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the-fiction-witch · 4 years

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The Other Harmon P6-P10

TV SHOW: THE QUEENS GAMBIT COUPLE: BENNY WATTS X READER RATING: SMUT

Part 6: Home alone

I sat at home thinking, as usual, trying to imagine anything and yet nothing. Beth and our adoptive mother were out likely shopping again. I got up going and locking the door sitting back on my bed and quietly sneaking out the little shoe box and tipping it out in my bed, newspaper clippings and magazine pages fluttering onto my sheets the mere sight of a cover of chess review made my tummy bubble-like getting a thousand kisses, my head spin like my mind was a spinning top, my thoughts turning to mush as I laid on my stomach going through pictures and articles reading things here and there humming my little tune as I did all of it making my stomach and slightly lower seem to almost throb in some way like a terrible ache that still felt exhausting I put some of my things away laying under my covers pushing my petticoats away to try and find the source of his ache but the closer I got the more my brain began to imagine.

Part 7 : Imagination

'"well, well, what's this then? Have I stumbled upon a very beautiful girl in such a very naughty position, Ummm I think I have" Benny smirked leaning on my bedpost looking at me dressed as I last saw him when he had been playing my sister for a long time and had removed his jacket and his hat leaving him in his jeans and green unbuttoned shirt "don't worry, I locked the door after me" he winked

"What? What are you doing here Benny?'

"Well I came to visit your sister, give her some championship news but... I guess she's not here" he smirked, kneeling on my bed "I suppose I should get going, but I think my little girl needs to answer me honestly again?"

"Answer what?" I asked nervously

"Does it feel good?" He whispered in my ear and I nodded "good, what a dirty little girl touching her pretty little self, but I want it honestly y/n what are you thinking about?"

"Nothing-"

"Liar, what is my beautiful girl thinking about when she touched her pretty little pussy?" He smirked moving closer and closer until he was laid next to me in my bed but I didn't answer he simply picked up one of the clippings from my bed he saw it and smirked more before looking back to me "don't worry our little secret" he smirked kissing my cheek "but you won't be having these anymore" he said throwing it off my bed "not now you've got me?"

"Benny what are you-"

"Shhhh... quiet what if beth comes home and finds us up here, together in your bed, umm she would get very cross wouldn't she?" He smirked kissing down my neck and across my chest any skin exposed he was kissing "umm you've become such a beautiful girl y/n, I can't keep my hands off" he smirked "in fact, I don't think I will" he smirked his hand starting to touch me he gently and softly making me almost squeal "aww does that feel good?" He playfully smirked

"Benny please i-"

"What's wrong? Doesn't my pretty little girl want to finish? Doesn't she wanna feel amazing, and have me touching her forever?"

"I do but Benny I not sure I can, I never have before"

"Never? Ohh well now I really can't stop can I? How could I say no to giving my pretty girl her first?"

"Benny-" I gasped holding him tightly

"Shhhh it's okay, just relax and let me make you feel good" he smirked moving to sit over me pulling back the covers and my skirt and petticoats gently playing with me "uumm look how wet you are? Your so ready for me little lady"

"Ready for you?" I asked

"Don't you know that's why you get all wet? You get wet when your all excited and you do that because this pretty pussy knows I'm gonna wanna fuck it if your all excited"

"Benny!" I said in shock

"Ohh? What did you not want me inside you? Filling you up till it can't take any more of me? Having me bury myself deep inside you? Stretching your pretty pussy so it's perfect for me?" He growled between kisses I was feeling an edge and I couldn't bare anything stopping

"Of course I would" I blushed

"Well if you a good girl and cum on my hand, I'll fuck you, that a deal?" He asks and I nodded "that's my girl" he smirked getting faster and faster "ummm scream for me, little girl"

"I can't what if Beth's back"

"I don't care if beth hears us, I wanna hear you squeal so desperate for me, I wanna hear my name from your lips when you cum, I want everyone to know what my dirty little girl is up to and who she's imagining when she does" he growled biting my neck as I hit a massive wall of pleasure'

"Uuuhhh!! Uughhh! Benny!! BENNY!" I squealed

'"awww you look so cute when you cum" he smiled kissing my cheek letting me ride it out "shhhh it's okay it's normal to be a little tired after. Remember if you need me you know where I am" he smiled kissing me softly'

I laid in bed surrounded by some of my pictures from magazines my tummy still felt bubbly but a different kind

"Y/n we're home!" Mother yells from downstairs

"Hi" I yelled back my voice a little strange

"You alright dear?"

"Fine" I answered quickly getting up and putting everything says hiding any evidence unlocking my door

"Hey what did you do all day?" Beth asks as she came in with her things

"Nothing" I smiled.

Part 8 : Honeydew

I stood Looking at the boards trying to see what was happening today and who was playing who.

"My, my hello honeydew"

"I'm sorry you must have me confused with someone else," I said trying to go

"No I don't rather think I do," he said holding my wrist next I knew I was pulled close to the one and only Benny watts. I tried to force myself to think straight trying desperately to bury the thoughts of him I have been having since last I saw him in person

"B-benny, it uhh it's nice to see you" I blushed moving away a little

"It's nice to see you too honeydew"

"I'm sorry? When did you start calling me honeydew?"

"Right now" he shrugs "I kinda like it, suits you"

"Does it?"

"Yeah your like the sweetest thing in the world" he smiled "you've... grown"

"Ohh thank you" I smiled

"You... you look beautiful," he says

"Aww Benny that's so sweet of you" I smiled

"ohh I've got to go, but promise me you'll meet me later I really Wanna talk to you"

"Sure, I promise" I smiled

"That's my girl, see you later honeydew" he smiled, kissing my head before he ran off to play.

Part 9 : Propersition

I could barely wait, barely containing my excitement at the meet idea Benny watts wanted to talk to me, not just passing conversation he wanted to go out his way to spend time with me, I wonder what it was he wanted to talk about. I waited by his last game s beth was already thought to the next round and up in her room I sat watched as the game finished and he got up heading out of the room, I followed curiously but as I turned the corner I couldn't find him but suddenly arms were around me and I almost screamed in fear but I saw quickly it was just Benny

"You scared me" I complained hitting him gently with my handbag

"Sorry, so I'm all done for today, you wanna go chat now?" He asks and I nodded so he lead me to the lift and we got inside

"Where are we going?" I asked as the door closed

"My room," he said I pinched myself to check I wasn't imagining it but it was real I then started running through every other word in the English language that I might possibly have confused it for until the doors opened and he leads me down to a room unlocking the door and letting me inside. It was a nice little room with a double bed some various hotel furniture most of it covered with benny's scattered belongings "oohh uhh sorry about the mess" he says quickly cleaning up a little

"It's alright" I smiled "but why did we come up here?"

"Because I wanted to talk to you," he says sitting in his bed and tapping the mattress beside him "sorry, I know it's a little odd I just didn't want people listening in, or reporters about I'm sure you know what they're like" he explained and I nodded that made much more sense and I'm not gonna lie I didn't care the reason the thrill alone of being in Benny Watts' hotel room was insane

"So what did you wanna talk about?" I asked

"Ahh yeah, I have a little... proposition to offer you honeydew"

"Oh?"

"You know how you said about Austin?"

"Yes"

"Well... I'm going in a couple of months, and I was wondering whether you wanted to come with me?"

"Benny you mean it?'

"Of course I do"

"Oh thank you thank you thank you!" I smiled hugging him insanely tightly "ohh sorry" I said moving away

"Aww no worries honeydew" he laughs "so I've already got the plane tickets and the hotel sorted all booked and ready, but... there is one little catch"

"What is it?" I asked

"In order to even be a guest at the hotel you have to be part of the tournament, or you can have plus ones but they have to have the same last name," he explained "so, if you want to come... you have to play"

"But Benny I've never played before except against you and Beth, I can't go against chess champions"

"Y/n trust me, you can I know you can,"

"Can't we just fake the last name thing? Pretend I'm your sister? Or wife?'

"You think anyone is going to believe that, for one thing half the chess world knows your Beth's sister, and oddly enough don't you think it would have been news if I got married?"

"I guess, Benny I don't know..."

"Please y/n, for me honeydew?"

"Well... okay" I nodded

"Yes, that's my girl!' he smiled grabbing my face and kissing my cheek rather hard so much I could hear the clack of the kiss but we both froze "I am so sorry y/n"

"No, no it's uhh it's okay benny" I blushed "don't worry about it" I smiled "so austin?"

"Right yeah, uhh so we fly out on the seventh tournament starts on the sixteenth, should be home by the nineteenth" he explained

"Why are we there so early?" I asked

"To prepare and practice, and... so you can explore austin a little with me"

"What about the flight's?" I asked "am I going to be on the plane all by myself?"

Unfortunately the flight out, yes your going to have to be there by yourself but I'll meet you at the airport in austin, home it's the same flight home so you'll come into new York with me maybe we'll stay at my apartment there for a couple of days just while everything cools down" he explained and I blushed more the mere idea of it all, a holiday across the country without any of my family, just me and Benny, on planes together in a hotel together, then back to his apartment for a few days I could have melted into a puddle of excitement

"Uuuhh Benny?" I finally got the courage to ask "what's the situation with the hotel?"

