[jake johnson, cis male, he/him/his]who’s that? oh it’s [bob newby]. i hear they’re [forty-four] and are known as [the brain] around [radioshack]. they’re known to be [kind & selfless] and [gullible & frail]. some people say they remind them of [homecooked meals, tv static, bear hugs, the cheers theme song & your dad’s cologne]. they [do not] believe they died.
the only child of two overprotective parents was almost like setting him up for disaster. bob was a frail kid and ended up hospitalized for pneumonia when he was only six. since then, his parents coddled him a lot, which probably explains why he is how he is.
bob grew up in hawkins, but because of that early illness, his parents were wary to enroll him in sports. so, he dedicated himself to school and learning, something he was quite good at. he even founded hawkins middle av club (with the help of his best friend scott).
being intelligent and unathletic meant bob was picked on a lot at school for being ‘different’ than the other little boys, but he always did his best not to let it bother him too much (sometimes with more success than others).
after graduation, bob’s parents moved to maine to take care of his mother’s ailing parents and, without a real solid plan in mind (and not much holding him to hawkins after his only good friend went away to college), bob followed. he got a job at radioshack and eventually moved up the ranks to become manager there.
he moved back to hawkins in 1982 partly for a change of scenery and mostly because he’d ended a long-term relationship (or...it’d be ended for him) and he needed space.
here, he reconnected with old friends and classmates. bob spent many evenings watching star trek reruns on scott’s couch and occasionally had a drink with jim hopper. he got a job at their radioshack branch and that was where bob first meant joyce. the rest is history.
bob’s father was always a bright spot in a not-so-bright childhood. he always showed interest in his son’s hobbies and was there for him when the bullying got too bad. so, bob embraced joyce’s son’s as if they were his own. he’d talk music with jonathan and art with will. he even went to a concert with jonathan once and had plans to take will to art museums in chicago before...well, before.
the last thing bob remembers is opening the doors of hawkins lab for everyone. everything after that is a blur. as far as he can tell, though, he’d escaped the lab with his life -even if only barely- but was traumatized enough by what he’d seen there to skip town and join some kind of...forest commune? he was an eagle scout, so surviving in the woods isn’t the problem. he just feels extremely guilty for essentially abandoning joyce and the boys. it just...doesn’t feel like something he’d do.
bob didn’t exit the woods to hawkins. he must have gotten separated from the rest of the group, because he’s been in chicago for the last several weeks, staying with a cousin and trying to piece together what happened to him. but when he heard about scott clarke? he jumped right in the car to return to hawkins and face his past head on...and also to mourn the best friend he’d ever had with the rest of the community.















