This is a High School Musical: The Musical: The Series fanfiction that follows Blake Sahan alongside her childhood best friend and first love, Ricky Bowen.
This series loosely follows the plot of the show, each chapter being based on every episode. A few notes:
Blake Sahan's faceclaim is Maitreyi Ramakrishnan.
Timeline might be a lil wonky at times, but I tried my darndest to get it right (also might not be perfectly aligned with the show)
There will be a few differences in this series from the show to fit the new storylines.
Some differences include: Gina doesn't fall for Ricky, Ricky and his dad don't move out, and more.
Ricky Bowen has Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), though it's unknown at first.
Blake has BPD, pre-established.
Disclaimer: All BPD storylines are loosely inspired by my own personal experiences! (beautiful princess disorder sol xoxo)
Also, this series will involve cursing. I don't care. #Let Ricky Bowen Say Fuck! (and they did! hehe thank you s4 writers)
There's gonna be A LOT of those cheesy/cliche tropes and I'm not even sorry.
childhood best friends to lovers
falls first x falls harder
hurt/comfort
one-sided pining
mutual pining
I will add trigger warnings specific for each chapter, but here are some general trigger warnings for this series:
Alcoholism
Addiction
Mental health (mainly Borderline Personality Disorder)
Toxic relationships
Poor relationship with parent / absent father
Death of parent
Occasionally some adult themes
links are currently broken as i'm currently rewriting the first 3 episodes <3
pls be patient with me
Season 4: because I like the chaos vibes Ricky lived in last season. Sebastian was included in a stroke of genius. Thank you and I take no criticism.
Ms. Jen and Quinn are walking through the Drama room discussing directorial choices and strategies to connect actors to characters.
Miss Jen: well, currently the kids are performing an improv section in partners, But! To facilitate stronger bonds in the cast and to open themselves to growth and to the divine will of the improv theater gods, they must work with a partner they have never worked with before!
Quinn: ok, what was the prompt for the exercise?
Ms. Jen: No Prompt! The true essence of improvisation cannot be created by a preordained path!
Quinn: uh huh, and are there any limits or hard rules.....?
Ms. Jen: Not really. Why? What rules would you give them?
Quinn (side-eyeing the room): ....No Assault? Maybe? Or whatever that is. *Point*
Ms. Jen: wha..... RICHARD! GET OFF OF HER!
The camera pans over to Ricky and Maddox. Maddox is sitting at a desk and has slid down into the seat, set sketches forgotten and scattered. She seems confused and maybe a bit frightened. Ricky has climbed bodily onto the desk, now crouching on top of it using several highlighters and pencils in his hands to frame his face in what might be a lion's mane as he hovers over and growls at Maddox. Sebastian, Ricky's actual partner for the scene, is sneaking up from a different angle, with a comically large net in hand.
Ms. Jen's yell has distracted Sebastian and the rest of the room otherwise and so his net, presumably originally meant to capture Monster!Ricky, instead comes down around Maddox, effectively pinning her into the chair.
Ms. Jen: This was very clearly a two person CAST exercise, why have you included a non cast member?
As a caveat, I am by no means a college trained teacher, I did, however spend 2 years working in schools with the teachers and students putting together events and facilitating in the classrooms. I had the amazing opportunity to work with so many brilliant and dedicated students. However, having had that chance, it has really colored the way that I see Ms. Jenn.
I have been having so many problems with Ms. Jenn this season. Last season I thought that she wanted to prove herself and flip the script on what had happened to her when her lines were cut. Role of a Lifetime dives into this. However, this time around with, I suppose, the pressure of the Menkies and Zacky, it’s caused her to act differently than she might have otherwise, but that seems like a bit of an excuse.
And then we got those scenes in episode 11.
Not only did she give an awful encouragement speech – and essentially blame Ricky and Ashlyn for what happened when she was their teacher and even if they came into the school after hours, they’re still her responsibility – she also changed things last minute with Be our Guest, ignoring everyone’s thoughts and feelings on the matter. In addition, she somehow completely missed how freaked out her cast was – Carlos not talking is a huge indication that something might be wrong – and then she said what she said when the harness disappeared.
I get that it’s a lot of pressure, but the second you insinuate that a child should essentially harm themselves there’s something very wrong. These kids trust her and look up to her and yet, she acted the way she did.
I’m glad that Ms. Jenn removed herself from the situation. You could see on her face when she processed what she said, that she realized that she may have crossed the line in the sand, but then it may have also been due to the shocked looks on everyone else’s faces. Hopefully, she realized that if she stayed she might say something worse, but in leaving, she put the responsibility on her students’ shoulders as opposed to stepping up like she should have as the director, and more importantly, their teacher. An old adage goes, the captain goes down with their ship and yet, perhaps when it mattered most, she left them on their own.
When I was working with my students, my kids, I never wanted to do anything that would have broken their trust in me. The fact that they used to willingly seek me out to talk meant more than I could ever put into words and maybe that’s what’s been so devastating about this. Along with the fact that Carlos referred to her as “Mom” which I’d argue, combined with what they’re willing to do to help Ms. Jenn achieve her dreams, shows how highly respect her. (Also, you could compare her to Mazzara and his interactions with EJ this season.)
I know that the focus is on the students, so I highly doubt this will be addressed, and maybe the kids won’t make it as big of a deal as it should be – because Carlos and Seb go to see Ms. Jenn after the performance and she comes to see them carrying an envelope – but it honestly should be addressed. There have to be repercussions for saying something like that and acting the way that she has for the whole season. Maybe they distance themselves from her or maybe she has to earn back their trust or maybe she realizes that winning isn’t everything and that what was sacrificed for the sake of winning was never worth it? Anyways, I’d really love some sort of scene addressing what happened, but with all the plotlines that need to be resolved in the next episode and only having so much time, I’m not going to hold my breath.
(Also, anyone getting Sharpay vibes from Ms. Jenn this season? Sharpay who was willing to do anything to win or perform who had to humbled to really learn what was important, even if she forgot every iteration of the original trilogy… Sharpay who changes songs – stealing Kelsi’s song for Gabriella and Troy – because she thought that had a better chance of winning the Star Dazzle award? Which does lead to an interesting conversation about how the characters from this season map into those in HSM2, but that’s a different post entirely.)
ms. jenn, who cannot even pay her own water bill, really took two of her students out for bowling and offered to pay for the whole night. i love her so much.
Honestly why was Ms. Jenn so adamant about making “Troy” levitate with a basketball for Getcha Head in the Game. In the movie Troy just has a spotlight and that would be much easier to do for theatre then trying to make someone levitate.