"Ahh well as I said you can't be a guest unless you're competing or a same last name guess. And... I kinda messed up a little when I was making the forms"

"Oh?"

"It's one room, for the two of us, I'm sorry I didn't realize until after and then I tried to call and change it but by then the hotel was full with everyone else from the tournament" he explained "it's okay I mean really we'll be exploring and working most of the trip the room will really just be for sleeping, but they assured me it had two beds" he says

"I'm sure it'll be fine" I smiled internally screaming at the mere idea of sharing a hotel room with him he gave me all the things I needed and he'd send the tickets and such thought soon as they were likely already in his mailbox at home

"Ooh and one last thing" he says grabbing a note and a pen from the table scribbling something and then handing it to me folded up

"What is it?" I asked

"The number for my apartment, Incase something changes and you need to get hold of me... or of course if you just fancy talking to me?"

"Thank you Benny" I smiled giving his cheek a little kiss

"Your welcome honeydew" he smiled.

Part 10 : Letter

I hid my most recent letter away in my shoebox under my bed with everything I needed for my trip and all the other things I wanted to hide,

"What's this?" I heard beth ask from leaning in the door in her usual dress and hair tie she was holding a letter

"A uhh a letter," I said

"Yeah, a letter" she smiled "Mom accidentally put it in my pile, not in yours," she says

"Ohh well accidents happen," I said going to take it but she shut the door locking it

"Little sister, I want the Truth, what is this letter?"

"Well I don't know until I open it"

"No... you already know. You know exactly what is in this letter and exactly who it's from"

"Do I? I seem to know a lot I must be very smart"

"You have never gotten mail, you only started getting letters after my last championship," she says "who are they from?"

"Well, I don't know until I open-"

"It's from New York. Who do you know in new york?"

"I'm not sure maybe you read it wrong or it is junk mail or wrong address" I explain "or maybe it is your beth after all"

"Open it" she says offering it to me "open it and read it to me"

"No,"

"Why? What's in it you don't want me to know? Should I take it down to mom?"

"No, give it" I said so she handed it to me the moment I had it in my hand I knew everything the handwriting the style of the envelope the new york postal stamp I knew what it was but I couldn't get out of this, she was going to find out sooner or later, I opened it and before I could even finish she snatched it from my hand and began to read

"Dearest honeydew,

I have to admit I'm counting the days until Austin" she reads

"Beth please-"

"I already have a few ideas of spots I want to take you before the start of the championship. In closed you will find some money, I know you've been saving up for a new dress for Austin so I figured I'd give you a hand out if my last prince money" she explained her face dropping from the look of joy at her sisterly jokes to genuine concern

"Beth please just listen-"

"I feel so terrible about abandoning you for the flight but remember I'll be in the airport when you get there, and I rang the hotel to ask about our room and they said they didn't know about the view so I guess it's a surprise when we get there, talk soon

X BW'

"Y/n what is this? What's going on?"

"It's nothing-"

"Nothing! I am your sister, tell me. And tell me the truth"

"What do you want to know?" I sighed sitting in my bed

"Well we'll start at the beginning," she says sitting on her own "Honeydew?"

"It's what he calls me, like a... nickname"

"Counting the days till Austin? Is that talking about the southern championship tournament in Austin next month?" She asks and I nodded "money? Y/n there is almost two hundred dollars in here"

"I didn't know about that, honest I didn't that's as new to you as it is to me"

"Hotel room? One hotel room?"

"There was a mix-up-"

"I don't wanna hear it, who is this, who has this much prize money, and plays chess championships and is taking you to Austin with him?" She asks

"Beth please-"

"Who is it? I know who it is?" She says "BW.. brain Westen, Bolton Warwick...be- BENNY WATTS!"

"Beth please it's not what it looks like"

"Benny's older than both of us y/n you can't be serious!"

"Beth please just let me explain it's not as bad as it looks"

"Fine... explain" she sighed

"Look we talked a lot of letters on the phone, he always comes to see me at tournaments. We're just friends there's nothing else going on I promise. He wanted to take me to Austin with him for the championship so he paid for my ticket and the hotel, but there was a mix-up and it's only one room, but it's single beds he promised. I swear there's nothing else going on you have believed me"

"Friends don't pay for someone's cross country trip for no reason, what did he make you promise in return?"

"What?"

"Y/n only enough I play against him enough I know what he's like he won't give something for nothing it's always a trade with Benny now what did he make you promise?"

"To play in the championship..."

"To play? You've never played chess in your life, not properly there's no way I believe it"

"It's true"

"Even if it was the prize money isn't enough to cover the both of you, so he's still losing money which means as Benny sees it you still owe him, but he won't tell you that till you're already in his trap! He'll wait till your in Austin with no money and no way home and spring a little something else to repay him on you I know he will''

"Just because you hate him!"

"I'm trying to protect you, it's obvious you're still lying to me, knowone starts a letter with a nickname like that-"

"Benny does"

"No no one knows if the only time someone writes like that is if it's a pet name, and honeydew does rather sound like something pet name ish" she explained "what did he say it's because you're sweet? His sweet little honeydew? You do realize what it means right?"

"No?"

"What are Honeydew y/n?"

"Fruit..."

"What kind?"

"Melons"

"And when guys say melons they don't mean fruit they mean your boobs,' he explained "and you think I believe nothing's going on"

"Call him," I said

"What?"

"Here" I sighed, getting my box of stuff and getting the number "Benny's number. Ring him yourself and ask him, beth I swear to you, I didn't know about the money, I didn't know about that name, all I knew was that he's nice to me. And he makes me happy, we haven't done anything I swear, he kisses my hand sometimes and last I saw him he kissed my cheek but it was an accident he didn't mean to" I explain she looked at me a while before she folded the letter putting it back in the envelope and handing them to be with the number

"I believe you, just... be careful with Benny. He's good at getting what he wants." She says going and unlocking the door "you should probably start packing it's a long trip" she says.

#THEQUEENSGAMBIT #BENNYWATTS #Benny watts #tbs #thomas brodie sangster

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wigwurq · 4 years

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WIG REVIEW: THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT

Yes it’s true - the only things I’ve been watching lately are prestige TV shows starring women with bad red wigs. I’ll get back to movies someday!! In the meantime, I finally watched all of this miniseries that has Netflix and the world aflame with love - and I am aflame too....WITH HATRED OF ALL OF THESE WIGS!!! I have so much to discuss with this show, y’all. A friend of mine (who hasn’t watched this show yet) probably said it best when he told me he thought the wigs in this show were supposed to be wigs WITHIN the narrative of the show (and therefore allowed to be bad): “wait I thought this was about a chess spy - that’s supposed to be her real hair? NO” INDEED!!! Let’s take it episode by episode (SPOILERS ABOUND) and DISCUSS.

Episode 1 - Openings

We begin in Paris, 1967. Beth Harmon, chess champion (?) awakens in a bath of ice (?) in the dark of her hotel room, clearly hung over or maybe still drunk. Her red ‘60s flip wig looks like HELL as does she, so...ok I guess this bad wig wurqs...for now. She sits herself down to play CHESS!! This whole show is about chess, obviously, and everyone is just mad about chess now! I am mad, too, because the show does not make chess seem interesting or sexy and I still hate it.

Anyway, we rewind about 10 (?) years to a young Beth Harmon, who is suddenly orphaned after her mom definitely commits suicide via car accident. Her mom has super short bangs and cries a lot. We see some even further flashbacks to an even younger Beth IN THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS BABY WIG (MORE ON THAT LATER). We learn that her mom is very unhinged, but also probably brilliant, as Beth herself will become later. LET’S HOPE SHE NEVER GETS HER DRIVER’S LICENCE (note: she never does?)

Apparently the mid to late ‘50s were all about very VERY short bangs, and on this non-wigged little girl I guess that is fine.

BUT THEN! She is brought to an orphanage where they burn her old clothes (YES REALLY!) and cut her hair into a bob (the kid’s actual hair so again - ok!) and also give her and all the other girls constant drugs! The 1950s were really wild, amiright? If I have learned anything from movies set at orphanages in the 50s, drug abuse was the main issue (the only movie I’m referring to is obviously The Cider House Rules and the only thing I remember about that movie is that Michael Caine had an ether addiction). Anyway, the sedative drugs make her immediately put her hand on a hot radiator (safety first, orphanage!)

She also makes friends with an older girl named Jolene (I LOVE THE NAME) who teachers her to save the sedative drugs for nighttime when they can help her sleep. Great advice, Jolene! Also: there is absolutely no way that African American Jolene would be in an integrated orphanage in mid-50s KENTUCKY but this is just the beginning of issues I have with this series......

Moving on! In avoiding the orphanage’s weird insistence on Jesusy choir practice, she discovers the basement realm of janitor Bill Camp, who never actually does any janitorial work (that I could see?) but definitely plays a lot of chess. And thus, her chess obsession begins! This is also helped by those sedatives she takes every night which give her really absurd chess hallucinations on the ceiling. This orphanage has it all!

