I keep getting asked on tumblr why I ship Leyton, how I could possibly condone cheating and homewrecking and being a terrible friend....

And so here it is. I didn't watch One Tree Hill from S 1-4 when it aired on the WB/CW. I knew of the show, I knew people who watched it and liked it. I simply had no desire to watch it. I think the only episode I ever saw of highschool was the one where Brooke/Nathan had sex on the video and Peyton watched the video. I was in a hotel room that night and I caught literally those 5-10 minutes and then I switched the t.v. over to something else. I had no idea that Leyton existed or Brucas or who any of them are. We didn't get the CW where I lived and so I never saw any of the shows.

I moved into a new apartment the spring of 2008 and that was the first time I had ever had full access to the CW. I watched the channel a lot, lol. It was in the middle of the writer's strike and all my other shows were off the air, and then I saw the commercials for the "ALL NEW" One Tree Hill and how it was completely new/different and I was like, hey that sounds like it could be interesting. So I watched the first episode and my first and immediate thought, was holy hell there is a lot of UST between Peyton/Lucas and definitely history between them. It GUTTED me, because I was going through some crap of my own at the time and I just got how Peyton was feeling. I understood the pain. And so I watched the second episode and then the third. And then I got super sick, like really bad with the flu.
So I spent the next six days watching my sister's S1-4 dvds of One Tree Hill. And then I fell in love with the show. By the fourth episode of S5 of OTH, I was a firm shipper of Leyton. I didn't even know Brucas was an item.
But S1-4 I was on Peyton's side and it was easy for me to see Peyton's side, because I was already invested in her and Leyton.
I ended up not caring for Brooke at all in high school, because of her attitude towards boys and the "everybody owes me" attitude she had, but I ended up loving her in S5 and it was easy for me to see how much she grew as a character.

But I ship Leyton, because I didn't watch highschool OTH until after I already was invested in Leyton from Season 5. I don't condone cheating or homewrecking or being a bad friend, but going in to S1-4 already a Leyton shipper didn't make me change my mind, because S5 was currently happening and it was their past and nothing from the past would make me change my mind on what I was currently seeing. And that's why I ship Leyton.