𝐞𝐩𝐢𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐲

the queen's gambit

WHAT IS THE OBJECT OF PLAYING A GAMBIT OPENING?

to acquire a reputation for being a dashing player, at the risk of losing the game.

name
ellery nathaniel summerland

name meaning
"island with elder trees"

nicknames
'L'

age
twenty

date of birth
december 25th, 1950

place of birth
kazimierz dolny

zodiac
capricorn

current residence
milwaukee, wisconsin, united states

nationality
american / polish

ethnicity
polish / ashkenazi

gender and pronouns
male, he/him

sexuality
gay

faceclaim
buba ruseishvili

additional appearance notes
ellery has a scar that goes through his right eyebrow from a scuffle when he was about ten with another student. he has to wear glasses since his eyesight is just awful to where he can't see very much without them, and they're round silver ones. he has natural highlights in his blonde hair from the sun, and it often seems that the better his mood, the brighter his hair, and the worse mood, the closer to brown it looks. ellery has long legs proportionally and his body type is tall and quite slender-- he also tends to bruise very easily just from bumping into walls and the like, so he normally looks a little busted up in daily life.

personality
if you left ellery in a foreign city for ten minutes, when you stumbled upon him again, he'd be the mayor of the city and personally know just about every citizen. he's extremely personable and has an electric personality— naturally, he's not only very social but very easily likable due to a warm and welcoming aura. he loves to talk and interact with people even in such small instances like being in line together at the grocery store. he is also very intuitive. he knows a lot about people based off first impressions, which is part of what makes him so good at making friends. he's the sort of person who seems like he knows people before he even meets them and can tell a lot about people already— he's very intuitive and good emotionally, since he can reach just about anyone. what makes him so charismatic is just how genuine it is too-- he doesn't do this to be deceptive or gain information on someone, just to get to know them better and to (hopefully) make a new friend. he's smart too, but he never did well at school, and he isn't the type of overachiever to have a million diplomas up on his wall-- ellery is that type of quick, impatient, smart with a long memory. he plays chess quickly, quicker than most people-- which can result in mistakes if he isn't careful. he thinks fast, he can talk quickly when he gets excited about something, and he's the type of person to come up with a solution to a chess problem easily, but not really to do well on testing or higher education. ellery seems to be extremely optimistic about everything, no matter how grim. however, he doesn't always have a positive attitude— he tends to lie to himself about his emotions and hide them if they aren't what people expect from him. he's not very honest with himself or with others emotionally and he's a little emotionally-stifled. ellery is generally a bit of a wild card though. he loves parties. he loves friends. and he doesn't mind a little craziness along the way. he's not the sort of person to do what anyone tells him, leading to a rebellious and reckless personality (please don't leave him with anything important of yours), but also a lot of fun. he tends to be quite inconsistent in general and can end up giving up on commitments or showing up late to just about anything-- when he says he can remember things for a long time, he usually means chess-related things. everything else tends to discard twice as fast to make room for the chess facts-- like for example, he can barely remember what he had for breakfast the other day, but he has some of his favorite chess matches memorized play by play. he is also so beyond stubborn-- he can accept criticism if he's asked for it, but if not, good luck trying to convince him of anything that wasn't already his idea. he is so unreceptive to suggestions or people telling him anything negative about himself or his chess game that it isn't even funny-- this also plays into one of his worst flaws that he tries to hide a little-- he's pretty arrogant at times in that he does see himself as pretty smart and pretty important, more specifically meaning that he has a bit of a strange perception of being a self-made man which involves too much confidence and not being super malleable to criticism. overall, ellery is a pretty exciting and caring person when you first meet him (he likes to talk about other people, which can make certain types of people feel good) but it can become easy to be frustrated by him once you know him for a while, despite his (sometimes practiced) positivity and genuine compassionate, friendly nature.