virgil !! :D

to me, kalim and jamil have a very complicated relationship. and i definitely come at it with more understating of jamil than of kalim, because i personally can relate to jamil so heavily in the way he perceived himself vs kalim and how his family ingrained his worth (or lack thereof) into him thru his life.

but no matter what anyone else says, i really truly just can't believe that jamil HATES kalim. i don't think he COULD ever hate kalim. hatred and love aren't opposite emotions at all; they're very similar, actually, in terms of what you feel, how potently you feel it, where in your body, etc etc.

i think he hates kalim AL-ASIM, the rich, spoiled, uneducated, sickeningly privileged person whose shadow he was forced to fit in like a coffin, whose mere existence meant his own was never Good Enough, never worth acknowledgement, never something to be proud of, and whose presence in his life meant he would never get anything to himself, no matter how much he deserved it.

but KALIM??? just kalim, without all that?

the kalim who, even while jamil was dumbing himself down, STILL noticed everything he's good at and still praised and loved him for those things and takes the first chance he gets to rant and rave to whoever will listen about "oh, jamil is such a good dancer cook student vice housewarden friend strategist this that and the third" ?? the kalim who loves jamil SO MUCH that even under a spell to tell the full truth STILL didn't reveal what jamil was doing to him? the kalim who spent his childhood by jamils side, playing mancala and eating food and singing and dancing with him, not out of obligation like jamil, but purely because he enjoyed being near him??? the kalim who even after jamils murder attempt still tried to rescue him and still mourned that he couldn't during his abduction?? THAT kalim????

jamil could never hate him.

the problem is, ofc, that kalim and kalim al-asim are the same person, not two different people. and so every systemic flaw passed on by the asim name is embodied in kalim just as much as every beautiful thing about him. and the anger and hurt and hatred and grief and betrayal jamil feels at the system has compounded itself into his views of kalim- ESPECIALLY because kalim does, in a lot of ways, restrict him or not properly consider him, and that IS a flaw kalim needs to process and work on!

but i also think that jamil's anger is a bit misplaced. being angry at and hurt by kalim is totally okay, but i feel his overblot largely came from him blaming everything he's gone through as a result of the system they BOTH live under on kalim specifically, rather than both their parents, the royal family of the scalding sands, and so on. and i think jamil also needs to get better at viewing kalim as a fully fledged and intelligent person who is capable of understanding the pain he caused jamil AND his role in the system that keeps someone he loves down on their knees like jamil has been his whole life. and i think kalim could actually be an incredibly valuable ally in taking that system down and reforming the scalding sands to be more equal for EVERYONE.

ultimately, i think they just gotta talk to each other. a lot. and do internal reflections. A LOT. but just because their dynamic is , in the present moment at night raven, unhealthy, doesn't mean it always will be?? they can grow and learn and change and be better for each other. and i think the fact that their relationship lies in such a complex grey area is actually something incredibly beautiful .

dumbing their whole thing down to "master x servant" is doing exactly what jamil hates by minimizing him to just what his role was in kalims life, especially factoring in that that power imbalance has only ever been acknowledged by jamil- kalim only ever saw him as his friend.

and likewise, dumbing them down to just "jamil tried to kill him" is also doing exactly what kalim would hate by looking at jamil's retaliation to his pain as the only thing he could ever be. (+ overblot has been well established by this point to be an erratic and often egodystonic or at least INCREDIBLY dramatized version of the mage, and if you're going to hold jamil accountable for that, you better hold riddle accountable for nearly killing his entire dorm, azul accountable for almost killing everyone he stole from when his contracts were destroyed, leona accountable for nearly turning ruggie to sand, so on so forth).

in conclusion I LOVE JAMIKALI I LOVE COMPLEX GREY AREA DYNAMICS I LOVE WHEN CHARACTERS HAVE COMPLICATED FEELINGS ABOUT EACH OTHER I LOOOOOVE JAMIKALIIIIII <33