Essentially, this miniseries is Valley of the Dolls if those characters got addicted to both pills and chess at the age of 9. Beth gets very VERY good at chess and some rando chess guy from the local high school comes and gives Beth a doll (BETH HATES THE DOLL BUT LOVES DOLLS DO YOU SEE WHAT I DID THERE). And she goes to the high school and plays a bunch of terrible high school boys at chess simultaneously and beats them all. Also: the orphanage suddenly gets in trouble for giving sedatives to small children for years and Beth is PISSED. She goes through withdrawal and years for the big ol’ jar o’ pills!!!

AND THEN! During a kind of Jesusy film presentation, Beth sneaks away to the orphanage pharmacy and just goes hog wild on the pills! TRULY: Valley of the Dolls has nothing on this sequence.

Obviously, Beth is caught pill-handed and she also spills all the pills, breaks a giant glass jar, and then falls onto both of them. SHE IS 9. I THINK I LOVE THIS SHOW.

Episode 2: Exchanges

So after Beth’s completely insane pill odyssey, she is punished by being forbidden to play chess! Fast forward an indeterminate number of years, and we meet a slightly older Beth (now played by the bewigged Anya Taylor-Joy). AND THIS WIG, Y’ALL. WOOF. Completely dried out and bent, it really makes you appreciate the fact that they just cut the younger Beth’s hair. I realize that Anya is going to go through many 50s and 60s hairstyles to come but I really wish they had just done the same and used her real hair because we are about to take a bad wig odyssey that will last throughout this series. Also! I love that Jolene is played by the same actress! How old is too old to be in an orphanage?

Speaking of age! Beth is apparently now 15 but when a super weird couple expresses interest in adopting her, the orphanage director lady lies and says Beth is 13 and everyone just goes with it....FOR THE REST OF THE SERIES. Seriously, this age difference is never ever visited again or challenged. Beth is basically 15-17 for at least 5 years and no one gives a shit. OK? Anyway, Beth is adopted by Marielle friggin Heller (aka director of Can You Ever Forgive Me? and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood) who has a very Mamie Eisenhower wig which is just fine compared to the bent and dry-ass mess on Anya’s head.

It is later revealed that Marielle adopted Beth because her husband is mainly away on business and she needs an older gal pal around to fetch her....sedatives from the magazine store! I wonder if Beth will totally get addicted to them again! I’m no chess player but you can absolutely predict plot devices in this series about two pawns away (is that a chess term? I still don’t know or care!)��

So yes: as predicted Beth absolutely gets addicted to sedatives again (also the specific sedatives she gets addicted to are the exact same ones she was addicted to at the orphanage - WHAT A COINCIDENCE! - and also they are made up sedatives for the purposes of this show only in case we all want to get the same magical chess sedatives and see chess on the ceiling too). ALSO! Beth is still mainly addicted to chess despite the fact that she was permitted from playing it for the last 5-7 years (depending on what version of her age you’re going on?) but still is good at it? Most upsetting: she rips apart her lovely bed canopy in order to see her ceiling chess hallucinations! THE NERVE OF THIS KID!

Also nervy: bitch totally stole chess magazines from the pharmacy when she was also stealing sedatives from her adoptive mom! Kleptomania is Beth’s #3 addiction after chess and pills also comes into play when it is revealed that her new adoptive mom is kinda poor since her husband is away all the time and doesn’t give her enough money so Beth can’t enter those chess tournaments she read about in the magazines she stole. SO she writes to janitor Bill Camp and asks for $5 to enter the chess thing and if she wins she’ll send him $10. THIS IS A VERY IMPORTANT PLOT POINT WHICH WILL COME INTO PLAY LATER. So Beth goes to the chess tournament where she meets some not handsome twin dudes and a very handsome other dude named Townes.

Basically all the chess dudes at this tourney suck in the same way? To be fair: if I saw Beth walking up in her ugly orphanage clothes and orphanage cut wig, I would think she sucked at chess too? Oh also - all the girls at her new high school also think her style sucks. I WONDER IF IN COMING EPISODES SHE WILL GAIN MORE STYLE AND CHESS FAME THAN ALL THESE GARBAGE PEOPLE. Spoiler: she does and also beats this dude named Harry and becomes the Kentucky chess champion. Also! Beth’s adoptive dad totally abandons her and Marielle Heller! I still hate chess but will continue to watch this show because of its haunting wigs and lowgrade feminist vibe.

Episode 3: Doubled Pawns

This episode begins with a flashback to Beth’s shitty birth mother and her shitty banged wig and remember that time I said I was going to talk about the wig on the littlest girl who plays her? WELL HERE WE ARE. Baby Beth has the absolute WORST WIG ON THIS SHOW and given how terrible all the wigs are, that is saying a lot. This wig looks like it was ripped off an American Girl doll which had been mistreated for years and thrown of a jungle gym or something. IT IS THE ABSOLUTE WORST (as is her mom, who makes this poor kid believe she had drowned!!!)

ANYWAY. We get a new wig in this episode!!! Beth manages to grow out her orphanage bangs and allow her hair to have a 50s wave bob. Do not be fooled by the higher quality of this cut, however - the quality of the WIG continues to very much suck! WHAT IS THIS HAIR PART! No hair underneath! And everything is still a dried out, bent mess! ALSO HER ROOTS ARE A NIGHTMARE. This is also the episode wherein Marielle Heller basically becomes Mama Rose to Beth and really gets into Beth supporting both of them via chess winnings and becomes her chess manager (ACTUAL JOB TITLE). Also Beth gets nicer clothing. Hilariously, Marielle tells Beth’s high school that Beth is just constantly sick so she can skip school to go to chess tournaments even though Beth is straight up on the cover of Life magazine?! I wonder if this will at all come to the attention of the high school - IT DOESN’T! PLOT HOLES BE DAMNED THIS SHOW IS ABOUT CHESS! She does go to high school long enough for the snobby girls who once made fun of her to invite her to the dumbest party ever where they just sit around and ask Beth dumb questions about Chess fame and then all have a sing-along to a song Beth doesn’t know because she has no idea what pop culture is: ONLY CHESS CULTURE. I watched this show with my mom and asked if ‘60s parties were like this and she laughed her head off and said NO. ALSO! Beth’s kleptomania comes into play at this party where she steals a bottle of gin and leaves without saying goodbye to anyone. WHAT A BITCH.

Speaking of bitches, Beth meets a new chess diva in the form of Love Actually’s resident child drum prodigy! He has a character name but whatever: Love Actually is his name and he has longish shaggy (non wigged) hair and dresses like Crocodile Dundee and is loved and feared in the chess community for being such a non-nerd (?) chess player. I asked my mom if anyone dressed like this in the ‘60s and she said “NO! But I guess I didn’t know everyone” WHICH IS A GREAT ANSWER BECAUSE MY MOM DIDN’T RUN IN WEIRD CHESS CIRCLES IN THE ‘60s. We are lead to believe the ‘60s chess community of weirdos consists of the same 5 rotating dudes who are all at the same chess tournaments always and also possible love interests for Beth and she’s better at chess than all of them.

The only weirdo chess dude that Beth cares about is Townes, who you may recall from the last episode in which he was the only attractive chess dude at that first chess tournament Beth went to with borrowed Bill Camp money. Anyway, she runs into him at some chess tournament (LIKE I REMEMBER WHICH ONE PLEASE) in Las Vegas where he is now a chess reporter (ACTUAL 1960s JOB, Y’ALL). He invites Beth back to his hotel boudoir where he takes some non-boudoir pictures of her playing chess and Beth is all aflutter with chess love but SUCK IT BETH, TOWNES IS GAY!!! I have to say that the only believable part of this show is that the only attractive chess dude would be homosexual. It still does not forgive any of the other plot nonsense.

SO! It’s still the big Vegas chess tournament which is super duper important-chess wise (though this show also makes it seem like every chess game IS THE MOST IMPORTANT so who is to say?) Anyway, Beth and her 50s wave wig (even though it is the 60s?) play Love Actually and....they both win? I didn’t know this was a chess pastability but ok? Beth is pissed that she didn’t beat Love Actually, I hope I never have to see him again (SPOILER HE’S IN MANY MORE EPISODES AND HAD I KNOWN THAT MAYBE I WOULD HAVE STOPPED WATCHING NOW BUT I DIDN’T!)

Episode 4: Middle Game

We are still stuck with this weird ‘50s bob in this episode. IT STILL LOOKS BAD. New developments are: Beth is taking night classes at the local college (even though she is technically still in high school?) in order to learn Russian to better understand people who are more obsessed with chess than she is: Russians. Anyway, he ends up going to the most wild and stereotypical hippie party with a college dude after class and yep - loses her virginity to him. Ok? At least it wasn’t to a chess weirdo? She also stays behind and parties and drinks alone in the hippie apartment because of all her substance addiction and kleptomania. Also! She graduates from high school despite being 2 years too old for high school (a plot point never explained) and missing all that high school for chess tourneys (another plot point never explained!) OH WELL: CHESS!

Beth and Marielle go to Mexico City for some chess tournament (AGAIN I COULDN’T TELL YOU WHICH ONE). Marielle is excited because she is pen pals (OMG THE 60s Y’ALL) with some Mexican weirdo who I definitely feared would steal all the chess winnings but then ultimately just sucks in the same way the adoptive dad did. Beth also runs into those chess twin weirdos because the chess community is comprised of only 5 dudes as I said. Their hair looks bad but not as bad as her wig.

