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pauls1967moustache · 1 year

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Requesting a perspective flip on shotgunning if you should feel so inclined

two for a shotgunning perspective flip, so I'm starting with that one. here yous go x

“I saw these girls, once. They were doing it like that. But they were doing it together, you see,” Paul says, nodding to him, his mouth curved up in some abstract sort of mirth. He gets like that when he has something to tell John that he knows John’s going to like—all coy and playful.

John finds himself mirroring Paul, smiling even though he doesn’t know what’s funny yet. "What are you on about?"

Paul giggles, his eyes closing and his nose scrunching. John feels affection bloom warmly in his chest, watching him. Paul’s well and truly baked. John loves seeing him like this. Paul’s usually so full of energy—always thinking, always talking, always jumping and climbing over shit like a child on too much sugar. Seeing him languid and dopey like this feels a bit like catching a girl in her negligee. Same thrill, anyroad.

John’s so caught up in it, he’s wholly unprepared for Paul literally pouring himself half on top of him, out of nowhere. The warmth that was floating easy and calm in John’s chest fizzles suddenly, sparking in his fingertips. He doesn’t have enough time for his brain to catch up, his hands chasing the closest bits of Paul he can reach, on reflex—the solid weight of him, drooping over John like a lazy cat. Paul laughs at the touch—his breath making the hair of John’s fringe tickle a bit—but he doesn’t pull away like he normally would, Northern man and all that. He leans into it, even.

Paul plucks the joint from John’s hand between two fingers, and then his eyes meet John, steadier than John would’ve imagine in his current state.

“Like this,” Paul murmurs. John watches, rapt, as Paul’s cheeks hollow around the inhale.

And then, like he slithered his way out of John’s deepest held fantasies, Paul fucking leans down and hovers over John’s mouth.

John’s heart stutters. For a moment he feels himself go cold—he’s misread something, he’s hallucinating, Paul’s taking the piss out of him. He can’t make sense of what the hell is happening. He feels a light touch against his chin—fucking Paul—and his mouth opens involuntarily because he’s wanted this so much, for so long, that his body’s not prepared to do anything else. But Paul only breathes the smoke into John’s mouth, floating inches from John’s lips like some sort of wet dream apparition.

It settles John and it doesn’t. John breathes it in, sighing out the tension in his body as he does. Only, his heart’s caught up in it now—still running. It makes him dizzy for a moment, taking Paul into his lungs like that. It feels natural in an unnatural way, like some part of him’s always been breathing the same breath as Paul, and he’s just now noticed.

Paul’s free hand, sitting flat on John’s chest, closes a loose grip on John’s shirt. John taps a finger to the back of Paul’s fist, needing the physical reminder of Paul there when everything else about this feels so unearthly.

Paul pulls up, still half-smiling to himself, satisfied. His eyes blink open slowly to look at John, assessing—or as assessing as he can manage with his pot-soaked lazy stare.

John takes a breath of non-Paul air, unable to think of anything clever to say.

“Did it work?” Paul asks.

John blinks. He feels frazzled. His throat feels dry, and his heart is going, and going, and going, but Paul’s smiling down at him, fond and oblivious, and all John knows is that he’ll tear his own hair out if they never try that again.

“Do you want a go?”

“Is it good?” Paul asks.

John laughs, the tension leaking out of him with the baffled blast of it.

Is it good, he says, like he couldn’t drive a man to madness with one heedless blink of his absurd fucking lashes. Is it good?

“Yeah, it’s good,” John sys, his voice coming out embarrassingly fond, but christ, what’s he meant to do?

He moves to take the joint back, but he finds he can’t quite let himself lose contact with Paul, making his hand slide up Paul’s forearm, over his warm skin and the dark hair there. He could hold Paul’s hand for a second and Paul would probably let him, stoned as he is.

The thought leaves him giddy, his heart already gearing up as he inhales. Paul’s watching him with his big, friendly eyes, unaware of any of it. John wonders—as Paul leans down to take the air out of his lungs—if Paul’s high enough to let John live inside him, if John dissolved completely and followed his own breath in there.

But he stays material. He listens to Paul’s slow intake of breath; the silent beat as Paul holds it. And then—Paul falters. He feels Paul’s fingers grasping his jaw, awkward and off balance. Paul’s lips brush his, the faintest of touches, not even a kiss, really—if Paul pulled away. Only he doesn’t. He lingers; uses his grip on John’s jaw to angle him, and presses in. Kisses him. Kisses John.

John half laughs to himself—and there goes that breath, too, straight into Paul’s mouth. And it’s not like before, with the uncertainty of Paul hovering. The ambiguous in-between of it all is gone. Paul’s solid against him. The wet press of his tongue is real. The heat radiating from his body to John’s is real. John holds onto the back of Paul’s head, and pushes his tongue into Paul’s mouth, and tastes something tangible instead of the ghost of a breath, and John thinks perhaps this is better than being inside him, because, here, he can feel Paul want it, too.

