cherry | any pronouns | adult | art only my main blog is @lostgaytestsubject
girl idk anymore i draw what i like and what i like rn is robin buckley
terfs ain't got friends and trans women are women
ough I love love your season one Robin au! I heart Steve and Robin becoming friends earlier in the timeline:) I was wondering if you had any doodles of her and her scar because morbid curiosity got me😭
I DO ACTUALLY :]
the first one is a redraw of the ben affleck smoking meme lol and the second is what im thinking happens w/ her in s2! she's still a loner, not really a part of the other teens' group yet (the only one she really talks with is jonathan because of their shared awkward vibe but even then it's mainly just pleasantries) BUT after the events of s1 she's become incredibly hyper-vigilant of anything strange that's going on in the own.
since she isn't social enough to have a proper information network, she relies a lot on local news/radio/flyers/newspapers to stay in the know about anything strange that might be happening in town. she's had a few false-positives and is starting to think that that was just a one-off, maybe even some kind of shared hallucination between her, nancy, steve, and jonathan - but then she sees an article about the crops mysteriously dying in the paper and she can't shake the fact that there might still be something wrong in hawkins...
childhood friends au robin and nancy get "married" (with barb as the officiant) and in the present whenever nancy is about to do something self-sacrificial robin steps in and is like umm not without your wife
in what might be the biggest hear me out i've ever posted (very loosely inspired by these prompts)... here are my stranger things circus au thoughts:
in a somewhat "something wicked this way comes" esc scenario, vecna traps children via a traveling circus. trapped children become acts in the circus and do not retain their memories outside of their roles in the circus. when they do remember, they are still trapped (i'm picturing a similar situation to holly in s5)
vecna is the ringleader operating under the alias "mr. whatsit"
this would operate in a completely separate universe from canon. so everyone's first brush with the upside down is this circus. robin is at the circus with the odd squad and doesn't know anyone yet. stancy is broken up and steve's in his aggressively flirting/trying to get her back stage
nancy's the first one to figure it out because holly goes missing early on and she's looking for her before she gets trapped in the circus. i think the moment nancy sees holly in the circus all her memories come back and she becomes hyperfocused on trying to escape
stobin get trapped as literal conjoined twins. which is so unfortunate for robin because she hates that guy fr (but by the time they end the circus they are aggressively codependent, obviously)
the first person nancy breaks out of the trance is robin, and the two of them (plus steve as an unwilling tagalong) work together to end vecna's curse
general rapidfire ideas for the gang's circus roles:
- nancy as either an acrobat/contortionist or aerial silks (she is NOT a sharpshooter, but she does acquire a gun at some point i think and it's probably a pivotal moment for steve to realize he's been putting her in a box this whole time and in love with the idea of her rather than her as a person)
- billy as a strongman (right hand to mr. whatsit and an antagonistic force to the escapees)
- dustin as an animal tamer (+ dart)
- lucas as a fire performer (this is based off vibe alone)
- max as a trapeze artist (idk it gives skater adjacent vibes)
- el as a magician. or a clairvoyant/fortune teller?
- will as a mime
- mike as... a human cannonball
- eddie as a ventriloquist (ahem... master of puppets?)
- holly and her kid ensemble from s5 are all like. baby clowns idk
adding on some lore now that i've let this marinate for a bit:
when kids are taken, they're in this trance, sort of like their identity was buried underneath their new circus persona. there ARE things that can bring that identity back to the surface (similar to how they got through to will when he was flayed in season 2, except instead of possession it's more like repressed memories). the longer they spend in their circus trance, the harder it is to break them out of it until they eventually lose themselves completely
the whole circus is an illusion. attendees and even performers see this magnificent, gorgeous circus and the performers' appearances all look semi-familiar but different enough to be unrecognizable to the audience. when nancy snaps out of the circus trance and regains her memories she sees it for what it is - this creepy, upside-down-y thing run by monsters
stolen kids are replaced in the real world with shapeshifting demons
i think the mind flayer is the real puppet master, and i think it survives off of human souls. maybe it harvests the energy of humans monsters inc-style (hence the need for performers to farm energy from the audience) and i think when it travels to the next town, it slowly replaces the performers from the last with new ones and consumes the souls of the previous ones. i DO think it has a couple of performers that are "favored" though and have been in the circus for years
on that note, i think mr. whatsit has his own agenda of finding a new ringmaster so he can retire because he was the original stolen kid. so he's sort of always assessing the performers, looking for candidates. he'll put in a good word to the mind flayer in the hopes that they'll be favored and spared from consumption
and a couple small notes that i think are neat:
