crossposted from twitter because it was inspired by this tweet!
Eddie's first character is a halfling rogue: small, stealthy, built to get in and get out, maybe cause a little damage along the way. He isn't built for taking hits or maximum damage, and everyone knows that magic isn't real.
Eddie's first scar is the one on his lip, from when he took a punch from his father wrong and split it on his tooth. It probably wouldn't have scarred if Eddie left it alone, but he worried at it with his tongue until it healed shiny with scar tissue.
He learns, from the sting of eating and talking, that he shouldn't fight monsters he isn't strong enough to beat. So, he runs. Gains XP.
He's small and quiet enough to go unnoticed. He hides in the corners of libraries for hours, steals extra food from school lunch, and on the rare occasion someone decides to pick on him, that's when he swings back, scared and vicious.
He levels up, and, somewhere along the way, that character dies a quiet death in favor of one that better fits the campaign.
Somewhere between his father's arrest and starting school at Hawkins Middle, Eddie plays a new character. A tiefling sorcerer, one with bad blood on two fronts, for no one likes demons, and magic still isn't real.
Kids are cruel. They tease him for his secondhand clothes and his buzzcut (lice) and his loud hands and voice and his complete disregard for schoolwork, because if it isn't interesting, he won't do it.
Eddie takes it all, until a kid calls him a word he knows is right for him but isn't safe to be in Hawkins.
Then he puts his fist through his face.
Overnight, he goes from "weird and obnoxious" to "mean and scary," and he really, really hates how that makes him more isolated.
So, he switches gears in high school. Plays a half-elf bard, someone who's a little more than human, someone whose job it is to entertain, to make people laugh and feel right at home. He finds little lost sheep and makes them feel like they have a place to belong in his own little world.
He still has to fight sometimes, of course. Especially earlier on, he uses his fists, though he hates it. Later, when he levels up, he uses his words instead.
He doesn't know how those work. Magic isn't real.
Then Chrissy Cunningham dies in his living room, and magic is real, and it is awful and scary and cruel and fatal.
And Eddie Munson is just Eddie Munson. Not a hero, not a spellcaster, nothing special. But he can't be just Eddie Munson because that has never been enough.
In his rush, he picks his next character to be a human fighter. He has never played one before, and it feels odd and ill-fitting and wrong.
It's wrong. And Eddie forgets his first rule, the one that got him the scar on his lip, when the bats rush toward him.
He shouldn't fight monsters he isn't strong enough to beat.
He goes down, and he stays down, but the wonderful thing is that he has saving throws.
He just needs to succeed.
I am a(n):
⚪ Male
⚪ Female
🔘 Writer
Looking for
⚪ Boyfriend
⚪ Girlfriend
🔘 An incredibly specific word that I can’t remember
*wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat*
WAIT IT’S CALLED A THROW PILLOW
here is a super helpful website for this kinda thing!
the first result isn’t always the one you’re looking for but when you press enter it’ll give you a ton of words related to your query that’ll probably have what you’re wanting, or something better
here’s some examples:
Reblog to save a writer’s sanity (the last bit that’s left)
OneLook thesaurus is a lifesaver!
