose it's gone full circle, with the court of public opinion taking the place of the petty Greek Gods, while Narcissists work tirelessly in the name of their self-image.

Curious how that works.

~Kaspar Blythe Dusek ❄️

[mouthwashingconfessionsblog]

jimmy has NPD and im not gonna let anyone who calls him a narcissist as a synonym to "abuser/selfish" due to misinformation to take that hc away from me

(for context i have NPD)

.

[aspd-thoughts]

I have a question! This is something I actually wonder about it’s not a gotcha or anything

A lot of people really don’t like calling self-absorbed ppl who don’t have npds “narcissistic”. Why is that? “Antisocial” is an adjective I think is still pc to use. So are “anxious” and “obsessive”. “Narcissistic” as a term existed loooong before npd, so why does npd existing mean it’s not pc to use the term anymore?

(This question is not about the term “narcissistic abuse”; I can see the issue in that. *Just* using the word “narcissistic” to describe people who don’t have the personality disorder.)

You actually made me think about this, I hadn't really considered it before. Thanks for that.

(also, about antisocial: thats a word that really only applies to people with ASPD. It's gotten mixed up with asocial, which is essentially a way to describe introverts, but they are separate terms. Understandable confusion, though.)

(And as always, I'm only one voice on the topic.)

I think it comes down to a few things, imo: exclusivity and visibility.

Exclusivity: the word 'anxious' or 'obsessive' doesn't just apply to people with mental disorders. My aunt who spends the vast majority of her time reading things for her book club could be accurately called obsessive, and she's the most neurotypical person on the block. Narcissism, you're right, might have just been a stand in for self centred in the past, but today its almost exclusively used to refer to people who (are perceived to) have NPD. This ties into my next point,

Visibility: While anxiety and ODC are getting more understanding, and people are learning more about them (Note: I'm not saying that they don't have struggles with public perception, just that they're very well understood relative to NPD) NPD seems to be more villanized lately. It's gotten more attention, but still seems to be considered synonymous with abuser. So because NPD is still considered 'evil', no one bothers distinguishing between the disorder and the word. NPD and narcissism are used interchangeably, so when you refer to someone selfish as narcissistic, you're conflating that person and people with the personality disorder.

Thanks for asking!

[kitttttchaos]

It’s 5 AM and I just read the “Kavinsky’s substance party scene” for the second time and I have some thoughts

Obviously it’s a key point for Ronan’s character arc because he’s discovering these things that make him happy, and at the moment he thinks that’s this danger of street racing and all the stuff in that world, and he’ll later realize that his relationships with his friends are where real happiness comes from

But reading about Gansey in this scene—

This just made me realize that Gansey’s fatal flaw is pride. He’s the same enneagram (3) as Annabeth, so that makes sense, but you don’t notice it really the first time you read it. It’s hidden, because Gansey KNOWS it’s there. He does so many good things to overcompensate for that pride, which both confuses the people around him and just adds to his focus on people’s perception of him. Pride is at his roots, from his family, from his own success and experience that is so different from everyone else’s. He was born to think that way, and he knows it’s not the right way to think, but he comes back to it when things get deep.

“This was Gansey with a lofty tilt to his chin, a condescending quirk to his mouth. A Gansey that was aware that no matter what went down here tonight, he would still go back to Monmouth Manufacturing and rule his particular corner of the world. This was a Gansey, Ronan realized, that Adam would hate.”

But that’s not to say Gansey’s core is narcissistic. He’s proud, which could mean “proud of”. Proud of his friends, proud of his world, proud of his achievements, proud of all the wonder that he gets to discover. His goal, in a way, is to get away from the selfish pride he was born into, all the while building up more righteous pride, that has synonyms like joy, delight, and satisfaction.

His obsession with wanting to be a better person is so real, and I can’t think of any more to say but I think that’s beautiful