Housewarden of Scarabia. Born into vast wealth, he is a generous boy who always has a smile on his face. He's grown up with Jamil since a young age, and considers him a brother in all but blood.
In-game Album
Appearance
Kalim is a shorter-than-average young man with dark skin. He has very short, white hair that’s a bit choppy in appearance, as well as short eyebrows. His eyes are garnet-red[1], and he often wears subtle, brown eyeshadow and dark eyeliner with rounded edges. On his shoulders and around the upper parts of his arms are intricate, white body paint markings that resemble henna[1].
Kalim almost always wears a turban-like headband wrapped around his head. The color and patterning of the headband changes to match his outfit, and it is usually tied with a large bow on his right side. Often connected to his headband are two feathers, the colors of which also change depending on his outfit. Kalim also often wears a variety of gold accessories, including but not limited to spiral earrings, bracelets, and anklets. He is almost always seen with a friendly expression and a big smile.
Dorm Uniform
As the housewarden, Kalim’s dorm uniform somewhat differs from the rest of the Scarabia students, the most distinguishing features being his longer jacket and excess of gold jewelry. Kalim also wears dark-red eyeliner along with his regular makeup while in his dorm uniform. The uniform consists of a black and red sleeveless jacket, an undershirt, a yellow belt, black parachute pants, and black sneaker-sandals. The uniform also comes with several gold accessories.
Kalim’s jacket reaches below his knees in length. The jacket has a red underlining, wavy gold stripes on the sides, gold trim, and a red sailor-like collar with a black, wavy stripe along the sides. Kalim also chooses to wear two tank tops as his undershirts. One tank top is off-white, while the larger one underneath is maroon.
Instead of wearing the yellow belt around his waist like usual, Kalim wears his over one shoulder, and leaves the long end hanging down to his ankles. The belt has a silver buckle, and along with black stripes, has the word “Scarabia” repeatedly printed on it. On both ends of the belt are small designs resembling a snake’s head and tail.
His black parachute pants have a red fire design near the bottom. Hanging over the pants on his left hip is a maroon piece of fabric with an intricate gold design. The black sneaker-sandals have gold plating near the toe, and a large golden scarab in the center.
The uniform includes a few golden accessories, including a collar necklace, a bracelet, and a shoulder cuff worn on the right shoulder, shaped like a snake. Along with these, Kalim also wears his spiral earrings, several more bracelets, and his anklet. Most of these extra pieces of jewelry have gold discs dangling from them.
Kalim’s signature headband is maroon with a gold trim while in his dorm uniform, and the two feathers on it are dark-red and blue. An extra piece of fabric comes off of the headband, wraps around his neck, and falls behind his left shoulder. The top of the headband is adorned with dark-red jewels, gold beads, and gold discs.
Personality
When first introduced, Kalim is one of the few students in NRC who is genuinely friendly and cheerful; even known as the most cheerful person in the entire school. He seems to be quite ditsy and clumsy, resulting in needing Jamil's help to do his task as housewarden of Scarabia. Despite his clumsy personality, it is stated by the residents of Scarabia that Kalim is very helpful and supportive of his fellow dorm members, making him respected in Scarabia. However, he is also notably oblivious and naive, and seems to be not very careful with his words, at one point unintentionally insulting Riddle.[2]
Later on, it's revealed by Kalim that he chooses to have a positive outlook on life, because he doesn't want to live constantly being worried or suspicious of the people around him due to his family's status. Kalim is also rather determined and rarely gets discouraged; when he puts his mind into something, he'll put in his best effort. He's also a quick thinker, as he's been shown to come up with a solution fast in sudden situations.[3]
Background
Kalim's family comes from a long line of merchants. Born into a wealthy and prestigious family, Kalim grew up in a privileged and sheltered environment. However, as the eldest son of his family, he was often the target of kidnappings or food poisoning - the perpetrators sometimes being his own relatives[4]. Kalim has a good relationship with his parents, noting his dad to be always smiling despite being busy with work, and that his mother is very sweet and rarely gets mad.[5]
Kalim also has a lot of younger siblings, and though he lost count of them, he makes sure he remembers each of their names and faces.[6] He has good relationship with his siblings, as whenever he's home, he spends most of his time playing with them.
Growing up, he spent a lot of time with Jamil. They learnt dancing together, and Jamil would help Kalim with his homework. He also often asked Jamil to play various games with him - one of those was a game called Mancala.
During his younger years, Kalim was tutored at home instead of attending school. Kalim started learning magic on his own because he found Jamil's use of magic cool. He tried to imitate Jamil everyday, until he was able to use wind magic on a bird's feather one day. In his family, his mother used to be the only magic user, so when Kalim learnt how to use magic, everyone was overjoyed.[5]
Kalim enrolled at Night Raven College two months after Jamil, as he got an invitation despite never applying to the school. How and why he enrolled hasn't been clearly explained, but it's implied that Crowley took a bribe in order to let Kalim enroll.
Signature Spell
Respite in the scalding sands, a neverending party. Dance! Sing! Oasis Maker!
Kalim Al-Asim
Kalim's signature spell is called "Oasis Maker". It can summon a large amount of fresh water (usually in form of rain) with only a small amount of magic and effort on his part.[7] He uses the following incantation for his spell: "Respite in the scalding sands, a never ending party. Dance! Sing! Oasis Maker!"
Trivia
- Kalim's design and personality appears to be inspired by the Sultan from Aladdin (1992).[8]
- In the main story, he once stuffed crackers into Grim’s mouth like the Sultan did to Jafar’s parrot Iago.
- His full name means Kalim, Son of House Asim. This is because "Al" means "son" in the ancient language of his homeland, and families are named after the founders that start them, with the men referring to themselves as the founder's son.[6]
- In Arabic language, the "Al" (أل) means "the" and "Bin" (بن) or "Ibn" (ابن) means "son".
- He claims a whole dorm can be filled with just his siblings alone.[9]
- In Japanese, he mentions he has at least 30 younger siblings.[6]
- Kalim only eats food that Jamil prepares for him, and nothing else.[10]
- He says that at home, he had a tendency to get sick after eating food made by other people. It's implied that he may have been getting deliberately poisoned.
- Kalim hates curry, because Jamil was once put into a two-week coma after taste-testing Kalim's curry that someone had poisoned.[11]
- Kalim's favorite food, coconut juice, has historically been used in attempts to counteract poisons and drug overdosage in places like India and Africa.[12]
- He wears the same eyeliner and eyeshadow that Jamil uses.
- When using cosmic-type magic in battle, his attacks appear to be made of light instead of the usual shadow.
- His hypnotized personality, while doesn't reflect Kalim's true nature, is the opposite of his usual behaviour: he is sharp with his words and relentlessly pushes the students of his dorm during training.
- As of now, Kalim is the only housewarden who doesn't overblot in the Main Story.
- There's an scrapped smug expression for Kalim's Live2D model that was supposed to be used when he was being hypnotized by Jamil. Yana Toboso notes that it was meant to look similar to Jamil's own smug expression.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Twisted Wonderland Magical Archives
- ↑ Riddle PE Uniform Vignette
- ↑ Kalim Dorm Uniform
- ↑ Kalim Labwear Vignette
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Kalim Birthday Boy Vignette
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Book 4/Chapter 8
- ↑ Book 4/Chapter 14
- ↑ Kalim PE Uniform Vignette
- ↑ Kalim School Uniform Vignette
- ↑ Kalim Dorm Uniform Vignette
- ↑ Bioline.org
