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From iNcontroL’s Twitter:
To offer some solace in this time of grief: We've learned that Geoff passed quickly and painlessly from a blood clot in his lungs. He was with friends. He always urged and led us by example to take care of ourselves to the best of our ability. Remember to do that for him today. |
Haven't followed Starcraft for a long time, but over the years I've tried to check in with the big names from the time - like iNcontroL. I always had a kick of nostalgia when I saw his stream or casting something. His content for sure brought some joy to my life.
As upset as hearing this has made me though, I know it's indescribably worse for his family and friends.
Giving my thoughts and prayers to everyone whose heart's been shattered by this loss. Take care and lean on each other during this time.
RIP Geoff.
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Man... I've been around the SC scene since the beginning and IncontroL has been such a huge part of the scene for a long time. I remember he used to be a powerlifter, as someone who competes in that sport I know how hard it can be on the body, especially with the drive to be the best and strongest. RIP man.
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I still can't believe iNcontroL is dead...part of me doesn't want to believe it. It was so sudden and so unexpected that it's proving difficult for me to come to terms with. I haven't watched Day9's remembrance video yet because I don't think I can bear the pain...
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I think this is the first time where technology really transcends the way we see people. Much like many people in this thread, I never met Geoff yet I see him as a close friend and/or brother. For instance, I played him on ladder many times and bantered back and forth about being a talented English major in our 30s but we both went into different careers.
To those people who have met Geoff and interacted with him I appreciate everyone putting their lives on display. You know who you are and made him real to us; like we were part of your crowd. Having a beer at the same time as you during HSC or pointing out funny/absurd situations when you see it. It made us feel connected.
I won't say "RIP" because your legacy lives on. After this incident, my wife encouraged me to attend Cheeseadelphia since I live close to the area. After 20 years of SC I owe it to him to go to a LAN. His death is still impacting our lives. See you on the other side...eventually.
PS: Nathanias you guys had a great cadence to your casting, top level. This coming from a guy banned from your channel (I'm sure I deserved it).
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On July 26 2019 13:43 Qwyn wrote: I still can't believe iNcontroL is dead...part of me doesn't want to believe it. It was so sudden and so unexpected that it's proving difficult for me to come to terms with. I haven't watched Day9's remembrance video yet because I don't think I can bear the pain... You should watch it. It hurts, but helps a lot.
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Just devastating. He was such a fun, warm and genuine personality who shone in anything he was involved with. I still remember his BW coaching from 10 years ago, full of patience wit and positivity. RIP man, this timeline blows
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a little confused. they tweeted out on his account that he passed away quickly and painlessly after describing a pulmonary embolism. from what I know, that is extremely painful and comparable to a heart attack. can someone with a better medical background explain how it could have been painless?
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On July 27 2019 00:02 fefil wrote: a little confused. they tweeted out on his account that he passed away quickly and painlessly after describing a pulmonary embolism. from what I know, that is extremely painful and comparable to a heart attack. can someone with a better medical background explain how it could have been painless?
i don´t have a medical background but i m pretty sure there s a bunch of anaesthetics that do the trick, to the point you literally can´t feel anything.
i think the more difficult part of palliative medicine is to mentaly prepare the patient and his or her relatives for what is about to happen. And to give them the strengh to keep the disruptive effects the death of a loved ones can have on ones personal and professional life to an acceptable minimum.
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On July 27 2019 00:49 alpenrahm wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2019 00:02 fefil wrote: a little confused. they tweeted out on his account that he passed away quickly and painlessly after describing a pulmonary embolism. from what I know, that is extremely painful and comparable to a heart attack. can someone with a better medical background explain how it could have been painless? i don´t have a medical background but i m pretty sure there s a bunch of anaesthetics that do the trick, to the point you literally can´t feel anything. i think the more difficult part of palliative medicine is to mentaly prepare the patient and his or her relatives for what is about to happen. And to give them the strengh to keep the disruptive effects the death of a loved ones can have on ones personal and professional life to an acceptable minimum.
He was with friends and died while the ambulance was on the way, not in the hospital.
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On July 27 2019 00:56 NinjaNight wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2019 00:49 alpenrahm wrote:On July 27 2019 00:02 fefil wrote: a little confused. they tweeted out on his account that he passed away quickly and painlessly after describing a pulmonary embolism. from what I know, that is extremely painful and comparable to a heart attack. can someone with a better medical background explain how it could have been painless? i don´t have a medical background but i m pretty sure there s a bunch of anaesthetics that do the trick, to the point you literally can´t feel anything. i think the more difficult part of palliative medicine is to mentaly prepare the patient and his or her relatives for what is about to happen. And to give them the strengh to keep the disruptive effects the death of a loved ones can have on ones personal and professional life to an acceptable minimum. He was with friends and died while the ambulance was on the way, not in the hospital.
