[cconstanceee]

“although the last episode left me in pieces, i felt the need to edit portwell one last time for closure. closure the show didn’t deliver. i can’t believe they created a ship so beautifully just to tear it apart so terribly. the writers clearly don’t know what to do with ej’s character. don’t know if i’ll continue watching the show.“

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

1x1 | 3x1 

[galindaelphaba]

HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL: THE MUSICAL: THE SERIES| 3.08 – Let It Go

[missezramay]

reasons why ej caswell deserves better 💔

• fell in love twice, lost both of those girls to the same guy • invited (& drove) his friends to his favorite theatre camp • given a huge unexpected responsibility on top of CIT duties • solo song was about some ghost (then others joined, so rip solo) • worked really hard on this first time directing • sent a letter from his father forcing him to leadership school • worked even harder to stay in salt lake and be with his girlfriend • lost her in the process of securing their future • 'elton john' name reveal was purely for laughs & drama • no credit for actually following CIT rules & running the camp • asked his dad to be proud of him and was hung up on • forced to wear a dumb costume for his last musical • ignored by all his friends and close cousin all summer • received no thanks for the success of the musical/documentary • humble & mature enough to give blessing to the guy that his ex-gfs keep choosing over him

[goodluckisak]

it’s one thing for one specific character to consistently go through it and have a tough time, like that’s commonplace. but it’s another thing to feel like a character is genuinely not respected as much as the others by a shows writers, that’s a different kind of hurt

[juste-des-trucs]

you know what is so FUCKING sad? EJ singing "who would've thought we'd come this far as friend maybe that should've been enough" BECOUSE HE WAS RIGHT

[juste-des-trucs]

how I sleep at night knowing that Jason Earls is Team Ej

[livelovecaliforniadreams]

[julie-and-the-ghost-himbos]

Sofia Wylie is such a presence on screen and on stage it's insane

[ejcaswelll]

[aamirmitchell]

while i am not fan of nini not saying goodbye to the people who’ve known and loved her their entire lives, this was a pretty good way to close the chapter of ricky and nini. they had depended on each other their entire lives, pretty much. they started that list together, they’re both adults, they’re both 18. and shit got real mucky in the last year, but nini’s final act of love to someone she’s known her whole childhood was helping him close out his by finishing what they started together. are you fucking kidding me???? TEARS. actual tears. 

[jack-abbot]

“A lotto ticket? It’s the last thing on my bucket list.”

— RICKY (& NINI) in High School Musical: The Musical: The Series (Season 3, Episode 8)

[socially-awkward-saxoboe-deacti]

If I had a nickel for every time High School Musical the Musical the Series made a big deal about a couple getting together one season only to give them unnecessary drama and break them up the next season I would have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice

[cconstanceee]

ej caswell is the finn hudson / troy bolton some people claim ricky to be

[thstarsofsilver]

ej says to val "i'm only doing this right now because you're leaving early" when he calls his dad. he says "i need some moral support."

so you're telling me he had to make the call prematurely because he didn't feel there was a single other person who could morally support him through this? not his cousin who he's had these kind of conversations with before, not his ex girlfriend who was shown to be a source of strength and support for him, not a single one of his friends from school would be willing or able?

he had to squeeze such an important call in before she left because she was the only one really on his side.

tl;dr ej deserves so much better.

[julie-and-the-ghost-himbos]

Emmy getting a serious solo before EJ is my villain origin story

[opaliteskye]

I don’t understand why they couldn’t have left Portwell as a cute high school relationship where they’re unfortunately going two different directions, realize that together, communicate about their future, and come to a respectful breakup where they’ll have their good memories, and they’ll always care about each other in some way. That’s more consistent with these characters, it respects the shippers and the characters, and it’s something that happens in real life. I still think with the Portwell we saw in season 2 they could have worked out (like, they’ve always been in somewhat different places, like him having his future planned out and hers always being up in the air as discussed in the couch scene, but they still understood each other and connected, that’s part of why they work so well), but if the writers needed to break them up, that would at least be better than destroying them and making them out of character. 

Seriously, why did the writers act like Portwell was bad and would never work? And now, acting like Gina didn’t have feelings for EJ. I feel like I’m being gaslit as a viewer. How can you spend all of season 2 making me not want to ship R*na, pouring everything into making Portwell one of the best relationships ever, give two characters incredible growth, and then try to backtrack and act like none of that happened. When I saw the way these characters looked at each other and acted around each other. This is bad writing, plain and simple. 

It’s not just a matter of liking one ship more than the other. If R*na was handled better, if they found a way to handle Portwell respectfully in a way that made sense, I could have been on board. Imagine if they had let Portwell unfold more like Jack and Gina’s airport episode, where they’re cute and fun but at the end of the day Ricky is the one she really feels things for. Because the way they wrote Portwell, it feels real and important and they’re so clearly in love and happy together. It’s not just this cute little midgame ship, they have a connection like I’ve never seen. They fake date, they scheme together, they do so much for each other and they have so much effort put into their relationship only to have it torn apart and treated like it was never important. 

Also, once again, EJ has fallen in love with a girl and she doesn’t love him back (Gina was definitely in love with him too but whatever the writers want to gaslight us into believing I guess. Which is so dumb because you can love more than one person in your life. Why did they feel the need to completely destroy every bit of Portwell after working so hard to make us ship them). Pointing this out isn’t prioritizing EJ in the relationship, it’s pointing out the crappy writing. Why are we doing this again. I think the writers must hate EJ or something because he never gets serious songs, of the main four he has the least time spent on him (other than this season with Nini being gone), and the writing this season for him was just awful. 

And this sucks for Gina because she’s having to put in the emotional work again with Ricky, which I discussed in this post so I won’t get into again. Do they hate Gina too? She wanted the guy who shows up, and Ricky hasn’t really done that yet, not in a meaningful way because it was just him hanging out with Gina because he didn’t have any responsibilities while the only reason EJ wasn’t “showing up” for her like normal this season was the pressure on him, and he still found ways to encourage her and make sweet gestures like picking her flowers. Ricky should be putting in so much more work. 

It’s sad for so many reasons but in large part because it’s going to be hard to watch the show from here with how all the relationships were handled. I wish I could love R*na and ignore the bad writing, but I can’t. And they could have been such a cute couple.