Unlike in his main verse Dodge is not new in town. He has lived in Hawkins his whole life. So has his family. They are very stereotypical for a small town in the midwest, in that they are a cowboy family. They used to own quite a bit of land near the edge of Hawkins that you have to drive by as you enter city limits.
He is known around town as being a cowboy. He is known in high school for being the Rodeo kid. He looks it. He may not always be wearing flannels and button up shirts, but he is always in boots. Luckily cowboy attire is pretty timeless. The town knows who he is, and who their family is as they do on occasion make the news because they are good. His sister is the best barrel racer in the region, and he has one his fair share of rodeos and titles that he has some notoriety among the community.
His dad died by bull rope, and Dodge was the one who found him and cut him down. They keep his true cause of death a secret. Most people just think it was a roping accident. And that is what Dodge will say when asked. About a year later Dayna got in an accident when she was t-boned driving to school, the cops could not figure out who hit her, she wouldn’t say, and thus it is an unsolved crime though Dodge has his suspicions.
His mother is the mistress of the sheriff from another county and thus is sparse, or that car is often on their property. After Dayna’s accident the Mason’s had to sell a large portion of their land, and their horses to help pay for Dayna’s hospital bills. They were told it was unlikely she would be able to walk again let alone be able to ride again.
Dodge is one of the many that goes to search for Will at night, as he is familiar enough with the woods. And honestly he feels for Jonathan, while Dodge and Dayna are closer in age than Will and Jonathan he understands what it is like to an extent to be worried for a sibling.
Part of the remaining land that the Mason’s house is on is poisoned by the tunnels. Dodge having a shaky history with the Hawkins police department goes to complain to be dismissed and of course it pisses him off. They don’t have much left and what they do have is being ruined for some reason. His sour mood is definitely noticed at school.
Dayna is one of the flayed. When she can suddenly walk again, Dodge’s mom was grateful but Dodge was suspicious. They were told it wasn’t possible, basically. So for Dayna to suddenly be able to walk with no trepidation like she had never been in accident he was suspicious. Again he went to the cops but they were useless. He tried talking to the paper, because his mom was wanting to spin some miracle story, and Hawkins needed a good story.
He walked in on Dayna knocking their mother out and he overpowered her briefly by knocking her out. He again called the cops but they were again not helpful. He didn’t get much farther because on 4th of July Dayna disappeared. He tried looking for her, at the Fun Fair but was unsuccessful.
He was later told that she died in the Mall Fire. He didn’t believe it for one second. Everything surrounding her death was wrong. And he was determined to figure out what the hell was going on.
Dodge’s mom was not coping well with Dayna’s death. Sometimes he thought the only thing that kept her going was that she didn’t want Dodge to be an orphan. Dodge was not equipped to take over the home as she would say.
version 1 (primary): Follows the canon of the show, and Dodge’s mom dies in the “earth quake” in front of him, he couldn’t save her. Their home and property was destroyed. He takes to staying at Hawkins High for shelter because he’s basically homeless now. He doesn’t believe the earth quake story. Not after Dayna’s death.
version 2 (secondary): For all my lovely canon character fans, as I am one, Vecna moves on from any of his original victims. They don’t know this. His next target is Dodge’s mom, because Dodge is so good at compartmentalizing that its kinda scary. He has not processed anything that has happened to him and his family, but he doesn’t allow himself to either. His mom is a different story.
She is distraught at the town hall meeting, and while not fully feeding into what the basketball boys are saying, she does believe it, especially after Dayna’s death. Dodge smells a whole bunch of bullshit. Its a breaking point for her, if she is alive at that point she may already be dead depending on which victim she replaces.
He watches her and there is nothing he can do about it. The bullshit the basketball boys spread is so strong. He didn’t believe it especially with what he saw. The cops weren’t helpful, he knew this, so he took to not calling them, not that he really had a chance to because as soon as she died the earth quake happened. Again she may already be dead depending on which victim she replaces.
He wants fucking answers. And he will get them.
