iris

i love this question! i think i can perfectly tie this ask to @daphnebowen’s ask so i’ll answer both in this post. hopefully you both don’t mind !! 🥰

as tim federle said, they will be owning a backyard full of golden retrievers and will go by ricky and gina porter-bowen! okay, that’s canon to me!

i see ricky and gina getting married young, definitely during their early twenties. i mean, they already act like a married couple it’s insane. it’s kinda sickening, but also beautiful how deeply in love they are.

i think in an interview joshua said he sees ricky as a stay at home dad and that ricky doesn’t necessarily “want to go the distance” and he’s so correct! i’ve always seen ricky as a behind the scenes type of guy and someone who doesn’t really care for the spotlight. probably ends up doing something with composing music behind the scenes, or teaching music. not everyone wants to be a star and i like that while everyone else wants to be on broadway, or become movie stars, pop stars etc. ricky just aspires for a simple life with a family. so even if he becomes “famous” (because he’s definitely playing romeo right? we all agree on that right?) i don’t think he’d ever genuinely care about fame and want to be a part of that world.

gina though, she’s a movie star! i saw some mixed opinions on the “fame” plot line/aspect, or basically the movie plot line, but i loved it because i love seeing gina shine and get everything she deserves and has ever wanted. along the years, she’ll get home from a busy day of filming and busy press days, to ricky and their daughter watching mark and spark on the television. ricky will always be her home and normalcy after a busy day in the spotlight. just like in season four with gina filming hsm4 all day, but at night ricky would climb up her window and it would just be them, talking and laughing because no one amuses gina like ricky. i don’t see that ever changing. that’s their thing, being each other’s homes.

also, this may be random but, i’ve always had this vision that when their daughter grew up, they’d want her to go to school at east high. then ricky sees that the theater program is not the same or is in danger, so he pulls a miss jenn because he can’t fathom to see the place that changed him and believed in him just be gone. so in order to keep it alive for his daughter he becomes the drama teacher. i feel like this is a prefect spin off for the future. their daughter is annoyed at her dad being the drama teacher and it’s chaotic and funny. and gina brings the kids cupcakes and helps out when she can with the choreography. (i can also see older ricky and gina opening some type of dance studio or music studio together just to give kids an outlet to express themselves and feel “not like outsiders” like what theater meant to them growing up) so whichever one it is, i basically just see them helping “outsiders” find their place. either if it’s back at east high’s theater department much to their daughter’s dismay, or using their fame to open up dance and music studios in a bunch of different places (because gina moved so much y’know? she’d want her business in many places so no matter where people travel to and move it’s always home) that’s what i envision.

and speaking of their daughter, there’s no doubt that ricky and gina are having a girl, like he’s a girl dad through and through! and to tie in @daphnebowen’s ask, i read a fic the other day that used the name “grace” for their daughter and i think that it is absolutely perfect. it starts with the letter G just like gina, and gina exudes grace so i think it’s a perfect name for her daughter.

thank you! i just have so much to say all the time and i ramble a lot so i’m glad my posts are being read 😭

to answer your question, i have always been a rina. their chemistry hooked me instantly, considering a lot of the other ships on the show lacked that. they kind of had everything i liked in a ship, banter, chemistry, understanding, this will they won’t they vibe that kept me at the edge of my seat. their personalities and character traits also just complimented each other more ever since the first season, and i tend to analyze everything so i noticed that right away. i feel like you can kinda tell though with the way i talk about them so passionately

i get people who shipped rini at first because it was what was in everyone’s faces so i get it. (what i don’t get though is people still rooting for them when they clearly aren’t good together. i think it’s fine to like them, but claiming they were meant to be is just…false.)

