#how many words even is this

[fumifooms]

The autism coding of Kimblee - character analysis

Bestie that’s called masking. Also I beg to disagree you fucking suck at it lmao

Notice how he speaks of this difference of being a “heretic” in society’s mind. Not with a focus on what it is or means but with a focus on the perception of it, on the ostracization it creates, on it being created by norms and society. There is little weight given to it but it is treated as a social construct one can easily figure out and avoid because it is superficial, or formulaic. Small talk, what are the right things to say, or to reveal about oneself and when, the “test” is a formula he thinks he has mastered.

So boy! There are some things to unpack here with his character, welcome to this character analysis. This is going to be loooong. I’m autistic, and I think he’s autistic as shit based on a lot of things and moments. I do want to make a disclaimer: you should go into this with a will to humanize, but this is not to mean that I talk of him being redeemable or “a good person deep down”, no. This is an analysis for the goal to understand, and in the end that’s what most of us just wants anyways, being understood I mean. I’ll be analyzing him as a coherent and multidimensional character, not as a plot device for a story. Alas I won’t be analyzing his psychology and ideologies that much, just its ties with autism and stuff, so this isn’t a complete analysis of Kimblee as a character by any means. I’m also speaking exclusively of manga Kimblee. Most manga caps I used are from @everykimblee​, thank you for your resources!

Points:

The polite gentleman

Tone deafness

Logic and lack thereof

Malice?

Strange but strong moral code

Explosions, and stimming

Misc

Conclusion

The polite gentleman

It is oh so interesting, then, that he values his manners so much, isn’t it? He has peculiar priorities and fixations, like good manners, even as he does atrocities. We’ll talk about his tone deafness more later, but for now let’s focus on this angle a bit.

Suits, fedoras, a pure, spotless white. Symbols of the epitome of class.

As stated, he keeps his good manners even as the situation would normally have them dropped, or they are useless, and such. They are treated somewhat like how he would convictions, when he speaks of strong wills and being firm in your beliefs. Then his manners are not something he’s willing to compromise.

But still you have to ask yourself, does he maintain this persona for himself or for others? I think it may be interesting to note that this aspect of his character isn’t much seen before he goes to and leaves prison. In camp he sits like other soldiers do, very unlike how he sits in the rest of the manga, etc etc. This suggests that either manners became more important to him after his 8 years long of incarceration, or that sort of like a chameleon he adapts himself to his environment. With his awareness of being a heretic and how to play around it, allegedly in his own word, the latter is a theory with support. Both are plausible, or perhaps he’s always had a strong taste for suits and politeness and the warzone simply wasn’t a place to show that.

Regardless of him genuinely liking all of these high end tastes or not, I’m fascinated with the idea that it may have developed as a defense mechanism. People who wear suits and act respectable like he does sociologically inspire good faith, that they are, well, respectable. My theory that he doubled down on this angle after prison would be because, well, he has passed 8 years of prison doing very little and being treated with very little respect and empathy. It is not unreasonable that straight out of prison, he would want to reclaim a sense of humanity and respectability through acting out the codes of high society. But again, does he do it for his own self-esteem, or to try to convince others  that he should be respected? Few people see men in suits and imagine that they’ve been in prison once.

To be aware of being a “heretic”, and saying he knows how to pretend to be normal, Kimblee growing up has doubtlessly learned good manners and their importance in this social act and how others see you. Is his politeness genuine or forced? In the end I think it matters little, in the end it’s still as important to him regardless. I’m not going to talk about the social trauma autistic people usually experience, but I do want to reiterate that a nice suit as an instant token for passing as normal + getting charitability is something I think he’s aware of and values. His demeanor and outfit, you could say, is part of his masking.  Listen, in a college essay I studied other essays about how prom dresses are treated as a token for future success in life + social recognition. A suit as a transactional token for entry into respectable society really isn’t a social dynamic that far fetched. 

The way he speaks of masking, as this “easy formulaic test”, does make me think that this is the case, that his choices in demeanor and fashion are part of this role and that he knows what he’s doing. Indeed, if a suit is all he has to wear to be accepted, his loner attitude becoming a “serious & mysterious” aura, his strict demands becoming simply a severe no-nonsense man used to quality and who has things to do, well, the test is easy to trick. It’s all about framing. He’s still taken to it on a personal level though imo, he does speak of his suit with fondness etc etc.

