Neither Luc nor Ilya are looking for a relationship, a little fun maybe? But it’s not so easy for queer men to have fun in the international chess elite dominated by Russian influence when queer rights are threatened across much of the chess-playing world. Maybe that’s what brings it together, the need for someone to hold on to when the world seems to be collapsing?
The story picks up in the Summer of 2022 lockdown is settling down and Luc and Ilya are working together at a training camp. They have had a somewhat superficial relationship until now, though they have played in the same tournaments for about fifteen years; they have not really ever spoken much, maybe because mutual attraction has led them to avoid each other. Maybe because Ilya tended to skip out on Luc’s infamous afterparties, game nights, and most other non-obligatory socialising to get railed by strangers on Grindr when he is out of his less and less beloved home country. Regardless, it happens, and once it’s started happening, it is difficult to stop. Difficult to keep up the pretence, the running away, and sex is a pretty good way of dealing with the world.
Until it is too much, until everything changes.
The vibes: Meandering conversations about what it means to be a queer chessplayer with half a moral in a world like this. Cuties getting it on cause they deserve that. Russia. Brazil. Nerds. Ukraine War. Dealing with chronic illness. Dissability.
Main Characters:
Luc
Luc, as most people call him, is an open, direct, fun-loving guy. He is also the only chess player in the world elite who appears in any way queer, though he’s not really publicly open, just not completely in the closet either; he lives in the ambiguity created by people forgetting that bisexual men exist. Lucas was born in an upper-middle-class home in Finland south of Helsinki to a Finnish-Swedish father and a Brazilian mother. He learned to play chess from his grandfather in Finland and continued to do so until the family moved to Brazil when Luc was 5 years old, eventually his mother took him to a chess club since it was the only way to get him to socialize and when he started winning regional championships and attracting attention it was his mother who traveled with him and supported him and they became very close until she died when Luc was a teenager on his way to becoming a world star. Luc dealt with this mostly by staying as busy as possible, throwing himself into everything that was new and loud and distracting and by playing chess and dancing. When we meet Luc, he is just about to turn 31 and he is known to be one of the creative geniuses of contemporary chess, a player who puts his whole soul on the board, which has earned him enormous respect among all those who take chess seriously but has not given him the greatest results. For example, he has qualified several times for the most prestigious of all chess tournaments, the Candidates Tournament, but has never had any great results there. In addition to chess tournaments and dancing, Luc has jumped on the chess streaming bandwagon and produces content on YouTube and Twitch, in both English and Portuguese. He is generally interested in breaking down language barriers and also makes an effort as a language teacher over the internet, not really for the money, but because it pleases him as a language nerd and fellow human being. Otherwise, he can be found at the club, on the street, in antique bookstores looking for chess books, on a friend’s couch, on the other side of the world because he got an exciting lunch invitation or in the pants of someone he met the other day. Yes, Luc really keeps busy, he doesn’t sit still unless he’s playing chess or editing video and often not even then. He likes to feel that life is rushing through him. At this time, it’s a sweet and somewhat strange Russian colleague named Ilya who makes Luc struggle with the big feelings. He is prepared to have his heart broken, and he does, but in a very different way to what he had imagined.
Ilya
Ilya was born in 1992, one of the years that sex between men was decriminalised in Russia, but thirty years later, when Ilya is 29, the memory of belief in progress feels very faint. Since he was a child, Ilya’s life has been about becoming a world chess champion, and he has lived by that; it has given his life shape and meaning, it has protected him, and he is now in the position of somewhat precariously holding his place as Russia’s best player. Still, the last few years have been tough, with long periods of lockdowns and online chess that Ilya has mostly spent in the company of his two cats. In addition to this, the constant pressure to perform and the certainty that he is getting too old to expect to reach the goals he set for himself had already started to take its toll on his psyche and then came the war… Inside Ilya, there rages a war between being cautious and his inner rebel, who wants to say fuck off to everything and everyone; they are both self-preservation instincts, and they have both led to him getting into trouble. For example, he has a pretty difficult relationship with most of his family after he put his foot down and moved away from home as a teenager because he could not take the constant interference in every little aspect of his chess career and life. Still, he doesn’t feel like he has control over his own life or chess career; if it’s not his family, then someone else will interfere; it has all made him quite uninspired. His other source of joy in life, sex with men, is also something he has put on the shelf when the fear of being exposed and years of pandemic and increased criminalisation made it all too difficult. Life has become a routine; he is not able to actually care, perhaps because it hurts too much to confront everything, because he has pretended not to care for too long to protect himself. But when an unexpected sexual encounter with one of the chess world’s most inspiring players starts to develop into something more, it becomes difficult to continue as before, he gets the desire to live, the desire to actually be the best version of himself, a person who lives according to his values, the desire to play good chess, but that is easier said than done when the situation in Russia is becoming more oppressive with each passing day.
Side Characters:
Vanya
Ilya’s best friend and sometimes collaborator. He is in his mid twenties and has been among Russia’s top 10 players for around a decade at this point. Often described as the rebel Russian chess he is in fierce conflict with the state and the Russian Chess Federation and everything that is though his conflicts with other players tend to be short-lived and not personal. Vanya is also very stubborn and would rather ruin his chess career than leave Russia. When we meet him, he is mostly deeply depressed and feeling completely powerless, but begrudgingly holding on. Despite the fact that they are close friends and that Vanya is quite outspokenly critical of the regime, Ilya is very anxious about coming out to him and feels that his constantly having to lie by omission is eroding the friendship. Ilya doesn’t really have that many close friends and is terrified of jeopardising it.
Mia
The world’s highest-ranked openly trans chess player. She and Luc dated for a while some years ago, but it sort of teetered out into friendship as they were stuck living together in early lockdown. Neither of them really thinks much about the fact that they used to date. Since then, Mia has explored dating women and is making money as a chess player, mostly by teaching, organising and making courses, as there isn’t really much money in playing for most players. In many ways, Mia represents something both Luc and Ilya strive for. She’s open, and she’s involved in uplifting young queer chess players and has started a queer chess club in Paris. Both of our main characters feel a strong draw towards her, something that can stir up difficult feelings as they are confronted with what their lives are lacking.
Sarah
Sarah is a queer Brazilian whom Luc has gotten to know in Paris. She is not a chess player. She is a lover of karaoke (which is how she and Luc met), and she is disabled with a cluster of diagnoses fucking with her in their separate ways at any given time and keeping her bedbound most days. This means her relationship with Luc, as with many others, has been an on-again and off-again affair. Sarah lives with their parner another She/They lesbian of many years, and sometimes makes attempts at being poly by going on dates with a long-term will-they-won’t-they flirt. Throughout the story, Luc and Sarah grow much closer and become integral in each other’s lives. Ilya and Sarah have a mutual respect, united in their love for Luc.
Petya and Emma
Ilya’s cats, they mean everything to him and are really what has kept him afloat in recent years, although it is difficult to balance cat ownership and professional chess playing, so he is dependent on his sister, who lives close by, taking care of them when he is away. Petya is friendly and quite outgoing, but mostly in the way where he likes to observe, preferably from a height. With strangers, he will come out of hiding, make himself known and then retreat to his favourite chair, hoping to take part in the conversation. Things need to happen on his terms, and he will tell you if something is amiss, like if you moved the furniture in a way he disapproves of. Emma, on the other hand, is shy around strangers and makes herself scarce, she takes a while to open up to new people, but when she does, she is very empathetic and fiercely loyal. She shows up the moment she notices you are upset, thinking, hey I know what would improve your day, it’s me, and I am not moving til you feel better.