Hey everybody. It’s Tuesday.

Today is a weird day.

I was looking forward to the Bombcast; last week’s episode was great, but… I missed Ryan. I always miss Ryan on the show when he’s not there. I am fond of his laugh, his raunch, his appreciation for the stupid and hilarious.

He was there for me every Tuesday(ish). He will never be again.

That fucking sucks. There are a lot of other reasons Ryan’s death sucks, chief among them that Ryan is dead, now, and fuck that. It’s not fair. He was so young; he was my age, and I still get carded sometimes. He was five days married to a woman who made a Kardashian joke on Twitter yesterday, because she’s amazing. He leaves behind a whole bunch of people who knew him personally, and miss him in a way that would be gross to compare my feeling of loss to.

I have this sense that my grief is inappropriate. I didn’t know the man. The personal relationship I have with him – with everyone I follow and listen to and consume of – is one way. It’s voyeuristic. To miss him, to be here expressing this now, like what I have to say matters, feels disturbingly selfish, especially when stacked against the tangible wall of grief that the crew, his family and friends, and especially his wife are feeling. Like, fuck you buddy. You didn’t lose a friend, a son, a love. You lost a voice that you liked to listen to. Get a grip and shut up.

But Giant Bomb isn’t just about games or gamers; it’s about these gamers. It is a cult of personality, in a way, and there is something almost prurient about the interest we have in their lives. And the thing of it is, they share their lives with us, willingly – we aren’t peeping. We’re invited. So if this is weird it’s your fucking fault, Ryan, because you let me, us, everyone, in. I didn’t realize how much of a privilege it has been.

Giant Bomb is as much a reality show about the duders as it is a site about games – except, unlike every reality show, it’s honest. And as much as I struggle with what is ‘appropriate’ to express, I think best way to honor what this site, what Ryan, means to me is to be honest back. Even if it doesn’t matter. Even if this is never read. I’m writing it and posting it because you can’t bring me something I look forward to every week and then fucking die on me and the world gets off without ever knowing how much it meant to me.

I am sad and angry and grateful. These are my feelsballs; watch me juggle. I can’t believe he’s gone. I, uglily (not a word, fuck you), want to know exactly what happened, because there can be no satisfying answer as to why he died, so I want to get fucking angry at the how; I want to blame him so I can put off accepting this. I watched the Harmonix live stream wake yesterday, and laughed and laughed and laughed. He was such a funny guy. He brought me a ton of joy. He made my life better in small, significant ways.

Jeff does, too. And Brad and Vinny and Patrick. And Drew. Alexis. Dave and Alex. Everyone who comes in and out of this site, all the devs who show up and share in the warmth and honesty that this site represents.

We bring these people with us. We carry them in our ears and they worm their way down into our hearts because they don’t bullshit us about who they are. There are few things as honest as flushing a cake down a toilet. I am profoundly grateful that these guys do what they do, and I get to witness it. I am thankful for every time Ryan made me think or laugh. He did a hard job well, was loved by many in many ways, touched a lot of lives and will be missed terribly; beyond the sense of tragedy, at the end, any of us would be lucky to say the same.

It’s still Tuesday. How dare it be so rudely Tuesday.

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