His gentleman attitude might have deeper, more important and personal roots for his character than simply being a cool aesthetic or random taste, is what I’m saying.

Tone deafness

It is ironic that his manners are important to him because they are often severely lacking or misplaced. Like most things, I believe that Solf keeps his manners because they are a judge of character that is important to him, beyond it being for others’ perceptions of him. So even if inappropriate, he stays true to himself and these beliefs of his, he does not want to perform as much as he leads us to believe by saying he pretends to be normal. Though this tonedeafness then is sometimes intentional with a will not to betray his true self, I do think that often this is not the case and his tone deafness is out of genuine misunderstanding. Though very often it seems like a state of being, rather than situational awkwardness, like a disregard for reading a room instead of simply making mistakes.

For example, Armstrong letting ishvalans flee willfully through a hole in the wall, then Kimblee coming and killing them, afterward saying to Armstrong: “What a relief, if it had been anyone else you’d have been court martialed for sure”. It seems he did this genuinely to pick up his compatriot’s slack in a will to help. Is he aware that Armstrong did it willingly and it’s a thinly veiled threat not to do it again? Possible, but the other case seems equally possible, but regardless in either case his delivery and actions were still tone deaf. For example, him telling everyone in camp “do you all not like killing? Why are you all even here, you chose this.” In another example, his detached tone in most situations and amused or casual tone in life threatening situations.

He is shown to be rather perceptive on a technical level, though not so much in social situations. Below is him confronting Edward about having a sniper targeting him.

He is extremely nonchalant in serious and grave situations. It is also the inappropriate emotions he shows that are infamous to him, the thrill and glee he gets by fighting. To me these are easily explained by adrenaline and Solf being generally understimulated and leashed by his polite standards in society (though of course these are still issues he has), but to most it seems like senseless hysterical behavior.

Notably it is this tone deafness that makes him an heretic to others, what ostracizes him. He did not do worse than other veterans in Ishval, Roy and Riza were also extremely proficient killers on the field. The reasons Kimblee gives for being on the field and “doing what they gotta do” are reasonable and cool-headed, most of all he has a point in how he gives everyone a wake-up call that they chose this by becoming a soldier and that they’re all complicit. No, Kimblee is an heretic not because of these concrete things, but because he is not miserable on the field. People, both in world and readers/viewers, simply think that his emotions and attitude while killing others are misplaced for the situation. It’s his tone deafness that unsettles others. He doesn’t have the sense to at least act apologetic, unlike Roy who acts like a martyr yet still chooses to do it every day. Sure his ideologies and enjoyment of killing are disturbing and unhinged, but the tone deafness is what sells it, sells him as a villain. It is an emotional, social reaction.

He is also so, so blunt. His whole speech in Ishval to Roy & Riza is enough proof and yet he tops it on the regular. Below is his meeting with Miles:

He’s so hard to destabilize and it’s so funny. I love his three ?s. This lack of emoting is the sort of iconic autistic trait that makes people see us as emotionless inhuman creatures.

Logic and lack thereof

He is incredibly logic oriented and strangely composed most of the time; does not react to things as one would be expected to, as discussed. He loves to talk philosophy, and debates with others often, even stopping a fight to spend some time discussing with Alphonse. He often engages in hypotheticals, like when he logic’ed his way into challenging Riza that she probably held some pride in her work, or when he proposed a deal to Ed having assumed his priorities and motivations; He does not understand others through innate understanding or empathy but through logically working through what he knows of them and of the human psyche to then turn what they do into a predictable formula. (Oof shit, that hits hard and a little too close to home ngl.) Which is perhaps why he is so fond of people who have strong convictions; they are honest and upfront, they do not waver, they are easy to understand and to predict, he can understand someone like that and their internal consistency. If someone thinks Edward Elric is going to kill them, then they do not know Edward Elric.

Has an hard time understanding others’ mentalities, often encountering people who do not follow his logic which confuses him, like his Ishval speech and when Edward didn’t follow his “self-preservation” deal.

