Castle's Chessboard

Secrets

Prompt 6. Sept 6.
Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets. Paul Tournier
Can you share a secret? Small or big, tell us. No? Tell us why not.

Day 6 of Birthday Blogging for "Blog Week Birthday Bastion 2024" 

If I revealed a secret, would it still be a secret? My handle is a pen name so there are certain secrets behind it. On the other hand I probably share a lot more on this site than I would in my personal life as I put a lot of my own feelings and thoughts into my writing.

In terms of secrets though, I will give a couple away that I can think of off the top of my head. The most immediate is my writing handle Kingssidecastle and where it comes from. Kingssidecastle is actually a type of chess move where the king and rook switch places. In chess castling is done both defensively and offensively. The rook is much better piece for attacking while the king has limited mobility. In addition to that, losing the king results in the player losing the game. Castling usually moves the king behind pawns protecting it while at same time moving the rook into a position where it is able to attack more easily. There are two types of castling in chess a king's side castle where the king switches with the rook closest to it and a Queen's side castle where the king switches with the rook farther away from it. As a chess lover, I choose the move for my handle. It also works really well because I can abbreviate my signature with either the king or rook chess piece i.e.

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or

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Another secret fun fact that ties in with this is that I actually was the person who suggested that Chess pieces be added as emoticons on this site. I am really happy the Story Mistress took it up and added them. In addition to that I was also the person who sponsored the Grandmaster Community Merit Badge.



The image in the badge is actually based on the logo from the Chessmaster computer game series. I originally wanted the badge to be a Chessmaster badge but was politely advised that it was too niche for a community badge. I opted for the more recognized term of grandmaster which still reflects the chess origins.

Word Count 388 Words