APPEARANCE

Edmund is a short but relatively stocky boy with wide shoulders, strong arms and somewhat large hands. His face shape is round but has lost the child’s roundness of it, giving him a very mature look despite his age and size. Edmund also has strong and visibly muscular legs as a result of his active lifestyle. He has a thick, slightly curly red hair cut short with a certain kind of roundness to the shape, and he has intense-looking brown eyes with sharp eye corners pointing slightly upwards. His nose is round-ish and small and his lips are very light with mouth on the wider side. He has visible freckles on his face, mostly focusing on his cheeks, between eyes and over his nose, but he doesn’t have freckles anywhere else on his body.

Edmund is usually seen wearing the Lottenberg middle school uniform, and similarly to Leon he also has the habit of keeping his collar very open and his ribbon open and loosely hanging. He also rolls up the very ends of his short hems. The way he gestures tends to be lively and he is also very expressive, especially when he is angry or irritated. His voice is low, lively and loud, and usually his feelings are easy to read from his tone alone.

SKILLS & ABILITIES

• Knows how to play a violin. He was taught to play by his mother’s side, but he doesn’t know how to read notes, and his playing is closer to what is considered “lowbrow entertainment”; folk songs and the like.
  
  
• His strongest subjects at school are history and PE.
  
  
• Good at improvising melodies while playing, and is known to be quite good at coming up with mock songs about fellow students and teachers  
  
  
• Incredibly strong for someone his size & can absolutely take care of himself. Tends to fare well in physical feats in general thanks to his active lifestyle and tendency to spend most of his time outdoors. He is known to fare well in physical fights as well.
  
  
• Good cold resistance & his body is always warm to touch
  
  
• Although not particularly good with words per se, Edmund does know how to make a good sales pitch when just needed to. He learned this from his traveler relatives who often make their living on the road by selling things. His honor code, much like his extended family's. is very strong through, and Edmund would never talk people into making bad deals with him. 

TRIVIA

• He is part of a group that has dubbed themselves as “Claude’s knights” and are often seen flocking around him. Edmund was originally very vary of Claude due to his behavior and reputation, but Claude earned Edmund's trust when he defeated Anthony in a fight. Admiring Claude’s ability to actually stand up for himself without being physically strong impressed him, and Edmund soon found himself practically pledging his loyalty to him.
  
  Edmund considers Claude his commander of sort and feels a sense of purpose to be of use to him, but  he also really wants to get to know Claude better and be his friend rather than an admirer.  
  
  
• Although he hates being teased for his red hair and freckles, he is actually very proud of taking after his mother in looks
  
  
• Isn’t insecure about his height in the slightest, and it’s one of the few things that don’t even provoke him much when made fun of. This probably has a lot to do with the fact he knows he can beat most boys up if they start a fight, and so his height isn’t that important to him.
  
  
• Edmund, uncommonly, uses his mother’s surname instead of his father’s, partially as an act of rebellion, but mostly because he identifies so strongly with his mother’s side of the family. His father’s surname is Lehmann.
  
  
• The O'Malone side of his family are traveling musicians and merchants, living a nomadic lifestyle as opposed to settling down in one place. The traveling lifestyle originally has its roots in livestock herding, but as it became more uncommon with industrial revolution, they eventually branched into merchants. 
  
  
• His surname O'Malone is a reference to a song called Molly Malone. It was one of the few songs that made me tear up when I heard it as a child (I heard the Finnish translated version though and it was sung in a particularly sad and upsetting tone)
  
  
• Edmund’s love for singing mocking songs about other people is directly related to a phenomenon in Finnish culture called “pilkkalaulu” which refers to songs specifically made to mock or tease someone else in a more or less offensive manner. They’re often associated with the earlier eras and school culture of parodying songs or simply coming up with your own as a catchy way to make someone angry. Edmund is good at that. It’s his pride and joy as a hobby, and he shares this passion with Cyrus.
  