barb has been in the circus for years
barb and nancy's friendship has sort of been waning ever since barb left for a week to go visit her aunt and uncle in illinois a few years back and came back... distant. nancy assumed something Happened but didn't ever push because it never felt like her place to
barb is the sharpshooter and one of the primary ringmaster candidates
in what might be the biggest hear me out i've ever posted (very loosely inspired by these prompts)... here are my stranger things circus au thoughts:
in a somewhat "something wicked this way comes" esc scenario, vecna traps children via a traveling circus. trapped children become acts in the circus and do not retain their memories outside of their roles in the circus. when they do remember, they are still trapped (i'm picturing a similar situation to holly in s5)
vecna is the ringleader operating under the alias "mr. whatsit"
this would operate in a completely separate universe from canon. so everyone's first brush with the upside down is this circus. robin is at the circus with the odd squad and doesn't know anyone yet. stancy is broken up and steve's in his aggressively flirting/trying to get her back stage
nancy's the first one to figure it out because holly goes missing early on and she's looking for her before she gets trapped in the circus. i think the moment nancy sees holly in the circus all her memories come back and she becomes hyperfocused on trying to escape
stobin get trapped as literal conjoined twins. which is so unfortunate for robin because she hates that guy fr (but by the time they end the circus they are aggressively codependent, obviously)
the first person nancy breaks out of the trance is robin, and the two of them (plus steve as an unwilling tagalong) work together to end vecna's curse
general rapidfire ideas for the gang's circus roles:
- nancy as either an acrobat/contortionist or aerial silks (she is NOT a sharpshooter, but she does acquire a gun at some point i think and it's probably a pivotal moment for steve to realize he's been putting her in a box this whole time and in love with the idea of her rather than her as a person)
- billy as a strongman (right hand to mr. whatsit and an antagonistic force to the escapees)
- dustin as an animal tamer (+ dart)
- lucas as a fire performer (this is based off vibe alone)
- max as a trapeze artist (idk it gives skater adjacent vibes)
- el as a magician. or a clairvoyant/fortune teller?
- will as a mime
- mike as... a human cannonball
- eddie as a ventriloquist (ahem... master of puppets?)
- holly and her kid ensemble from s5 are all like. baby clowns idk
truly i believe that robin can be one of the biggest bottler of emotions in the whole series. girl who would rather shove it all down than be a burden to her loved ones. girl who likes to help people with their problems because it makes them happy and seeing them happy alleviates her own troubles for a moment. girl who doesnt realize that her friends would very gladly do the same for her because she never allows herself to slip too hard in public. girl who only thinks she's being kept around as long as she is helpful/funny/smart and is utterly terrified to find out what happens if she can't hold it together anymore
nancy always running cold because after she crawled through the portal in the woods in s1 and almost didn’t make it out the chill of the upside down never left her
I love your art style so much there's something so yummy about it on nom nom also all your headcanons are completely correct and true and did I say I love your art style???? it is so cute especially your ronance i lobe them I think you're my fav ronance/robin account now okay thank you bye
-@joycebyerschristmaslights
this has been in my inbox for forever omg im so sorry. thank you so much!!! have a little doodle i liked today :]
steve hanging around the kids so much in s2 and the time jump from there to 3 that he accidentally calls robin “sport” while they’re working and she nearly mauls him
I hope this isn't mega weird to say but I wrote this for you based on your post a few days ago about Robin walking in the rain. No pressure to respond! Just wanted to make sure you saw it as the intended audience https://www.tumblr.com/theyurimustflow/821177240105713664/rain-always-had-a-way-of-taking-robin-out-of-her
omg its not weird at all!! thank you sm for the reminder - i did see it before but i was busy and then tumblr ate the notif >:((( i loved it thank you so so much for taking my silly idea and running with it HAHA
Robin’s quick mind had always been a source of pride. She liked it, even if she never quite believed anyone else would, but it could be exhausting at times. Keeping up with her own thoughts was like dancing to a record that was playing a little too fast, a chaotic freeform jazz piece that started from the moment she opened her eyes in the morning and lasted until she fell asleep. She had found a few ways to slow it down over the years. One of them was rain.
The constant prickle of raindrops beating down on her woke her skin up and reminded her that she existed in her real physical body and not just in her head. The sound of it crashing down all around her in every direction drowned out just enough of her interminable internal monologue for her to focus on only the parts she meant to. Taking in the smell made her feel like she was a part of the earth instead of apart from it. So, any time it rained — those torrential downpours that the lead in a romance movie would stand under to declare their love after realizing they had almost missed their chance — Robin would venture out and seek calm.
