lamenting about nick all-star brawl - 5 years of mediocrity

2026-06-04T04:05:15Z

I have been a member of the Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl community since it's inception when the first game dropped in late 2021, and, as far as I know, I am it's longest-standing Tournament Organizer. over 200 tournaments run since January 2022.

from the series' inception, I tried my hand at competing in tournaments using Oblina, but I wasn't very good at that: Oblina was not the absolute beast she was in the game's later meta, and I struggled to basically play a game as fast as Project M after coming directly from Smash Ultimate. so instead, I shifted my efforts to tournament organizing instead. at least in my opinion, this worked to great success, as I was able to secure a Trolli sponsorship for a while. but even when times were tough, and despite being a college freshman at the time, I would still pay for some bracket prize pools out of pocket.

the NASB 1 community was really nice. after all, the game's scene was small enough to fit in a Discord server, and it felt like everyone knew everyone. there were occasional fights and a lot of disagreements (particularly in #meta), but it felt like everyone knew everyone. we knew what we were. we kept doing fun events, random segways, tons of in-jokes I probably can't remember now. but the best part was I felt kinda special. I was never a moderator or anything, I was just the TO that ran a bunch of tournaments (not the only one either). still, I felt like I did a lot to keep the scene going, in spite of my lack of forseeable skill at the actual game. I was never ranked, I never really took any big names, in fact I largely stopped competing myself by 2022. TOing and commentating was my real passion, as well as simply just talking about the community. I wanted us to be seen, so I did what I could with my platform. I would make some mistakes (notably one involving Alpharad, still regretting that one to this day, that was a bad call) but I still had great intentions for our little pipsqueak community. I would continue to do this for NASB 1 until late 2023, when NASB 2 released.

by the time NASB 2 released, my friend Cherry started running most of the events for NASB, including passing the Trolli sponsor torch with his Dutchman's Dungeon series. I'm not going to speak any ill of Cherry because I have none towards him at all. He's a genuinely upstanding guy who has probably spent an entire mortgage keeping NASB alive. He's the NASB guy and deserves any and all flowers he gets for doing that.

in comparison, on first impressions, I was sort of let down by NASB 2. it was slower. more traditionally Smash-like. it had a great slime mechanic, but this didn't move me. I was just happy to see my favorite Nicktoon (the Angry Beavers) represented. but over time, the game grew on me. however that first impression was pretty rough on my desire to enter tournaments: i think ive entered less than 10 NASB 2 tournaments in my life. the game just was not fun to grind like that, in spite of my support for it. in the early days it felt faux. however, the biggest change NASB 2 has brought to that little community is the tone.

NASB 2 brought in a lot more people, which is, objectively, fantastic. however, the more time went on, the less people I knew from the old days stuck around. NASB 1 wasn't good, but it was unique, and once that uniqueness faded, so did a lot of the people that supported it. and this new community was a lot more no-nonsense: new game, new competition. stakes were high. Hungrybox was interested in us again for 5 minutes. Cherry was bring in bigger and better prize pools with bigger and better talent.

and where do I fit in all of this? well, to be honest, I don't know. but I knew that, juggling being a content creator, college student (at the time) and TO, I couldn't become a top level player, even with my easy-as-shit main. so I did my best to find a purpose. I built a little haphazard TO hub for us to discuss rulesets, plans etc. without being out in the open, I contributed frequently to the SuperCombo wiki, I've made several videos on the competitive scene...I even gave the game it's own player database that used to have it's own Discord bot. and, of course, I drew the current server banner.

and what has this really amounted to?

nothing.

perhaps it's wrong. perhaps it's selfish to even think like this for a microcosm of a second. but I feel like a large amount of effort I've put into the NASB scene has amounted to nothing. no better opportunities. nothing really to acknowledge. i wasted 5 years of my life on shit that doesn't matter, for no benefit to anyone. and with Cherry putting his life on the line to make sure we're visible everywhere there's a Smash or Rivals of Aether event, he's also had to make us more "professional". elite roles in the Discord now. scheduled commentary blocks. the whole shebang. in a way it feels like a lot of people are somewhat ashamed to even have experienced the NASB 1 era, and, in a way, that feels like they were kind of ashamed when I was in my prime organizing. the more homely vibe from NASB 1 is gone. we're a big game now. and yet so, so little.

