The Phazon Assassin
Smash Champion
Link to original post: [drupal=2394]I am considering giving up the title of "TUSM"[/drupal]
I have come to the realization that the name TUSM, which is short for The Ultimate Smash Master if you don't already know, is an utter and complete lie.
No, this is not going to be one of those emo, quit life blogs. Just read on.<!--break-->
First off, let me tell you how the name came to be.
Back in the early days of Smash, you know around the times the Cube version was just hitting store shelves, me and my friends had lots of good times playing Smash 64. We played a lot during the end of our sophomore year of high school. At that time, I had only been playing for a few days, but I was putting up solid competition against people who'd been playing since the game came out. I practiced a lot during the summer and in that time, made a commitment to get Melee.
Fast forwarding to our first hardcore Melee. Between then and now was a lot of trash talking amongst ourselves, but until we actually played, none of us could actually back it up. After our first session, I pulled through as the #1 contender, and this continued to show throughout the following get-togethers. The more we played, the more people joined, the tougher the competition got, and the better I played.
Now, one day I was in my room making up my version of this one series of commercials I used to see a lot. Basically, there was this famous person talking about a problem they had, and how they used some company's (can't remember who) internet to fix it. At the end of the commercial, they'd say "My name is so-and-so and I am a this-that-and-the-third," stating their name and their occupation. My version stated that I had trouble competing in Smash and I used the internet to look at AT's, all kinds of ish like that.
At the end, the following words just flowed like water, without any prior rehearsal or anything.
"My name is Lawrence Brown, and I am The Smash Master."
I stopped and thought about it. I liked the way it sounded. "The Smash Master." It was original, it was straight to the point, and at that time, it was completely legit. So, I kept it. And, to make it official, I went to yahoo the next day and called dibs on the screenname. However, there was a problem.
"The screenname you have chose has already been taken." Or whatever the hell it says. I had to think of something to make it even more unique. I thought about another word I could insert to make it better, and the term "Ultimate" immediately popped into my head. So, I typed it in.
"Congratulations, you are now 'The Ultimate Smash Master.'" or whatever the hell it says. This name, in conjunction with its shorter and much more common counterpart, TUSM, has been used as my screenname at every site I visit, every game I play (I revert to my less Ultimate state, TSM, when only three initials are allowed), and it's even grown to the point where I'm called TUSM, instead of Lawrence.
So, you may be wondering, "If you're so attached to the name TUSM, why are you giving it up?"
I'll tell you. I failed to live up to the name. Clearly, I'm not The Ultimate Smash Master, otherwise Smash would be my second job, making money at every tournament I go to. This "TUSM" is not who I am.
Now, you may ask yourself, "OK, well, what IS your name gonna be?"
Well, around the same time that TUSM came to be, I was given a second nickname. Not getting into that story, that name was The Dark Linksman. Now, if I played Link in Brawl (Competitively like I did in 64 and Melee), then that may be an option. Of course, no one would ever call me that when referring to me, so everyone would probably call me by my first name. But, this isn't the case.
Here's what I've been thinking. Throughout the course of my competitive career, I've done very little. Every few tournaments, I do something moderately impressive, but it all dies down in a week or so. I haven't done anything to make people look at me and say "Dude, that was f***ing awesome!!!" I want to point you back to the beginning of this post where I said this wasn't an emo blog. It isn't, and I'm not upset at this fact at all. It feels good going into tournaments thinking no matter what I do, I will always be the underdog.
Add onto that the fact that every time my name is mentioned, people just say "Who?" I've hopped onto random livestreams before, introduced my self, and was greeted with numerous "Who's that"s. Basically, I'm not really known in the Smash community. Sure, there are people who I see often, but for the most part, I'm.....I don't wanna say nobody, but I'm not renown or anything. I'm like, slightly better than the rest, you know?
So, you're thinking to yourself, "Where are you going with all of this?"
I'll tell you. In my first statewide tournament, I placed Top 4 out of 64, only having lost to some of the best players in the state. They took notice, but had no clue who I was. In the results, I was labeled as "Unknown DDD." I enjoyed that phase a lot, being a no name random placing as well as I did. As of now, I still feel like somewhat of an unknown to most people. So, the answer is simple, obvious actually.
I can change my name to "The Unknown Smash Master." this was, the name becomes somewhat more accurate, and I can keep the name TUSM, 'cause I'll be d*mned if people don't call me TUSM.
Anyways, I was just looking for some thoughts before I actually go through with it, not that anyone of you will ever know if I actually will do it, or even if I haven't already done it. Also, I said I was gonna write a blog, so here it is folks.
