#anyway. stobin 💞💞💞

[envyenvys]

The thing about stobin is that they only work as well as they do because Robin was originally supposed to be Steve’s love interest, rather than in spite of it.

Like, what do we love about them?

They’re each other’s best friend

They’re incredibly co-dependent

They can basically read each other’s minds

They’re together so often that you can essentially treat them as one entity

They have genuine moments of emotion

These are all things that are par for the course when it comes to writing romantic relationships. You see it with Jon and Nancy (though not quite to the same level, they don’t have the Stobin Mind Meld) where they’re also each other’s best and only friend, and they also do almost everything together, and most of their genuine moments of emotion are with each other or with family.

Stobin don’t have any family or friends, because Steve’s family just doesn’t exist for some reason, and Robin was introduced to fill his empty friend slot after the stoncy divorce. Robin doesn’t have any either, because why would they flesh out a backstory for Steve’s New Girlfriend when they need to spend all their screentime establishing a believable romance?

So what we end up with is the bones of a romance that they have to hastily cover with the skin of a friendship, and they’ve already laid all that groundwork so they can’t exactly start backpedaling now.

That’s why stobin are mostly comic relief when they’re allowed to be together in s4 btw, they genuinely don’t know what to do with them now bc they didn’t intend for their relationship to be platonic (surely there’s no interesting room for growth in a close platonic relationship, that would be silly). Steve still doesn’t have a love interest, which is catastrophic for a fan favourite main character (bc amatonormativity dictates that being single is a Bad Ending and they can’t give him a Bad Ending, he can’t be punished by the narrative when he’s supposed to be finished his redemption arc) which is why he was shoehorned back with Nancy (bc they didn’t have the space to add another character just to be his love interest). (Robin gets a hint of Vickie bc denying their only explicitly canon gay character a ‘happy ending’ (read: romantic relationship) is also Very Bad, both narratively and optics-wise)

Basically, if they’d started out with the intention of making Robin Steve’s friend rather than his girlfriend, well, for one she wouldn’t exist. But secondly they’d be a lot less close than they are now. They’d be more like what we see in s4: a comedy duo, except without the same level of emotion and intimacy behind all their interactions. They literally wouldn’t have been allowed to get that close, because the number one spot in Steve’s life would’ve been reserved for his girlfriend, because again: amatonormativity dictates your romantic partner is your first priority and your most important relationship. Robin got that spot through a miracle and some gay trickery, and I for one will always be grateful.

I’m probably not the first person to mention any of this, but I’ve been thinking a lot about platonic relationships in media recently, and a lot about stobin specifically. It’s kind of sad that one of the best examples of a close platonic relationship I can think of is just a romantic relationship in a wig, but I’ll take what I can get (and god I love them anyway).

[augustjustice]

💞

Thank you so much for the ask, friend, and for your patience! 💛🖤My partner had surgery last week, so things have been a little hectic.

Have some Stobin silliness as they try to figure out Steve's "dream date":

“So, what are you even looking for, anyway?” “What do you mean?” Steve asked, still too caught up on picturing his future as a not-quite-cat-lady to pick up the thread from their earlier conversation. “In a girl, Steve,” Robin huffed, exasperated. “It’s exactly like I said back in March–your whole problem is that you don’t know what you want. So, if we compile a list, figure out all the traits of your perfect dream date, maybe then we can finally salvage your abysmal love life.” 

Make me write!