  
• He’s actually one of the favourite students of the history teacher Newman, but because of this the man is also exceptionally merciless towards Edmund’s antics: Edmund is very often put to stand in the corner next to the teacher or put at the far corner of the classroom to stand with books balanced over his head. Edmund claims he doesn’t like his teacher any more than the others, but actually considers Mr. Newman his favourite despite his oftentimes unorthodox methods of teaching and punishing students.

PERSONALITY

Edmund is notorious for his strong personality, for it’s impossible to stay in the same room with him and not notice him: he’s loud, his laughter is contagious, he’s always up for something exciting and he’s extremely impulsive to the point he often ends up causing trouble to everyone and himself as a result of his shenanigans. However, most of these are considered charming, if not even desirable qualities by his peers, and as such he’s very liked by the other boys. Added by the fact he’s a very genuine and fair friend especially to those he pledges his loyalty to, it’s no surprise he’s quite popular and hardly ever seen idle or alone. His presence is usually an indication of something exciting to happen, if only in the form of him fighting with Oliver.

He’s not very good at talking about or even understanding his own feelings, however, and they often confuse and even anger him when he can’t figure out what’s wrong with him. Although this often leads to him picking fights with other people, it also makes his feelings come out as very genuine and he doesn’t really hide them, for better or worse. Edmund might appear blunt at times because of it, but it also means he’s usually fast to vocalize his affection and like for people, as long as he himself realises he feels that way: there are people he truly does care about but doesn’t quite understand it himself, usually resulting in fistfights and senseless, almost playful arguments. Edmund also devotes himself to people very strongly once he learns to adore or trust someone, and isn’t usually one to hesitate when situation calls for action.

Because he genuinely enjoys following orders from those he respects or likes (although this probably also has a lot to do with his strict upbringing), he’s often running errands for others and helping them out, in particular Claude whom Edmund has a well meaning fixation of sort on. But although he has a strong sense of right and wrong on his own right, Edmund finds it almost too easy to go against those ideals if people he loves order him to do so: he might hesitate a little and try to negotiate, but at the end of the day he usually puts his obedience and loyalty over his own feelings. That being said, Edmund never enjoys causing grief to people who haven’t done anything wrong to him or his friends.

Somewhat of a troublemaker, Edmund is taking all he can out of being away from his parents, in particular from his strict ex-soldier father who has raised Edmund with strong discipline. However, the boy never really seemed to take to heart what his father taught him, and Edmund continues to be free-spirited, impulsive and a risk taker by nature. He enjoys freedom and loves meeting new people and seeing new places, and so it’s no surprise his biggest wish is to become a traveler like his mother used to be, and see the world while playing his violin.

HISTORY

Edmund was born as the oldest son to a merchant father (ex-soldier) and a nomad mother who settled down when she fell in love with her now husband. As the oldest son Edmund would be subjected to strict home rules and punished severely from his mistakes, and this changed only after his little brother was born when Edmund was 8, his parents’ attention now divided between the two children.

Because of his mother’s nomadic roots, Edmund would only occasionally visit his relatives from this side, but whenever they came to town they stayed a few weeks, and the boy would spend almost his whole time with them, learning how to play the violin and listening to the stories they had to tell from all around the country, and even from other countries. Edmund enjoyed this time wholeheartedly and loved his more relaxed and carefree relatives, whose free spirit he was certainly taking after compared to the strict and controlled Lehmann family from Edmund’s father’s side.

Because of his social nature, Edmund always had at least a couple of friends, and was also a known troublemaker in his hometown. Once in a while he’d even get in serious trouble over his hijinks and pulling other children into them with him, but he was never the one to seriously want to insult or hurt someone. That said, he Edmund was always a very creative child and delighted in coming up with songs and rhymes to mock people he didn’t like, and these often spread among the other children (and sometimes even adults) of his town, much to the dismay of his father who tried to get his misbehaving son to act more honorably.

Edmund was sent to the boarding school with the hopes the presence of more “higher class” boys would make Edmund also behave, but this has only seem to have an opposite effect: all these boys from good families are taking everything they can out of being away from the rules of their parents, and Edmund is no exception to this.