#it's clear they're just deluding themselves to the point where they're watching a whole other show

[gracestone]

What do you think was the whole point of the Rina flashback scene? I have seen some R*na shippers get mad that they showed a Rina flashback and we never saw them talk to each other again and they are out here claiming that the showed the flashback because they think this means R*na is the endgame. I think the whole point was to show that asked her for relationship advice on his current girlfriend after she told him that she likes him.

I think the flashback served several purposes, and none of them have anything to do with R*na being the endgame. If anything, this scene proved the opposite.

Its main purpose was to reveal that Gina hadn't kept her feelings hidden this whole time, but that she'd actually confessed to Ricky on opening night. Which put all the awkwardness between them in 2A in a new context and told us that Ricky was aware of her feelings this whole time, but didn't feel compelled to act on that because he doesn't feel the same way about her. Just compare how he just gave a whole speech to Nini about why he loves her and him only stopping to talk because she told him to just kiss her, to him only saying "Say it" when he knew what Gina was about to say and then giving her the hug she asked for but doing nothing else.

The flashback scene helps us understand why Ricky was trying to see how Gina responded to seeing him with Nini in 2x01 and why he looked slightly tense and hesitant when Gina said this in 2x03 (on top of the entire scene already being pretty awkward):

He clearly doesn't want to talk about her confession because to him he made his feelings clear by staying with Nini ("Obviously"), so he got tense when he thought she meant Valentines Day was hard because of him rejecting her, and he only eased up a little when she explained it was about missing her mom.

The flashback also explains why Ricky tried to stop Big Red from telling Gina about the voicemail he wante to leave Nini. However, I don't blame Ricky for asking Gina for advice in 2x05. She'd given him advice about Nini unprompted in 2x03 and then pretended to be fine with giving some more advice in 2x04. It's logical that Ricky would think this meant she was already over him. Gina's tendency to hide her hurt feelings simply backfired on her here. Which is another thing the flashback clears up, because Gina had been hinting that something had happened throughout 2A but never actually opened up about it, which only further isolated her from her friends, even though they kept reaching out to her.

Another purpose of the flashback is to tell us something about who Gina is as a person. She voices how she feels she never does anything right the first time, but that she just keeps on pushing and never quits. That's essentially her describing her coping mechanism for all the changes and curveballs life throws her way. She said something similar in 2x05 when she talked about how she and Carlos would just keep on dancing no matter what happened next. She sees this as something negative, but her conversation with EJ in 2x08 helps her reframe this, because he sees it as her being brave. That's why it was good for us to hear her voice that in the flashback.

We also see how hard it is for Gina to be open and honest about how she feels. Especially when she's afraid of getting rejected. It took her a long time to get to the point in the flashback scene because she was terrified of putting herself out there and knew it was very likely she'd get rejected. She even called herself stupid for getting emotional. Still, she did it, and that in and of itself also showed us how brave she is. But she didn't fully let herself be brave and didn't fully open herself up to rejection, because she did end up voicing her feelings in a way that gave Ricky an easy excuse not to answer. She didn't ask him how he felt and simply ended the conversation on her own terms.

Compare that with how much she's grown in 2x12: she doesn't just confess her feelings to EJ, but asks him if she can kiss him and if he'll be her first kiss. This time, she's brave enough to put herself out there, didn't need ages to get to the point (she only hesitated very briefly with her "Can I..."), and asked the boy she likes how he feels. We wouldn't be able to fully see that growth if we hadn't seen the flashback.

In conclusion: the flashback was there to highlight Gina's growth in the rest of the season and to close the door on R*na romantically by showing us that Ricky is aware of how she felt and doesn't reciprocate. Ricky and Gina do need to talk eventually to repair their friendship, but when it comes to their romantic relationship there's nothing to talk about. Which is why they didn't.

#hsmtmts #gina porter #ricky bowen #hsmtmts meta #anti rina #gina porter meta #ricky bowen meta #ask #idk why anyone still bothers listening to that fandom #it's clear they're just deluding themselves to the point where they're watching a whole other show