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leiaorganicsolocup · 14 hours

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I don’t think I’ll ever not be annoyed at how girl meets world treated Maya. Welcome to my rant on why Maya Penelope Hart (Hunter) deserved so much more.

(Also, let me just say, I work in this industry and I do get that you can’t have the best friend eclipse the main character but they were such equals it could have been let by. My girl was done dirty. )

(Ps all the gifs are from tumblr’s collection, all credit goes to their original makers)

The whole ‘Maya turning into Riley’ thing was absolute BS. That’s what I’m most mad at.

Riley and all the Matthews said for years all they wanted for Maya was to be happy and have hope and motivation to achieve her potential.

But the second she’s doing that, and isn’t the sad lonely best friend who they can use to all feel better about themselves by pittying?

She’s supposedly morphed into Riley.

She’s a teenage girl she’s not meant to know who she is. Life’s changing. She’s changing.

What did Riley represent? Hope. Happiness. Things people just weren’t used to seeing in Maya.

Girl meets upstate was all about how the day Shawn bought Maya all her new clothes she somehow changed.

I’m sorry?!?!

Did we just all forget how happy she was? How Cory told her in class the hope on her face is what looks so good? How she truly learned what hope was? How she finally got her dream come true with Shawn and her Mom? I mean look at her face. Pure joy. She’d been through a lifetime of pain and anger and heartbreak and awful circumstances.

And then, remember when she went to high school and got her first A? How happy she was to have it so proudly up on the Matthew’s fridge? When she found out all her past failings didn’t count and this track could get her to a college - a way out of the life she had lived?

For them to destroy that in her, to force her back into the depressed, lonely shell of who she used to be, which not only obliterated her confidence but probably ruined her future prospects as well all because they had to cater to Riley’s perfect little world that she’s at the centre of? Maya deserved more.

I mean Riley pretty much told Maya she can’t possibly like a nice boy as she is because she’s got too miserable if an existence. Riley obviously hasn’t come across ✨daddy issues✨yet.

OBVIOUSLY she wants a nice boy. Her dad was a ‘bad boy’, and he was the first man to break her poor tiny heart.

Then there’s Lucas. Girl meets ski lodge was so unbelievably disappointing.

Not to mention the gross Josh thing. Dude was in college, she was 15. Really Disney?! How can there be just under three years between them when he’s in college and she was in middle school. It was so freaking gross.

Also josh with all his wisdom and observations about this being some subconscious scheme to protect Riley - acting like he knows Maya and Lucas better than anyone else, even themselves. He saw them interacting like twice? And Maya is the queen of masking what she really feels when it comes to being legitimately vulnerable.

I truly fully believe that in gm upstate Lucas had picked Maya. There’s no other way that episode makes sense to me. I saw a tumblr post that said watch it twice - once thinking he picks Riley and the other with Maya, and only Maya makes sense - and they’re right. But I think Lucas knew that Riley’s emotional immaturity meant that if they wanted to keep the friend group together, there was no other choice. Maya is used to heartbreak, she could handle it and Riley couldn’t. That’s why I’m sure she pushed him to Riley. They had this moment (captured below) where they both just resigned themselves to a fate of longing for the other but never having it.

But he asked her why she dumped the smoothie on his head. What was she going to say, “because with her you might have to be some Mr Perfect all the time but with me you only have to be your messy, imperfect self and you tried to recycle the same thing you told Riley on me so I humbled you back down” while Riley was sat right there?!

Riley’s reaction when she found out about Lucas’ past in texas shows how she truly only loved the fantasy of him. She wanted Cory and topanga and to be honest anyone could fill that role as long as she was the other one in it. But she couldn’t just accept that there was something that made him not perfect. That the world wasn’t just black and white.

Maya let’s him be himself. She has no expectations of him. She understands everyone has flaws and accepts him for his.

Plus the way he predicts her moves, catching her before she tries to chase farkle or the hand thing in science class. You know when you know someone so well it’s like they’re a part of you? Yeah, they know it too.

They can be imperfect together, and they both felt that ease and comfort. I honest think that’s why he lets her call him so many names. It’s their own affection. Others don’t have to get it for them to feel it. It’s a familiarity - a fondness.

