#i miss cyms too much for it to be healthy

[tsuncda]

ooo ok idk if CYMs are allowed in here but

🪑 (chair) — come talk with me! i don’t have any ask games in mind, so come annoy me however you see fit <3.

maybe as ur playlists? bc u have some very cool names for them

omg,,,,,, your mIND is impossibly big for this, bestie!!!! i am a sucker for a good cym and nothing will bring me back to my tumblr rot than one of these bad boys <33

disclaimer that my memory has never been worse when it comes to who falls under the "mutual" category. i might forget some of you and i'm so sorry for that 😔✌️

@destourtereaux is despite everything, there is light (it's all my like,,,, soft core kpop that i listen to when i'm #overwhelmed on a monday evening and still have so much to do even though i'm so done with life itself. it's the perfect balancing act between a pick me up and a cradling hug that doesn't ask me to be okay,,, just get through <3) alternatively; we burn just like stars

@musicallisto is do you even dvicio? (because yeah <3 she's the only other girlie who understands the dvicio brainrot <3 also i heard a rumor that literally all of their love songs are written about her???? and like,,, i can confirm it's true. there's no better subject material for love songs than clara <3) alternatively; summer borne seconds? i only have 5. also; though their lips sound of things done

@amortensie is sing because you just need to sing (it's literally just musicals <3 nixie is that theatre kid out of all my mutuals and she should be immensely proud of that <3. also, there's so many different genres held within that behemoth of a playlist and nixie has multitudes and depth that we might never expect <3) alternatively; mele

@genyakosstyk is the haole boys know how to make good beats on occasion (this one is just a collection of white boy artists (hapa haole included!!!) and idk why i'm giving it to lottie, tbh. i just feel like she'd lovingly roast my occasional, misguided brainrot over objectively average white men like alec benjamin, but also let it happen and learn the lyrics to support me. it's a playlist i listen to when i want to tap into the teenage me who had a favorite backstreet boy, okay? ooooohhh... you know what? maybe this association came about because i associate lottie with &juliet... and they have a lot of white pop on that list.... yeah. i think that's it.) alternatively; six of crows radio

@bright-molina is summer borne seconds? i only have 5. (it's a 5SOS playlist. i think the association explains itself.) alternatively; stealing elias goldstein's headphones

@heliads is do i want roses? only if they sound like this. (it's a collection of music by the k-band the rose and i just,,,,,,, there's nothing more comforting in this whole wide world <3. why do i associate it with lisa? i mean,,, it's not a 1-1 association since i don't think lisa knows the rose exists, but i feel like their ~sound~ fits her vibes <3) alternatively; i am the sea or i am nothing

@oceanspray5 is heavy are the mountains; heavy the seas (this one is my like,,,, indie folk pop playlist. at least i think that's what the genre is...? the sound for of monsters and men. the oh hellos. the lumineers. idk why other than the sound fits the aesthetic of iffah's blog.) alternatively; a little parenthesis in eternity

@noesapphic is the dark of getting it (it's my secret agent au playlist. self explanatory vibes <3) alternatively; cantar

@the-radio-star is perhaps i am digging his grave (one of my oldest, most robust, and beloved playlist <3. it's arguably a lot of genres but it scratches the same itch of ~ooooooohhhh,,,, i'm dark and angsty and arguably a mess but also a bad bitch on alternating wednesdays~) alternatively; saranghae but it's a mournful yeehaw

@permanentreverie is bts mayhaps? (i think this one explains itself <3 but also!!!!!!!!!! bts changed me and so does lindsay. daily. not always for the better of society, but alas. change can never be contained to one linear direction <3) alternatively; thirteen of them but they take up seventeen places in my heart and; this world rests beneath a blood red sky

@biqherosix is tomorrow? girl, only if we're together (i don't think daniza knows txt - if you don't, this is my not so silent plea for you to give them a listen - but literally the vibes align so perfectly. she and txt get each other, they just don't know it yet. listen to 0x1=LOVESONG and tell me daniza wouldn't just,,,,, go feral to that song. also Lo$er=Lo♡er) alternatively; the haole boys know how to make good beats on occasion

