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Hey i rally love your writing! I was wondering, if your requests are open, and of yes you could do something with benny watts from the Queens gambit. With the hat rule( you Wear the hat, you ride the cowboy). Like maybe they are friends and she steals his hat and He asks her if she knows the rule. And shes like yes i do. If you dont want to ist totaly ok. Once again i love you writing thank youu

Hey so like… I know it’s been uh, years since you requested this. But; here it is haha! I stared this blog than immediately ditched it because life got in the way. But I’m here to let out some of this creative steam that’s blocking up my brain.

Side note, this is totally not proof read.

Also- she gets a little spicy

How’s that saying go?

Benny Wats, how would you begin to describe the man? Intelligent, Skilled, Quick witted, and undeniability jaw dropping, stupidity pretty. At least, that’s how you described him. Right now. Cackling meanisily as the words flow from your mouth. Delivered in a slurred, almost unrecognisable pattern thanks to the liquid courage flowing through your veins. Two beers, four shots and three of the “speciality cocktails” deep. The ‘speciality’ in question is tequila. In burns hot in your veins warming your body, causing it to flush with a glowing pink rays. The bounce off your, directing straight at Benny.

He had to admit when he suggested going to a bar to drink his sorrows away after a recent defeat. One that came so unexpectedly and hit him hard, cutting deep in his ego. He hadn’t expected for you to tags along. And he especially didn’t expect for you to get absolutely shit faced.

You sit across from him, grin wide on your flushed features, eyes twinkling with a fuzzy haze as the barley even on lights flicker in the dingy dive bar. It wasn’t the nicest place to be. But right now Beeny is looks at what he considered to be the most incredible view of his life.

Your shoulders are released against the worn leather of the booth, the (also barley even on) tank top sits crooked across your body. Your breasts essentially spilling out of your bra. The jacked you wore on the once fridged autum night now lays abondoned. Slung poorly across the back of your chair.

He had to call it. Benny was a gentleman after all, and he fears if you keep looking at him like that, sitting so prettily across from him- he shuffles slightly in his seat, suddenly growing uncomfortable in his once lazed position.

“Okay, pretty thing.” He practically coos at you as he stands. His skim frame hovering over you. You shrink at little at this, feeling the weight of his stare and the tickly of his words in your chest.

“Time to go.” He extends a hand out to you. Allowing you to slowly stand, head reeling slightly tipping back as if the weight of your own extremely had not been known to you.

He steadies you quickly. Arms reaching to your waste, allowing you to wobble slightly in place. Providing a barrier so you don’t eat shit, essentially. One you are stead he’s quick to move. Gathering up his coat and yours in his arm. Reaching for his hat, you are quick to act. The movement surprising the man. You snatch his hat from the table, clutching it close in your arm.

“I got ya hat.” You smile a wicked grin at him, wiggling the before mentioned item in your hand. Allowing it to dangle enticingly at Beeny. Your eyes shining, glinting with mischief.

“And if you want if back-“ you begin, taking slow cautious steps backwards, finding your footing. The man tilts his head at you, a stern look is his bright eyes, but a small smile rested upon his face. His shifts the jackets to one arm, silently preparing for some kind of antict.

“Your gonna have to catch me!” You yell the last part of your sentence as you bolt through the front door of the bar. Benny swears under his breath. Fumbling with his wallet he throws a stack of whatever amount on the table before running after you. A boyish laugh rumbling in his chest.

As he jogs up to his car, been stops in his tracks. You are leaned against the passenger side door, arms crossed with a shit eating smile etched across your face. His hat, lay triumphantly atop your head.

Benny can’t help the heat that consumes him. His mind going foggy and his head spinning as he sees you, in his hat. He didn’t know it was an image that could illicit such a reaction. But yet hear the man stands, battling with his emotions like some kid if teenager. He doesn’t know what consumes him.

He needs to be close to you.

