So I like to think I typically have a pretty damn good handle on English. I can usually say what I mean to say in a way that's easy to understand. Emotionally, though? I struggle with that. So forgive me if this ends up sounding awkward or odd, but I've been trying to figure out how to say this since January.

locosaltinc. . . Loco was the best friend I've ever had. Maybe even ever will, I can't really say. I've never felt so close to someone before, never felt like someone understood me so much. But it was never a romantic feeling - more like another big sister (one who doesn't tease me so relentlessly as the ones I have, lol).

When I first met her, I was a pretty damn self conscious & shy fellow. I never really left my bubble, my shell I'd built of comfort. I followed her art, and saw a journal that she was looking for folks to play Ark: Survival Evolved with. I didn't actually have the game - but, she seemed so friendly & excited to make friends in the journal, I decided I'd push out of my bubble for once.

I bought the game then & there, and sent her a message saying I'd decided to get the game on her word of it, and was hoping she'd show me the ropes.

It didn't take long for her to pull me into the game, and there I started to hang & chat with her & another friend she had in the game. The three of us became insepperable - almost every night we'd hop in a voice call, chat, and game with each other. I can say with certainty those couple of years have been some of the brightest, and shortest ones of my similarly short life so far.

Sometime into that friendship, when I had my first anxiety attacks, she was there for me, and helped talk me out of them while giving me tricks she used herself to calm down. Since then, those tricks have helped keep me from having more attacks.

Loco was my rock. My unshakable pillar I could always put my back to to weather the storms. At the same time, when I could see the pillar weathering down, I'd do my damnedest with what little I could offer to keep it from crumbling.

So when she started to get sick, and we started gaming less, chatting less, and I started hearing her voice & bright laugh less. . . things started to darken for me again. But I wanted to be there for her when she got back, so I kept on pushing through the storms around me.

The rollercoaster of her recovering, then getting even worse than before. . . I've never felt so helpless. The anxiety attacks started coming back, and I started to fall into my bubble again. All I could do was trust that the strength I'd come to associate her with would keep her alive & kick the shitstorm she'd been thrown.

When I heard she'd passed. . . I broke. Every night for weeks, I cried. I fucking bawled my eyes out into my pillow until I could only lay there staring into space, too worn out to even sleep. The tears have slowed down now. It's only every so often they quietly roll down my cheeks as I reminisce about the fun I was so, so, so lucky to share with her.

Locobrought so much colour to my world. She built my self confidence up, taught me a few things about responsibility (though I have a long way to go with that still). She was my best friend, my role model, and in a way my hero for how much pain she weathered but never buckled under.

Everything has felt a little more grey since she passed. But I push on. I live as much for her as I do for myself. I could never entertain the thought of giving in to that grey.

I'm also lucky to call her partner, dm, a dear friend. He's one of the best people I've ever come to know, and was absolutely one of the best things, if not the best thing, to happen to her. When she met him, she only got happier & brighter as a person. Her already infectious laughter grew warmer, and I would be content to sit in call with her just to hear her gush about him.

With her passing, he then pulled all of us who called her a friend or looked up to her together to mourn & celebrate her. He's helped me pull from my bubble again, and I know it's exactly what she would have wanted.

I knew within a couple of days of her passing that there would never be a day I didn't think of her. But I didn't want to chance it anyway, and so, I got this tattoo. Every day I see her trademark & name on my wrist, and it calms me, makes me glad I took that jump to get Ark & play with her (to those who didn't know her, she was a digital artist, and the symbol at the top of the tattoo was her signature).

Rest well, Loco. You will absolutely, never, ever be forgotten by me.