Beth doesn’t see much of Mexico City - nor do we unless you count a truly outrageous sequence in which Beth and Marielle go out on their hotel balcony and look into a green screen rendering of Mexico City that would have felt at home in CGI ghostmare, Bohemian Rhapsody. Anyway, Beth and her olde timey 1950s wig which is spending way too much time in the 60s even though she’s supposed to be stylish now, take a lot of chess baths while Marielle drinks a lot because that Mexican pen pal/boyfriend sucks so bad.

So Beth wins enough chess to play Borgov, who we are led to believe is the Russian white whale/Bond villain of the chess community and LOSES! She is pretty pissed about it but not as pissed as...

....coming back to the hotel room to discover Marielle Heller and her luscious Mamie Eisenhower wig DEAD. TWICE AN ORPHAN, Y’ALL. Mexican coroners tell Beth that her mom died of hepatitis (!!!) and Beth somehow implicates low quality tequila in this hepatitis death. I LEGITIMATELY GOOGLED ‘DOES TEQUILA GIVE YOU HEPATITIS’ IMMEDIATELY. I DON’T THINK IT DOES?!?!?! THIS SHOW IS ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS AND YES I WILL CONTINUE WATCHING IT DESPITE THE TERRIBLE WIGS AND MY HATRED OF CHESS.

Episode 5: Fork

Beth returns to Kentucky IN THE RAIN BECAUSE TV AND MOVIE DEATHS ARE ALWAYS ACCOMPANIED BY RAIN. She is about to be super lonely in the house she know owns (according to a super sketchy international phone call with her adoptive father which will definitely not hold up in court) and then...she gets a call from Harry! WHO THE EFF IS HARRY! Again, luckily, there are only 5 chess guys who need to remember and he is one of them (he is the one she beat for the Kentucky chess whatever in episode 2). She invites him over because she’s lonely!

Harry is definitely the saddest of the weirdo chess dudes because apparently he’s been harboring a secret love of Beth (who at the time of their first meeting was like 13-15 depending on what timeline you’re going on and he was...20? OK GROSS BUT OK). BITCH EVEN GOT HIS WEIRD TEETH FIXED SO HE COULD BE LOVED BY BETH AND HER BENT ASS WIG AND SERIOUSLY NO THANK YOU HARRY. Regardless, Beth lets Harry have sex with her a few times and live rent-free in her house and ultimately Harry gets enough self confidence to leave this effed up living situation since he will never be one of Beth’s obsessions (which are still: chess, pills/alcohol, stealing shit).

So Beth goes to Ohio for some other chess tournament and reunites with UGH Love Actually. At this point in the show, Beth starts wearing long scarves as headbands and her wig has never looked better because most of it is covered by the scarf. THANK GOD. So Love Actually totally chess hustles Beth for a lot of coin playing speed chess (DEAR GOD WHY HAVE I BEEN FORCED TO LEARN WHAT SPEED CHESS IS) but in the end, she still beats him for the chess title. EFF YOU, Love Actually! May I never see you again! OH SHIT HE JUST INVITED HER TO NEW YORK TO TRAIN HER FOR THE PARIS CHESS THING DEAR GOD WHY IS THERE SO MUCH LOVE ACTUALLY IN THIS SHOW OK FINE I’LL STILL WATCH IT.

Episode 6 - Adjournment

Ok so Beth and her ok wig that is mainly covered by a scarf go to Love Actually’s apartment in NYC which IS AN UNDERGROUND BUNKER AND SHE HAS TO SLEEP ON A BLOW UP MATTRESS. Again and for the millionth time: Love Actually is the worst! Especially the worst because he introduces her to all these rando bohemians he knows, including some French bitch who will definitely eff everything up when Beth is already teetering on her pill/alcohol obsession and should probably not meet any other enablers. Somehow, he does get her to quit the pills/alcohol long enough to have sex with him (UGH).

And so we are in Paris, 1967. Where we started the show with Beth’s awful 60s flip! AND WE MEET ANOTHER PLOTHOLE. Only a week before this, Beth was in NYC with hair about 3″ shorter and still wearing scarves in her hair. WHAT IN THE VERY HELL, SHOW! I realize that this show has a very vague sense of time or how old Beth is or whatever but truly: NOPE.

Anyway, it’s the night before the big match against Borgov and Beth is on her very best behavior when who should ring her up but that French bitch Love Actually introduced her to! She is downstairs at the hotel bar and just come down and have one drink and don’t ruin your entire chess career, mmmkay? THIS ENABLING BITCH!!!! NEVER TRUST ANYONE WITH THIS CRYING GAME WIG UNLESS YOU WANT YOUR LIFE TO BE A CRYING GAME. Of course, Beth goes downstairs, drinks every drink in the bar, has sex with some rando French dude and...wakes up in the icebath we see at the beginning of the show and sweatily plays Borgov in her wig that has never looked frizzier, loses, and is shamed from the entire chess community. Also Love Actually wants Beth to come back to NYC but NO THANK YOU TO YOU AND YOUR BUNKER OF ENABLERS.

Back in Kentucky, Beth....is shown learning how to flip her hair. WAIT WHAT SHE ALREADY HAD A FLIP HAIRSTYLE THE ENTIRE TIME IN PARIS WHAT KIND OF WIG GASLIGHTING ARE YOU PLAYING, SHOW?!?!?!??!?!?!!

UGH anyway, with THE EXACT SAME FLIP WIG AS WE’VE SEEN HER IN, Beth tries to be a responsible young person of indeterminate age who owns a house in Kentucky and not drink or take pills or steal shit. EXCEPT remember that time her adoptive dad said she could just have the house if she paid the mortgage? WELL BITCH SHOWS UP AND J’ACCUSES HER OF STEALING THE HOUSE FROM HIM. Which is hilarious because of all the things she stolen in this show, the house wasn’t one of them. In any case, she buys the house! And takes herself out to dinner! And has a drink! AND UH OH.

At this point the show just goes completely off the rails in addictive nonsense. Beth just goes around the house in her terrible flip wig applying makeup and barfing in to chess trophies. It’s every stereotypical drug/alcohol scene from every biopic ever except this chick doesn’t really exist and this show is wearing on my nerves and Beth has to stop making so many terrible live decisions and this wig has BETTER GET BETTER.

And then magically - Jolene shows up in the most fabulous afro wig!! WHAT! OK I WILL WATCH THE BITTER CONCLUSION OF THIS SERIES BECAUSE I LOVE JOLENE.

Episode 7: End Game

Jolene...Jolene....Jolene. Jolene. I love Jolene. I don’t love that this show uses her by making her be the “magical negro” trope who helps Beth get her life back together. Predictable nonsense! So yes, Jolene looks around Beth’s ramshackle drug den and tells her to get her life back together. AND THEN BETH DOES. No AA or rehab required! WHAT! I really appreciate that Jolene also compares her to Susan Hayward (star of Valley of the Dolls!) which is the sick burn/comparison I needed.

The other reason Jolene showed up was to bring Beth to janitor Bill Camp’s funeral. At the funeral, which is very poorly attended, Beth reveals THAT SHE NEVER PAID BILL CAMP THAT $5 HE LENT HER (AND $10 SHE PROMISED HIM) AT THE BEGINNING OF HER CHESS CAREER. WHAT A PIECE OF SHIT. It is at this point that I fully decided that I wanted Beth to fail at everything because she is a garbage person who never gave propers to Bill Camp for changing her life for the better. THIS BITCH!! She even goes back to the orphanage where she discovers Bill Camp’s CHESS SHRINE DEVOTED TO HER! SHE FEELS LIKE SHIT AS WELL SHE SHOULD! I FULLY HATE HER!!!!

Jolene is much more forgiving of Beth than me and also introduces Beth to a new obsession: squash! Ok? It does allow Beth to wear a headband which is great wig-wise (in that it hides all the seamwork). Beth also turns down these Jesusy people who want to fund her chess trip to Russia and so Jolene GIVES HER $3,000 TO GO TO RUSSIA. IF THERE IS ANYTHING I’VE LEARNED IN THE LAST 5 MINUTES OF THIS SHOW IT IS THAT BETH WILL NOT PAY THAT MONEY BACK AND JOLENE PLEASE DO NOT!!!!

Jolene does. Beth goes to Russia which is straight out of every Bond movie and gets her shit together and wins a lot of damn chess.

Though her midweight coat game rivals that of Nicole Kidman in The Undoing, her wig game ALSO RIVALS THAT OF NICOLE KIDMAN IN THE UNDOING IN THAT IT IS ALSO A RED NIGHTMARE WIG. This show spent so much goddamned money on clothes, sets, and CGI greenscreens of Mexico City AND YET NO MONEY FOR WIGS. BOO.

I did enjoy this one chess opponent’s walrus hair but otherwise, Beth’s flip wig has absolutely overstayed its welcome and is a compete and utter bent nightmare. Also! Remember that one hot chess dude? He shows up and helps Beth with Chess!! HUH?