That´s bad.
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On July 27 2019 00:02 fefil wrote: a little confused. they tweeted out on his account that he passed away quickly and painlessly after describing a pulmonary embolism. from what I know, that is extremely painful and comparable to a heart attack. can someone with a better medical background explain how it could have been painless?
PEs do not always show symptoms. Many are completely asymptomatic; that's why they're so scary. In either case they're not as painful as a heart attack. Talking about this makes me uncomfortable, but if he was with friends they probably reported that he suddenly complained of being out of breath and then he probably just went to sleep due to lack of oxygen.
Note that this is different from suffocating; he was able to breathe, but he wasn't getting oxygen out of the air because his lungs were blocked by a clot.
What we should all take away from this? Shortness of breath is a serious symptom. Unless you have a cold, allergies, or asthma, or anxiety, you need to really consider going to the ER. Many conditions that affect your lungs and heart (including a heart attack) won't always be painful. But shortness of breath is a symptom of all of those conditions.
We think of these things as being painful, but they don't always cause pain. You can speculate as to what happened here, but I'm going to go with the report as given by the people who were there.
Writing this all out was surprisingly difficult; I hope it helps with your confusion.
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I wrote this over the course of the last few days. I wasn't sure if I should make a separate post because it's rather long, but seeing how this thread has drawn many to grieve, I figured that it might better reach people here. I hope this helps people feel validated and that it helps them heal, as it was healing for me to write it:
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It has been several days now since the StarCraft community was shocked with the news of Geoff’s untimely passing, and for many of us it seems like any moment now we will wake up from this nightmare, or maybe Geoff will appear from behind the curtains and laugh his hearty laugh for fooling all of us. Yet the minutes tick on, they drag into hours, and the truth sinks steadily in like a cold knife. No matter how much you cry, how unfair it is to him and the people that came to depend on his radiance, no matter how little sense it makes, Geoff “iNcontroL” Robinson is gone.
Perhaps one of the most difficult things to have to witness is the damage that Geoff’s passing has done to our beloved community leaders. The heartbreak has been palpable. A casual observer needn’t look far to see how much he meant to so many people. Yet, despite all the pain and sadness, one theme remains consistent. One word appears over and over in all posts, mentioned in all streams, and felt in the hearts of SCII fans and participants alike: Family.
StarCraft doesn’t necessarily appeal to the most popular kids in high school, it doesn’t often draw in star athletes or elite businessmen. Many of us are drawn to StarCraft because we have felt or made to feel like outcasts in our respective social-spheres. Video games, for a lot of us, provide a place where we are welcome, a place where we can succeed, and most impactfully, a place to make friends. For me, StarCraft has always provided that, and even now that I am in my 30s it remains a place I still quietly call home. It started as something I enjoyed with my closest friend after he had moved far away when we were very young. It allowed us to remain friends that interacted every day in the virtual common area known as Battle.net. It introduced me to new friendships that have blossomed into irreplaceable relationships. I will never forget the day that Blizzard announced the sequel, how the hairs on my neck stood up and my voice cracked with glee. I was going through a particularly difficult period in my life and I remember feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time. It has brought me love, laughter, anger, and taught me in many ways how to be self-reflective. The game has without a doubt enriched my life and, although that may sound silly to some, I know that I am not alone.
As fans, we understand that StarCraft is unique within the esports realm for a variety of reasons. As one Team Liquid poster put it, it starts with a “good luck, have fun” at the beginning of every game, and ends with a “gg” at the end, a true tradition since the days of Brood War. It is also arguably the very reason esports exists at all. Nowadays, however, SCII really isn’t the most popular, nor the most lucrative esport on the market. Compared to the various other games that draw larger crowds, StarCraft is a very difficult game to understand, play, and play well. It’s virtually the sole real-time strategy game still played competitively. But these elements are what give the game its identity. Though our community is relatively small, you will find very few people as passionate or as proud as the people that love and play StarCraft. Because of all of this, we have a much tighter bond then other fanbases, and we’ve come to recognize each other as family. This is most evident through the downpour of emotions initiated by the loss of one of our community’s greatest leaders.
