Валерий, are you serious? Beginning to control? 😂

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=beginning+to+control+you&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=

А при чем здесь ngram?
https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=started+controlling+you
Достаточно того, что в запросе прошедшее время, а не настоящее, и тем более не continuous

Александр, это уже перебор. Она только начала...

А по-моему смысл не особо меняется.

grumbler, давайте вот так тогда:
https://goo.gl/4LkPdt

https://goo.gl/RrX7Zo

Guys, nobody speaks like that.

Actually, Valery's translation is very common when you notice that something is becoming a problem: "Video games are beginning to control your life - you need to spend time with your friends and get out of the house." In this sentence, I don't know if the Russian past tense extends to the present, or if that would have to be "начинает...", but I assure you that in either case, "began to control" or "is beginning to control" are both quite idiomatic.

The fact is that "started to" is ambiguous because we use it in two ways: (1) the straight meaning of an activity beginning: "She started to sing." (2) the idea that you ALMOST did something, but then stopped yourself for some reason: "I started to answer the phone, but then thought it could be my ex and let it go to messages." For this reason, we often opt for the verb "begin" to avoid any ambiguity, because it's never used in the second sense.

"Она начала управлять тобой" sounds completed to me.

"Она начинает управлять тобой " She is beginning to control you.

Ah, ok. Good to know)