OFDO Remix: A Rewrite with Better Drama
So we start at the beginning. Tua wants Jack to cast Arnold as one of the leads in the show so he can flirt with him. He's best friends with Dean, Jack's ex, and became friends with Jack through him... even if he did take Dean's side in their break up. So now he's trying to get Jack to cast Arnold and offers to bribe both Jack and Arnold while also trying to keep Dean from knowing he's doing it because, well, that's Dean's ex.
Dean is trying out for the show and everyone is laughing that he won't get the role because he's finally not sleeping with the director and it's a whole THING that the entire school knows he always gets cast because he's flirting with or dating Jack depending on when the other shows happened. Dean is pretty much the same about it but the rest of the students take this much more seriously.
Raffy is one of those students. He tries out for the lead alongside Dean and is actually a good actor who is in direct competition with Dean and that everyone thinks should get the lead role instead.
Dean and Jack sleep together again. Dean is cast in the lead role but Raffy get the second lead. Despite Tua's bribe, Arnold is a dancer and not an actor. BUT Jack specifically finds a way to bring him on as choreographer in order to get the money from Tua for letting him flirt and keep Arnold close. This role is basically made up and the entire dance scene is specifically for this. Arnold mentions that he mostly does tiktok and modern dance but Tua promises that they need him and that he'll get paid. Now we have multiple conflicts set up and they're interconnected!
Rome comes in... basically the same. But his relationship with Jack and their shared stepparents is more awkward and more centered in his life. Their parents try to be proud of both of their children but Jack repeatedly leading and directing the school play just sounds better than Rome's little DJ jobs so they're constantly being compared.
Now we've got Dean and Raffy playing leads across from each other while Jack tries to direct them equally without accepting Dean back as his boyfriend or leaving Raffy feeling lonely. Dean is dramatic and bitchy and Raffy finds out about the host thing and reveals it to try and knock Dean off his high horse... and it turns into a joke because it's a much smaller deal to most people in the theater department than Dean sleeping his way into the lead role again. So it backfires but differently.
Also, this entire time Timmy and co, the background characters actually making the show run, are seen to be having issues and we see the start of Pete's embezzlement as he gets frustrated at Dean's behavior and grabs just a little money out of an account to treat himself to a drink. It's a little thing... but a free drink is a free drink and it doesn't matter, does it? Timmy is just frustrated and stressed and doesn't notice because he's too worried about the rest of the cast grumbling about Jack's love life.
(Dean breaks into Jack's apartment and finds the rehab stuff but Jack gets so angry that he actually blasts him for breaking into his place in a group chat and it is the Talk of the University and that's when Dean jumps on a table to yell at everyone but they're all laughing at him regardless, no one cares that he's a host but they do care that he's a bit of stalker.)
Dean and Raffy start practicing their romance scenes and there is genuinely tension in the air. They don't feel like the kind of lovers they should be for the show but everyone in the background is talking about the possibility of a hatefuck. Jack hates it and rehearsal's tensions ratchet up another notch because Dean is flirting with Jack, Raffy is flirting with Jack, Jack is kind of keeping them both at arm's length in public (while also fucking Dean on occasion as we well know) and trying to direct two men in hate with each other to set it aside for acting.
Meanwhile Rome and Raffy have hooked up a couple times but it's still messy and Rome is not that quick to fall for him and Raffy finds out he's Jack's stepbrother and starts buttering him up because he wants to get closer to Jack's family in general only for Rome to finally tell him that they're not actually close at all and that, in fact, Raffy probably knows Jack better than Rome does.
.... I'm gonna stop here because there's just too much more to write to get to where we are but here are a few bullet points!
Boston, Tua and Arnold have a threesome because Arnold isn't sure about his feelings and Tua will take whatever he can get at that point to get closer to Arnold.
Raffy flirts with lots of people and not just Rome and they both continue to sleep around casually while hooking up until at least the halfway point of the show.
Jack and Dean get together and break up multiple times in the series and there's a betting pool that gets discovered for a little side plot. It's being run by Pete with the embezzled money and that's how he's caught.
Timmy gets to yell at Jack for casting Dean just because he's sleeping with him.
Raffy quits the show when Jack and Dean get back together for the second time. It's days before the show starts, everyone panics and they end up shoving Arnold into the role because he knows most of the lines just because he's always been hanging around.
Dean and Arnold have electric chemistry and everyone sees it the instant they start to dance together. It is a Thing. They don't start the hashtag, the other actors do.
Because of the last moment cast change there is a lot of drama and the weird acting feelings that Dean and Arnold have don't have a chance to simmer, they simply go straight to a boil and they DO make out while filming content and it's accidentally uploaded.
Everything explodes.