Cristofle

Yeah, what was that even about? Was there a point to that, or were they just getting a semi TV name actress?

stlavin95

Yeah, seeing them not fight over the same guy was pretty refreshing (One Tree Hill were horrible with that when it came to Brooke & Peyton)

Cristofle

Which was especially awful for me, as I felt Sophia and Hilarie had better chemistry with each other, lol, and generally was more invested in their friendship than romantic relationships.

stlavin95

That would have sucked and outside of their endgame relationships (not so much with Brooke/Julian though) I didn't get in their other relationships.

Cristofle

I liked Brooke/Julian fine, although I didn't see much of them after Haley's sister and her boyfriend got shot, just because that was the most purely absurd storyline, lol. But still, Sophia and Austin's chemistry could never begin to compare to Sophia and Hil's.

stlavin95

I stopped watching after Lucas and Peyton, so I didn't get to see that storyline lol. Fair point lol, but I think Brooke should have ended up with someone who wasn't with Peyton first.

Cristofle

I actually forgot about that, even though I thought Hil and Austin had a cute friendship, because it pretty much never came up again. To Julian's credit, he was genuinely not hung up on Peyton anymore.

stlavin95

Okay, that whole storyline was pretty pointless because as you said they never really mentioned it after that, Did you like Leyton or Brucas?

Cristofle

I definitely preferred Lucas and Peyton, but I hated that it led to a large part of that fandom hating Brooke, who I never hated. I just didn't think Lucas was suited for her, nor did I buy his deep and abiding love for her (his reason for still having pictures of Peyton will never not be funny. As in ludicrous). A few points in S5 aside, Lucas was generally fairly good to Peyton. The same cannot be said of his treatment of Brooke (and let's not even get into the obvious problems between CMM and Sophia from S3 on, and how increasingly creepy it is that Mark basically tortured Sophia by having her have to act out groveling to Lucas for forgiveness when Brooke slept with Chris, given that CMM had cheated on Sophia).

stlavin95

I preferred Leyton too, but I wouldn't really say a lot of the fandom hated Brooke, since she was an far more popular character compared to Peyton, who a lot of BL fans hate for 'ruining' that relationship. Lucas was far better to Peyton than he ever was to Brooke and some people just can't accept that. That must have sucked for Sophia in those episodes, but I always thought that Chophia's relationship was the reason why that Brucas' relationship went on past S1 since it clearly wasn't an part of the original plan at all.

Cristofle

Oh, I didn't mean the OTH fandom at large- Brooke was very popular. I more meant the LP fandom specifically. I very much felt adrift in the OTH fandom, lol.

And S2 was definitely largely based on Chad/Sophia from what I remember of the BTS gossip. Even the network execs encouraged playing on that angle from what I heard.

stlavin95

True, but it was way worse in the BL fandom. Plus Brooke wasn't exactly the most likable character back then and even Sophia admitted that she didn't really get why adored Brooke so much.
Yep, I've heard that too plus it was obviously that at the end of season 1 that going that route was those two wasn't apart of the plan at all.

Cristofle

I always liked Brooke, although I probably became more attached to her later (I was not as attached to Haley, so in the absence of Peyton, Brooke became the character I cared about). I did not understand the whole Lucas/Brooke thing. They had like literally nothing in common, lol. And Lucas could be a wee bit of an intellectual snob, which didn't help.

stlavin95

I did too, but it was hard to like in certain points of the HS years. I didn't either lol and it didn't help that they had to change both character in order to work the second time around.

Cristofle

S3 was a straight up mess where Lucas and Brooke were concerned. It was like Mark wanted to prove he wasn't solely driven by BTS stuff, even though he was, lol. And he seemed to like torturing particularly Sophia.