Also every single weirdo in the chess community somehow form a chess calming circle in Love Actually’s bunker apartment and call Beth internationally to help her win against Borgov at chess! WHAT IN THE DAMN HELL? It is sweet I guess, but also makes ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING SENSE AS BETH WAS A TOTAL ASSHOLE TO ALL THESE PEOPLE AND DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE A PART OF THEIR WEIRD CHESS GANG.

Ultimately, Beth beats Borgov and wears THIS FUCKING HAT. I think we’re supposed to believe that she is now the white queen chess piece (I HATE THAT I NOW KNOW CHESS PIECES).

She is actually dressed in head to toe white and somehow convinces her American handler that she will just walk...to the airport? And despite being invited to the Johnson White House (girl go there!) would rather just wander the streets of Russia without any purse or luggage or way of getting home. THIS BITCH. She finds a new chess community of old men who play chess outside at folding tables and decides to join them WITHOUT GOING HOME TO PAY JOLENE ALL HER MONEY BACK WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY WHAT SHE SHOULD BE THINKING ABOUT AND ALSO MAYBE SETTING UP A BILL CAMP CHESS FOUNDATION BECAUSE YOU NEVER PAID HIM BACK YOU PIECE OF SHIT. No, she is no longer addicted to pills, alcohol, or stealing but is absolutely addicted to chess on a level that is probably lethal. I spent the last moments of the show demanding that the Russian chess hobos murder her and her immaculate white outfit because BETH IS A SELFISH ASSHOLE AND ALL HER WIGS ARE GARBAGE LIKE HER!!!!

VERDICT: DOESN’T WURQ

#wigwurq #queensgambit #anyataylorjoy #garbagepeople #valleyofthedolls #babywigs #pillpoppinorphans #Istillhatechess #loveactually #marielleheller #wiggaslighting

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irarelypostanything · 4 years

Conversation

Unnecessary Arguments - The Queen's Gambit

Person #1: “The Queen’s Gambit” is currently the most popular series on Netflix, and damn is it good

Person #2: It’s an overdeveloped piece of garbage about a famous female chess player who - no spoilers here - wasn’t actually a real person

Person #1: This show is about chess, but it’s also about much more than that. Just because it’s fiction doesn’t diminish its value

Person #2: What is with all this new feminist stuff? Wow, a female chess player fights for world champion in this made-up story. Netflix releases a documentary on Magnus Carlsen, the actual world champion, and critics trash it for being boring. This comes out and gets 100% on RottenTomatoes

Person #1: Because it’s well-made. Also, there have been female chess players who came close to becoming world champion. Does the name Judit Polgar mean anything to you?

Person #2: Absolutely nothing. I admit, this series actually did surprise me

Person #1: Good

Person #2: By escaping from the “perfect female character” cliche with this drawn-out story of an unlikable, alcoholic, drug-addicted woman who flirts with 95% of the series’ mostly male cast

Person #1: That’s kind of the point...not the flirting, but the relationships themselves

Person #2: What do you mean?

Person #1: There’s some brilliant story-telling going on here, told through parallel action. You expect this story to frame itself, possibly, as trauma caused by the abandonment of father figures. Then you begin to realize that this isn’t a show about chess, it’s a show about relationships - about collaboration - about compelling people who genuinely care about each other

Person #2: Oh boy, the power of friendship!

Person #1: Kind of, yeah. And that’s not a bad thing. Coming on the heels of such a riveting and heartbreaking first five minutes, this show takes you through a rollercoaster of emotion. Just when you think you’re off, you go for another spin. This show is a journey, and in all that horrific journey we, the viewers, come to the realization that there’s always light in even the darkest of places

Person #2: Profound. You should write for this series, it would be almost as preachy and on-the-nose as the real thing

Person #1: And the acting is great, and the music is great, and it could finally, finally get people interested in chess and break the stereotype that chess players are antisocial nerds

Person #2: Antisocial nerds like you. Speaking of profound, that was some epic episode naming. They had so many opportunities to give these episodes cool names. Instead they go with “Opening Moves” and “Endgame.” Seriously?

Person #1: This isn’t Mr Robot. You don’t have to name every episode after a cool-sounding sequence any more than you have to name every Mr. Robot episode after a Linux command

Person #2: The question I found myself circling around over, again and again and again, is...why? Why is she like this?

Person #1: What do you mean, “why is she like this?” It’s a show about trauma. You should recognize that she went through her share of it

Person #2: Is it about chess? Is it about drugs? Is it a coming-of-age love story, or is it about race relations, or is it about religion, or is it about media bias? Seriously, what the heck were we supposed to get from this?

Person #1: Maybe you would know if you weren’t so busy bashing it

Person #2: I’m bashing it because I can’t get through two conversations now without hearing someone sing praises about this show. They didn’t even focus much on the actual chess

Person #1: Because they want to keep it open to people who don’t play

Person #2: For all it sets up, it ends up being pretty cliche

Person #1: It’s inspiring!

Person #2: Why here? Why now? Seems a pretty random thing to suddenly become popular. Chess in the 1960s, a time primarily dominated by the much more interesting and real story of Bobby Fischer

Person #1: Wrong

Person #2: ...we choose instead to feature some made-up Kentucky girl with a traumatic past, a drug addiction, and interests in fashion and music that come out of nowhere and defy what we had seen of her personality earlier in the series

Peson #1: The 60s were a nostalgic time for the chess community. Chess is experiencing something of a resurgence now, since it’s lockdown and WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO EXCEPT WATCH NETFLIX AND STAY ON THE COMPUTER

Person #2: I’m right here, no need to shout

Person #1: ...but it’s a completely different world. The best chess players of today are better than anyone has ever been, in history, but it’s mostly because of AI assistance they do at home. Masters are losing to unranked people who play a thousand games online in their spare time. Chess is now a feature in Twitch streaming...interesting, yes, but what a different world. It’s refreshing to see a setting where people can’t immediately plug a game into an AI and call a grandmaster stupid for not seeing something, can’t so much as observe a game without some knowledge of how to read notations. Also, they’re allowed to shake hands

Person #2: And how

Person #1: I think this show resonates with so many people because if you just peel back the layers, it’s about interesting people who have meaningful relationships and realize that passion and love are more important than any substance or material possession could ever be

Person #2: Spoken like a true Netflix script

Person #1: You really won’t let me have this, will you?

Person #2: You want to see a good chess story? Watch the Magnus Carlsen documentary

Person #1: DON’T. IT’S BORING

Person #2: That mean is a genius

Person #1: YEAH HE IS. I DON’T DISAGREE. But it’s not a very compelling story

Person #2: Because it’s real

Person #1: I don’t come to Netflix for reality, I come to Netflix for good story-telling

Person #2: Then you must really be sad your HBO subscription expired

#the queens gambit

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feminist-propaganda · 4 years

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Single Mothers Will Probably Cry During Every Episode Of Queen’s Gambit - Episode 5

Beth has been listening to all of her mother’s advice. Episode after episode. She just needs a lot of time to process it, and she doesn’t need it all at once. But when she needs it, shes uses it.

In Episode 4, Middle Game, Alice was completely absent and Beth was completely lost. She listened to Alma’s advice, which was downright bad (your emotions are your strength) and she lost against Borgov. She also lost Alma and started flirting with substance abuse.

The lesson from Episode 4 was “Don’t block me out”, and I finished my essay with a note about how it’s important for young women to identify with their mothers in order to become balanced individuals, with an “integrated personality”.

Beth learned in Episode 4 that she needs to identify with her mother, even if this is scary. She also understands that the world might be telling her that her mother is a freak. But at the same time, the world is telling her that Alma was in the right. Drinking heavily, the way Alma was doing it, is completely accepted in society (Alma drank on airplanes, at the hotel and in restaurants). But Alma died, which seems to have left a mark on Beth.

If the world was wrong about Alma, than the world is also probably wrong about Alice.

And so for the first time since the series has started, we hear Alice speak, we hear her say something else than “Close her eyes”.

Lesson 5 : The Strongest Person is the person who isn’t scared of being alone.

I’ll go ahead and quote the entire sequence, because it’s just that beautiful and meaningful to me:

“Dark’s nothing to be afraid of. In fact, I’d go as far as saying as there’s nothing to be afraid of. Anywhere. The Strongest Person is the person who isn’t scared of being alone. It’s other people you got to worry about. Other people. They’ll tell you what to do... how to feel. Before you know it... you’re pouring your life out in search of something other people told you to go look for. Someday you’re going to be all alone so you need to figure out how to take care of yourself.”

The episode starts with Beth coming home to Kentucky after she’s lost Alma in Mexico. Beltik calls her and offers her to train her. He aknowledges that she is q far better player than he ever will, however, he thinks he might have something to contribute in order to prepare her for the next championship where she needs to win against Benny.

Half of the episode shows us this growing intimacy between Beth and Beltik. He shares his books with her, cooks for her, waits for her on the porch as she comes back from grocery shopping. She even goes as far as inviting him to live with her for a while.

When he kisses her, she even encourages him. But once they’ve had sex, she rolls over, lights a cigarette and starts reading a magazine. This is bizarre behavior coming from a woman. We, viewers aren’t used to this. We usually expect the woman to want to talk, giggle and make plans for the future. But Beth is emotionally detached from the situation. An ice queen. Where did she leard this. What model is she using?