Like many of you here, I did not have a personal relationship with Geoff. Although I’ve seen him in person numerous times throughout my many trips to BlizzCon over the years, I regretfully never approached him to express my appreciation for his contributions to the esports community. But, like most of us, I have been watching Geoff and his peers play and curate StarCraft II for nearly a decade. Over the years we all have become attached to his banter, his unrelenting jovial attitude, his intelligent and articulate analytical commentary, and most importantly his infectious sense of humor. We’ve become included on the inside jokes and participated in the creation of new memories through many events and tournaments. I’ll always remember those trying days of NASL, and the infamous “Artosis pylon” game, and how Artosis tried, and to this day still tries (unsuccessfully), to re-coin it as an iNcontroL pylon. Somehow, someway, we were all able to connect with each other over our shared love of SCII esports and the colorful cast of characters that make it possible. And as a result, we’ve all felt the impact of his loss as if it were one of our closest friends. That’s because Geoff had an amazing ability to make us all feel like we were his closest friends, even from thousands of miles away, across time zones and language barriers.
Geoff’s love of this game and the people that surround it is something we all identify with. I didn’t realize how emotionally invested in StarCraft I really was until I learned of his passing. It really feels like the loss of a family member and seeing how many others feel similarly is truly as validating as it is astonishing. There are no words in my feeble English vernacular to express my gratitude to his close friends that chose to stream shortly after the news broke. It takes unfathomable courage to bare that kind of emotion to many thousands of viewers, and to many of us its value is priceless. I experience the same shortage of words in attempting to express my deepest condolences for those who knew him personally as a friend or family member. It is all we can do to express to you that to some degree, we understand, and that we share the pain of a great loss. For years we have watched him grow and encourage others to grow with him. For years we’ve shared countless hours of our lives with his voice in our headsets. For years he’s made us think a little differently about the game, made us want to be better or more involved in the community, and made us laugh until we’ve cried. Today we are crying for a different reason, but often the tears of sadness stem from the same kind of love as the tears of joy. We loved you, Geoff, and we always, always will.
The StarCraft community and, moreover, the world has lost a great human being. Though we will never make any sense of why it happened, we will always be reminded of his amazing existence when we look within ourselves and see a void we could never replace. We were absolutely blessed to have had him, in any capacity, as a friend. He was a genuine, compassionate warrior-nerd who brought laughter into every room he ever entered. The world will never know another like him.
Rest in Peace Geoff Robinson.
En Taro iNcontroL.
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On July 27 2019 01:49 spectreusmc wrote:
There are no words in my feeble English vernacular to express my gratitude to his close friends that chose to stream shortly after the news broke. It takes unfathomable courage to bare that kind of emotion to many thousands of viewers, and to many of us its value is priceless.
I've been reading everything all week and I never even heard about this. Where was this stream? Do you have a link/vod?
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On July 27 2019 03:38 NinjaNight wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2019 01:49 spectreusmc wrote:
There are no words in my feeble English vernacular to express my gratitude to his close friends that chose to stream shortly after the news broke. It takes unfathomable courage to bare that kind of emotion to many thousands of viewers, and to many of us its value is priceless.
I've been reading everything all week and I never even heard about this. Where was this stream? Do you have a link/vod?
I meant Day9s stream mostly, and DeMusliM streamed a day or two after and it was pretty damn emotional.
Link to Day9's VOD: www.twitch.tv
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On July 27 2019 05:28 spectreusmc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 27 2019 03:38 NinjaNight wrote:On July 27 2019 01:49 spectreusmc wrote:
There are no words in my feeble English vernacular to express my gratitude to his close friends that chose to stream shortly after the news broke. It takes unfathomable courage to bare that kind of emotion to many thousands of viewers, and to many of us its value is priceless.
I've been reading everything all week and I never even heard about this. Where was this stream? Do you have a link/vod? I meant Day9s stream mostly, and DeMusliM streamed a day or two after and it was pretty damn emotional. Link to Day9's VOD: www.twitch.tv
Oh, I thought you meant the warhammer 40k friends who were with him when he was dying.
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Your memory lives on Geoff. Rest in peace.
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Watching Day9's iNc tribute stream was devastating....I've never seen Day9 so emotional before, I know that took a lot of strength from you Day9, you're a solid dude.
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To Geoff for the ages, you are a GIANT of us, an extension. For fun stream of consciousness comedy and insightful dialogue within the boundaries of our passion of starcraft infinitium.
WE LOVE YOU, the royal we.... F all together and together...
Honest humane wonderful iNcontrol a STATUE will be made of internet comments toward you. Beloved Geoff, curtain called to soon. Novae shined from the world. It will be the same but different without you.
<3
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Rest in Peace Geoff. Truly shocking news, you were a great gift to the BW Community. You will live on in our hearts forever <3
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