#rucas

Summary: Fi sees a girl abducted into a van; Maya sees a phone thrown from the van. Clu and Fi discover a mystery after moving to New York. Why would Riley go missing? Maya teams up with Josh to rescue Riley but they’ll have to trust Fi to do so. Time is running out. Fi’s meddling and wits might not help her this time. [Read on FFN]

[Gifset dedicated to @soweirdondisney, @soweird-gifs, @boymeetsworldgifs, @thats-so-weird, @fi-phillips, @writerchic6, and @ev-dreamindarkness]

Its been years and literally nobody cares but Girl Meets World blindsided me with the Maya X Lucas stuff and creating a triangle because I never saw any of the so-called chemistry?

What, he smiles when she makes jokes and gets along with her? They have banter and are comfortable with each other?

I'm sorry have y'all ever had friends before? Because if that's the criteria for "chemistry", then I must have been in love with all my friends.

I like Riley and Lucas because even though they were awkward the consistently showed that they cared about each other and were interested in more. Their relationship only really came together at the end of the show but I liked that too because it showed how two friends came to grow into themselves first and then each other, and they didn't have to rush their relationship; they just had to care for each other.

Not to mention, Lucas was consistently jealous of people who were interested in Riley or who she was interested in, like Charlie Gardner and Sherpa Evan (Also shout out to both those guys bc Charlie was a real one who, despite being reasonably frustrated at times, handled all her drama with grace and was just happy to be around her. And Evan knew exactly what he was doing and was trying to help her feel more secure). He was also super protective of her and literally broke the handles off two drawers once when he found out she was being bullied. He never had anything remotely similar with Maya.

Also, things didn't feel romantic from Maya's end either. It felt like she had fun teasing her friend and genuinely rooted for Lucas and Riley in season 1, so why add these unrequited feelings to her character? Did they need another example of her feeling rejected by people she was close to? Were her family issues and feelings of alienation from peers bc she was poor not enough?

I think her arc about changing herself to be more like Riley hit one major point for me where the love triangle is concerned: Lucas and Maya never really liked each other like that.

They were friends who got confused about their feelings because of outside forces, like their classmates shipping them or their own struggles in growing up. I always saw it like this: Maya tried to like Lucas because Riley liked him so he must be likeable, and their classmates all seemed to think she should. And Lucas thought he might like Maya because his classmates and even Riley seemed to think she liked him, and when he started spending more time with her and looking for that supposed attraction, he found the parts of Riley Maya was trying to mimic. I think Maya was trying to like him because she was trying to be like Riley and Lucas liked the parts that reminded him of Riley and only really pursued it because Riley pushed him to after she shut him out under the assumption she was giving him up for Maya's sake.

Honestly, I felt like the love triangle would've made more sense if Maya was in love with Riley not Lucas. It would have fit her character arc of feeling different or like an outsider before learning she didn't have to make herself more palatable and just accept herself. It would have added layers to her confident public persona vs. her vulnerable and insecure core, as well as why she was so personally invested in Riley's happiness. Not to mention, there would have been some great lessons about being honest with yourself, acceptance, and being supportive to be taken that would have fit with the themes of the show. Besides, if they had to have drama, pitting friends-to -lovers vs. love at first sight would have been just as good, if not better.