Of course - she is using Alice’s advice.

The thing with single mothers that i think most people don’t understand, is that they aren’t looking for a new husband to adopt their kids and play house with them. They are single mothers. They want to be single and at the same time they are taking care of their children. Showing up for their descendants. Single Mother isn’t a stop before regaining the town of Married Mom. It is where the train stops and these women get off. They aren’t trying to remove themselves from that situation.

This is mostly why society hates single mothers and tries it’s best to discourage them.

It makes married women extremely uncomfortable. The reason is makes them uncomfortable is married women deal with a lot of abuse in their own homes. And they stay in these situations of abuse because they don’t always know how to exit them. Most of the time they don’t have the financial ressources to exit these environments. They stay in unfulfilling marriages because they believe that single motherhood is the only thing worse than that. This is why when they meet single mothers, they tend to encourage them to find themselves a new partner. It’s painful for them to imagine that there is another way.

Men dislke single mothers because they perceive cingle mother to be defiant. They believe single mothers hate men, or actively campaign against them. They find it important to let single mothers know that they are good men. That they are good fathers and good husbands. If they cannot convince the single mothers of this, they might change their tone and become agressive, and accuse the single mother of being bitter or resentful.

In general, the message we send single mothers the message that it’s just oo hard, and that they can’t raise children by themselves. And to make sure their message gets across they represent single mothers in pop culture as failures.

Single mothers might be poor and they might be tired, but at least they don’t have a man in their home terrifying them, harassing them, destroying their personalities, bringing down their self esteem, being manipulative and dominant every chance they get.

Single mothers are women who once believed in having children with a man, and realized at some point that if they stayed in that situation they would quite literally lose their minds. Think I’m exagerating? Look at Alma.

The episode is called Fork, and in chess it:

“is a tactic whereby a single piece makes two or more direct attacks simultaneously. Most commonly two pieces are threatened, which is also sometimes called a double attack . The attacker usually aims to gain material by capturing one of the opponent's pieces.”

In the first half of the Episode, Beltik is obviously the attacker. He is the one who calls Beth on the phone and shows up at her house to play chess. The name of the episode tells us he wants to attack two of her pieces simultaneously. The purpose of the fork is for the attacker to take at least one of the pieces they attack. The defendent can only save one.

I would argue that Beltik launched an attack on Beth’s mind and her body. Beth never surrendered her mind, instead she gave him sex and moved on. Thus, Beth is maintaining her intellectual independance, her inner peace & her most prized possession: her clarity.

If Beth had given him her mind, and kept her body, say saved it for mariage, for might’ve lost her drive, and never made it to Moscow, which we know is the ultimate destination for this brilliant young mind.

After a couple of weeks, Beltik understands that he won’t get Beth to settle down with him, and that all she cares about is Chess. She would probably refuse if he asked her to marry him. He leaves, and as he exits the home he lets her know that he’s figured out her addiction to the tranquilizers. That’s a very dominant move, but Beth is so strong that she doesn’t even bat an eye.

Instead, we see her sleeping in the master bedroom, smoking in bed and listening to cassettes in Russian as she studies Borgov’s personality. She is lazer focused on what her goals are and gives herself the means to achieve them.

The second part of the episode takes place at the Ohio State University where the 1967 U.S. Championship is held. Benny and Beth exchange some snide remarks as they gaze onto their competitors. They both know they are by far the best players and they will probably compete against each other at the final. In Vegas, they were co-champions. If she wins, she goes to Europe. But can she get past him? Can she beat him?

She certainly seems like she wants to. She asks him why he carries that silly knife around, or when she finds him lecturing a college student about Chess she asks “found yourself a reporter did you?”.

Benny wants her to meet him at the Student Union to have a couple of beers. At first she says no, but later she allows herself to be talked into it. They play speed chess and he wins. Over and over again.

The next day, he finds her on campus and says “It’s gonna be you or me”. She responds “Are you trying to psych me out?”

She ends up winning the game in 30 moves. Just like she gave Beltik sex, in exchange for her freedom, she gave Benny that glorious night at the student union, where all of the boys watched as he won speed chess. She sacrified that for the title - which gets her to Paris, than Moscow, where she belongs.

Alice’s advice was never to fear being alone. There’s a lot of strategies people use to avoid being alone. Shacking up with someone they had sex with once, which Beth could’ve done with Beltik is a way. Being worried about what the college students from Ohio think about your speed chess is another way.

The last scene before playing the match we see Beth gazing at the college students engaging in small talk, as they sit on the grass ouside of the buildings. She sits on the bench, at ease with herself. She doesn’t need anyone by her side to feel okay. That is her strength; that is what gets her past Benny and Beltik and across the Atlantic ocean to Paris.

#feminism #single mom #the queen's gambit

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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Anya Taylor-Joy Infiltrates the Boys’ Club of Chess in The Queen’s Gambit

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Netflix’s period piece miniseries The Queen’s Gambit spans a decade in the life of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), a wunderkind whose natural aptitude for anticipating her opponents’ moves is blunted by her addiction to the tranquilizer pills with which she credits her wins. Following gawky teenage Beth through her early tournaments in the 1950s to the aloof redheaded beauty wowing spectators in Europe in the ’60s—and leaving a trail of defeated men in her wake—the seven-hour series was faced with the challenge of making every chess scene equally thrilling to enthusiasts and non-fans alike.

The key, Taylor-Joy explains to Den of Geek, was in having every single game be recognizably unique. “[Series creator and director] Scott [Frank] and I would have a lot of conversations about both the chess and the addiction scenes, and how we were going to make each of them different and each of them fresh,” she says. “Because this show is seven and a half hours, and if a lot of that is the same chess game, people are gonna wander off.”

The cast and crew imbued each chess match with specific emotion, matching Beth’s personal and professional growth, and unique physicality. For the latter, that involved bringing in chess consultant Bruce Pandolfini (who also consulted on Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel on which the series is based) and grandmaster Garry Kasparov to plan out the series’ many games down to every gambit and checkmate. Because neither Taylor-Joy nor her on-screen competitors had played much chess prior to shooting, treating the gameplay as choreography helped them pick up the moves.

“I saw the whole thing as a dance,” explains Taylor-Joy, a former ballet dancer. “I saw learning the choreography as dance, but just with your fingers.”

Costar Harry Melling, who plays one of Beth’s early rivals Harry Beltik, agrees that the authenticity was found in the tactile movements of the pieces themselves.

“One of the most important things in terms of the choreography was the feel of the pieces,” he says, “about how you take pieces—whether you slide it across the board or whether you lift it up or put it down. All of these little details [are] what makes it look like you’ve been doing it your entire life.”

“It’s like riding a horse,” says Thomas Brodie-Sangster, whose chess champion Benny Watts is known for a distinctive leather duster and laconic attitude. “It doesn’t really matter if you can ride a horse, it’s more about if you can get on the horse and get off the horse and look cool doing it. That’s what people pick up on; it shows that you actually look comfortable doing it.”

While Beltik and Benny are as fictional as Beth, the actors were encouraged to draw inspiration from current and historical grandmasters on which to base their characters’ games. “Every game in the show is based on a real game,” Brodie-Sangster says. “If you’ve got a really keen eye, you can probably recognize games from across the history of chess.” He modeled Benny’s moves after Bobby Fischer, while Melling devoted a lot of time to watching current World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen play.

“That was really fascinating,” Melling says, “because I knew nothing about chess whatsoever—so [I was] starting from ground zero, really, working out how these people operate, what makes them tick.”

Equally important as the dance steps were the dance partners. Taylor-Joy credits the originality of each sequence to who Beth is playing at that moment in time—like Townes (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd), a hunky competitor who flusters young Beth. “The first time that Beth plays Townes, it’s the first time that she’s ever liked somebody that she’s playing opposite against,” she says, “so she wants to win, but she doesn’t necessarily enjoy seeing him crumble, which is a new experience for her.”

Taylor-Joy soon found the game as dramatic as Beth does. “For her, it is life or death,” she says. “This is her intellect being challenged, and her intellect is the only thing she has any faith in. So I definitely felt the pressure, and then—whenever she’s playing with somebody—the power high of that.”

It’s no surprise that Beth gets a power high from defeating her male opponents, as it is a very insular boys’ club into which she enters as a dowdily-dressed teenager in the ’50s. For her first match with Beltik at the Kentucky Chess Championship, Melling says, the former is very much in his element, “and then she sort of enters his sphere, and he becomes completely in awe of her talent, and he knows that she’s a better player than him. His bubble gets burst very quick.”

Though Benny saunters into their first match together, Brodie-Sangster acknowledges that there is also an immediate spark with Beth. “Her presence is a bit of a surprise, and a bit of an enigma for him,” he says. “She is very much in a man’s world and doesn’t really look like she really fits in there; neither does he, and I think there’s a kind of connection there.”

Beth grows up in the world of chess, both as an aspiring grandmaster and as a young woman. Taylor-Joy had a blast playing so many different versions of Beth, though she laughs recalling how Frank initially asked her how young she thought she could play. Fourteen or fifteen was her answer—“eight, you’re gonna have to get another actor to do that one”—and so she portrays Beth from her inelegant teenage years through to her mid-twenties.

