vid: what you're waiting for [How I Met Your Mother]

[raven]

So, I finally watched my way through to the end of How I Met Your Mother, now that there's an alternate ending to take the edge of my rage, but, er. Er, I have never been so angry about anything I made a vid to express it before. (I may yet make an actual post about this, in actual words, that are not just "aaaaargh", but we'll see.) I've also never made a vid for a single character before, nor for something with less than eleven seasons of source. Er.

Anyway: this is a a vid in praise of Tracy McConnell, perfect beautiful dorky musician economist Tracy, who deserved so much more than she got. (It is a great disappointment to me that I could not fit any of Tracy's paintings of robots doing track and field into this vid. I love her so much.)

[NB re: spoilers - for the last season of How I Met Your Mother (er, if you don't want to know who the mother is, look away a couple of paragraphs ago!), but not the actual ending.]

[vid] what you're waiting for
by Raven
In exactly forty-five days from now, you and I are going to meet, and we're going to fall in love.

music: "What Are You Waiting For", Karine Polwart, from Faultlines
content notes: none
password to stream: umbrella / download from mediafire, 50MB

what you're waiting for from Raven on Vimeo

lyrics:

You've been waiting for the wind to change direction
Waiting for the sun to shine
You've been waiting for a new connection
But you're walking on the same old line
You've been waiting so long
How can you wait a single minute more?
You've been waiting so long
you just don't know what you are waiting for

You've been wishing for a gentle hand to guide you
For a heavenly sign
You've been wishing for a spark to burn inside you
For a little bit more time
You've been wishing so hard
How can you now wish for any more?
You've been wishing so hard
you just don't know what you are wishing for

Some say the good things come to all those who wait
Then again they might not come at all

Some say the good things come to all those who wait
Then again they might not come at all

Also, if you're looking for the alternate ending, which I now subscribe to utterly and completely, here it is. One of the many things I love about it is that it has no new footage - which is to say it is, itself, a vid! - and also Alyson Hannigan hasn't aged in twenty years, and I'm gonna end up making the 1000-word post on my thoughts and feelings about this, aren't I.

Comments

[nostalgia]

It is weird how I have heard so much about this show's ending and yet I still know nothing and have never actually seen an episode of it.

[raven]

Well, my anger about it could be seen from space, so that sounds totally legit to me.

[such_heights]

Ahhhhh, the final version is so lovely. The yellow umbrella is such a gorgeous motif, used beautifully here. I have all these Tracy feels and have never seen the show! <3

[raven]

Aww, yay, Tracy feels! Thank you very much. <3

[isagel]

This is so lovely! I adore the use of the yellow umbrella!

[raven]

Aww, thank you very much!

[china_shop]

Oh, that's gorgeous! (I didn't watch the last few seasons, but I read about the ending, and I understand your rage.)

[raven]

Ah, thank you! :) :)

[soupytwist]

Oh, how gorgeous.

I haven't seen the finale, because I heard Terrible Things before I did, but this is so clearly a step towards making it right. Tracy has a voice in this, a meaning and a life of her own that matters, and I love it.

(Also you did some fucking gorgeous things with movement here - the way the clips move across the screen to the music, the way you underlined the beat with the cutting... fantastic.)

[raven]

Aww, thank you so much! I'm so pleased you liked it, and yes, yes: I wanted Tracy to have the voice she so clearly has, right until the Terrible Thing. Oh, I love her.

[odessie]

Aww, this is so lovely, all the feels. <3 I adored Tracy to pieces and this vid reminds me of all the reasons why. (Ending, what ending?)

[raven]

What ending? I have no idea of this ending of which you speak. :) Thank you very much.

[livrelibre]

I don't even watch HIMYM and thought this was adorbs and my gf, who did, thought it was sweet too!

[raven]

Aw, thank you very much! (omg gf! <3 <3)

[livrelibre]

:) <3<3

[jb_slasher]

I just wanted to say that this vid tugged at my heartstrings. I've never actually met The Mother (I've only seen some episodes from the earlier seasons) but I like her so much just from watching your vid and the alternate ending. D'awww! <3

[khalinche.livejournal.com]

Oh hey! I don't know if you have the energy for such things, but Karine Polwart is playing a solo gig in London on Thursday. I would go but I'll be on the train back down from the Highlands.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Ah, I'd been thinking about that - it's round the corner from my work - so thanks for the reminder!

[lauds.livejournal.com]

ah, this was LOVELY. thank youuuu. (yet another female character that leaves me going YOU DESERVED SO MUCH BETTERRRR)<3

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

INORITE. So glad you liked it!