Beeny practically stalked up to you, eyes narrow and pointed starting at you like a wild animal. You don’t know what to do, like a dear in headlights you stand frozen in place. He’s on you now. So close you can feel his breath on your lips. Hot bursts as he pants, practically drools over you.

One arm come up next to your head, softly resting on the cool metal of the car. The change in temperature is welcomed to Beeny. His other arm comes across you, not touching. He lays his palm on the metal of the door.

“Now darling.” It comes at low and raspy. Pulled from the back of his throat.

“You can’t just go around wearing a man’s hat like that-“ he lowers his voice into a husky whisper. He’s towering over you, making you almost feel small. Hands shaking as adrenaline kicks in. Your teeth pulling your lips into a light hold. Sucking harsh at the plump skin.

“There are rules about these things you know.” He says it like a secret, his thumb coming up to release you lip from the tortuous hold of your lips. Staring intently at the swelling skin.

You push back against the car slightly, head tilting to meet his gaze. Your eyes burn fierce into his. Causing another hit wave to push through his body, stomach tightening and his eyebrows shit up is surprise.

You blink once, then twice. Slow and calculated. Once you know his attention is fully on you, you swing both your arms around his neck. Pulling him flush with your body. Benny can’t help the groan that seeps through as you meet his gave once more.

“How’s that saying go again.” You query, rotating you palms up and moving to place them on top of his hat, sitting so pretty on your head. Pulling Beeny closer, forcing his to crouch slightly, tilting his back back to keep in sight.

“Save a horse. Ride a cowboy?”

You take the hat and place it harshly on top of Bennys head. Causing his to lose his footing and stumble back slightly.

A giggly erupting loudly from you as he places his hand onto top of his hat, on his head. And suddenly, it doesn’t feel right. His misses the way you glow, his hat sitting like a crown on top of your head. His misses that view already.

status: open, #unhallowed starter location: the junk shop, diagon alley

kaen was pulling the last of his newest haul out of his knapsack when he heard the bell above the shop door jingle. turning, a bottle of daisyroot draught in hand, he looked to the doorway and the person standing there with a half-smile. “welcome to my office.” he stood taller, gesturing with the bottle around the junk shop, at the cluttered shelves that lined the place. “anything ‘ye lookin' for n'particular? or are ‘ye just here to see me?” kaen asked, lifting his chin, a cocky grin in company.

I just want to say, before anything else, that I love your blog! It's so helpful to me when I write things. I'm also sorry for how long this ask is going to be. I normally ask anonymously but it won't let me put the photo in.

I really like this hanfu set but I don't know exactly what dynasty it's from, or even if it's actually historically accurate.

I also wanted to ask about the hanfu from Flourished Peony, and how accurate they are. Specifically that one pink round-collar hanfu Mudan wears when she's getting flowers from the mountain that I thought was a men's item, rather than a women's one.

Sorry about the long ask!

Going to answer both of these together since they're about the same show.

About the hanfu in the picture, this is a Ruqun (襦裙) set from the Weijin. The biggest giveaway is the stripe at the sleeves (it looks like 2 stripes but I have another pic of this outfit and you can see it's actually 1 decorative stripe with two bright borders). Also, if you look at this pic below with it untucked in the skirt, you can kind of see that there's a horizontal piece of fabric along the waist area.

If you take a look at my post about the Ruqun (here) you'll see an artefact that's very similar.

For Flourished peony, I'm only going to comment on the hanfu as I don't have enough knowledge about Tang dynasty hair or makeup right now to make any judgements. I'm also not looking at the patterns on the fabrics, I'm literally only looking at the styles of the clothing themselves.

Disclaimer, I haven't watched the show. These photos are from Google and Baidu promotional pics, and I did click through a few eps to take screencaps.

And if anyone has a screencap of, or can let me know which episode, the "pink round-collar hanfu Mudan wears" that's mentioned in the ask I'd really appreciate it (I tried looking for it but couldn't find it T__T)

Looking briefly through some of the posts regarding this show, it seems the production team put a lot of effort into recreating the Tang Dynasty aesthetic, from costumes to props (there are some people who have found props and matched them to museum pieces). For the most part, the clothing seems appropriate for the time period, the only nitpick I'll do is that it seems to mix together clothing styles from early Tang all the way to late Tang (but the show isn't set in a specific period of the Tang Dynasty, so they can kind of get away with that).

