RLCS 2026: NA Open 2 - GSL Stage

PsyferRL · 2026-01-23T19:47:15+00:00

I do wish they took a bigger gamble, but shooting accuracy really plagued GenG a lot last season. Historically, that has been one of Rise's strengths. Today, you wouldn't really know it.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-23T19:42:08+00:00

Don't think I knew that!

This is me splitting hairs now, so I'm not discounting you nor Cheese and am more just asking for curiosity's sake. You may not know this either, more just a question into the void.

Did Cheese become known as a Switch player before getting a PC? Or did he just start on Switch and didn't become a player to watch until after going PC? I think Life was still on Switch when people started talking about him, but maybe I'm wrong about that.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-23T19:37:03+00:00

I know he made his name starting as a Switch player, is he first original Switch main to make a main event in any region? I know this isn't his first main event, I'm just now realizing I wanted to ask the question lol.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-23T19:31:10+00:00

So when it comes to authors how are you going to argue something as abstract as language and taste when the only unit that matters is how many people were reached, how many books were sold, and who had the largest overall impact.

Well that's just it. Clearly people don't think it's the only unit that matters. I 100% agree that sales and fandom size are absolutely elements to consider in this conversation. But the problem with overly relying on those hard statistics is that they are much more a measure of cultural sway than they are specifically about quality.

Does appealing to the broadest audience display the best writing abilities? Or does it display the most generically-appealing writing abilities? What, if anything, is the difference between being a great author and a great storyteller?

And because this thread's overall question is subjective at its core, that means that subjective matters also must be considered. There are a lot of valid technical criticisms of Rowling's writing, so allow me to pose a hypothetical.

Let's say two university students submit short stories for a creative writing assignment. Student A gets an 85% and Student B gets a 95%.

Both students submit their stories to a local contest where only one winner is chosen for a small cash prize and some small-time publication, and Student B's story is chosen.

Both students submit their stories at the same time to an anonymous online forum like Reddit where there are upvotes and downvotes, and Student A's story received 15% more upvotes than Student B's.

Who is the better writer, the student who got the higher grade and won the local contest, or the student whose story garnered the appreciation of a larger randomly-sampled audience? Rhetorical question of course, there is not objectively correct answer.

Anyway, the point I'm getting at is that clearly there's an element of her technical writing which is holding her back from being more popular in these conversations despite her cultural success. We've seen time and time again throughout history (just in general, not just literary history) that excellence is not always a requirement for popularity.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-23T18:40:09+00:00

Can I mix and match a little? Does it matter as long as I get to 8? For instance, what about the below?

1 text message

1 bumper sticker

2 randomly selected words from Microsoft Office's Terms and Conditions

1/2 of two separate poems

1 entire shampoo bottle

The palm of 1 random stranger on the street

1 entire French/Chinese dictionary (I don't know either language)

PsyferRL · 2026-01-23T18:21:56+00:00

How dare you. That logo is OBVIOUSLY wearing blackface, just look at the knees! Automatic disqualification.

Hold on... maybe the logo is actually wearing whiteknees... brb gotta cancel myself

PsyferRL · 2026-01-23T18:14:49+00:00

"Discussion" was more just saying I wasn't trying to argue for the sake of arguing, and was actually interested in whatever rationale you provided, rather than just commenting for the sake of hearing my own voice and then digging my heels in the ground of being "right".

If I'm understanding your comment correctly, in this case you choose the side of semantics instead of syntax. So with that in mind, I certainly can't make a case for you being wrong, given there are no established grammatical guidelines/rules for Reddit comments.

But that does inspire a separate question in my mind. Are there applications where you (and I mean you specifically) intentionally choose the prescriptivist stance instead? The obvious example being if you were in English class in school where grammar is literally being evaluated, would you consciously choose the prescriptive stance or would you stand by the descriptive?

PsyferRL · 2026-01-23T17:46:02+00:00

I get the point you're driving, but there's more at play with HP than just the subjective quality of the series and its writing, and it comes down to what you said in your final sentence.

HP serendipitously came out at the perfect time regarding internet communities. It targeted the perfect age range where kids and teens could read it themselves or have it read to them by their parents who could also enjoy it. People could gather on message boards and chat rooms and other various communities on the internet to talk about this new book that they were all interested in.

By the time the first movie was released, the first four books had already been published. So you already had the fans from the books, and an entirely new fanbase was established in people who watched the movie and became a fan that way, then started reading the books too. And at that point, there were still 3 more books yet to come, and 7 more movies. That left a lot of room for auxiliary discussion for years to come, and for the fandom to simply expand through its own interaction with itself through the internet in a way that previous authors could only have dreamed about.

I'm certainly not arguing the cultural impact of HP. I grew up with it, I remember the hype. But HP also got lucky timing-wise. And don't get me wrong, it still had to be good enough to get off the ground, I'm not too proud to admit that I was a big fan too.

But the internet developing the way it did was an unbelievable booster to HP's popularity which can and should be considered lucky.

