#we'd literally just met like 40 minutes ago

[bookwyrminspiration]

the trend of people being really open with information one should probably be more hesitant to share is also present in real life, which is terrifying. I met a kid the other day, 13, who started casually talking about various mental disorders and diagnoses he'd received after knowing me for less than an hour. with no prior mention or discussion to indicate my thoughts, because we'd been talking about other things. because we'd just met. I mean them no harm, but like, he is putting a lot of faith in me without further verifying my intentions. so please not only be careful with what you share online but what you share in person as well because you don't know who is safe

[hello-nichya-here]

No, the HIMYM finale is not secretly genius, stop lying to yourselves

The series finale of How I Met Your Mother, with Robin divorcing Barney and then getting together with Ted, a widower, years later could have been great. Yes, I'm serious.

Two people that were NOT soulmates and did NOT work out as couple when they were in their 20s met their true soulmates but life made them split up, and then they got a second chance of happiness with each other because, despite not being a perfect match they were at a point where they could make it work? Could totally work as a "bittersweet" ending. It's not "happily ever after" but it still finding happiness after the tragedy that stole their actual happily ever after, which is a valid, totally compelling story to tell.

But the writers completely destroyed any chance of it working as a satisfying story because the ending simply doesn't work as a twist and foreshadowing can't compete with consistent characterization.

The finale would only ever work if we had gotten to see the years of character development that were supposed to lead up to it. We'd have to SEE Barney and Robin's marriage deteriorating. We'd have too SEE Tracy's struggle with her illness and then Ted's years of grief. We'd have to SEE Ted and Robin slowly reconnecting and realizing that they've changed so much that can actually be a decent couple now - and more importantly, we have to see them CHANGE IN A WAY THAT MAKES THEM COMPATIBLE, NOT SIMPLY REVERSING THEM BACK TO HOW THEY WERE IN THE PILOT EPISODE BECAUSE THEY WERE ALREADY INCOMPATIBLE BACK THEN!

The show spent 98% of it's time building up to the "red-herring" of a Barney/Robin & Ted/Tracy endgame, with only the ocasional hints that this wasn't actually going to happen. It spent 9 fucking years, 9 seasons of 20+ episodes, building up to it this false endgame. Then suddenly the finale they try to give us SIXTEEN YEARS IN 40 MINUTES, expecting the audience the do the writer's jobs for them and fill in the blanks.

If they had given us the "fake ending" in the middle of the show, then spent the following seasons building up to the true ending, the finale wouldn't have been hated. Sure, no one would be surprised by the events in it, but anyone who didn't want Ted and Robin together would have bailed on the series a long time ago anyway.

And that's why they didn't do it. Because they knew most people didn't want these two to be endgame, LOVED Barney's growth as a character, and were not only eagerly waiting to meet Tracy but were also blown away by how she managed to be even better than we imagined. They wanted to have it both ways: give the audience what they wanted AND say "Sorry, this is our story, if you don't like it you don't have to watch it." It's cowardly, pathetic and a deep betrayal of the audience's trust, because people CAN accept not being given what they wanted - but they don't accept being lied to.

We never saw Barney be frustrated by Robin's work or by constant traveling before the finale - he's the "challenge accepted" guy, for fuck's sake, he used to go random trips just for the sake of having an adventure with his friends - thefore we don't believe that he is miserable enough that he'd want to end their marriage.

You can't show us Robin repeatedly choosing Barney over Ted, give us an insane scene of her covering Ted's face during sex to pretend she's sleeping with someone else, having her react to what she thinks is a proposal with 'You can't do this to me!", and even saying, to his face, that she doesn't love him, and then pretend that she totally still had feelings for him this entire time.

Even Ted pointed out, during this wedding to Stella, that Robin isn't hoping he'll remain single because she genuinely wants him, but because she's just afraid of being alone. C&C cannot convince general audiences, or critics, that she loves this man after they literally described the show as "The story of man that is in love with a woman, and she doesn't want that."

They can't tell me Ted genuinely loved Robin when he was constantly irritated by everything that makes her who she is: the fact that she's career-driven, always takes charge of everything, doesn't want kids, likes to travel around because she wants life to be an adventure, doesn't seem to believe in fate or soulmates, is a gun enthusiast, etc. They can't tell me they'd make it work when that's still who Robin is a person and Ted would still be irritated by it.

They DEFINITIVELY cannot convince me that him being hung up on her for so long means anything when he meets a new potential "soulamte" every other week, and will ALSO fall back in love with multiple exes the second he runs into them again, or so much as thinks back to the good old times.

And they absolutely cannot fucking tell me that he'd still be hung up on her after 25 fucking years, after he met his actual soulmate - unless they want me to believe the woman that was basically born from his rib is not his soulmate, which I call bullshit on.

And no, finale defenders, you cannot make this an inspirational "He found happiness with an old flame after his true love passed away because life is messy like that" when the show itself said, all the way back in season two "If Ted and Robin got married, they'd inevitably divorce, handle terribly, and screw up any kids they had."

Because yes, that's a thing that happens. When Robin meets Ted's parents, there's a whole misunderstanding about the dad supposedly cheating on the mom - and then we discover that actually they've been divorced FOR A LONG TIME, and just never told their kids because REASONS. Ted is even outraged that "Is this what passes for communication in this family?" More importantly, he and Robin, who are wearing the same colors as his parents, are shocked as they realize that the reasons for their divorce were the same reasons that made Robin not want to want Ted - the same reasons that would make them break up episodes later.

The writting is on the wall here. Ted and Robin will inevitably split up, and his kids will resent them both for getting them caught in the crossfire. Ted is already taking a page from his parents' book on How To Suck At Communicating Like A Normal Person by claiming he's gonna tell a story about their mother, only to then be like "Actually, this about how I love someone else and want to date her now."

"Oh, you just don't get it! The show was never about the Yellow Umbrella (Tracy)! It was about the Blue French Horn (Robin)!"

Yeah. It was about Robin. About how she's completely wrong for Ted and how they could never be happy together. About how he needs to let go of this obsession before it ruins his life and his relationship with everyone else that he is hurting during his attempts of getting with her: Victoria, Barney, Tracy, his children, and even Robin herself.

This is not a bittersweet ending. This is not a happy ending. This is two delusional writers ACCIDENTALLY giving their characters the most miserable endgame possible, and being convinced that they're giving us a fairy-tale ending - because yeah, that's what they thought. They weren't even aiming for bittersweet. They were never aiming for "Tragedy happens, but life goes on and you can still find happiness in it." They thought that Robin and Ted being so distraught by their awful lives that they convince themselves they were meant to be, and then go on to ruin their already shiity lives even more, was the most perfect happily ever after anyone could ask for.

The finale COULD have been great. Instead it was the worst thing imaginable, and the very fact that people can only try to defend it by WILDLY misterpreting what the writers wanted them to take from it is proof of how poorly thought out and written it was.

No one likes it for what it is, they like it for what they PRETEND it is. That simple fact is more insulting to this ending than anything I or anyone else could possibly say.