Most of the men seem to wear the round-collar robes that was most common during the Tang Dynasty (my post on it here).

This style of qixiong dress (over-bust dress) seems to be most common in this show, and definitely a staple for women's hanfu during the Tang Dynasty.

If you look at the width of her sleeve here, it doesn't appear very wide. Sleeve width became wider and wider during the Tang Dynasty, so looking at these sleeves it seems more early-going-into-Gold-era Tang (my post on Gold-era Tang hanfu here).

This style looks more early-Tang with the very form-fitted sleeve and the non-qixiong skirt. I can't see clearly the pattern of her dress here, but early Tang skirts often had alternating coloured blocks on their skirts (called jianqun/间裙子)(my post on early Tang here and here).

I can't tell clearly if this dress is a qixiong dress, or a hezi dress. Hezi dresses so far are not backed by any artefacts, there are rumours of its existence but nothing has been unearthed to verify it (someone asked me about this, I posted on it here).

Looking at the long outer robe with the wide sleeve, even if this was a qixiong dress, this would be late Tang, edging into the Five Dynasties post-Tang (my post on this here).

In the first pic, the two maids are wearing outfits that are very typical in early Tang. The collars, the little vest/half-sleeve of the shirt, etc.

I'll nitpick that historically, Chinese capes did not have hoods attached. They came separately.

You can see in this pic (from the 1987 Dream of the Red Chambers), the woman is wearing her cape, the man is holding the hood for her.

My personal theory is because of the various hair styles women have, and the various hats/guan (head pieces) men wear, a separate hood offered more flexibility. Like in this pic from Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1994), he's wearing a very tall guan so trying to fit it under a hood that's attached to the cape would be difficult. But this is all just my guesses, don't quote me xD

This maid is wearing a round-collared robe usually associated with men, but actually during the Tang Dynasty it wasn't uncommon for women to wear this style of robe as well.

This man has half the robe on, the other half off his shoulder, displaying the half-sleeve underneath. This was a common way men wore their robes in casual situations (it looks like he's hunting) (my post on this here).

I took this screenshot because you can see the difference in lengths between these two men's robes. One is calf-length, one is ankle-length. Men's robes also got longer as time went on during the Tang Dynasty. It's possible this servant is wearing a shorter robe to make walking easier, but going by the length of the man in red, this should be at least late-Tang Dynasty (post mentioning robe length here).

This outfit's sleeve is very wide, indicating later in the Tang Dynasty. I think people believe form-fitted sleeves were more for younger girls, servants, or women of lower class who had to work and large, wide sleeves were for higher-level women or older women who sat around all day. In actuality, sleeve width was an indication of time period during the Tang Dynasty (for both men and women).

This look is straight out of a Dunhuang Buddhist donor mural. They painted these to commemorate people who were devoted to Buddhism and/or gave a lot of offerings, you can find these murals at the Mogao Caves in Dunhuang City today (my post on this here).

I know I said I wouldn't discuss hair but just this one, since it's such an iconic look for the Tang Dynasty. This hairstyle is a clear replica of the Ladies with Flower in their Hair painting (簪花仕女图), but they've changed the clothing. This painting was originally believed to be from the Golden-era or Mid-Tang, but in recent years historians believe it's more likely to be late-Tang or Five Dynasties (possibly even Song Dynasty) painted. Even in China a lot of people still associate it with the Tang Dynasty.

So overall, the show's production team clearly did research to replicate Tang Dynasty clothing. For the most part, they did a good job, no cross-dynasty clothing being tossed around. There's a bit of mish-mash for which period of the Tang Dynasty the clothing's from, but that's not a huge issue. Given some of the crazy costumes that's come out of period dramas in recent years, big applause to the production team to the costuming department.