Over the course of the series, we witness Beths who are alternately brilliant and awkward, shy and sexy, on top of the world and extremely vulnerable. “Because [the show] takes its time and because you do grow with her, you as an audience are allowed insight into why she is the way she is,” Taylor-Joy says. “You see the things that shape her, and you see her grow from it, and you understand why she’s grown in that direction.”

To move between those many phases, she would devise her own backstories for the different Beths: “She starts off walking very clumsily and awkwardly and almost side-to-side, and then I was like, ‘Oh, and this is the first time she’s ever seen an Audrey Hepburn movie’ and she starts wearing the black pants and the turtleneck and starts standing differently, if a boy’s around. And just trying on different personalities, as I think we all do, especially in that age range, and probably into our adult life. It was really fun.”

In contrast to her male opponents and love interests who inhabit the same sphere, the two key women in Beth’s life exist almost entirely outside of the chess world. Fellow orphan Jolene (Moses Ingram) shows her the ropes at the orphanage, much like an older sister, but resentment stretches between them when Beth is adopted and Jolene is left behind.

“It’s all in how they’ve grown up with each other and gotten to know each other,” says the theatrically trained Ingram of her first on-screen role and the difficult emotional history between Beth and Jolene. “I think people that truly love one another certainly get the very best, but also the very worst, of each other. When you can see someone that deeply, you can’t help but be locked in to one another.”

Complicating their relationship is the fact that preteen Jolene is the one who introduces eight-year-old Beth to the tranquilizer pills to which she immediately becomes addicted. “Jolene was just teaching her how to cope in the only way that Jolene has learned how to cope,” Ingram explains, but that simple act irrevocably shapes Beth’s approach to chess for the next decade. Initially used to “even out” the orphans’ disposition (and then later banned for their habit-forming tendencies), the pills help Beth envision a chessboard in the shadows of her bedroom ceiling at night. Taylor-Joy says she would track Beth’s mental and emotional state not just by the different matches, but by how the ghostly chess pieces appear to her: “Sometimes they’re familiar, sometimes they’re very threatening, it all very much depends on where she’s at.”

Unfortunately, where Beth is often at is relying too much on the pills to help her focus during chess games, believing herself unable to triumph when not in her altered state. Her dilemma is complicated by the fact that the tranquilizer pills come back into her life care of her adoptive mother Alma Wheatley (Marielle Heller), who initially comes off as a stereotypical ’50s housewife who can’t function without “Mother’s Little Helper.” (Though the pills go by the fictional name Xanzolam in the series, they seem to be a cousin of Azolam and other benzodiazepines.)

In the past four years, Heller has been best known behind the camera, as the director of such celebrated films as The Diary of a Teenage Girl (for which she also wrote the screenplay), Can You Ever Forgive Me?, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, and What the Constitution Means to Me. While Heller had always referenced her history as an actor as “part of my superpower as a director,” she says that she began to feel like “a fraud” when directing stars like Tom Hanks or Matthew Rhys. “I started to feel like, ‘Do I even remember what that feels like, to be an actor, to be asked to do these things, to be asked to go into these certain emotional places?’”

So when Frank, a long-time friend, invited her to join the series and spend a few months shooting in Berlin, Heller saw it as the perfect opportunity to, in her words, “keep my street cred as a director who was an actor.” As a director who seeks out projects about the uncomfortable things that people don’t talk about, Heller found that Alma embodied those same sensibilities: “She’s someone who has a lot of pain in her past, and that makes her most interesting; she’s not some version of a ’50s housewife that doesn’t feel real. So much of what I try to do as a director is to tap into that thing that has made somebody the way they are.”

Despite mother and daughter’s initial friction, as Beth carves out her niche in the chess world, and Alma begins accompanying her on her more glamorous tournaments, the older woman is inspired to revisit her own long-abandoned dreams of devoting her life to a creative pursuit. “For Alma,” Heller says, “she had this dream deferred. She was somebody who wanted to be a pianist and artist and never could, and that’s a pain that I feel is very human, and I totally connected to.”

What’s remarkable about The Queen’s Gambit is that each of its female characters experiences a different and specific struggle for the time period. “Scott did that really beautifully,” Ingram says of playing adult Jolene, advocating for change during the Civil Rights movement while Beth is moving up through the ranks of the chess world. “He didn’t let us forget what point in time we were in the world—we’re in the ’60s, in the smack-dab [middle] of civil unrest, because people aren’t being treated fairly. And I loved that Jolene is out front and being a crusader, being a champion for change, when very clearly all she’s known is white people her whole life. So it was beautiful to see that she’s found herself later, in changing the world—trying to, at least.”

In that endeavor, Jolene describes herself as a radical, though Ingram also feels that the word was a fitting theme for the series overall.

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“I think it’s radical that Beth, as a woman, is this far into the chess world at this point in time,” she says. “It’s unheard of that she’s there, and everyone’s shocked by it. It’s definitely a story of radical love, and radical faith.”

The Queen’s Gambit premieres October 23 on Netflix.

The post Anya Taylor-Joy Infiltrates the Boys’ Club of Chess in The Queen’s Gambit appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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blackrigante · 7 years

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David Eddings, an amazing author

I know lots of people I follow Nd follow me on here love urban fantasy, but what about classic fantasy adventures?

David Eddings published High Hunt in 1973 and the novel only did okay. I personally never read it because most fans of Eddings have said its not that great and its also his only non fantasy novel. One day he was walking by a book store and in the front window they had Lord of the Rings and thought to himself something along the lines of 'how is this guy still around' and decided to try fantasy.

In 1982 he published Pawn of Prophecy book one of a five part series. His book was a huge success and one of his secrets was that he co wrote with his wife. Because of the era he kept it a secret till the 90's. Because of the team work Leah made the females come to life, she had full say about them so aunt Pol today is still a woman that I respect.

His novels always had a way of capturing me and he puts so many minor things into his books that it took me a few re reads that are amazing. For example in the Belgariad the series is about an accident in the universe that caused its purpose to split into two different purpose, two different awareness and two different prophecy. Whenever the two would meet the light prophecy would have blue involved and the dark would have black or shadows. Even the most smallest of clashes they would.

Even the titles of the novels are connected to this struggle. PAWN of Prophecy, QUEEN of Sorcery, Magician's GAMBIT, CASTLE of Wizardry, Enchanters' END GAME. I full capitalized the part of the title that shows the struggle and its a huge chess game they play.

His novels are what got me into the world of magic, and it's a shame he and his wife have passed on so we can not enjoy more amazing works.

He wrote 5 different Fantasy worlds. His first world is about Garion, a young man who is a pawn of the light prophecy (see what I did there, I'm that dorky) and comprised two 5 part series The Belgariad and The Malloreon as well as Belgarath the Sorcerer and Polgara the Sorceress as back stories of the two most recognized sorcerers in the series. They involve the struggle of light and dark and fixing the universe. He also wrote a codex for this series called the Rivan Codex to learn about the world.

His second world is around a Pandion knight named Sparhawk. The Pandion order is one of 4 holy knight orders of their one true God who practice magic of the Styric Gods (I know it's confusing but they are special) the church is simular to the Catholic Church in structure and early Christian mentality. The 4 orders are like Paladin knights (hence the name Pandion) and Sparhawk is extra special because he is also the champion of the throne of Elenia. It starts with his queen poisoned and trapped in a diamond throne encased to save her life as they find a cure while Otha an immortal emperor tries to invade. This is my favorite world he made and comes in two trilogies the Elenium and the Tamuli.

The Dreamers is his last series and generally not a fan favourite. Before his books has structure and are amazing. Here not so much and I think it had to do with fan pressure and Leah's health. They retired after the Redemption of Althalus and Rigina's Song and fans pushed for more. Under that pressure they started this series. From 2003-2006 and Leah died in 2007. So though the series is not nearly up to par can you blame them? I can't.

Redemption of Althalus is his first stand alone book. Althalus is a thief, spy and your usual criminal guy. But when hired to steal a book from an abandoned house he becomes the champion of the world. I love this novel for when you just need a book to read. Many say it's a rushed novel but it was published just before retirement and I think he wanted to share one more world for us. I also love this book because it's one of his few books that don't leave me in tears at the end of the series.

Final his last novel Regina's Song, this book is so different from the rest of his work that he gets some backlash for it, why? Because people can't accept that this book has no magic, its set in Seattle and changes writing style from 3rd to 1st, when I point that out most people don't believe me but it is 1st person. Regina is the remaining identical twin sister from a brutal rape murder of her twin. The story is told through the eyes of Mark, he is kinda a big brother cousin to the twins because his dad and their dad are best friends and they grew up together (Mark is a few years older too). Mark is working on his doctorite when Regina comes out of her insanity and he helps her adjust. All the while Seattle has another serial killer. It's far better to read then I can do it justice for.

Please everyone consider this couple for the amazing books they offer and try them. If you do not want to invest to much start with Althalus or Regina's Song. If you want a good mid read go with the Elenium, love that try the Tamuli. If those are amazing start with his first world. These authors is who I use as the benchmark for when looking for a new book. They taught me that a good author needs to 1 know how to write a story and 2 they need to know before a book is started how it will get from A to Z. so many authors like Martin, Jordan and Goodkind know how to do 1 and others like Suzanne Collins can in my mind do only 2 but authors like Eddings, Rowlings, Riordan can do both and they are what makes a series amazing. So I beg you to read Eddings.

