You know what the funny thing is? I never felt betrayed by you. Not even when you were being a dick. Well, that’s good, I guess. Yeah. Unless it’s ‘cause you never took me seriously to begin with. No. No, Jason, that is not it. It’s just… You know how our paths have crisscrossed and the timing… I know what you mean. Seeing you with Hoyt tonight brought it all back for me. Just how complicated things are between us, you know? Can I be real honest with you? Please. I actually feel like our relationship is one of the least complicated in my life. Really. When I look back on us, I think about all the times that you were there for me. When you gave me exactly what I needed at the exact moment that I needed it. Kind of like the other night? Yeah. I feel like when we’re together, we’re in a little bubble, you know, just floating above the ground. And I know we can’t stay there, but it makes coming back down to earth feel better. What do you call that? I don’t know if there’s an official name.
( MAYA HAWKE | CIS WOMAN | SHE/HER | 24 ) — — — it's just been another long week in boring - ass hawkins. isn't that right, ROBIN BUCKLEY ? shit, i guess they can't hear me over PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER by PATTI SMITH playing through the headphones of their walkman. it looks like they're gonna be late for WORK as a/at LIBRARY ASSISTANT AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY. did you know ROBIN has been in hawkins for THEIR WHOLE LIFE ? yeah, their family and friends describe them as INQUISITIVE, but i've seen them be HYPER too ! i would also say they remind me of disorganized bookshelf cluttered with knick knacks, chipped black nail polish, daydreaming about faraway places while language tapes blast through headphones around her neck, the unsettling feeling of sticking out despite every effort to blend in, beaten up red converse covered in doodles, but is that weird ? i guess nothing's too weird for this little town, huh ?
happy to be here! I'll be sticking to canon, but also using the rebel robin podcast to form the bulk of robin's backstory, drive, and character prior to show antics.
tl;dr: closeted disaster lesbian who only recently started feeling comfortable in her own skin. loves her friends but desperately wants out of hawkins. just returned from a 3-month trip backpacking across Europe & has started a new job as a library assistant.
name: robin buckley
age: 24
gender: cis woman (she/her)
hometown: hawkins, indiana
current residence: hawkins, indiana
education level: high school graduate
sexuality: lesbian (has only come out to a handful of people)
born to domesticated hippies Richard and Melissa Buckley. their former lifestyle and permissive parenting meant robin had experimental, open-minded parents who often didn't give her the attention they should have. the disappearance of will byers changed things for a bit, but they struggled to maintain anything that resembled a firm grip or a nuclear household for long, and that was perfectly fine for robin.
domesticated hippies also = poor af. savings were nonexistent when they spent their youth backpacking and staying in hostels or couch surfing. melissa's pregnancy forced the couple to settle, and they used the scraps of money they had to buy a tiny, shitty house not all that unlike or far away from the byers residence.
growing up, robin has always recognized that there was something... different about her. something off. but she was never certain on what exactly it was. when the quirks of her personality brought on some early childhood bullying, she quickly learned that whatever it was, she had to do everything she could to keep it hidden and to stay out of sight.
as she went through school, she mastered the art of social camouflage, fitting herself easily into certain social categories and being just social enough and just distinct enough to be utterly uninteresting to the regular hawkinite. the movie ticket girl. the band geek. during that time, she saw the loss of multiple different friendships for a variety of reason: her childhood friend barbra holland "dropping" her for nancy in middle school, her fellow odd squad members kate and milton dropping her because of shitty boyfriends or new girlfriends. while she later reconciled the latter relationships, the sting of rejection did nothing to help robin's growing sense of unease and the belief that something was wrong with her, that she was the broken one causing everyone to leave her.
she found solace in the adventures her parents talked about experiencing in their youth: the different people they met, the risks they took, the communities they were apart of, the annual christmas party with old hippie friends from all walks of life, impossibly pouring into hawkins and their tiny house, a colorful oasis in the middle of monstrous town. it all sparked an interest in knowing more about the world around her.
her need for camouflage kept her from exploring her curiosity in school and excelling (less she lose her average B student status by being an overachieving teacher's pet), so she instead funneled that need into exploring literature and learning languages. the books exposed her to interesting philosophical and moral dilemmas, points of views, and (later much-needed) representations of life not found in hawkins. the languages made the possibility of exploring those parts of life feel more like a possibility.
operation croissant bloomed from there: a dream to spend a summer backpacking across europe, venturing on a life like her parents did when they were younger, meeting people who are maybe like her. at her core, robin longs for acceptance and community. she wants to exist as herself, fully as herself, with people who know every aspect of her and love her for it. more than that, she wants to be around people like her, to not be the odd one out. she wants to be surrounded by a community who sees people who are different and their first reaction isn't to judge. as her feelings for tammy were realized for the crush that it was (in large part due to the insights gained from her friendship with mr. hauser) and she began to recognize why she was different, her dreams adapted to include wanting to be a pillar for change, to fight back against the Hawkins monster and to somehow make things a little bit better for the people like her who come after her.
her teenage years never saw operation croissant come to fruition, but she somehow stumbled upon a tiny community with reformed douchebags and prisses and a gaggle of children and she's never been happier (or more traumatized, but alas, a worthy trade off to her).
post-canon
following the defeat of vecna, robin continued to work at family video.
she came out to her parents not long after - their reaction was probably the best she could have hoped for from them: they accepted it in their eccentric way of theirs, regaling her with stories of other lgbtqia+ friends they've met in passing (along with uncomfortable tmi stories of their own sexual explorations from their youth). the whole thing has brought the buckley family a bit closer together, as her parents have made more of an effort to be present and invested in her life in a long-term way.
she's chosen to stay at home partially for this reason, but also because she's too broke to get her own place, and partially still resistant to the idea of investing money in roots in hawkins.
with the money she saved, advice from her parents, and a full year of planning, she finally made operation croissant a reality. she spent the first three months of this year in europe, and it was a lot. amazing and overstimulating and eye-opening and terrifying and beautiful and ugly and bustling and lonely and affirming and a lot. she was relieved to return to the warmth of her loved ones when her trip concluded, but also both comforted and left-wanting in a way she'd never experienced before.
and thus, her dilemma.
she loves her community, can't even imagine a life without her friends, or picture how she can find anyone who'd understand her the way her people do in hawkins. but the idea of being stuck in hawkins and becoming a Hawkinslifer itches at her skin in a way she can't help, can't soothe, can't stop.
she doesn't actually know what to do to solve this problem, so she doesn't really voice it (a rarity), especially now that weird shit is maybe staring up again so leaving is not even an option to consider. but in the back of her mind, operation chicago has started sprouting just the tiniest of bit.
anyways, she's always been kind of aimless, unsure of what she wants to do with life since she can't picture an actual future in hawkins. but, after returning from europe at the start of april, she decided a good first step would be to do something that actually interested her for work, so she left family video to take on a job as a library assistant at the public library.
misc/headcanons
prior to working at scoops ahoy, robin worked at the hawkins theater (season 1 timeline). she was fired when she accidently melted a movie.
has maintained a good relationship with her former english teacher mr. hauser since graduation. he was the first person she came out to, and she has always valued his caring presence in her life as an older gay. his gift of a russian-version of anna karenina is the most worn book on her bookshelf (frankenstein remains her favorite though).
she's picked up a few more languages since her high school years. she's fluent in French, Italian, Spanish, Pig Latin, Russian, Portuguese, and Dutch. She's currently trying to learn ASL, but her hand coordination is fucked so it's a slow go.
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