“ricky will understand he loves you”

“if i knew he loved me that might help”

(unrelated, but i went to watch it again and it gave me such a buzz that people around them already know ricky and gina love each other because they can see it)

back to the topic! i think it’s exactly that anon! she was looking for a verbal confirmation. she already knew they shared love for each other, she felt it. she just wanted him to say it. and also because she thinks she’s been “wrong before” and read signs wrong, as she’s stated during season two. and being the one to always put herself out there first in all of her past relationships she just wanted someone to do that for her this time around. so yes! she wants a verbal confirmation to her feelings as well because of her past heartbreak but also, imo, to give her a reason to be reckless—

i touched on this a little in my last post and it ties into gina wanting to do something she deems crazy and not the perfect answer everyone expects from her. she wanted a push.

that’s why what she says as gabriella in the play really stuck out to me. “i always do the right thing, maybe i want to do something crazy this time. i mean, everything about my life has been full speed ahead.”

her moving the movie to salt lake is her doing that, and even though ricky is some of the motivation for it she mostly does it for herself, and i like that she made that decision even before ricky got there because it shows that.

ej never fought for gina during their miscommunication in the season two finale. he just cancelled the date and let her go. if it wasn’t for ashlyn talking to gina, they wouldn’t of gotten together because he didn’t fight for her. in season three he said he was doing the musical so maybe his dad can let him stay in salt lake and they could be together, but we all know his dad’s approval was his main motivation. he ditched her and made promises he couldn’t keep. he didn’t fight for her when she gave him another chance to show up at prom. when they broke up, he deflected, bringing ricky up unprovoked, and then let her go, again, without a fight. (though they only dated for two weeks and what they had wasn’t strong enough for a fight but i digress)

when gina admitted to ricky her feelings in the last episode of season three, she was prepared to walk away with her head held high, but he stopped her, and like ej told ricky in season four, gina wouldn’t be with him if she didn’t know the guy he could be. all of season three ricky continuously showed up for her and regretted what happened the semester before. gina saw something in ricky all the way back in season one and she knew that he was the one. although it took some time, due to the fact that ricky didn’t want to make the same mistakes he did with nini.

gina would’ve loved to receive a bunch of messages from ricky telling her he wishes she could stay with him unlike nini would’ve. (which is so valid for her to feel! this is just me explaining how different nini and gina receive and view love) she doesn’t see it as him “holding her back” she saw it as someone who fights for what they built and she’s always wanted someone to fight for her, and ricky did that. he showed up for her and stayed. even if she would’ve left, he sang to the world how he’s in love and how they’re forever no matter what. that’s all gina has ever wanted. growing up no one in her life fought to stay in it. jaime left. her mom leaves her alone a lot of the times because of her job. her dad isn’t there. no one fought to be in her life that way. she’s so used to leaving and moving. then ricky comes around and promises her she’ll never walk alone (puppy love lyrics reference!) that they built a sacred home forever, and showed it to her continuously all season.

also, want to mention, in the troy and gabriella scene in the play, one of her lines is, “i always do the right thing, maybe i want to do something crazy this time. i mean, everything about my life has been full speed ahead.”

the moment kourtney said this to nini, and when nini sang out of the old, a song about wanting to leave your old town and start something new, it always made it known to me that at the end nini was getting some feminist type of ending. so even if rina wasn’t a thing or even if rini lasted longer, i always had a gut instinct nini’s journey was away from east high and she was going to “choose herself” in the very end. her going back to ricky regressed her character growth. it was made clear by kourtney that nini saw herself through his eyes, and nini herself mentioned she needed to find herself (she literally told ricky these exact words in an argument in the first episodes about how she found herself at camp, away from him) the show perfectly showcased this in the first season and second season. this wasn’t just added spontaneously, it’s been there since season one. to deny that is to admit you never understood her character in the first place. for people to still not see that is beyond me. olivia wrote and sung so many nini songs that depict this (the rose song spells it out perfectly) and yet people still aren’t actually listening or understanding the lyrics, it’s honestly sad.

gina thought love was lame not that long ago before she made this hat. but she got to know him and knew it was ricky, because in that short time he made her feel seen, understood and known.

ricky thought love was dead before his world got flipped upside down at homecoming and realized he could love again. that gina changed his perception of what love was. someone that helped cause a massive growth in who he is. who understood and loved him unconditionally just the way he is.

portwells want to cling unto them because they’re bitter, as if we can’t see right through you. i wonder if y’all have ever watched an actual teen drama show in your life. clearly y’all haven’t and apparently haven’t seen interviews with the actual creator of the show speaking about the plot lines about HIS story, because if you did you would not be hitting post on your absurd takes. (not to mention, gina and ricky are clearly in love with each other. that’s something you all need to make peace with. especially if you claim to like gina, just accept it and be happy for her that she’s happy even if you don’t necessarily are a fan. he’s the guy she wants and you cannot change that.)