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An email I sent to Giantbomb

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Dan's character is Ric Flair. He's just seeing how long he can keep it up before one of the others realizes it.

Pretty sure Rorie already recognized it, and I think maybe Danny too.

I watched that first video before seeing the mailbag where he said he was gonna do that. Took like 2 of his questions to make me realize what he was doing.

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I imagine all of them realized what he was doing immediately and they just want to see who blinks first.

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I really want to go back and watch some videos from early Giant Bomb before I started watching, but man seeing Ryan still hurts a bit.

 

 

I know what you mean, I felt like I got somethign caught in my throat when I watched the video.

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I'm mostly good about seeing/hearing Ryan in stuff, except in those rare instances where they accidentally foreshadow his death. There's a Bombcast where Jeff talks about switching from his old family doctor to Ryan's doctor where he jokingly justifies his decision by saying "well, Ryan's not dead yet, so..."

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Quick aside: I want to do a survey of how many sentences Jeff begins with "it's one of those things where..." I'm pretty sure it'd be a good 20-30%, easy.

 

Edit: Sorry to anyone who can't unhear this now.

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I haven't noticed that, but there was a time when I'd noticed how much Jeff used "at the end of the day" and it was beginning to drive me nuts. He seems to use it less now, thankfully.

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I'm mostly good about seeing/hearing Ryan in stuff, except in those rare instances where they accidentally foreshadow his death. There's a Bombcast where Jeff talks about switching from his old family doctor to Ryan's doctor where he jokingly justifies his decision by saying "well, Ryan's not dead yet, so..."

 

I think about his last bombcast way, way more than is probably healthy for a guy who just listens to podcasts from people across the country.

 

It's incredible to me how much Giant Bomb has helped me align my moral compass over the past 4 years or so. I actually mean that in a good way. Giant Bomb has helped me cope with things at times, but it's also helped me heal and grow in ways that were likely never intended.

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To chime in on the Ryan talk, I got married literally two and a half weeks before he passed away.  That only added to the shock since I was able to relate to the highs of just having a wedding and being on a honeymoon.  I found out the news at the in-laws and trying to even describe why it was so impactful was beyond my ability.  But for a group of guys I listen/watch nearly daily and get so much enjoyment out of it really does feel like losing an extremely close friend.

 

But yea, when Jeff answered the Danswers question about loss I wasn't sure whether to be happy or feel a little cold about how he dealt with loss.  I know between his Dad and Ryan alone he's had more than his share of emotional baggage in the last few years.  Hopefully the company doesn't have to deal with any more tragedy for a long, long time.

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Feeling genuine grief at Ryan's death was a very strange moment for me. I've never been a person who is overly affected by celebrity deaths, for example - even Robin Williams', who played characters I grew up with, didn't necessarily faze me. I find it sad, of course, and I regret the loss of talent and the joy they might bring to the world, and I feel sympathy for their loved ones, but it doesn't hurt me.

 

On the other hand, Ryan's death hit me harder than, for example, hearing of the death of someone I used to know but perhaps am not close to now. I can't really compare the feeling to anything better than that, because on the one hand he was a big part of my life and on the other he wasn't. I heard his voice at least once a week, often more, and I saw his face every few weeks at least. He was a regular part of my life. On the other hand, I never met him. There isn't really a good analogy for that because it's not a category of relationship that people generally define.

 

Somehow the pretty straight up and personal way the Giant Bomb crew relates to its audience made some part of my mind think of Ryan as almost a friend, someone I had effectively been in friendly group discussions with dozens of times (albeit I was silent). There was a little extra sting in the tail because he once took the time to give me some good advice when I came to the GB crew for help with figuring out a job situation, but mostly I think it was simply the way we slowly let these guys into our lives over the course of hundreds of Giant Bombcasts and videos.

 

When Ryan died, it hurt. It surprised me, and I couldn't really explain it to anyone else save by saying "someone I sort of knew died", but it genuinely hurt. I still kind of miss him, despite never really knowing him to begin with.

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I suspect a lot of it has to do with a combination of Ryan's presence and the intimacy of GB's stuff. You always felt Ryan as much as you heard or saw him, he was always the biggest presence in the room. At the same time, it's way easier to connect with him than someone like Robin Williams because there's much less of a wall between you. Ryan is just a dude behind a microphone or a camera speaking his mind, and he just happened to have a gift for projecting himself across the airwaves (or, uhh... internet waves).

 

I haven't noticed that, but there was a time when I'd noticed how much Jeff used "at the end of the day" and it was beginning to drive me nuts. He seems to use it less now, thankfully.