Not to mention him calling Zay back home and calling her the blonde beauty.

Maya constantly gave up her own happiness for Riley, and I truly wish she didn’t, because Riley wouldn’t do the same for her.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Riley thinks she would, but she hasn’t got enough experience of the world to know what that commitment means. Maybe the protect Riley committee was actually harming her in that way. She was shielded too much.

To reduce Maya as a human being who was growing up, who was a normal teenager who was unsure of her identity and self worth, and boil it down to the claim she can’t be happy, or work hard, or be smart, or hopeful unless she’s copying Riley is so selfish. She deserves that growth too. She deserves that happiness. And that’s one of the many reasons that even when I love them as a pair, their friendship could get really toxic when she went too ‘full on Riley’.

It literally demeaned mayas entire humanity, so of course she backed down without telling Lucas how she really felt. She felt broken. She felt lost.

I think she wanted him to fight for her in gm upstate, not that she’d ever say that out loud. He was so passionate when Maya nearly lost art class, I think all she’d want is for him to stand up to absolutely everyone else in her life and say that she’s allowed to be both Maya and happy. He looked gutted when she said he picked Riley either way.

The people she was meant to love and trust took it too far and forced her to undo everything she works for and was happy because of. And waiting for her volcano eruption:

I mean Riley really genuinely thought that Maya would steal from her moms work place?! After every money trouble Katy and Maya went through, Riley really disrespected Maya THAT much?!?

She was told by everyone around her she couldn’t be Maya and be happy, so she pushed away the one guy who’s always met her toe to toe, always challenged her, always defended her and fought for her, always understood her.

It broke her heart. But it wasn’t Lucas who really broke her heart, it was Riley. For never letting go of the fantasy. And also, if farkle cared about Maya as much as he did Riley he wouldn’t have said anything on NYE. Maya deserves happiness, but they’re all so used to seeing her unhappy they think it’s normal and okay to keep her that way so they can grow around her and use her as a spring board for their personality growth.

The fake stories both girls told of what the future would look like for each of them wasn’t what Maya was really thinking. Because Maya feels safe in very very few places, and his arms is one of those. She wouldn’t ‘rather argue with him than save the world’ with him, she’d just hide all her fear and vulnerability until she was alone.

And I don’t believe Riley or the matthews was a safe space for her anymore - because they took her and shaped her and let her flourish - and then intentionally crushed her. I think it’s a good thing she had her mom and Shawn more after that. Because the matthews didn’t want two ‘identical daughters’, so they made an already impressionable Maya back into the sad girl they used to feed.

I’m so mad on mayas behalf. I know she’s not real but I think, as one of the kinds of people who always constantly lets my happiness be trodden on and broken down so those I love can be happy, I’m finally seeing how much the world could offer if for once people like Maya and I let our happiness matter just as much as other peoples.

Like a best friend like Riley who can’t handle the idea that something not be perfect. The world had to revolve around Riley, but sometimes being the best friend in everyone else’s main character story sucks.

Maya lost her happiness and her hope and her motivation to be the best version of herself all because Riley was selfish and kinda toxic, and everyone else went along with it. Riley had to be the centre of everyone’s world, she couldn’t possibly imagine anyone else being happy. This isn’t even just about how we were so robbed of Lucaya, the whole girl meets upstate ep spent the entire episode disparaging and undoing one of the most beautiful episodes of giving a girl who had been through the mill some actual hope. Gm hurricane was when Maya learned that life could be beautiful. Gm upstate taught her that it was all a fever dream and she can’t have good things. She can’t have aspirations, or a popular sense of fashion, or hope, or happiness.

And I hate that. So much.

Maya Penelope Hart (Hunter) deserved so much better than season 3 gave her.

#op this is incredible

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leiaorganicsolocup · 1 day

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Day 2 in the Middle School Time Loop: you remember that last time, everyone ignored you at recess because they were talking about a TV show that you hadn’t watched. This time, you lie and say you’ve seen it. They ask you who your favorite character is, and you don’t know any of the characters, and so you’re tongue-tied. They think you’re weirder than ever, or maybe a liar, which is worse (and true).