Where Paul had been lethargic before, he turns suddenly frantic, his hands roaming over John like he can’t figure out which part of John to hold—like he has no idea what he’s doing, and is simply doing it—leaving a hot imprint of his touch in his wake. John tries to make him settle, kissing Paul deeper, and pushing his thigh between Paul’s legs—giving Paul something to anchor himself too. He hears a faint whimper ease out from the back of Paul’s throat. He feels Paul, hard against him—fuck.

It makes John dizzier than any high—so good he almost loses himself to the sensations, but he doesn’t. He can’t. It feels good, but Paul’s erratic. Paul’s hips grind into John’s thigh, his breath stuttering out of him somewhere between a gasp and a moan, unfocused in his desire like he’s a little lost. John tries his best to hold onto Paul, as if Paul might overheat and explode in John’s arms, disappearing before they even get anywhere.

Paul pulls away from him, suddenly gasping for air, and burying his face in John’s chest—leaving John face to face with Martha, sniffing the back of Paul’s head, idly. John sighs out for a moment, hot and overwhelmed, and frustrated. On top of him, Paul has gone very still. Martha gets bored with him, and starts sniffing around John’s face. John twitches away from her on instinct, just as Paul decides to flee, apparently, rolling himself abruptly away from him, with none of the ease with which he rolled on top of him.

“Macca?” John asks.

“Sorry,” Paul says, not looking at him. “I don’t know what that was.” His voice is even, and soft, but in that nervy way of his. Like he gets when he has stage fright and doesn’t want to say it.

Maybe it’s the weed, or maybe it’s that the most exceptional miracle John could’ve conceived of just happened to him, or maybe it’s the fact that Paul clearly doesn’t—but John feels calm. Paul teasing him, or being too thick to realise John’s obsessed with him is one thing, but Paul’s lying there cracked open like it caught him by surprise the same way it caught John, and all John feels is a fluttering swoops in his chest—this gentle, protective thing that he always forgets he has in him.

Martha’s still sniffing about somewhere in the vicinity of John’s shoulder. John gives her a loving pat on her head. She chases it, trying to sniff the underside of his wrist, and he uses the movement to grab a hold of her collar, hidden under her clumps of hair Paul’s never bothered to trim for her, the lazy get. He guides her out of the dome, lets her trot out into the sunny garden. shutting the door resolutely behind her.

When he turns, Paul’s still lying flat on the rug, lost in his own head; his eyes shut tight like he’s trying to block out the light. John thinks of Paul looking down at him, smiling all attentive, and sweet, and giddy. It was so easy in the end. All that torturous fantasising John’s done, all these years, and in reality it took nothing at all. It takes nothing at all; just letting it happen. Just letting themselves breathe the same air for a minute.

John picks the miraculously still burning joint off the floor. He lowers himself down next to Paul again, and rolls into him like Paul did earlier, waiting for Paul to crawl out of his head, back into the real world. Paul sighs and opens his eyes, blinking for a moment as he adjusts to the light. And then, looking up at John—small and unsure—with his big, sad, boy eyes like when he flubbed that first solo.

John holds his gaze as he inhales.

He used to think it was a good thing, that Paul thought he’d excommunicate him over such a flimsy transgression. That he could make Paul—eternally and infuriatingly self-assured, as he was—doubt himself. Maybe they were both a bit thick about each other. In any case, they certainly don’t need to be anymore. Seems a bit silly to play games with friends willing to stick their tongue in your mouth.

John ashes the joint on Paul’s obnoxious, antique rug.

“ ‘s alright, love,” he promises. “It's only me.”

He leans down, and gives Paul a breath of relief.

#fic specific ask meme #i'm not doing the whole thing but this bit is actually really interesting to me from a john perspective so yay! this was fun!#if you would still like to send an ask for the meme... i am NOT busy at work this week! i did three crosswords today!#fic tag

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iguessitsjustme · 2 years

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Old Fashion Cupcake – Music in Episode 1

Apparently, some of y’all like reading me talk about music and @skamskada asked me for some thoughts on Old Fashion Cupcake. I actually already had roughly 3 pages of notes (now 4 oops) solely on the first episode of this show. So I guess I’ll be doing a musical analysis of the first episode if I can ever decipher what I wrote.

***But first a disclaimer! I am not a musician. I’m just someone with a tiny, minuscule background in music with a somewhat decent ear. I am also kind of an idiot and I will likely get some things wrong. So remember everyone to take everything I say with a grain of salt and that just because I said it and I maybe sound a little bit smart about it, doesn’t mean I am inherently right. I encourage everyone to always form their own opinions about music and shows and everything. Now that the disclaimer is done...time to write this post.

