Some friendship... (also I'm fucking up past and present tenses, but idgaf)

You know I just realized how absolutely humongous a crock of shit the whole Maya turning into Riley because she's getting better grades thing is, and that Riley only was accusing her of that because of Lucas. I mean, I knew it was bullshit before, but I never really though of how gigantic a 💩 it was until today.

Girl Meets Father is the fourth episode of season one. In that episode, Cory gives Maya an F on her test. Maya gets upset that she failed the test.

Maya tells Riley that "sometimes, I'm not so proud of who I am".

Maya tells Riley and Cory that she "tried to write like I was smart", Riley responds that Maya is smart.

Cory corrects Maya on one answer of the test saying "it's a tiny difference but an important one. Because if you know it, Maya, you don't fail". Maya then replies "I want to not fail".

Riley was encouraging Maya, while Cory was quizzing her on the subject of the test.

Maya says to Cory: "I just don't wanna fail, Mr. Matthews.

We go from that (Riley encouraging Maya to grow and better herself) to season three, Girl Meets Triangle, where Riley accuses Maya that the person that Maya has grown into is not who she really is.

Riley tell the art teacher that "Maya's a rebel". That Maya dances on teachers' desks, is the queen of detention and the president of Mayaville.

Riley is saying that Maya needs to be fixed because "she's been getting good grades, she's behaving all over the place".

Maya tells Riley, "I'm me! I've always been me, I'm always gonna be me! Nothings going to change that!", Riley retorts with"you haven't stood on a teachers desk or been in detention for a long time. You sold your house in Mayaville and you moved to Rileytown."

No matter what Maya says, Riley keeps insisting that Maya turned into her, blah blah blah.

Riley goes on about how Maya's style has changed towards Riley's style.

So, in the beginning of the series Riley was encouraging Maya to grow and do better. Maya even told Riley that she's not proud of who she is. Maya does mature and grow...

THEN Riley finds out that Maya likes the same guy as her. That can't happen, she can't have Lucas choosing Maya; so she accuses Maya of becoming her and wants Maya to become that failure that Maya thought she was in the beginning of the series (plus telling Maya that while Riley will have one husband, Maya will go through 5 husbands and that Lucas won't be one of them). Riley accuses Maya pulling the fire alarm, of stealing from the cafe (for me, that kind of accusation is something that a friendship can never bounce back from) and she basically forces Maya to revert back to the person she wasn't proud of being, to believe that she doesn't deserve good things or good guys... all because they like the same guy.

Thus, by the end of the series; Riley destroyed all of Maya's growth and forced Maya's regression and Riley became a hypocrite.

Tell us why you prefer Riley with Farkle to Lucas! I do too, by the way :)

Seeing this ask made me so happy, glad there are still gmw fans to this day. I just realized that I never tackled this subject in depth here. I suppose the reason for that lies behind the fact that I have very complicated feelings when it comes to Riley and Farkle as a romantic relationship. I was the biggest Riarkle shipper while the show was on (they were the first ship that I shipped and rooted for with passion, got mad when Lucas and Riley got together), but I was also figuring myself out during that particular time period and trying to distinguish between the lines of platonic and romantic myself (I'm horrible when it comes to feelings, straight up horrible). But I can say with certainty that I do ship Riley and Farkle as a possibility in the future, preferably over the course of their college years or even after that. I can see incredible storylines formed there, crazy amount of aspects to explore and I guess I always wanted to see that platonic going romantic trope shown in detail on TV. So, big time slow burn or nothing else. Because I do believe their feelings for each other were strictly platonic in season one and two and then strictly platonic in their heads in season three. There was definitely a shift in their relationship there, at least that's how I've always viewed it. God, I still haven't gotten to actually answering your question, I have too many thoughts concerning this show, such a big chunk of my personality is still intertwined with it, I NEED TO ANSWER YOUR QUESTION. Alright, what never fails to have me hooked as a shipper are the following two:

1. two characters seeing and loving each other for exactly who they are

2. two characters inspiring each other to do and be better

And Riarkle has that. Those two paragraphs that I listed are the foundation of their entire relationship. I love Lucas and Riley to some degree too, not as an endgame, but for the importance of the relationship. Riley's relationship with Lucas is an important step to getting to a potential relationship with Farkle yes, but other than that, it has done great things for Lucas and Riley as individual characters (I consider Rucas broken up by the end of s3 for the record). It's a realistic relationship, it has been one of the steps leading them to figuring out what is it that they want in another person, what is that they want from life. And they will always be important for each other. But they only work in that one timeline. In that one timeline, they make sense. That doesn't apply to Riley and Farkle. They have proven time and time again how they understand and love each other for whoever they were/are or will be (even explicitly claimed it in more than one scene). That's probably the reason why I don't ship them during the course of the show anymore, that slow change in their feelings would have complemented the dynamic that was already set up with them. They change, they grow, they stick together through all of that and their emotions evolve with them. We could have had it all....... We only needed more seasons with them.