#magtitude

Right, so, let’s talk survival verse. So, it’s hard for Eddie to be honest. He’s lost an arm. And, Eddie hates being immobilised. Hates not being able to do things himself for once. And he hates being babied. As soon as he’s able to, Eddie is up and out of that bed and getting on with fixing things up in his life.

A few things of importance, for generics, Eddie is still very on the fence about having a prosthetic. On the one hand, he wants to work with what he now has. Doesn’t want some help from an arm that isn’t his. He’ll find a way to work around it, do tasks with his one arm. On the other hand, he doesn’t have one. But seriously, his remaining arm is bad enough as it is. His left arm has been broken more than once, and Eddie has always suffered chronic pain from it. So, basically, Eddie is stubborn and fucking up his remaining arm because in his own words he “doesn’t want a pity made fake arm”. Of course, I think after a while he may give in, get one as his other arm really begins to suffer from the total weight of tasks. Of course, he does get a little help from the husband in the end. But, we’ll get to that.

So, this near death experience has Eddie go over a lot of things in his life. A lot of regrets, a lot of habits that need to stop and a lot of issues he refused to face. Of course, the process of fixing such things is a long one. If we focus on my canon, Eddie has it a tiny bit easier. See, Eddie goes over the words he was thinking of saying to Richie, and whilst in the hospital, he gets to finish the sentence he wanted to say - that alone causes some realisations. For years, Eddie told himself that he wasn’t one for relationships. Grossed out by the thought of intimacy and proximity of someone. He pushed away the possibility of being gay because he also didn’t want to be near women. The thing with such a ideology was that Eddie knew full well that he had no attraction to women at all - he never pushed down thoughts he had about women because he never had them. But, he always pushed down and hid the thoughts he had towards men - the yearning for a relationship or the need for some form of intimacy that grossed him out. This idea of it being gross stemmed from the repulsion that his mother had taught him. Another thing he noticed. A lot of his views were a product of his mother’s teachings - teachings that he soon realised he should have ignored. Well, ignored when it came to himself.

You see, Eddie is not a judgemental person when it comes to sexuality (and such like that). Well, not to others. He’s very happy for people like that, love seeing people being themselves unapologetically. However, when it comes to himself, he still hides it. Is weighted down by the views of his mother, the church and the lasting image of what happens to such people from Derry. Eddie believed he would be blanketed in sin for such actions, for such thoughts, so much that he pushed them so far down that a mere similar thought could never surface again. This, in turn, has effected him heavily. He’s not just going to go back into the world and suddenly be happy to engage with men. He’s gonna have to work through that, unlearn actions and feelings towards the subject. Learn to no longer be repulsed and ashamed. He’ll get there eventually. Slowly but surely. The same being with the hypochondria and the pills, no longer being dependent and stressed. He eventually gets to a point when he doesn’t get in the car at two in the morning because he thinks he’s got a headache and he’s going to die, you know? And it’s much easier when he has someone concrete in his life. That support.

Of course, if we look at the alt verse, in which Myra is included? Things are a little more complicated. Not only does Eddie have a lot of stuff to work out for himself, he also has to work out the whole thing between him and Myra. To set things straight, Eddie deeply cares for Myra. He loves her a lot, just not in the way the marriage should indicate. He does not want to hurt her, break her heart or anything of the sort. I also believe that Myra is not as bad as Sonia was. Sonia was racist and homophobic and anti-Semitic. Of course, there is the weird, uncomfortable physical similarities, as well as the manipulative traits - a trait that grew over time with Myra - but I believe that she is in no way hateful. However, it’s still terrifying. I feel like it takes him a while, of course he doesn’t want to leave her trapped in a relationship that isn’t true. He believes she deserves someone who will love her as he was meant to. Myra is probably the first person he breaks it to. In person. He believes that she deserves the right to know before anyone else. I do think he does contact the losers though, makes sure to ring them one by one - or as close to that as he could. Readies himself for any sort of teasing comments. It’s a relief though. A massive one. Those impurities that left him in the sewer, seemed to slowly leave him again at the support. As they always did with his friends. But, still, it’s a work in progress. A work to get to a point where he can actually find someone he could love entirely without a care. 

The hypochondria is a lot harder to deal with. He slips a lot. One moment he’s fine, then he’ll falter, end up at the ER full of sobs. Crying that he needs stronger painkillers because it still hurts, his arm still hurts. Claiming that his head feels like it’s gonna blow up and he’s gonna die. It’s rough. He get’s there though. Eventually. He might always slip a little, even once he’s past it, you know? The occasional panic but he doesn’t get up and scurry to the hospital like he usually would. Just learns to calm himself down.