Side note: I have never heard the Dreamers on audio book and the Redemption of Althalus is done horribly but the rest are great.

#David Eddings #Leah Eddings #david & leigh eddings #Books #fantasy novel #The Belgariad #The Malloreon #The Elenium #The Tamuli #The Redemption of Althalus #regina's song #good book #great books #book recommendations

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feminist-propaganda · 4 years

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Single Mothers Will Probably Cry During Every Episode Of Queen’s Gambit - Episode 3

In the first two episodes of Queen’s Gambit, Beth first learns to look for a field that she can become an expert in and later understands the powers of dissociation. What Beth doesn’t share with us in these episodes, probably because she isn’t connecting to that part of herself, is what her life was like before the car crash.

The only memory we know about, which precedes the orphanage era, is the traumatic memory of the car crash, and the couple of seconds leading up to it. Because we don’t see anything prior to the car crash; our opinion of Alice (Beth’s mother) is based off of her actions that day. We know she voluntarily crashed the car (she admits this when she tells Beth to “Close her eyes”). We don’t really know what Beth’s opinion of her mother is.

Lesson 3: Your Biggest Enemy Is Yourself

In Episode 3 however, we are invited into an earlier childhood memory of Beth. She sits with her mother, by the lake. She reaches out to touch her mother’s hand. Her mother carresses her cheek. Her mother gets up, takes off her clothes and jumps into the lake. Beth’s face looks worried as she watches her mother disapear into the water. Beth cries out for her. Her mother finally emerges on the deck, far way, and waves. Then, Alice swims back to the shore and hugs Beth. The young girl looks happy. This seems to be a strange memory. It starts with a peaceful moment by the lake, then her mother does something that scares Beth, then it ends well and we are relieved that Beth feels relieved.

The episode is called “Doubled Pawns”, which refers to a position in Chess when two pawns are placed behind one other on the same file (column). The position is a weakness because the pawns cannot defend each other, and therefore cannot attack.

The episode starts in Cincinatti where Beth and Alma arrive to play a tournament. They enter a nice hotel room, in a luxurious venue. The room has twin beds. Alma sits on her bed and says in a contained voice “I asked for a pleasant room and I believe they gave me one”. Beth then jumps on her bed and giggles.

All through the episode we see references to a doubled self, an other that is in fact a version of us.

Let’s analyse this scene. We see that Alma adopts this calm, collected voice when really there is a part of her that wants to jump on the bed. Beth is the opposite: she can’t wait to jump on the bed, but she needs some sort of permission, a green light from Alma before she can do it. They both feel pleased to be a in a pleasant room, but like the two sides of a same coin, they express it differently. And like two entangled photons, their projections are related. If one is contained, the other is extroverted.

This duality, appears many more times during the episode.

Indeed, later in the hotel lobby of the Las Vegas venue, Beth encounters Townes, a chess player she met a the State championship in Lexington. They both seemed extremely pleased to meet again. Townes makes a comment about how Beth has grown up. He informs her he is covering the event for a newspaper. Then invites her to his hotel room to take pictures of her. Beth seems very comfortable with him. She sits next to the bed and looks at the Board. Townes takes pictures. Right when he is about to get close to her, maybe even intimate, a man barges into the hotel room.

This man has some tight swimming pants on, an open shirt, a shaved chest. We understand, that this man is Townes’s lover. That they share this hotel room. That they came together to this place. The mood is a bit ruined. Beth is upset, she has feeling for Townes and he isn’t available.

This man is Towne’s “evil twin”, an other him, a “doubled pawn”. Which he forgets to watch out for, and which has become a weakness for him, rather than a position of strength. Townes doesn’t openly propose a three way to Beth, or a menage a trois. That would’ve been an aggressive, probably succesful approach. Instead he invites her in, and does not mention his other lover. The other lover appears at the worst moment and weakens Townes’s position rather than strengthens it.

Finally, in this episode Beth meets her match, Benny. He is a charismatic Chess Player. What is special about him is the same thing that makes Beth special. He does not look like a typical Chess Player. By this I mean that he doesn’t look socially awkward, he isn’t introverted, he doesn’t wear glasses. He is the U.S. champion. She first meets him in Cincinatti where he tells her it isn’t interesting for him to play Opens, “It can only hurt him”.

His character seems to reveal to Beth that there is another world beyond these American tournaments. He is an international player, he gets invited to Europe. But also, he is her match in other ways. He is passionate about Chess, yes. But he talks about it in a fascinating manner. His style is very unique. He wears all black leather outfits and a black cowboy hat. He carries a knife strapped around his leg. He stands out, just like Beth stands out in the Chess World.

Beth has to play Benny to win the US Championship in Las Vegas. She loses.

After the match, we listen to Beth tell her version to Alma. Even though Alma understands practically nothing of the game, she listens attentively and asks questions. She is there for Beth. And at the end of the episode, Beth takes her hand in the car.

Beth tells Alma that what Benny did was “Something she did to others”. What she means by this is that he played her, made her believe that her strategy was working, that he wasn’t seeing her coming, when in fact he had it all mapped out. And he brutally defeated her.

When you are a single mother, you are terrified of dying. Not so much because you’re living an extremely fulfilling life that you don’t want to let go of. Not because you are afraid of the abyss. You are afraid of dying because you are afraid of what will happen to your children if you die.

To manage this risk, single mothers could meet with lawyers and make plans for what would happen to them if they were to die. But we know that single mothers are often times isolated and cast away by their families. So maybe imagining a plan is alreayd a problem for them.

Because single motherhood is felt to be a negative situation, most single mothers isolate themselves. They are riddled with shame and prefer to keep to themselves to not look at the disapointment or pity in the eyes of their friends and families.

They also might have conflicts with their families or their children’s father’s families which may prevent establishing a plan in the event of their death.

Finally, single mothers are most often times over worked. They often work full time to support their families, and when they are not working out of the house, they are doing housework in the home which we all know is an unending, tedious, monotonous, repetitive, mind numbing task.

This leaves little space for planning and strategizing. And in the event of an accident, some of these mothers might not have had time to make a plan.

If they did some research, like I just did, they might see that they really ought to make a solid plan for the aftermath of their deaths.

Indeed, a Swedish study from 2000 found that:

"We saw that [single] mothers demonstrated a nearly 70% higher risk of premature death than coupled mothers," study author Måns Rosén, PhD, tells WebMD.

The article continues:

“According to the findings, which were published in the journal TheLancet, the single mothers had twice the risk of suicide of mothers with partners, three times the risk of violent death, and two-and-one-half times the risk of alcohol-related death.”

The anxiety that Beth felt at the lake is what all children of single mothers feel when they watch their mothers engage in risky behavior. In Beth’s young mind, swimming in the lake is risky behavior, perhaps because she does not know how to swim. Maybe this particular lake is dangerous, I am not sure. But the emotion she feels is real regardless.

She knows that she is just a child, that she cannot swim. What will she do if her mother drowns? Watch her? Who will she call for help? There doesn’t seem to be anyone around them.

The name of the episode is Doubled Pawns, and this matters to my argument. Indeed, the Doubled Pawn position as I mentionned above is a weakness because the pawns are unable to protect themselves.

They are the same piece on the chess board, and they can move in the same way. They have the same power to attack, to defend and the same weaknesses. To be efficient they need to be on different fields, which are the columns on the Chess Board.

The same goes for single mothers. They need to watch out for danger; but the nature of the danger is the same essence as what they’re trying to protect themselves from. In other words, their biggest enemy is themselves.

Kanye West, who has probably been the most influential rapper and producer of the 2010s, was raised by a single mother, a woman named Donda, mostly in the suburbs of Chicago. It is no secret that Donda’s death in 2007 profoundly changed Kanye as well as his music. He wrote the album 808s and Heartbreak in the aftermath of her death. Donda died because of a plastic surgery procedure that didn’t go well.

Adams gave Donda West liposuction, a tummy tuck and a breast reduction in November 2007, but she died the following day, after reporting pain and tightness in her chest. A coroner found “no evidence of a surgical or anaesthetic misadventure,” and said “the final manner of death could not be determined. Multiple post-operative factors could have played a role in the death. The exact contribution of each factor could not be determined.”

Donda’s law, which was passed in 2009, “targets the aggressive marketing of services that make the risks “seem almost nonexistent,””.

On the track “Amazing” from 808s & Heartbreak, Kanye sings “I’m the only thing I’m afraid of”, which seems to summarize the learnings of Episode 3.

The article above explains to us that the biggest threat to single mothers is suicide, violent death and alcohol related deaths.

As Alice swims in the lake, she is indeed adopting reckless behavior. She forgets she is a single mother, and there is no one around to help her if she drowns. Yes, she comes out alive, and hugs Beth. But in case of an accident; she could’ve died.

Benny is Beth’s doubled pawn, her evil twin, so to speak. He beats her at her own game. And in this Episode, Beth learns from her mother that she needs to watch out for herself, from herself.

#feminism #single mom #the queen's gambit

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