I don't use this icon enough

[justaking]

Edmund's hit 1k comments! So in honor of this and because I'm too lazy to essay:

ASK ME QUESTIONS. You don't even need to wait for me to ask back, just pelt me with questions. As many comments as you want. Go for it. o7

Also yes this applies to Jade IF YOU REALLY WANT TO.

Comments

4) How does relationships?

[justaking]

Ideally, and when he consciously thinks about it, Edmund wants to be around people he respects and genuinely likes who will tell him not only if he's not doing something right, but why and how they think it should be fixed.

Realistically and subconsciously, he really needs an encouraging hand because he's trying to settle into his own skin and being constantly jarred by other people's expectations isn't actually going to help him. The need to know why and how of things wrong, however, totally applies properly. If someone tells him he's wrong without an explanation, it just drives him to snap and ramble. They're generally fast and hot running angers with long simmering grudges long after the fact. If given an explanation, at least he can attempt to context frame it and it gives him something to consider. (This is something I sincerely bet was a constantly triggering thing during That School early on in his childhood, but he doesn't remember that yet and it's never really been explained in canon, so I'm giving it a guess here.)

Right now he's inordinately and not-so-secretly fond of cute things, ie cats (which didn't even need to be alive in the first place to make him fond of them) and Burupya, the latter of which is driving him nuts in THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. This, though he hasn't figured it out yet, is because both of the afore mentioned are incapable of judging him except by his actions. There is free affection handed out without expectations, restrictions, or the usual social issues. To them, who cares if he's a knight, or the third child of four children with some insecurities or whatever. It's a very freeing thing for him. If it hadn't been for the Aslan's Breath memory, Edmund would have settled to just not trying to get a cat because he didn't think he could care for one. Now he's confident enough that he's willing to give it a go.

Without these, however, Edmund is very reserved in talking about himself. Even with Sion and Ven, who he's closest to right now, he doesn't really want to discuss the complete contents of his memories, or his feelings. He'll sometimes discuss what he's thinking, but he holds back quite a lot. While he does this with most people because of trust, most of why he holds back right now is because this is what he thinks is expected of him. Why share? He's not the important factor here, and unloading a lot just seems like it'll make him look like he's whining. Which he's not! Just that he wants to talk about it sometimes.

He just. Doesn't really have the courage to actually do that even with close people. You can damn well bet he does it sometimes in private in his room at the cave with the wooden and paper cats.

tl;dr his competency issues and self imposed standards prevent him from getting that close to anyone right now. Edmund fails yet again by being a teenager. \o/