Day 3 in the Middle School Time Loop: you tell your parents that you feel ill. They let you stay home while they’re at work. You spend the whole day watching past episodes of the TV Show.

Day 4 in the Middle School Time Loop: Recess again. The same person asks you who your favorite character is. This time, you're ready. You eagerly tell them, and supplement your reasons for liking them with solid evidence from all 4 seasons of the show. But! Tough luck: you’re now too invested. The atmosphere turns uncomfortable. They go back to ignoring you like they did on the Day 1 that you didn’t know was Day 1.

Day 5 in the Middle School Time Loop:

You decide to try a different approach and update your style. You've noticed that Ashleigh, who’s blonde and constantly surrounded by friends, always wears pink stripey sneakers. You try wearing a pink dress. Someone says it’s cute, but you know from how they say it that it isn’t the good cute.

“I thought that pink was cool,” you protest, more to the uncaring universe than to anyone in particular.

Your interlocutor shrugs. “Maybe on someone else.”

Day 6 in the Middle School Time Loop: You keep your head down, but still surprise the teachers by somehow knowing the correct answers to every spontaneous question they throw out to the class. You study the outfits of your classmates more closely. You realize that it wasn’t the color, so much as the brand that made the difference. It proves the shoes were expensive. You note down Ashleigh's sneaker brand in smudgy ink on the back of your hand, and then after school you take half a year's saved-up allowance and buy a matching pair at the mall. Your mom raises her eyebrows but doesn’t stop you.

Day 7 in the Middle School Time Loop: Today you make it to lunch before anything major goes wrong. You think that the sneakers have protected you, and stare down at them lovingly, watching the Barbie-pink plastic stripes reflect the tube lights on the ceiling as you turn your feet this way and that. But then at lunch, Ashleigh comes up, arm and arm with a friend. Her eyes are a little pink, but only a little.

“Ashleigh wanted me to tell you that she’s really hurt that you copied her sneakers,” the friend informs you, nobly, as if it would be too unpleasant for Ashleigh to have to say this herself. Her mouth is solemn but her eyes are gleeful.

“I didn’t…” You start to deny it automatically, even though it’s true. And yet, something won’t let you apologize. Doesn’t she see your imitation for what it is: the most sincere compliment you know how to bestow? This is your Hail Mary.

As you meet her eyes, you realize she does know, but this only makes her despise you more.

“I think a lot of people have these sneakers,” you stammer, in the end, and they just sniff and turn away. You go back to eating your lunch alone.

Day 8 of the Middle School Time Loop: even though you do well in every class, you must be so much more stupid than your classmates, to be missing whatever detail it is that they seem to have caught. How do they do it so quickly? Before recess, before the end of homeroom, even, they all just know. You’ve had endless chances to do this day over and yet you never seem to be able to catch up with them. Running to stand still, you’ve heard your mother say, when she’s busy at work. That’s you. Running to stand still.

Day 9 of the Middle School Time Loop: you pretend to be sick again, and you realize that if you want to, you can pretend to be sick every day. It's easy to convince your parents: you look tired and unhappy, your eyes small within their dark circles, like some underground creature. You stop watching that TV Show that you never really wanted to watch in the first place, and instead dream your way through all your favourite childhood movies. Disney, Pixar, Studio Ghibli. You retreat into jewel-colored landscapes, where everyone is magical or beautiful or at least funny, and the heroes always win in the end.

Day 10 of the Middle School Time Loop: You notice that most of the Pixar heroes, the Disney princesses look more like Ashleigh than you. Long hair. Pale eyes. Button noses. And all of them, so thin.

Day 11 of the Middle School Time Loop: you go to school, but you don’t talk to anyone. You don’t even answer your name at roll call. Your teacher asks you if anything is wrong at school, or at home perhaps. You shake your head, but that evening you hear your father taking a call. You shrug off his worry: it’ll be forgotten tomorrow anyway.

Day 12 of the Middle School Time Loop: an unexpected development: your apathy almost seems to make your classmates like you more. When you say, truthfully, that you don’t care much for the TV Show that eternally dominates the recess chatter, some people look impressed. They ask you what you think is better. But you’re wise and don’t admit to liking anything. "Mysterious," someone says appreciatively.

