𝟶𝟸. [ this too shall pass ]

abel has a revolver for the aesthetic of it and that's it.

abel’s existence is something inherently off-putting to anyone who interacts with him if he is not careful about it. there is a deep wrongness at the core of him, something that sets him slightly of the tempo of the pace of life on earth, and if he were to allow the truth of himself to sit him still he would all but bleed with this wrongness. he was not made for earth and he unmade himself further, and even the way his lashes flutter is an uncanny thing. he is not a human but an imitation thereof, something made predator and existing on the edge of comprehension. incompatible with humanity, but trying any way. so he simply does not sit still. he is an animated caricature of himself, limbs constantly flying, body swaying with every dramatic dip of his voice, and oh how he moves with dramatic flair! the exaggeration of his personality isn’t just a psychological defense mechanism, it’s a physical one.

i honestly love that abel has that clunky old revolver. the man was literally genetically engineered for security and likely trained with a huge variety of guns and is most comfortable and familiar with something like a PDW or really just. any decent rifle with selective fire. but no he’s gotta have that big iron on his hip

i am once again thinking about the founding members of ax being abel’s first real friends and how they all taught him how to live like a human being

tldr for what will be eventually a larger post about it, but abel's fma verse features him as a homunculus much like the dwarf in the flask/father in terms of scale. he's just, like always, a little weenie about it.

abel's lack of agency often appears to be almost a narrative choice, especially in the light novels. he doesn't get a lot of the limelight, his appearances often being balanced out by other characters, and he goes through none of the trials typical of a protagonist experiencing character development. rather it's esther, in the manga/ROM novels especially, who grows and becomes fully formed throughout the course of the story. the RAM novels almost seem like short stories made for world-building in comparison, and while abel appears more often in the latter series, it's only because he appears to be upgraded from a part in an ensemble cast to that of a deuteragonist. he exists as her foil and as someone to provide cryptic context. and while this is likely because of the format the light novels and yoshida simply making choices based on what lore he wanted to share and how many pages he had to do it in, when you take abel's personality into consideration it almost feels... intentional? he's such an carefully passive person that he's difficult to perceive as 'main character material' in most respects, until his metaphorical hand is forced and he uses his abilities.