His goal for the better part of the story is to be a spectator to the “battle of wills” between homunculi and humans. You could even say that it is to assuage a curiosity. The fact that he gives no emotional stakes to a sense of belonging with humans that should innately make him want to fight for humanity makes sense as well, especially since humanity doesn’t accept him much. Myself, I scoffed when Edward said this. I have hyper-empathy, but to me there should still be a better reason than a blind sense of community to one’s species to pick a side. It might seem like the obvious reason to most, “side with the humans!”, but to me without sound reason it just seems like blind toxic patriotism, or blind faith and adherence to a cult. Kimblee’s reasoning is survival of the fittest applied to evolution, that the superior species will be the one to survive because that’s how nature works. Personally, I say side with the humans because the homunculi have senseless goals that promise destruction upon the world, but y’know, whatever. The important point here is that Kimblee fundamentally works on a logical basis. The “side with humanity!” argument without further reasoning is an emotional one, yet it is one that appeals to most. /neu He does indeed reveal he has some personal stakes in siding with the homunculi, not only because they let him do whatever he wants alchemy wise, not only because he loves fighting for survival, but also because in a double meaning with the opening excerpt of this post, should humans win then he would have to go back to a life of pretense where his “existence” is threatened.

Malice?

Another interesting thing about him is that he doesn’t say the awful things he says out of malice, neither is it the intent behind most of his actions. It’s always a twisted sense of helping, or just doing his job, or doing his victims the ritual show of respect of battling them with the full extent of his will, and remembering them. He has his own way of looking at things, of what constitutes morality that we should concern ourselves with; honesty is more important to him than compassion and hipocrisy peeves him. By killing the ishvalans that Armstrong lets flee, he “rights a fault”. Kimblee not seeing how ill-intentioned many of his actions seem certainly call back to his tone deafness, that or a blatant disregard for conformity.

Strange but strong moral code

As mentioned several times, Kimblee values a strong set of belief in someone, and this even if he personally disagrees with them. I don’t want to repeat myself too much so this section will be short but yes, then it isn’t surprising that his own code is very strong and he is very confident and unashamed of it. I don’t want to spend paragraphs deconstructing his moral code but his actions are consistent to it and he does not betray them, going to the point of bringing Pride down even in death inside of the philosopher stone because he judged Pride’s actions cowardly and hypocritical. Rigid morality is a trait of autism.

By strong, I do want to precise that I do not mean morally irreprehensible or correct, I mean internally coherent and resistant to external challenging. He is set in his beliefs.

Explosions, and stimming

Lastly but perhaps most importantly, the most iconic thing about him: the explosions.

Apparently there’s no post on here calling what Kimblee does stimming and stims headcanons so -cracks knuckles- heavy is the head with the big brain I suppose.

Understimulation is a state in which the body doesn’t get enough stimuli or sensory input to keep one invested in their surroundings and such. It can be the cause of a meltdown. I myself used to struggle a lot with it, it got easier after I got diagnosed and I understood the issue. For example, I am allowed to listen to music, usually glitchcore, while taking academic tests. Back in the time that was not the case, I used to have songs stuck on loop in my head while I did tests, often hummed them, particularly for mathematics.

Why does Kimblee even like explosions? Well, the cues he gives us is that he loves the sounds it makes, of destruction, not only of the screams it causes but the explosion itself. He calls it musical terms like symphony and calls it artful. As he says himself, it shakes his whole body to the core, and he fixates especially on its sound. That is all sensory input, to see it as music and artful is that it is pleasing to his senses as he himself expresses. Look at the way his body quivers in the aftermath and he goes unhinged and emotional. Sensory issues right there, chronically understimulated guy getting a shred of sensory satisfaction 100%. It is release to him.  Explosions are a deafening burst of loud and short noise, accompanied with intense light and heat. It is, in short, a bomb of stimuli. Explosions are a very intense sensorial experience. This is what Kimblee likes about them, even delighting in the size and length he can make his explosions achieve, making it always more and more intense. Much like his ideal lifestyle and activities of risking his life and his soul battling, explosions give him thrill and adrenaline unlike anything else. In monkey terms, boom boom scratches the brain itch.

