Fanfic: Catching the Clock, Author's Note
Author’s Note on the Future Set Chapters
Since 9.23/9.24 diverged so far from the rest of the show I felt it was necessary before posting the future set chapters to make clear where that AU atrocity differs from canon elements and what will therefore show up in my story (and what won’t) so that people aren’t confused or wonder why they’re seeing certain elements included but not others. I was going to make this an author’s note on the first future chapter but there was so much wrong with 9.23/9.24 to touch upon that it grew too long.
I’ve already stated that canon ends in 9.22 but, just to clarify, what that means is that I do not accept ANY part of that last episode as canon other than the first 6 ½ minutes, literally stopping at the 6 minute and 30 second mark (for those of you, like me, who had the misfortune of actually watching it uncut, that means ending right after Ted and Barney are icing their hands). I accept the scenes of the reception, and the gang saying goodbye on the hotel porch, and the Robin Sparkles scene that got cut, because all of that does follow canon and clearly was shot and written at a different time (you know, not nearly a decade ago!) which is why it has a completely different feel and tone than the rest of that mess. But everything after that goes awry in some way or another and won’t show up in my story as it does not match the rest of HIMYM’s canon.
So once again: anything else from that episode I do not in any way, shape, or form recognize, acknowledge, or accept - including the entirety of the future the AU 2006 script presents. No part of that trash will appear in this story. The only things that will show up in my future set chapters are things that have been touched upon in a prior episode in the true canon range of 1.01- 9.22 (or 9.23 at the 6:30 mark). Most notably, for this story that means:
Ted and the Mother meet in a slightly different fashion because even that they got wrong. The yellow umbrella was supposed to be the main reason the two of them met. That’s why the yellow umbrella is the ‘how Dad and Mom met’ story that the kids already knew, because that was the short version and all the rest is just the particulars on the long journey of how Ted became who he needed to be (which of course included the more elaborate details, like how the mother got hired to play in Barney and Robin’s wedding band in the first place). Ted was supposed to talk to the Mother, or she was supposed to go talk to him, because of the yellow umbrella (and 3.01 strongly implied it would blow away too but I’m willing to give on that). It was not supposed to be just some lame afterthought, throwaway one-liner mentioned simply to get it out of the way once they were already talking. I’m sure all the people who believed in the yellow umbrella mythology so much that they got it tattooed on their bodies really appreciated them totally disregarding that part of canon. (Like so much else in that horrendous script, obviously the reason it was disregarded as the key element of their meeting is because the yellow umbrella didn’t come into the story until 3.01 and the 9.23/9.24 script was written back in the Season1/Season 2 era before that even happened). Also, the idea that after one conversation Ted would impulsively cancel his entire move to Chicago just like something he’d do back in 1.01 does not fit with what we just saw in canon in 9.21 where we were shown that Ted has finally learned his lesson that he cannot force fate when on his first date with the Mother he actually walked away rather than beg her to stay because he knew that if it was meant to be it would happen on its own without his help. Therefore, this story doesn’t acknowledge the way their meeting went down in the AU finale. Granted this is a Barney/Robin story so it won’t directly feature any of those scenes, but that part will be alluded to in the first future chapter.
Additionally, in my story Ted and the Mother get married in August 2014 (because the lighthouse proposal scene would have actually occurred in May 2014) since they were clearly already married in the “Trilogy Time” flash forward set in late spring/summer 2015, as well as shown to be married in several other flash forwards (including as recently as the flash forward in 9.15) set before when the AU finale had them finally getting married in 2020 (one of hundreds of reasons why that finale made no sense and blatantly disregarded all the episodes before it). Not to mention that canon Ted, who has been dying to get married for a decade now, would never wait that long for no reason whatsoever and would have proposed long before two years - and certainly would have proposed the very moment she got pregnant. That lackadaisical I-don’t-care-about-marriage attitude of AU Ted showed that he suffered from Out of Character disease like the rest of them, just not as severe an outbreak as Barney and Robin’s characters were impaired with.
