#thank you everyone for generously indulging me while i was suffering (and horribly overcaffeinated) i appreciate it T__T <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

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Robo/Otter for the ship opinion thing please

@kitnita and @penswriter also asked me this so thank you :') i will never pass up an opportunity to talk about robotter!

tbh zoe's post on them is already PERFECT and she nails the core essence of what makes them compelling so i feel like i don't have to tack on much more but. 2129 are my 2nd favorite stars ship (i'm just equal opportunity robo multishipper. i will reflect) and my main takeaways are that they're so much fun for 1) how their freak_guy mentalities are like... insanely similar despite documented commitment to midwestern "niceness" and 2) how much they embody entwined_legacy draft narratives. and also how much they patiently indulge the media by continuously acknowledging and answering for them.

like jake being the goalie the stars traded up for, robo being the guy who slipped down to the 2nd round and wasn't even interviewed by the team because they always knew they wanted him, etc... i think what destroysss me about robo saying that he and otter "grew up together" in the ahl despite it being literally One year is that for most guys (especially star players) the ahl is barely more than a transitory interval on the path toward their Real Careers, and while robo does characterize it that way most of the time — sometimes when people fish for those ~are you surprised you Made made it to the nhl~ soundbites he's kind of like uh... well not really because i put in the work at every step of the way so why wouldn't i get there eventually? — he still talks about the draft being that moment when he realized that like, Woah okay this professional hockey stuff is a whole different ballpark and the type of player i have to become requires way more sensitive calibration than cooking in juniors does. so in that sense the ahl really is where he officially Grew Up, and the fact that he credits otter as being an integral part of that is like 😭 IT MAKES ME WANT TO CHEW ON SOMETHING.

i also think their jr paths really inform their gamer_mentalities which is sooo interesting to me. like they're both nerds but in different ways: jake is extremely sentimental about his time playing high school hockey and had a very vibrant social life in minnesota and carries that ferda love (second to none but tydel of course) into every roster he plays with, wants so badly to hold onto the memories of every guy who skates for him each season 🥲 whereas robo's parents upended a ton of familiarity to homeschool him and his siblings and let robo focus uniquely on hockey and is sort of why he's much more romantic about the game itself than anything else (and yet otter is still Special and That Guy and the Backbone of the team to him! okay!). so those little nuances, despite their being very similar competitors, does beget intriguing dynamics.

also there's a quote pav had in his exit interview (03:29) that i keep coming back to and it's that "[robo] does have somewhat of a belief that this is his team, as do other guys—as a miro, a roope, and for me that's super encouraging. to see young players have that kind of intensity, that drive, that they want to be the guy out there that's going to make a difference." and i feel like honestly no one better exemplifies that pure raw Belief that they are (or have to step up and become) THE GUY more than otter and robo do. which is just. auUGHHH... so fascinating also because at the end of the day no position is less disposable than a winger and no position is more opaque and singular and coveted than an "elite" goalie. and yet.

i won't wax poetic much longer because i feel like this is all very obvious rambling but i just adore them! and tangentially i find the general existence of ty dellandrea incredible because truly there are so many ways to insert him into a robotter triangle. and when you can start throwing in wyatt or whomever else in there??? the possibilities are endless!!! i love 2129 as a baseline "it's us until the end and we want to win HERE and TOGETHER and NOW" ship so much and i'm obsessed with how much you can keep iterating on that to your heart's content.