Explosions as a stim/intense and pleasant sensory experience is actually a thing I’ve thought to explore with an oc of mine prior to watching fmaB, but that really is how I immediately interpreted Kimblee’s introductory scene. My (autistic) brother when he was a kid very often had to be driven around in a car before he’d sleep, for example. It’s a fullbody sensation of vibrations and floating, being in a car. The brain even registers the sensation as strange, which is how motion sickness happens. Babies are sensitive to stuff like that, my bro wouldn’t sleep without it because, without it, he was understimulated, not stimulated enough to be able to sleep. Rocking babies is the same kinda thing, plus the comforting aspect. Weighted blankets, too. Everyone self-regulates their sensory input, aka stims, to some degree, bouncing their leg, etc. But sensory dysregulation is a trait of autism, and severe states of understimulation and overstimulation are what makes it a neurodivergent experience. 

Screams in the stone being like lullabies to him is another sign of him having understimulation in general. At the very least, he has a strong resistance to overstimulation by, like Pride said, retaining his individuality in the overwhelming storm of souls.  ”Ah yes I am amongst an overwhelming sea of screaming souls. I love it here, it energizes me actually”

Honestly I just think it explains parts of his behavior and glee for war if he generally feels understimulated. It explains that lust for battle and destruction. Like yeah bitch you’ll feel great and manic and thrive if you get sensory bliss from the chaos and “symphony” of war, definitely. /gen 

Also, he was in prison so like who can possibly blame him for being bored af, but stimming wise I do count playing with the rock in prison. The way he rolls it in his fingers and all. Even regurgitation, that’s bound to be a moderately intense sensory experience. If he repeatedly swallows it and regurgitates the stone then that can def count as stimming. Maybe the reason he didn’t go more insane than he did is because he had the one thing to fidget with lmao. The screaming thrumming perfectly sized & smooth evil explosive rock really is a great stim toy, huh.

I get intense and off my rockers too when I’m understimulated ngl, slap happy even. 

He really does seek adrenaline and thrill. I think in the above he was getting somewhat delirious due to blood loss though. He’s definitely prone to manic states. Sure okay grandma whatever you say, let’s get you on the stretcher. 

Misc

And as my usual autistic analysis finisher: he sits weird. More seriously, analyzing sitting positions can be interesting because it’s again about understimulation. Legs crossed, arms crossed, it’s weight on your body plus feels snug idk. But personally I need to have my legs crossed at all times when I’m sitting, except in extra comfy chairs. Body language is a whooole thing to analyze with autism, because infamously people misinterpret them; for example crossing your arms is considered to be a defensive or hostile gesture, when a lot of people would just go “wtf it’s just comfy”. Insistant and direct eye contact is seen as a will to dominate, meanwhile for a lot of people they’re literally just staring thinking nothing of it. Etc. However like discussed at the beginning of this, it can be theorized that he tailors his body language to his environment, like compared to when he was on the Ishval warzone.

Conclusion

Cool motive still murder bro. Def a lot of fun neurodivergence going on in his character though.  I am obsessed with this type of autistic character, who as a survival mechanism becomes hyperaware and very logically and psychologically attuned to social norms and how people work to try to fit in and survive in the group. I am OBSESSED with autistic characters who know the game so well and try so hard yet still feel uncanny to others. Humanity is, after all, a social species. And one who does not take kindly to heresy. Definition of heresy: opinion profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted. Heretic does not intrinsically means harmful, however. Labeling something as heretic is often an emotional reaction, like say how racism or homophobia is initially from a xenophobic gut instinct, and it is an emotional reaction that makes us dislike Kimblee.