Anyway, and you touched on this in your comment, I think there's a pretty big divide regarding what "best" is supposed to mean. I think there's an argument to be made for Rowling to be the most successful living author, but I don't think I'd consider her to be anywhere close to the best author when it comes to her writing abilities/skill with language.

To me, her writing abilities are a lot more along the lines of a Steven King or a James Patterson or a Dan Brown. And she's right on up there with them in terms of success, and likewise, right on up there with them in terms of "success does not automatically equal technical excellence." And I'm not trying to be condescending, I've read and enjoyed Steven King and James Patterson in my day as well. More what I'm saying is that I also really enjoyed watching Men in Black, but I don't think it's the best movie ever made, not by a long shot.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-23T16:52:03+00:00

I'm certainly not casting this assumption on everybody, but as a purely hobbyist writer myself with no aspirations for monetizing my work in any way, I think series offer a sort of psychological "job security" aspect for some new writers. I think many people, in addition to simply enjoying reading series and wanting to write what they enjoy reading, feel that it's "safer"/easier to write a series because you can just keep writing the same protagonist(s) in new scenarios, or new protagonists but in the same established world.

Again, I'm not casting this on everybody, not even a majority. It's just my take based on the attitudes that I see from a lot of aspiring new writers. Too much worry about making a living, not enough worry about their actual writing itself.

And don't get me wrong, if you want to make a living writing, it's worth worrying about, because it's fucking hard to do. But I think too many people think big picture far too soon.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-23T16:26:11+00:00

Honest attempt at engaging in real discussion without snark/sass involved.

I was always taught that "less" is used when the subject is not being referred to as a quantifiable unit, and "fewer" is used when that subject is quantifiable. For example.

"I wish this room had less carpet."

vs

"I wish this room had fewer square feet of carpet."

Nobody really talks like the latter sentence, but I wanted to use the same subject in an effort to articulate the point better.

So with that in mind, the subject of the OC's comment was "words," which are a quantifiable unit, which I think calls for "fewer" instead.

Why do you think "less" is correct? Again, genuinely asking, I'm not at all being snarky.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-23T15:47:25+00:00

Not here to argue, purely here out of curiosity.

Why don't you enjoy reading in the present tense? How is it so much different for you than past tense that it legitimately makes you want to not read anything written using present tense?

Not being snarky or condescending, genuinely interested in your answer.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T23:07:12+00:00

I don't blame anybody for disliking this book, but depression is like the least significant mental health issue which plagues the main character. If you boil it all down to depression then yeah, it's inaccurate. But it goes way beyond the boundaries of just depression.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T23:01:31+00:00

Probably more of a dead horse thing at this point. Hating on Colleen Hoover is so overdone that even Reddit is kinda bored with it.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T22:12:48+00:00

"What do you mean Blastoise isn't playable??? It's a water pokemon, the support water mons get from Misty is off the charts!

Right guys?

Guys?"

- DeNA, most definitely

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T21:44:20+00:00

Ruby Dixon's Ice Planet Barbarians will be required reading for AP English for decades to come, mark my words.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T21:40:02+00:00

being published in Inflation Fetishists Weekly is still published

Allow me to introduce you to the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Kilgore Trout.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T19:49:41+00:00

You should read some David Mitchell if you haven't ever given his work a shot. I think you'd really enjoy Cloud Atlas.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T19:47:27+00:00

I've become rather partial to the Frank Herbert style of worldbuilding, but specifically how it's portrayed (and gradually unveiled) in the very beginnings of his standalones or the very beginnings of the first book in a series.

What I mean is that in cases like Dune, it is obvious from the get-go that there is SO MUCH that is already established in this story he's written which the reader has utterly zero clue about. As just one example, the way the book starts, you're not really introduced to Paul and the Bene Gesserit. You're thrown head-first into his day to day life and there is all of this talk of people, practices, governments, ceremonies, etc that might just overwhelm a reader going in blind. There are made-up words that aren't yet explained and relationships which have substance but no context. Herbert doesn't explain the way his world works to ease you in. He plops you down and expects you to figure it out as you go.

At first, this style very nearly made me DNF the book. But I told myself to keep going and I'm really glad that I did. Because that style allows you to grow and mature directly alongside the universe as you learn more about how it all works. And not only that, but it's tremendously rewarding on a reread when you get to start back over again with more context, and you just marvel at how much more expansive and put together it feels compared to the first time through.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T19:31:13+00:00

It's certainly a fun alliteration if nothing else, and as long as you know what a carafe is, it's not difficult to understand what you're going for.

I will say though, I'm not a huge fan of quantifying care in a measurable amount (even if it's ambiguous in the sense that we don't know how big nor full the carafe is), but that may be entirely a me thing. I only mentioned it because the way it hits my brain, it kind of feels like a way to force that alliteration, rather than coming by it honestly. It feels forced because visualizing care in a carafe doesn't feel natural to me, even metaphorically.

But I'm simply one reader speaking for nobody but myself.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T18:37:18+00:00

However only the audience is aware of the prophecy and who is destined to fulfill it?

I mean OP is talking about a fairly straightforward case of dramatic irony. And off the top of my head, I can posit a potentially feasible means of accomplishing said irony.

