Let me tell you about James.

James is probably the oldest close childhood friend I had, and probably one of the most influential. I’m pretty sure the first good friend I had that wasn’t a family friend (that is, my parents weren’t first friends of their parents). He introduced me to one of the greatest JRPGs ever made: Golden Sun. I bought a Gameboy advance just to finish the game, and I only ever owned three games on it: Golden Sun, Golden Sun: The Lost Age, and LotR the Two Towers. And yet I still consider that little handheld console to be one of my favorite purchases. It even it still works…barely.

He also introduced me to anime, starting with .hack//sign (still the best ‘stuck in mmo world’ anime, suck it SAO) and Hellsing. He was also a movie aficionado, especially where martial arts and action was concerned. He introduced me to Lethal Weapon, Jet Li, and Equilibrium. We watched Jet Li’s The One multiple times, because it was awesome. His collection of movies, and his movie trivia was unparalleled.

He’d come over, we’d play videogames and chat as nerdy adolescents do. We talked, argued and discussed everything, including girls (which added to my shock when he eventually came out as gay)

When I went to college we went mostly our separate ways, only keeping a minimal amount of contact until Facebook became a big thing (yes, I am old, and as I said, we knew each other from way, way back in the olden days). We reconnected through Facebook, and throughout the years you may have seen a few of our many jokes, discussions, debates, and arguments on the old wall, ranging from objectivity in art, to religion, to the “is Eragon\Twilight\etc” any good (he said yes, I said no) as stories.

In the past few years Discord became the hot new communications channel for nerds like us, and he dropped off Facebook. I eventually found my way onto his Discord server that was set up for his family and friends. That’s the latest place we’d hang out and post the memes, latest music interests, have discussions, etc. as one does on discord servers. Which finally brings us to the present.

On Saturday at 7pm, James killed himself.