Now in dealing with the Mother, since I don’t recognize any of that non-canon mess I seriously contemplated keeping her with the name I’d given her on my own. In fact I had it that way in all of my drafts. However in the end I felt there was a compelling argument for the name Tracy already having been established in the real canon of the show back in 1.09 judging by the kids’ reactions to the stripper having that same name. So ultimately I let the name Tracy stand but only because of that Season 1 episode, not because of anything in 9.23/9.24.
Furthermore, because some non-disclosed illness of hers was touched upon in canon in 9.19 (even though certainly that was only gross foreshadowing of their 2006 script to come) I have accepted her illness as canon. But she will survive, which actually makes for a moving “true to life story” much more so than the ridiculousness they presented. Because in real life people are diagnosed with serious illnesses all the time and they are able to beat them and come out strong and healthy and go on to lead full, rich, happy lives (my own family experienced just such a thing over this past year.) It is short-sighted, juvenile, and lazy writing to with no depth or explanation at all leave the suggestion that any nondescript illness must automatically lead to character death and in an extremely quick, pain-free, and oh-so-beautiful-in-the-hospital-bed (in the one picture we were shown) way. And it is even more lazy, juvenile, and downright disturbing to suggest that the death of a young mother would have virtually no effect on her children who were old enough to know and understand at the time of her death yet seem entirely flippant and disrespectful of her memory (and this is coming from someone who lost a parent at a young age and was utterly disgusted by the way those children were portrayed) but then again part of that is because at the beginning of the series the Mother was not supposed to be dead. So to make a long rant short: the Mother’s name is Tracy, she will get sick, but she will pull through.
Also, this story does not acknowledge any parts of the bleak future they painted for Lily. Her desire and struggle to carve out a career in the art world was her character’s only series-long storyline. From the end of Season 1 and going off to attend art school in San Francisco, to her attempts to sell her paintings, and finally to making a successful career for herself as an art consultant which figured so heavily into the plot of Season 8 and 9, that was the one thing she strived for. Yet they wiped all that away from her with no explanation at all (again, because Lily had none of that in Season 1 when the script was written) and left her with nothing to do but shuck out babies and look after her husband’s career like some 1950s housewife, because all of that was Marshall’s dream. It was offensively misogynistic (the entire 2006 script was tremendously, revoltingly misogynistic in their treatment of all of the female characters, leaving the message that all women should be 1950s housewives or end up divorced, and that it’s a woman’s main and only job to produce children for a man - because after all a kid is the only thing that can ever make a man transformed and fulfilled- and then she can die because her work is done). Therefore in this story Lily is still a successful art consultant in New York (once she gets back from Italy) and this story does not recognize any third child. The AU finale barely recognized it anyway. It was never even given a gender or a name, never shown, and seemed to exist for no other reason than to keep Lily barefoot and pregnant and stuck at home. Lily only wanted two children and she should have control and say over her own body, just like she shouldn’t have to give up her dream of the career she wanted and worked hard for. In this story she gets to have her dream and her say just as much as Marshall does. That’s the way it always was in their real relationship and marriage in the canon world of 1.01 - 9.22.
And finally, in regards to Robin’s career path, I do not for one second believe that Season 9 Robin would have ever traveled in the way they presented it in the AU finale. Even with Barney by her side she wouldn’t have wanted a nomadic lifestyle like that. Robin likes some stability and she’s too into her group of friends and that sense of family and belonging she derives from them to just continually take to the open road and never see them for years on end. Look how upset she was in 6.09 at the thought of losing Lily’s constant friendship, or in 7.14 when Lily and Marshall moved to the suburbs (just a 46 minute ride away), or how in 9.13 she was rooting for Marshall to take the judgeship just so that Lily wouldn’t leave for a year because she’d miss her too much. Plus Robin constantly traveling and never seeing the group simply doesn’t fit with what we already know of the canon future and the gang’s closeness to one another and each other’s families in that canon future. Nor does it fit with them always being together for American Thanksgiving and Robots vs. Wrestlers. Robin searched for that sense of belonging her entire life. That’s why she bonded with the gang so quickly and so well in the beginning. She would never just throw that away.