She never really liked trying to explain to people why she did things like this. She tried once, when she was younger, and the bewildered looks she got back were enough to teach her that these were things other people wouldn’t understand and didn’t need to know.
It wasn’t hard to keep to herself. The roads were almost always empty when it was like this; cars were few and far between, and she never saw anyone else walking under this kind of weather. So, when a station wagon going a little too fast stopped suddenly right beside her and its door swung open, it scared the shit out of her.
“Robin? Are you okay?” Nancy yelled over the rain.
“Oh, hey Nancy! Yeah, I’m, uhh, I’m good. How ‘bout you?”
“What are you doing out here? It’s pouring!”
“I-I know! I just... I wanted to take a walk! No biggie!”
Nancy stared for a few moments, her face tense with concern. “Are you sure you’re alright? Nothing happened?"
“I’m sure.”
“Alright, well... it’s gonna get dark soon. At least let me drive you home.”
“You don’t have to, I’ll be alright.”
“No, come on, you’ll catch a cold or something.”
“I won’t! Besides, I’ll get your seat all wet, and I—”
“Robin.”
One of the other things Robin had more recently discovered helped her brain to slow down was Nancy saying her name in certain tones of voice.
“Get in the car.”
“Okay.”
It was really only when she got out of the rain that Robin ever started to feel wet, and when she squelched down on the fabric of Nancy’s passenger seat, especially sitting next to a completely dry Nancy, she became all too aware of every droplet running down her body or dripping from her hair.
“Thanks. And, uhh, sorry. You know, about the seat.”
“It’s fine, I’d pick you being safe over dry seats any day.”
It seemed to Robin that Nancy was driving a little slower than usual, even considering the conditions. In her experience, Nancy was a little bit of a speed demon, and Robin was usually gripping any fixed point she could hold onto for dear life by the end of the drive. It was why Robin usually rode shotgun with Steve when there was a choice. When she asked him about it, he told her not to bother bringing it up. Nancy would only insist that she wasn’t speeding, wasn’t going that fast at all in fact, and that she was in complete control of the vehicle and to stop telling her how to drive.
“You’re sure you’re alright?” Nancy asked.
“I am, promise.”
“What were you doing out in the rain?”
“I was, uhh, checking the faults. You know, for monsters. Recon. Just in case.”
“But... the nearest fault is three miles away.”
“Oh. I was... on my way there?”
“What’s really going on, Robin?”
“Nothing, it’s... it’s stupid.”
“Come on, tell me.”
“It’s...” Robin hesitated, sighing as she resigned herself to Nancy’s questioning, “it’s like, the inside of my head is always noisy. Like, cafeteria noisy. All these different conversations happening all at once, and if you really pay attention you can kinda listen in on some for a little while, but it always gets lost in the noise again. When I go out in the rain, it’s like everybody clears out for a while because the sprinklers went off. It’s relaxing.”
“Huh.”
“Told you it was stupid,” Robin mumbled.
“No, that actually makes sense. Especially about the noise.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean, my head gets noisy too. I always liked studying when it was raining. I never thought about going out in it, but I get it. Here, hold still.” Nancy pulled her sleeve over her hand as she stopped at a red light and started to gently wipe Robin’s face dry.
Robin felt the reflex to deny help springing up again, but she held it down, figuring that Nancy was probably going to insist anyway.
“Better?” Nancy said, smiling as she tucked Robin’s hair behind her ear.
Robin nodded, feeling much less like a stray dog.
The rain continued the next day, and Robin treated herself to a second helping. She never really thought about where she was going, and it just so happened that today she took the same route as she had the day before. She hadn’t been expecting Nancy to appear a second time, much less offer her another ride home, but somehow it didn’t feel like a surprise either.
“Has the seat even dried since yesterday?”
“More or less.”
Four days later, the rain returned. Robin took the same route again, on purpose this time. She thought of Nancy as she meandered, of warmth and comfort and deep brown eyes staring back at her as though they understood her. As though she actually mattered.
Robin stopped in the spot where Nancy had arrived the previous times. She closed her eyes, trying to shift her focus to physical sensation instead of the thought of Nancy’s hands. No way, she thought to herself, as she heard the sound of a car pulling up beside her.
She opened her eyes at the sound of a door opening and sure enough, there was Nancy, leaning across the seat and looking at her expectantly.
“Thought I might find you here.”
Nancy reached into the backseat once Robin had closed the door behind her, unfolding a wide and very soft towel to start patting her down. Robin hadn’t spoken a word yet, she was sure that if she opened her mouth while Nancy was tending to her like this, she would find a way to embarrass herself.