Not to say that’s the ONLY reason, of course. Kimblee is justifieably generally disliked. But as someone who values cause and effect, it is ironic to me that Kimblee is considered a worse veteran than others because he refuses to act guilty over it and does “his job” with a smile on his face, worse than Roy who boiled people alive. I find it ironic that straight out of the gate we have a sinister opinion of Kimblee because of the framing when he was in prison, of what it meant that he was in there and why he wasn’t miserable 24/7 in his cell, instead smiling and humming, and it’s all ironic because the reason he was in prison is… He killed his superior officers, who are active agents in malicious corruption and are 100x more times gleeful about the Ishval war than him. Framing is an emotional thing, and if there’s one thing Henry Creel taught me is that it’s quick to rob a character of humanity. If humanity performatively want people to be miserable, then is it so surprising for Kimblee to want to reject it?  Take my hot takes or not, I’m not interested in debating philosophy unlike Kimblee, I just wanted to showcase his autistic traits and it got a little thought provoking by nature lol. Thanks for reading! :)    Is this last emoticon tone deaf and/or uncanny? I can’t tell… Ah well!

[secretly-a-trekkie]

they deserved a beach episode

[sharpmouth]

Mansfield Park, Jane Austen

[choccy-milky]

herbology class 🌹🌿 (from chap 2 of my fic!)

[noxcheshire]

I think I’d be really funny, if Bruce was a reincarnated Vlad.

This is going to be based off of a prompt I saw (I will find you) where Bruce suddenly remembered his past life as Vlad.

HOWEVER, my take on that is the de-aged Ellie and Dan because the amount of ANGST and self hate that Bruce will go through thinking his past self was not only a villain, but also that sort of person?

It will eat him alive.

It will eat that man alive every time he goes to sleep and another burst of memories pass underneath his eyelids.

It burns him when he wakes up with the phantom touch of a body underneath his hands, of a boy just as young as Damian and thinner too, struggling to escape a grip of a man whose hold was too possessive, and too cruel.

It feels like acid swishing down his throat when he wakes with the taste of oily words filled with threat and something more whispered over the form of a boy. A young boy whose blue eyes blazed furiously back and yet tried to hide the quiet bursts of fear underneath.

It feels like Bruce cannot scrub the man he had been right out of him, even when his skin blisters red until it bleeds. Vladimir Masters had woken spitting and screaming, burrowed like a cold sore underneath everything that is Bruce.

Bruce hates it.

Hates the monster he had once been and still is — because despite the fact Vlad is now Bruce, living and breathing and existing here in Gotham — Vladimir Masters still exists.

He is out there right now in a little place called Amity Park, pulling weight and blood just to get what he wants.

A man who has used and abused for far too long…

Perhaps it was time to see to it, that however and whatever way that Bruce came to be, that it began with Vlad’s unfortunate circumstances back into the Ghost Zone.

[hey-hey-j]

(sort of a companion piece to this)

older brother instinct

(★ my Kofi)

[raplinenthusiasts]

bangtan gif challenge ☆

↳ stage mix (one song) + your bias → make it right & yoonkook

[tapakah0]

Eh, almost forgot ;~;; Commission for sweet @celestialrose3 ;;~;;; Thank you so much *bows*

[turtledotjpeg]

girls who go 🧍

[cleolinda]

But when she said that, it hit me. I had a choice. I could choose. I could choose to never have to deal with this again and to not let them treat me this way anymore. So I did.

(AITA for wanting to report my doctor, who is my sister’s best friend, for telling her I'm on Vyvanse, a HIPAA violation?)

[stellabyystarlight]

Happy 4th twst anniversary!!! the most special boy for the most special day 🫶

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: death mention / strangulation mention / stabbing mention / blood mention / self-sacrifice / codependency mention in tags / ]

I think a lot about how common it is for Raph to be the one to have direct focus put on him when Leo gets into all his near death experiences.

Like, when Leo is thrown off a building, it’s Raph who’s right there jumping after him, not even thinking about the consequences to himself when he does. When Leo almost gets skewered by the Krang, Raph’s right there to take the blow and send Leo to safety without a second thought. When Leo’s being strangled to near death, it’s a Krangified Raph doing the job, doing exactly what Raph would never, ever want to do. When Leo is telling Casey Jr to close the portal, it’s Raph who tries desperately to convince Leo otherwise.

Likewise, Leo is consistently very single minded when Raph gets forcibly separated from them. Both when in the sewers and by the Krang, Leo is dead set on finding Raph first and foremost.