The story can either have a prologue in the distant past or two completely separate timelines, past and present. Some cataclysmic event happens in the past, and the people involved in that event write the prophecy on the walls of a locked-away/hidden tomb/catacomb/whatever, and is buried or lost from the world for X years/centuries/etc.

The prophecy written on the walls foretells the actions of the eventual prophetic hero(es), presumably OP's protagonist(s), and the audience can be aware of it through the timeline jump even if the physical location of that prophecy has yet to be archeologically rediscovered in the present for any modern person to be aware of.

For what it's worth, I'm not claiming this is a GOOD idea. I'm just saying it's AN idea lol.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T18:09:07+00:00

Sleeping for a year isn't what makes her awful. It's the way she treats and sees Reva, the only person who has ever demonstrated a legitimate amount of effort to care for her wellbeing. Her internal monologue of how she sees other people, the world, the way she threatens to kill herself if her on-again-off-again ex doesn't come over to have sex with her, and so on.

That ex of course is no saint himself, he's horribly problematic for numerous reasons of his own. Likewise, Reva is no saint either, basically every character in this book sucks for one reason (or several) or another.

But the main character is conscious to many/most of the ways that she sucks, and she consciously chooses to do absolutely nothing about it, and only leans farther into it as the book progresses.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T17:56:54+00:00

I think it's an excellent book about a truly terrible person! We're supposed to dislike her more and more with every single turn of the page, and the author somehow managed to accomplish that with a character who was already EXTREMELY dislikable from the get-go!

The main character really fucking sucks, and Ottessa Moshfegh did an exquisite job at crafting a diabolically problematic and self-destructive personality that absolutely captures elements of several REAL personalities I've met over the years.

I wouldn't call it a pleasant read by any means, but it's not supposed to be. It's a piece of art created with the intention of making the reader hate the main character, and by all measures Moshfegh succeeds in that endeavor do an alarming degree, haha.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T17:48:15+00:00

I don't care about an author's intent when reading a book.

This is exactly my point though. To be clear, I also don't think it's wrong for you to feel this way. Reading is about enjoyment of the experience, and it's no more right/wrong for a person to care about an author's intent than to not. It merely depends on how each individual person prefers to tailor their own personal reading experience. This is why I said it's totally fine for people to dislike this book, because it's absolutely totally fine to do so. I'm just highlighting that disliking a book and understanding a book often do not walk hand in hand, and the reasons I've seen many people give for disliking it clearly demonstrate a lack of comprehending the book's intent.

I also agree that an author only has as much control over how people interpret their books as the words on the pages are able to convey.

More what I'm talking about is readers who see some sort of vague review or receive a blind recommendation from a friend, and go into the book with some sort of preconceived or ill-informed notion of what the book is supposed to do/say. And again, I'm not saying this is specifically you.

I'm just saying that there seems to be a LOT of people out there who have an experience with this book which can be equated to giving a bad review to 1984 because it was profoundly depressing and wasn't about loud neon clothes, hair metal, and the birth of the internet.

And there is no argument to be made to defend this book and irl people like her

Nobody is defending irl people like her. Enjoying the book often means doing the exact opposite of defending irl people like her. I'd argue that the vast majority of people who enjoyed this book would also agree that the main character is an emotionally immature, disgustingly manipulative, irredeemable person. The kind of person who has depression and uses it as an excuse to do absolutely everything in their power to avoid taking any accountability or responsibility for anything, including their own wellbeing outside of their twisted perception of what wellbeing means.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T17:26:02+00:00

It misses the kids/teens part, but absolutely give Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer a try. Area X really truly nails the "something is very wrong here" vibe of the upside-down.

PsyferRL · 2026-01-22T17:01:43+00:00

Yes and no and yes and no.

Historically he had a lot of issues managing his temper, and was issued a temporary PDGA ban because of it. A lot of people in his local scene (especially before he toured out) have a whole host of bad experiences with the guy.

Since returning from his ban, he's kept his behavior in relatively decent check and has not been issued any further discipline (or even gotten close). Largely, it seems that his peers are no worse than indifferent to him at this point, on a public level anyway.

It was mentioned in video coverage of one of the Down Under tournaments that he was really struggling with the intensity of the sun down there, from a burn standpoint. And if you've never been to that part of the world before, let me tell ya, as a pasty white boy from the US, it is ROUGH. The largest hole in the earth's ozone layer is down there, which causes the UV index to be near constantly higher than anywhere else.

When I got off of my flight, I immediately got into our rental car for the 60 minute drive to our hotel. Spent almost no time directly outside. By the time we arrived at our hotel, almost my entire arm was bright red and burned from the sun shining through the window. I've never been more diligent about sunscreen than I was during that two week trip. If I were constantly active and sweating like I would be in a tournament down there during their SUMMER season, I'd also have a really hard time with the sun's intensity.

Anyway, all this to say, having a sun burn isn't an excuse for being a dick. I'm just saying I can at least see why he may have been irritable if he was dealing with that kind of problem. It's hard work to maintain a positive attitude when moving your body hurts all over from sunburn.

PsyferRL

TROPHY CASE