Moreover, a desire to travel to all these foreign countries hasn’t even been a part of her character since Season 2, and whenever living abroad has been very rarely brought up since then it’s always been a negative for her. We saw in Season 4 how she did not want to move away to Japan, and when she forced herself to do so anyway she was absolutely miserable and came back home shortly thereafter. A desire for world travel (or any travel) is never mentioned again. Even more tellingly, we see her in Season 5 and in Season 7 turn down career/travel opportunities (to Chicago and to France) in favor of pursuing her love life at home in New York (making Robin’s actions in the AU finale all the more absurd). The most we ever see her travel again since her disastrous attempt to live abroad in Season 4 is to Russia for exactly one week.
And that, I believe, is the sort of lifestyle that would suit Robin: traveling abroad for pleasure with Barney like normal couples do on vacations, and then traveling a bit for work when called upon - but for small periods of time and only a few times a year (see my flash forward in 9.15 for my take on Robin’s opinion of that, which was written before that AU finale even aired so that lets you know my strong thoughts on that aspect of it).
Also a network broadcaster is the more prestigious journalistic position. Why would she want to move down on the career hierarchy? And I don’t believe the type of nomadic lifestyle and lower status position of a field foreign correspondent would fit with Robin’s desire for fame as seen frequently throughout the show (1.05, 5.13, 7.21, and 8.02 are examples just off the top of my head). How many international foreign correspondents are actually famous in the United States who Americans know, watch, and would recognize? Yet Robin is shown to greatly love doing her daily broadcast at WWN, love seeing herself nightly on TV, and love that recognition she gets because of it. She’s never going to get that as the one-minute foreign correspondent who the regular (and therefore known and recognized) broadcasters occasionally cut to, nor was she ever shown to want that kind of a job past Season 2. The only things we hear from Robin on her career over and over again are that she wants to do “serious news” and “be taken seriously” as well as the fact that she likes to be recognized. All of those things are certainly accomplished by being a regular daily broadcaster on a prominent network in the U.S., not by being a foreign correspondent.
I fully believe that if they did constantly travel all over the world, as is portrayed in the AU finale, Robin and Barney would still stay together regardless (no way they’re going to spend eight heart-wrenching years working their way together just to call it a day with no effort at all, no attempt to work out the problem - whatever the problem was supposed to have been - just a high five and see ya never!). However, I don’t think that would have been an issue to begin with because I don’t believe that 2013 Robin would have even wanted that nomadic lifestyle for herself or for Barney. The AU finale got it wrong in every possible way, so that kind of relentless travel and lengthy residing abroad will not show up in my future chapters because I don’t feel like it is in keeping with the rest of the story and where Robin’s character was at by Season 9.
Frankly, I’m not quite sure why so many people seem to accept that part of it as canon when in fact the only place we see that show up is within the AU finale itself. Nothing else suggested that Robin would be constantly traveling the world. Even back in Season 2 only a handful of countries are named and she’s already been to most of them (and I know they say she “lives in” these other countries at the end of Season 2, but they already hit upon several of them and their definition of “living in” was for just a couple of weeks. In fact, Russia was literally one week of living there. All of that is really no different than an extended vacation, which I therefore count). The few countries that are left and the whole idea itself of Robin “seeing the world” could happen very easily through years’ worth of occasional travel for both work and leisure like plenty of everyday people accomplish who still have a regular permanent residency in one place. For example, if Robin goes on perhaps two work trips plus one personal vacation a year then she’s seeing three countries a year right there (meaning she’ll visit/live in as many as 50 countries by 2030, which certainly qualifies as traveling the world) while still maintaining a regular lifestyle in NYC. That is how I see Robin’s and Barney’s future in a completely canon world.
Now on to Barney and Robin's future....
2013