I also think it’s interesting that during each of Leo’s near death experiences, the lightheartedness of his words during them goes directly hand in hand with both how close Raph is to him physically and how much danger Raph is also in in that moment. From a literal “I told you so” as Leo’s falling away from Raph to a soft joke about how “hero moves” are Raph’s style - both of these are on the more morbidly carefree side and both of these notably take Leo farther away from Raph and, in turn, have Raph not in immediate danger.

On the other side of things is the apology from Leo, heedless of the danger he himself is in as he seriously and genuinely speaks to a Krangified Raph face to face. Then there’s Leo’s freezing and desperation as Raph takes a hit meant for him and sends just Leo to safety, leaving Raph himself behind. Both of these involve much closer proximity and Raph being directly harmed - these together make Leo much more vulnerable in his words and actions, something not even the threat of death can make him.

These two care about each other so much, and they’re way too much alike for their own good.

[sycamorality]

liking scavengers is the liking bugs/spiders of the rain world fandom

[sysig]

Rainbows (Patreon)

[flintsilvers]

in less than a year and a half the italian government has: worsened the living conditions for immigrants (which were dire already) with new "reception centers" that is really just a fancy word for a place that is worse than a jail; continued to let hundreds of people die at sea or deport them back to libya; cut the funds for public healthcare and education; favored the gentrification of historical city centers; suppressed and silenced protests for palestine all around the country; called for the arrest of peace activists; turned a blind eye on the inhumane conditions of an italian antifascist activist detained in hungary; called for a daspo to all singers (lmao???) who express their dissent (or literally anything even vaguely political that doesnt align with their ideology) on live, PUBLIC state tv; put forward their plan to leave the south in utter subservience to the north and made the police beat up the southern mayors and governors who protested against it; made the police beat up the students and activists who protested outside RAI (state tv) buildings in several cities against its shameless censorship of those that speak up about palestine, as well as its continued support of the zionist narrative through which the news are filtered; done absolutely nothing to mitigate the embarrassingly high percentage of deaths in the workplace or the even more absurdly high percentage of femicide.

and now they're trying to pass a law that criminalizes any critique of israel by lumping up antisemitism and antizionism in the same category so that if you even dare say hey maybe we should stop killing palestinians you could be legally prosecuted.

but they opened a few parks so i guess they also did good things

[khaire-traveler]

Digital Temples are really lovely, and I adore the fact that all these temples are suddenly popping up (I actually have been thinking of dedicating one to two deities as well), but the usage of the words "priests" and "priestesses" is genuinely concerning to me. It makes me feel a bit wary.

Why, might you ask, would that even be a problem? Let me explain.

These words carry a lot of power with them. With these words comes the implication of religious authority. If I went around saying that I was a Priest of Hermes himself, it asserts a sense of power and authority in a religious space. There are a lot of people who would love to use that power negatively; I have been directly impacted by this many times over. I am always wary of people who use this title as a result of what I've seen and experienced.

Those titles also carry the implication of having an established religious knowledge that others do not. It's not just a title used to identify people who are in charge of a Temple; it is a title that explicitly identifies someone as a researched, trustworthy, religious figure who is extremely experienced. This ties into how these words carry power. A lot of people I've seen stake claim to this title have also claimed to speak for the gods directly. Either that, or it is often assumed of them, and that bothers me a lot. I have yet to meet someone who genuinely speaks for the gods in every situation.

On the inverse, I'm sure some who use these titles mean it in a harmless and genuine way (I've met one before), and that's fine, but if you are one of such people, realize that these words seriously do carry immense implications along with them, and do not fall into the trap of moral superiority or dictating rules in a religion you do not own. The most genuine people I've met who identify with these titles are the ones who don't advertise them publicly. I'm not saying the use of these titles are wrong, but I am saying that people seem to be inclined to abuse them. Horrifically abuse them.

Instead, I suggest using a title such as "Cleric". I've seen another temple do this, and personally, I feel it is less intimidating and claims less power of authority. Or maybe not using a title at all. Why use one if you don't need it? Hell, you could call yourself literally anything else.

So, please, those who run digital Temples, I ask you to be aware of the power the words "priest" and "priestess" have before applying them to yourselves and ask yourselves why it is that you're choosing to identify with these titles in the first place.