As a OTH tagahanga I guess the best way to describe me is as a BLer, but that isn’t all I am, like so many other fans there is more. I remember when I was like fourteen years old and my friend Tarn and I had a fit when we found out Chad Michael Murray had a new ipakita coming out, the excitement when I sat down and watched the first episode. I turned OTH on because of Lucas, I kept coming back because of Peyton, I fell in pag-ibig with OTH because of Brucas and Jeyton, and after years it was Brooke Davis that dragged me back week after week as Sophia palumpong rocked that role. When season 6 happened I saw a few flaws, I had my problems like every other season, but there was so much I loved too. I may me a very big leyton hater but I still though Hilarie did an awesome job with Peyton, though okay I wanted madami of the old Peyton back with art and music, if I could you know ignore the lp crapness I was still sucked in sa pamamagitan ng Peyton, and if I ignored the crazy Carrie shit I was cheering with Haley, and I fell for Brooke’s family with Sam and Julian, madami than anything Brooke did have me checking out each episode and it had NOTHING to do with brucas even though in my mind that’s how oth ends, no matter how it ends when that screen fades out for the final time somewhere in time BL get together in my mind.
And when I heard about season 7 without Lucas and Peyton I was devastated because those are two of my favourite characters susunod to Brooke, I’d felt like s6 had pretty much made Lucas nonexistent as it is, but still I couldn’t imagine the ipakita without Broody and P Sawyer with her angst, wit and that broken charm that made her my favourite character for so long. Sure I was one of the first people to diss LP when I could, and still am, but that doesn’t mean I don’t pag-ibig these characters (I just hate them as a couple). I had low hopes and high hopes for season 7, on the plus side Mark couldn’t f with them anymore than he had, and what kept me going was the thought that now Brooke and Naley could get time and effort put on them and they’d be better than ever.
Shocker, but as I watched season 7 my hopes were dashed. I immediately hated the time jump that seemed random, and though I liked the new characters I hated the time that was devoted to them instead of the original characters, hell even Jamie’s screen time drove me crazy. The sl’s that just seemed to be cut at the knees, great potential slaughtered episode after episode, as I watched the decline of the ipakita I’d loved for years and its characters (you know the original mains and recurring). Yes, Naley! Woot, woot, wait, oh, another third person storyline where Nathan is oh shocker innocent… hmmm. Haley’s mum dies, real sad, Taylor, Quinn and Haley took it real hard, I’m sure their siblings did too. I mean they must have, never saw them not even at the funeral or wake, but I’m sure somewhere they cared their mother died…
Talking about things being ridiculous, Dan Scott reappearing in the ipakita again! Dude, just die already. I’m happy he made that lying four letter word tell the truth but other than that complete waste of puwang and most of all using him to bring Rachel back… what a WASTE! Probably one of the few newbies who was so easily welcomed sa pamamagitan ng the fans, and THAT is what they do, after having to go through Deb and Skillz (and just a quick sidenote about the Skillz/Lauren/Mouth/Millie thing, I don’t know who taught the oth characters about friendship but in the real world you tend to stay away from your mga kaibigan partners but why not tarnish Mouth while they do the others too) we have to think about Rachel and Dan married and then they are both just GONE. Like sorry, but WTF! Whose brilliant idea was this SL? Because I don’t know about you but I think they should be fired.
But like the last season I was thinking its all good, B Davis will get me through… you can’t see me right now but I just rolled my eyes, because maybe I shouldn’t have expected well anything. Now Brulian, okay they weren’t Brucas or Jeyton, they weren’t even Naley, or Routh, or Karen and Keith, or I could listahan a few madami but as a Brooke pag-ibig SL Julian was better than Owen, Felix, Nick and Chase. In season 6 I enjoyed them, but when Sam left it was like the spark between Julian and Brooke vanished IMO, but still I had the hope they could do well for s7 and get that slightly faded spark back. So yes though I am a BLer, I also cared about the ipakita as a whole, what the SL’s did for the characters and to make it interesting to just watch, you know I wanted Brooke to be happy, so yeah I was gonna give brulian a shot but I wasn’t gonna let them off easily, or like them for the sake of liking them, I never fell for LP after season 1 and I wasn’t going to be fed another couple without the quality to back them up. And any fangirlness I had for brulian was completely and utterly killed through out season seven, hell sa pamamagitan ng the end I was shipping Alex and Julian. I did not like seeing Brooke Davis in another pag-ibig tatsulok and what killed me madami is though the ipakita just brushed off the Julian and Alex thing I couldn’t, and it kind of pissed me off because I thought there was way madami things Julian was doing wrong then Lucas ever did when he dated Brooke, yet Brooke dumped Lucas and she held onto Julian and the ipakita made it seem it was all in her head. Not to mention everything was about brulian and Julian for Brooke this season, they shoved her company and her huge fn huge discovery of being infertile in the back ground. Sorry but BROOKE can’t have kids, Brooke Davis who had storyline after storyline about her desire for a family and screw blood, and this SL is just… I can’t begin to describe my disappointment. Huge potential wasted, I can just see Sophia totally rocking that storyline, instead I saw her crying over Julian episode after damn episode, her not being able to have kids seemed less important than the fact Julian told Alex, which didn’t matter because its not like that had any closure either. It was bad enough when her being attacked was sidelined and put in the shadows, but this, hell! Mark and the people in charge, what were you thinking??? (and yes this leads me having a laugh every time I read a tagahanga saying how Brooke is happy, in my head I go ‘really?’ because if s7 was her happy then Lucas and Brooke had a friggin party the first four seasons.)
After seven years of being an OTH tagahanga the pros and cons listahan was weighing heavily on the cons. I still think it has its great one-liners, speeches to make you cheer, moments where your puso breaks with the characters or fans laugh so hard they nearly pee their pants. But pangkalahatang the ipakita is just missing something it use to have, madami than opening credits, madami than mga panipi and voice overs, it’s a feeling that is lacking. It’s that oomph that connects all the characters and plots.