I have come to the realization that the name TUSM, which is short for The Ultimate Smash Master if you don't already know, is an utter and complete lie.
No, this is not going to be one of those emo, quit life blogs. Just read on.<!--break-->
First off, let me tell you how the name came to be.
Back in the early days of Smash, you know around the times the Cube version was just hitting store shelves, me and my friends had lots of good times playing Smash 64. We played a lot during the end of our sophomore year of high school. At that time, I had only been playing for a few days, but I was putting up solid competition against people who'd been playing since the game came out. I practiced a lot during the summer and in that time, made a commitment to get Melee.
Fast forwarding to our first hardcore Melee. Between then and now was a lot of trash talking amongst ourselves, but until we actually played, none of us could actually back it up. After our first session, I pulled through as the #1 contender, and this continued to show throughout the following get-togethers. The more we played, the more people joined, the tougher the competition got, and the better I played.
Now, one day I was in my room making up my version of this one series of commercials I used to see a lot. Basically, there was this famous person talking about a problem they had, and how they used some company's (can't remember who) internet to fix it. At the end of the commercial, they'd say "My name is so-and-so and I am a this-that-and-the-third," stating their name and their occupation. My version stated that I had trouble competing in Smash and I used the internet to look at AT's, all kinds of ish like that.
At the end, the following words just flowed like water, without any prior rehearsal or anything.
"My name is Lawrence Brown, and I am The Smash Master."
I stopped and thought about it. I liked the way it sounded. "The Smash Master." It was original, it was straight to the point, and at that time, it was completely legit. So, I kept it. And, to make it official, I went to yahoo the next day and called dibs on the screenname. However, there was a problem.
"The screenname you have chose has already been taken." Or whatever the hell it says. I had to think of something to make it even more unique. I thought about another word I could insert to make it better, and the term "Ultimate" immediately popped into my head. So, I typed it in.
"Congratulations, you are now 'The Ultimate Smash Master.'" or whatever the hell it says. This name, in conjunction with its shorter and much more common counterpart, TUSM, has been used as my screenname at every site I visit, every game I play (I revert to my less Ultimate state, TSM, when only three initials are allowed), and it's even grown to the point where I'm called TUSM, instead of Lawrence.
So, you may be wondering, "If you're so attached to the name TUSM, why are you giving it up?"
I'll tell you. I failed to live up to the name. Clearly, I'm not The Ultimate Smash Master, otherwise Smash would be my second job, making money at every tournament I go to. This "TUSM" is not who I am.
Now, you may ask yourself, "OK, well, what IS your name gonna be?"
Well, around the same time that TUSM came to be, I was given a second nickname. Not getting into that story, that name was The Dark Linksman. Now, if I played Link in Brawl (Competitively like I did in 64 and Melee), then that may be an option. Of course, no one would ever call me that when referring to me, so everyone would probably call me by my first name. But, this isn't the case.
Here's what I've been thinking. Throughout the course of my competitive career, I've done very little. Every few tournaments, I do something moderately impressive, but it all dies down in a week or so. I haven't done anything to make people look at me and say "Dude, that was f***ing awesome!!!" I want to point you back to the beginning of this post where I said this wasn't an emo blog. It isn't, and I'm not upset at this fact at all. It feels good going into tournaments thinking no matter what I do, I will always be the underdog.
Add onto that the fact that every time my name is mentioned, people just say "Who?" I've hopped onto random livestreams before, introduced my self, and was greeted with numerous "Who's that"s. Basically, I'm not really known in the Smash community. Sure, there are people who I see often, but for the most part, I'm.....I don't wanna say nobody, but I'm not renown or anything. I'm like, slightly better than the rest, you know?
So, you're thinking to yourself, "Where are you going with all of this?"
I'll tell you. In my first statewide tournament, I placed Top 4 out of 64, only having lost to some of the best players in the state. They took notice, but had no clue who I was. In the results, I was labeled as "Unknown DDD." I enjoyed that phase a lot, being a no name random placing as well as I did. As of now, I still feel like somewhat of an unknown to most people. So, the answer is simple, obvious actually.
I can change my name to "The Unknown Smash Master." this was, the name becomes somewhat more accurate, and I can keep the name TUSM, 'cause I'll be d*mned if people don't call me TUSM.
Anyways, I was just looking for some thoughts before I actually go through with it, not that anyone of you will ever know if I actually will do it, or even if I haven't already done it. Also, I said I was gonna write a blog, so here it is folks.