It was only when Nancy had stopped that Robin realized she had been sitting there with her eyes closed the entire time. It was quiet in her head. Not just quieter, actually quiet. She opened her eyes again to see Nancy looking back at her, watching patiently. Nancy looked pleased with her work and threw the towel into the backseat again before taking off.
After that day, every time it rained, Robin would walk to the same spot and Nancy would meet her there; pick her up, dry her off and take her home. Sometimes Robin got there first, sometimes she arrived to find Nancy already waiting. Even though neither of them ever made explicit plans for it, it became a reflex for both of them to find each other when the rain came.
One day, on a cold, late fall afternoon, when the clouds looked particularly dark and Nancy had been wondering if the rain might usher her to their meeting place, the doorbell rang.
“Robin?” Nancy said, surprised by who she found when she answered the door.
“Hey, uhh, seems like it's gonna rain soon. Thought maybe you’d like to come out with me, for a change?”
“It’s been cloudy like this all day, how do you know—”
The crack of thunder interrupted Nancy, and the heavens opened. There was no way Robin did it on purpose, Nancy thought, but she looked so very satisfied at her impeccable timing all the same that Nancy felt it was only right to accept the invitation.
“Let me get my umbrella.”
Nancy followed Robin out after a few minutes of gearing up to face the elements. She offered Robin an extra raincoat, and wasn’t at all surprised when it was declined, but insisted that Robin at least get under the umbrella, holding it up for both of them as they started their aimless wandering. It was a big umbrella, but sharing it still meant that they had to walk very close together, closer than either of them were used to. It took a minute or two to settle into pace and a shared rhythm, and get used to their hips touching.
“So, I guess you’re deferring Emerson in light of the impending doom?” Robin asked, stretching her arm out to catch some rain on her hand.
“Yeah, can’t exactly just take off and go pretend to be normal with things like this,” Nancy said.
“Weird to think, huh? That some day, this’ll all be over and we’ll be living normal lives.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it. We’ve thought this was over a few times now, it always seems to find a way back.”
“We’re gonna do it, you know. End it. We’ll find a way to be sure.”
“I hope so.”
“I, uhh, I was thinking I’m gonna apply to Smith. That would be pretty cool, huh? Us going to college in the same state?”
“Oh yeah? It would be nice, having somebody close by, or close enough anyway. Especially you. I mean, well, I just, I like hanging out with you.”
“Yeah, yeah totally,” Robin stammered back. She wasn’t sure why she was nervous all of a sudden. “Uhh, Jonathan will be there too, right? Didn’t you say you applied together?”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“You don’t sound enthused about that.”
“I don’t know, things have been weird.”
“Hmm... alright. Forget Jonathan. Just us. What’s the first thing you wanna do when you get there?”
“I think...” Nancy looked upwards, her mouth scrunching up as she thought, “I think I wanna try sushi.”
“Sushi?”
“Yeah. It’s like, you’d think it would make you sick, but it doesn’t. And it would mean that I’m definitely not in Hawkins.”
“You’ll have to call me after then, let me know if it’s good.”
“Oh no, you’re coming with me. I’m not trying it by myself.”
“That so? Well, if you insist, I will definitely let you buy me some.”
Robin drew the first laugh of many. It was easy to talk to Nancy, or to not talk and quietly enjoy the company and the experience. Moments like this made Robin wonder why she hadn’t tried to become friends with Nancy sooner.
After around thirty minutes of wandering, they circled back to Nancy’s house. Robin, thanks to playfully darting ahead several times to make Nancy chase her, was quite thoroughly drenched in spite of the umbrella. Nancy wasn’t quite as wet, but she wasn’t as accustomed to these expeditions as Robin was, and so her nose had turned red from the cold.
Nancy led Robin upstairs, fetching towels for both of them and heading to her room to dry and warm up. They both fell quiet as they toweled each other off, and Robin did her best to ignore the sense of intimacy. She was all too conscious of her hands lingering in any one spot too long, while at the same time trying not to ruminate on why Nancy’s hands seemed to linger a breath longer still.
They talked for a while longer, while the sound of the rain battering against Nancy’s bedroom windows provided the music. Robin started making her way out as the rain started to abate, once Nancy was satisfied that she was sufficiently warmed.
“We’re gonna win, you know,” Robin declared before leaving, “and when we do, sushi in Boston. You and me.”
Nancy grinned wide and nodded. “Deal.”
“I’m holding you to it, Wheeler. You better not stand me up.”
@fruifruit was something like this what you had in mind