At the end of recess, the girl who told you off for copying Ashleigh nudges you. “Hey. Look, Robert has an Up shirt. Kind of cute, that he’s still into that stuff, right?”

You know that it’s not the good cute.

You stare at her coldly. “The shirt just has a dog on it. It doesn't say he's from Up. So you must have liked the movie enough to remember him.”

She flushes scarlet, and hurries to catch up with Ashleigh, throwing you a dirty look. Robert glances at you gratefully but you don’t return his smile. He won’t remember that you did this for him. Anyway, you didn't, really. Do it for him, that is.

Day 13 of the Middle School Time Loop: You tell your parents you’re sick again. Today, you watch the second tier of Studio Ghibli movies, the ones that your parents always say, self-consciously, that you’ll find dull. Only Yesterday, Princess Kaguya, When Marnie Was There. You’re only a few minutes into Marnie when there’s a line that pulls you up short:

“In this world, there’s an invisible magic circle. There’s inside and outside. These people are inside. And I’m outside.”

The relief that washes over you is so profound that you almost cry, and then, when the movie's over, you do cry. Ugly sobs that make you sound like a toddler throwing a tantrum at the mall, that make your head pound with a dehydration headache. But behind the tears, there's relief. There it is, the truth that you were searching for, through all these do-overs. There’s an invisible magic circle. Of course there is.

But here’s the thing about circles: the inside is small. The outside is scary, and lonely, but it’s huge: huger than you could ever have imagined before you turned around and looked.

When your dad gets home, he asks if you’re feeling better. “Much,” you say, and it’s true.

Day ?? of the Middle School Time Loop: Sometimes you go to school, but ditch class and go to the library or the playground and do your own thing even if teachers yell at you. Sometimes you wander around the neighborhood. Sometimes you ask your parents crazy things, like to take you to work with them, or to the beach, or to DisneyWorld. Sometimes they say no. A surprising amount of times, they say yes. You wonder if maybe they’re trapped in a time loop too.

Sometimes you sit quietly in other classrooms than the one you’re meant to be in, until they shoo you out or even send you to the principal. (He finds you baffling. You feel a deep, slightly mournful affection for him, like you would for an very old and tired dog). It’s surprising, the amount of different things that are getting taught in one school in one day. It takes you a long time to work your way through them all.

You watch a frog getting dissected a few times before you start to feel bad and don’t go back to that classroom again. Your favorite class to crash is art, because the teacher always clocks that you’re not meant to be there but smiles and lets you stay anyway. When you meet her eyes, it feels like you’re sharing a secret.

Day One-Hundred And Something of the Middle School ...Wait.

At some point, time started moving again, and you didn’t even realize it.

For so long, the reprimands you received about your future seemed so empty, so laughable. There was no future. Only a more- or less-bearable present. But now, your classmates remember the unhinged things that you do; now, your teachers’ and parents’ worries about the future have the full juggernaut weight of reality behind them.

You thought that you’d be more terrified. For so long, you’ve dreaded this forward momentum. No loading screen, no mini-games, just one single, awful, pulsating life. But things are different now. Time’s moving again, and here you are, so far outside the invisible magic circle that you’re not even sure that you'd be able to see it any more. You can still feel its power, but faintly, like the pull between two magnets when they're an arm's length apart. Easy to ignore.

“Are you ready?” Robert says, catching your eye over the kitchen table. He comes here first thing so you can get the bus together. At some point, during the time loop, you started to seek him out. He was outside the circle, too, you realized. But even more importantly, not once, on any of those grimly looping days, did you see him try and push someone else out to make a space for himself. In this crab bucket, that’s something that counts for a lot.

“Our final day of middle school,” he sighs, half to himself. “Never thought I’d see it.”

"Me either," you reply, getting up to put on your talismanic pink sneakers. They’re scuffed and dirty after years of wear, and certainly Ashley would never be caught dead in them these days. Maybe that’s what you should have told her, all those loops ago: that no imitation, let alone one as unskilled as yours, can ever be perfect, and that indeed the very imperfection renders it an original work in its own right. Time and thought and human care transforms even the most diligent copy into something else entirely.

But you’ve been through enough time loops to know that that sort of explanation wouldn’t go over very well.

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