There seems to be this idea that if you pag-ibig the ipakita you pag-ibig it no matter what, I guess it’s taking ‘love is blind’ literally and anyone who disses it or points out its flaws or fall in quality is called not a true fan, or the classic if you don’t like it you don’t have to watch it, or we’re told the characters are happy (which we need to see not just be told). But I know I’m not the only one who feels this way about the ipakita and there’s a reason for that, and its not that we hate OTH, its because we pag-ibig OTH, we pag-ibig it so much it hurts to see it become LESS when we hang on to the hope episode after episode, season after season, it will become more. We think that it could be better, we think these characters deserve better.

The writers and the actors and all the other amazing people involved in bringing the ipakita alive each week are only part of the reason the ipakita stays alive, the other half is because of the fans. The ones who come back, the ones who buy the dvds, and discuss the ipakita on the web or get together with mga kaibigan to watch it, the ones who watch pelikula just because someone from OTH is in it, who feel empathy as the actors go through personal struggles or send silent or not so silent well wishes with their achievements. We might have not gone to a set every day, we might have not discussed with writers what makes these characters tick and plan for their future, that doesn’t mean we haven’t poured just as much puso and soul into bringing them to life, in a crazy way we have, because of some stupid emotion we call pag-ibig that nobody who isn’t a tagahanga would ever understand.

I find it funny that LPers and BLers are in a similar situation as fans, we’re labelled sa pamamagitan ng our ship, and those who turn away or dare to criticise the ipakita are called, what bitter? It’s of course because of our ship. Yes, okay, in many ways I am a mapait BL fan, but I am madami than that - I am a mapait ONE puno burol fan. Just because our ship has left or never got happily ever after doesn’t mean our disappointment is solely linked to the lack of our couple.

So there are people saying there isn’t a problem with the show, some say it is better than ever, but there are people saying the opposite, what is right? What is wrong?

I have my opinion, but honesty how blind to you have to be because if devoted fans are turning away after eight years there IS a problem.