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

1) This vid was excellent.

2) AUGH. I just watched the entire last season last weekend and...it was SO TERRIBLE at the end. I was so mad I wanted to throw things at my computer, but I didn't want to break my computer. It was like the show decided to completely undo everything it spent a ridiculous number of seasons doing, making the narrative pointless. Not to mention that the mother was so cool and so short-shifted.

3) I started a Buffy rewatch, a bit before watching the final season of HIMYM. It was...surreal going back and forth between first season Willow Rosenburg and last season Lily Aldrin.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

1. Thank you! :)

2. Oh my GOD I KNOW. I'm just - I just, this show, this show, that was all about deconstructing that love-at-first-sight thing! I mean - and I probably should make a post about this and stop yelling at people about it - I think I would have been pissed off, but less so, if it was just Tracy's death. (I mean - "Vesuvius", the episode set on the snowy day in the future, I rewatched it in the knowledge of what happens to Tracy, and it completely destroyed me, which I s'pose means it was well-written.) But - Robin and Barney! They are so great together, they really built that so well, and to throw that, and Ted and Tracy, all away for nothing - aaaargh.

3. Seriously! I think it's not till halfway through How I Met Your Mother that I genuinely stop mistaking Lily for Willow (especially those flashback college scenes where they seem to be deliberately making her up to look like Willow!). I actually ended up loving Lily, quite separately from how I love Willow, which was pretty damn cool. :)

[yiskah.livejournal.com]

Re. 2. OH GOD YES EXACTLY. I loved Tracy as a character but I don't think I would've thought the ending was totally wrong if it had included her death but not all the other stuff. I recognise that I am not entirely rational when it comes to this show - I am the exact same age as the main characters, and I over-identify with Robin AND Ted AND Barney, so - but it did feel in many ways as if the finale were deliberately shitting all over everything they had painstakingly built up over nine seasons. All the stuff with Robin saying no to Ted again and again and again, his finally letting her go, Barney's character development - I don't know, and this is entirely down to my over-identification but it does strike me as a rather bleak vision of the future, not to mention entirely trampling over Robin's agency. SHOW! *shakes fist* (I initially typoed that as *shakes fish* which is a rather arresting image.) All of which is to say please DO write your big rant, I would love to read it!

And thank you for the vid, it is lovely.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I'm delighted you liked the vid. :) Also, I started writing up a reply to this comment, only - quelle surprise - it turned into the aforementioned giant rant. So here it is (http://loneraven.livejournal.com/771088.html). Argh, SHOW. *shakes fish*

[abyssinia4077.livejournal.com]

2) YES. You could write your post AND rant at people :)

I would be okay with them leaving in Tracy's death. I mean, yes, sad. But she and Ted had a lot of happy years together and things like that happen and it would fit with the show to have it worth waiting for the right thing and enjoying the time you have with it (although, it also comes dangerously close to fridging, given that the entire show as about her yet only through Ted's eyes, and even her death is more about his guilt - but what they did was WAY worse in that respect than if they'd had her death without the rest).

But, just, they spent an entire season on Barney and Robin getting married, not to mention the time leading up to it - on taking these two people who never wanted marriage and slowly convincing them it was worth the work and then suddenly these two people who clearly wanted to have independent lives along with their marriage are....suddenly breaking up because Barney doesn't like Robin's job? WTF? That made no sense. Although Robin drifting away from the group after that does makes sense (though if they hardly ever saw Robin, how do Ted's kids know her so well?)

And, yes, the whole....Ted going back to Robin like THAT was the point and the mother was nothing? NO NO NO. Because, yes, like you said it was about deconstructing love at first sight (well, except Ted kinda had that with the mother in a way, but whatever).

3) Yep - Lily and Willow have some things in common, but are definitely different too - it's fun to see and easy to love them both.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

I AGREE WITH THIS ENTIRELY OH MY GOD. In writing up a reply to this comment and yiskah's above I actually ended up writing the giant rant (http://loneraven.livejournal.com/771088.html) instead. :)

[tau_sigma]

I have not yet watched the vid - downloading! - but thought you might like to know that the mediafire link goes to a (non-password protected) viewing page instead of directly to the download link.

(Also <3 <3 <3 Tracy. This weekend, we need to have the FEELS about Tracy, yes?)

[tau_sigma]

Have now watched: THE FEELS. <3 <3 <3

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

TRACY! I love her SO MUCH! I'm delighted you like this. :) ALSO YES ALL THE FEELS I am so excited to see you. <3