 

I keep hearing these sentence mortar type phrases out of GB people now that I'm watching frequently again and can't unhear them. Couple more I just remembered - Dan inserting "to where" into every other sentence, same with Patrick and "in which." (Noticed Pats before he left but I still watch his video stuff.)

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The loss of a guy like Ryan hits hard because of the personal nature of podcasts.  You're probably not listening to them with other people around and the stream of consciousness makes it more they're speaking just to you rather than an audience.  Plus what you're hearing is them and not a character for the most part (there may be times they exaggerate for entertainment's sake).  With someone like Robin Williams, you miss the characters he plays but you didn't really get to know "him" so there's not as much of a personal connection.  It doesn't mean the loss isn't sad, it just doesn't hit as hard.

 

All that aside, one of the biggest things I miss about Ryan is that no one (and I mean NO ONE) pulled off being a "lovable asshole" as well as he did.

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I miss that he was always 100% honest in his reactions to things, and that both sides of that reaction were hilarious. Someone cracks a terrible joke, he gives that resigned "goddamnit... uggggghhhhhhh." Like you could feel his dissatisfaction. On the other side of the coin, he had the best, most infectious laugh. Legitimately my favourite laugh out of anyone (edit - oh man, faux pas). Including

.

 

I was looking for something completely different but here's this anyway because it's great.

 

 

Edit: Brad losing it is amazing too.

 

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The day that Ryan died I went out to a birthday party for a friend of my girlfriend. I knew no one there, but was wearing my Lincoln Force shirt. A guy came up to me, raised his glass, and said "Ryan Davis." and we toasted. The two of us are now good friends.

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Dan's character is Ric Flair. He's just seeing how long he can keep it up before one of the others realizes it.

I got that he was going for some wrestling thing, but I don't know wrestling well enough to know who it is. Anyway, it seems like he's going to make it work within the game, but maybe I'm being too credulous.

Pretty sure Rorie already recognized it, and I think maybe Danny too.

Didn't Danny ask him if he was some other wrestler? A current one. John Cena or something.

Quick aside: I want to do a survey of how many sentences Jeff begins with "it's one of those things where..." I'm pretty sure it'd be a good 20-30%, easy.

Tested dot com's Will Smith says "here's the thing" way too often. And Adam Savage is rather too fond of the word "inculcated". But those matters are of no concern to the Giant Bomb thread.

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Didn't Danny ask him if he was some other wrestler? A current one. John Cena or something.

 

Yeah, he did, but he had this smile on his face while he was asking that made me think he was needling Dan.  Like, he knew it wasn't John Cena, but thought it'd be way funnier if he just kept insisting it was.

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Drew Scanlon's sour Dan related grapes at the end of his streaming setup video was p funny.

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To use the wrestling lingo so beloved by the Bombcrew, I'm really enjoying Drew's heel turn. First he totally snapped during the last Mario Party, now he throw some jabs at Dan at the behind-the-scenes video. There's something enjoyable in seeing a genuinely nice person lose it.

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They wouldn't be having this problem if they'd hired Maddy Myers

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Yeah but it'd be hella awkward when her and Mary Kish both turned up to UPF in zero suits.

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To use the wrestling lingo so beloved by the Bombcrew, I'm really enjoying Drew's heel turn. First he totally snapped during the last Mario Party, now he throw some jabs at Dan at the behind-the-scenes video. There's something enjoyable in seeing a genuinely nice person lose it.

 

The best thing about recent Drew is that he'd scowl at you for calling that a heel turn.

 

I can't at all remember what video it was, but there's something similar I remember from one of the many times Tetris Battle Gaiden has showed up on a livestream.  I don't remember the exact circumstances, but something about the stress of TBG got to Patrick and he said to Will Smith something like "Not that easy, is it motherfucker?"  I'm thinking it was Brad kicking everyone's ass, Will Smith saying he could do better, and then he was getting stomped too.

 

It's kinda driving me nuts that I can't remember what that's from, and google seems to be of no help.

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I enjoy that Dan and Drew seem like they have a burgeoning friendship.  There are a few occasions when some of quick look combinations feel like two people "working" but between Metal Gear Scanlon and the abundance of other games played together it really works well with those two.  And it allows Drew to show his personality as opposed to something like that recent Demo Derby where Jeff was added in and Drew is mostly the third wheel.

 

People thinking Brad and Dan hate each other is also pretty funny.

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I greatly enjoy when Drew snaps and cries out a defiant "NO!". Example: Demo Derby

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People thinking Brad and Dan hate each other is also pretty funny.

 

Why is that funny? The way they interact with other often can give that impression.

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Edit: crap, I meant to post to the other thread. Can we plz let this one die?

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