@johnskeating is CELESTIAL (for obvious reasons (to her at least) that i will not disclose and neither will anyone else under threat of death <3. but also, it's a collaborative playlist with a lot of summer-adventures-with-your-best-friends vibes and that's cass <3) alternatively; all that's beyond my grasp

[cymbalism]

cym returns to Supernatural

Did I tell you I’ve started catching up on SPN? I picked it up mid-season 12, which seemed to be about as far as I got last time I attempted this. I’m very happy to report I don’t hate it. Guys. I really thought I’d hate it. Sure, there’s stuff that makes me roll my eyes and all attendant your-fav-is-problematic disclaimers apply (bringing back female characters just to kill them? blargh), but I otherwise stand corrected on my judgey judgey judgements. With fifteen years at its back, the story will never be as tight as it was in those early seasons, and even facing its final season I don’t think we’ll recover the stakes of the first apocalypse, but the character work is SO. MUCH. BETTER. than when I rage quit in season 9 (and later hate-watched my way through 10, 11, and part of 12) that I’ve been warily won over.

Details below.

Like, toward the end of season12 Dean demonstrates a modicum of emotional growth 👏🏼 and Sam gets listened to and respected 🙌🏼and there are some well composed monster of the week eps 👍🏼. Season 13 actually made me laugh with well-placed callbacks and I picked up a couple canon details to that inspire/underpin the fic I’m poking at. Some of themed episodes have been great (I was more impressed with ScoobyNatural than I expected to be, s14 e4 “Mint Condition” was nearly perfect), others have been misses (s13 e 12 “Various & Sundry Villains” suffers from more than a bad title, with apologies to Amanda Tapping).

Most importantly, I don’t hate the Sam-and-Dean dynamic. The moments of emotional communication between the brothers and attempts at addressing trauma weren’t half-assed like they used to be. Neither s12 or s13 hangs its entire premise on one brother lying to the other. It’s like the show runners finally learned that it’s unwieldy and weird for the Winchesters to ignore over a decade of baggage and that the show can, in fact, push forward into new plot AND maintain its backstory. Imagine!

Anyway. I’m currently somewhere mid s14 and still on board. Although the thing always most likely to rankle me is how the writers handle Cas (his “decisions” for too many seasons were shittily built plot devices that left him with no consistent characterization and the “we’re mad at Cas” relationship with the WInchesters too often subbed in for actual dramatic tension), I have to give a special shoutout s14, ep 2 wherein Cas plays caretaker to Jack and Nick. That shit made my heart grow seventeen sizes. That was a Cas that made sense to me—worldweary but willing to help, knowledgable but wary, stern but forgiving.

Speaking of Cas . . . It helps me not hate the show that some of the bigger swings at queerbaiting have stopped. The only instance of the laughy gay jokes that were such a hard turnoff for me years ago was Cas’s really stupid faceplant into Gabriel’s crotch when they tumble through to apocalypse world. But when random Attempted King of Hell #47 says something suggestive to Castiel about being “connected to Dean at the . . . everywhere” idk, that felt less insulting, more natural(?) to me. The subtext between Dean and Cas still exists (Dean including Cas in his dream of retirement on a beach somewhere was a big one for me, I confess), which is all my shipper ever needed or wanted. I don’t need and never wanted teed-up dialogue. So long as Cas is generally around and Dean isn’t actively screaming at him, I'm perfectly capable of believing they have/have had/are about to have a healthy behind-the-scenes sexual relationship, thankyouverymuch, no help from show runners necessary. (And yeah, I know. I know there’s some huge rift between them coming; I’ve seen the spoilers. It’ll inevitably piss me off. But in these fifteen minutes writing this, I’m at peace.)

On a production level (and here I mumble RIPs to our dearly departed fourth wall), many of exec producer credits have stayed the same but I’ve noticed new and more regularly female names in the director seat. I do wonder if that’s making some of positive difference. Probably there are reams of meta and convention panel interviews out there to confirm or deny this speculation that I could hunt down if I really wanted to. But I don’t want to. I’m not out to prove anything to the show anymore. I’m here to bear witness to its departure and (hopefully) enjoy it while it lasts.