SO soundtracks. Before diving into the beauty that is the Old Fashion Cupcake soundtrack, we should really talk about what makes a good soundtrack. This show has, in my opinion, the best soundtrack of any BL. Not because it makes me want to run and search for the songs to listen to them on repeat for hours on end, but because by definition, the soundtrack just works for this show in a way that soundtracks typically don’t for most BL. (Here is little, tiny a post I made in April about some other shows with good soundtracks for those who are interested). Well Rae, what makes a good soundtrack? I can hear you all asking. A good soundtrack is one that sets and/or matches the tone of the show. A good soundtrack can elevate a good show and make it even better. A good soundtrack can, potentially, save a bad show (not always though). A bad soundtrack can ruin a good show. A bad soundtrack and a bad show? Well, that’s just sad. Throw the whole thing in the trash. So what makes Old Fashion Cupcake stand out to me when it comes to soundtracks? It’s not just that it matches the tone of the show perfectly, but the soundtrack is blended into the tone. The scenes, the sets, the characters, the music, the everything all becomes one cohesive unit. And that’s throughout the show. Each scene, each character, each episode, everything was so carefully done. So deliberately chosen. The soundtrack can even help us better understand Nozue and Togawa and their internal struggles.

Now I have to make an attempt to decipher my...holy shit...4 pages of chicken scratch. That’s how I know I had THOUGHTS about this. Normally my writing is neat and legible unless I’m too excited and writing too fast because I can’t get the thoughts out quick enough. For the sake of length because this post is already getting very long. I will attempt to give a general analysis of the music in the first episode and will probably make another post later this week going more into specifics and providing examples.

The Old Fashion Cupcake soundtrack very deliberately uses silence, repetitive notes/chords/whathaveyou (very good music term there Rae, way to go) to set or even amplify the tone of the show. At the beginning it has an almost apathetic feel to it. Nozue is just going about his routine and the music reflects that. The music plays as we hear Nozue’s inner monologue, but there is silence when he’s cooking. There is also silence when Nozue is actively working. We learn later on in the show that Nozue enjoys cooking and although he feels stuck in a rut in his job, he doesn’t hate it. Silence in this show is used to indicate Nozue’s contentment as opposed to his apathy. There is no music playing that means that his inner dialogue his silent as he simply allows himself to enjoy something like cooking. The silence indicates he’s able to shut off his brain for awhile and let himself simply exist in the moment. When the music comes back, its the same repetitive 3 beat rhythm with 2 notes. This constant repetition is telling us, whether we are aware of the music doing this or not, that Nozue is stuck in his routine. He repeats his days and they are ultimately, the same. He feels trapped by the rhythm, but he is also resigned to it. It’s comforting in a way. There is a comfort in routine and Nozue is telling himself that again and again despite his desire to try that cafe, to eat those sweets, or to take that promotion. He feels safe in the repetition. But occasionally, a note gets replaced by something different letting the audience know that Nozue is not entirely happy in his routine and that he does have those desires. He can convince himself that he is happy as he is, but with that slight change in the music, we now have more insight into Nozue’s character than he even has of himself.

When Togawa finally makes an appearance in the show, the music changes. It’s subtle, but it’s there if you listen for it. Multiple notes are changed from the repetitive trill. This suggests Togawa will be the change that Nozue needs. He will match Nozue’s pace and his music, but Togawa will bring his own flavor to it so to speak. Those two are operating on similar wavelengths, but with slightly different outlooks. Nozue is apathetic, while Togawa performs the same routine, but he’s willing to break out of it. And he will take Nozue with him. This contrasts to the upbeat and peppy music from the gossipy coworkers. They are not on the same wavelength as Nozue and Togawa. Their music simply doesn’t match. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just different. The peppy music doesn’t feel out of place in the show though because it’s matching the scene that is focusing on the coworkers. Nozue and Togawa might be set apart, but they aren’t out of place with everyone and everything else. They are simply different and can exist in harmony with others.

The reason I love the soundtrack so much is how it reflects the characters. As the characters adapt and change, so does the music. I don’t know who was in charge of the music for this show, but they did a phenomenal job and I truly hope that they work on more BL. This post has gotten outrageously long now but I do have more to say and this is only about episode 1! What a show. If y’all haven’t watched Old Fashion Cupcake and you enjoyed my analysis, please go watch it. It’s truly a gem of a show. And it’s not just the soundtrack that’s great. I just happen to be in love with the soundtrack.

#old fashion cupcake #old fashion cupcake the series #old fashion cupcake bl #japanese bl #i still have 3 pages of notes that i haven't even gotten to yet #and again that's just for episode one #i could write a dissertation about the music in this show #it's so good #i don't have a whole lot of time this week #but i will work on putting a post together with some specific examples for those of you who are interested #i do typically have thoughts about a show's soundtrack so if you ever want to hear someone's opinion or want an analysis of a specific show #or a scene in a show #from an idiot who used to play the violin #feel free to send me an ask or a dm or tag me in anything #i can't guarantee i'll do it but odds are i will gladly share my thoughts

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