i'm just so fatigued with NASB, particularly NASB 2. the game has gotten so stale. there is nothing left to talk about. meta is barren for days at a time on occasion. and when it is active, it's mostly just ego stroking. it's the same conversations over and over again, the same winners, the same stories. nobody is happy playing this game, and so many people have left or quit the game entirely. Nintoonist and Matador are done. so many players just have bad mentalities they won't sort out. it's a clusterfuck sometimes. we've tried to change the stage list so many times, banned certain techs, but it doesn't make the players happy. nothing ever makes them happy. and it's not like they'd listen to me alone anyways except just to wriggle information out of Cherry. i feel like I'm simply not necessary anymore. i serve no purpose within the community I call home anymore, except to drive in more curious faces by making videos on Squidward's meta history or whatever. i feel bad because im so bored with the game people are curious about from many of my own videos.

but i think the fatigue I'm feeling has really hit me with the feeling that I never truly belonged in this community at all, in spite of any real accomplishments I may have made. part of it may have simply been just the fact that I never really bothered to make a huge effort to compete as a high-level player, despite being more than capable. the patronizing comments really get to me sometimes, such as when I joined the Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion XL community (even smaller) and MERGAS commented on how "if [I'm] a top player in that game, those players must be ass [sic]." not to mention the "friend" server full of seemingly everyone but me. combine that with the constant zoomer humor, and the NASB community has kinda turned into a boys club im not sure if I wanna be a part of anymore.

it just feels like no matter what I will do for the community, it will never amount to anything particularly notable. I've never been on the beta team. I've never contributed to any changes in the games themselves. I've always felt like I was held back from the beginning, and it sucks because I want to do more for them, but I'm just not allowed to. I'm useless. Heat Wave 8 was great because it reminded me why I love this community so much, but it also hurt me severely that I had to fucking beg Blackimar for a commentary spot!! In the community I've been commentating for for 4 FUCKING YEARS!

i don't know how to feel. it just hurts. I've considered being done with NASB for a long while until maybe the spark reignites again and I return to the same cycle of mediocrity. I hold no ill well towards the actual community and am cordial towards everyone still, unless someone isn't to me for some reason. I will never get the same flowers Cherry or Fig does, nor do I deserve them, but all I would really want is acknowledgement for the things I have done. It just feels like everything I've ever done over this half-decade has been ancillary and useless. I wasted everyone's time, including my own.

I've been much less active lately, to the point where one time I said absolutely nothing for 20 days. nobody noticed. nobody ever does.

hello

2026-06-03T03:03:26Z

hello to whoever you are that is reading this! it's nice to meet you.

this is a pretty simple post. probably not going to say much today, as I'm just beginning to set this up now. I don't have much to note about today besides using nair body cream (which I also used on my face. Don't do that. It hurts!) so let's start with a simple FAQ:

who are you?

i go by many names. you might know me as dille. or spacebeer. maybe a previous name in the past. but my real name when im walkin around the real world is becca.

i'm a 23 (at this time of writing)-year-old trans woman living in some quaint little town in Pennsylvania. i have a somewhat situational degree in art and i'm currently just trying to find my way through this weird world we're living in. i usually have feelings of wishing i was born a little earlier, in spite of the hardships that would bring. there's a lot of stuff from when i was younger that i would've appreciated more if i was older. nevertheless, i carry on...

why do you type like that?

I switch between using proper grammar/capitalization and just doing whatever. sorry if that's bothersome.

why this blog?

i'm an internet microcelebrity who usually rambles on about stuff on my social media pages. but i want an outlet to just be me without having eyes on me. i mean, i guess your eyes are eyes. but not "enough to fill an entire office building" eyes. you feel me?

this is basically an outlet to maybe vent personal frustrations, just talk about my day, or do whatever in a healthy manner. it doesn't have to be much more than that, and it probably won't be. expect sporadic, unscheduled posts. some posts might be days or hours in between, others might be months. i have no clue.

this blog will still, of course, be public, but the lower audience is probably the biggest appeal to me. just a chance to ramble and catalog my life without it being confined to a social media site. plus, there's the inherent risk of my life being cut short by some external means. obviously, i severely hope that doesn't happen, but you never know. plus, who knows? maybe i'll still have this blog when im 96! (here's hopin!)

that's all I got in terms of introductions, hope to make my next blog post sometime soon! maybe tomorrow...or 5 months from now...lol.

showbiz

lamenting about nick all-star brawl - 5 years of mediocrity

hello

who are you?

why do you type like that?

why this blog?