It’s with heavy hearts that we report the passing of Joshua “Sksksksksk222” Colon, a regular user of the SRK forums. An unrelenting Rose player, he was a fixture in her forum for years, making friends easily with his unflappable kindness and dedication to the character. While concrete facts on what happened are still forthcoming, the outpouring of grief is palpable, both in the thread that informed us of his death and on his personal Facebook. sk may have been a good player, but he was an even better person, leaving behind an incredible amount of friends and memories from a life that ended all too shortly. Even those who never met him face to face can attest to his genuine personality, an enduring quality that every one of us should hope to aspire to. Below, you’ll find tributes created in his memory, including artwork eulogizing his life to a touching post from poe22222, another forum regular and, more importantly, a close friend.

Oh my God… just clicked on this thread a few minutes ago, and I am in shock and very sad.

A few memories of our relationship and just thoughts and feelings below…

sk and I played a good bit online dating back a while, and I was really surprised when I met him in person at the that Spring Fighter event down at NYU as I had no idea he lived in the NYC area. I played him in casuals and I thought he was really good, and then when I heard someone address him as “sk” I was like oh shit, well that makes sense. I thought he was just the purist, most genuine guy. If you met sk and talked to him for a minute, you know what I mean. His personality is (was… fuck) not like, to use examples others will know, that of Yipes or Mike Ross or something… but he was just as memorable as someone like those guys to me because I can’t imagine a more valuable – or rare – quality than to know that what you see is what you get with someone… and sk had that quality as much as anybody. Absolutely zero pretense. And I’ll go ahead and add now that he was smart as hell.

Anyway, I thought so much of him as a player and as a potential friend, respected training partner, etc. that a few months ago I asked him via XBL if he would be my partner at a Guard Crush team tourney a couple of days later. He said he would really like to, but he didn’t think he could afford it between the transportation, venue fee, tournament fee, etc. And I almost didn’t offer, not wanting to overstep my boundaries, but I said, “look, I’d really like you to be my partner – I don’t want to show up wondering if I’ll find one/be paired with a scrub/douchebag, and I feel like we would be a great team, so I’d be happy to spot you what you need.” He was so appreciative… really really appreciative and happy to be able to go, and he said he would pay me back as soon as he could. He messaged me I think more than once after the team tourney specifically to tell me he could pay me back that Friday, and as soon as he saw me at Next Level, he reached into his wallet, gave me the money, and thanked me again. I don’t mean to talk about me, but I was just really happy with how he responded to it, and I felt like we had formed what at that point I hoped would be a long friendship.

So, I told him I thought it would be a good and fun idea to run a long set and critique each other’s gameplay the night before the tourney. We did, and had a great and productive time… I was so happy to have a teammate that I knew was taking it seriously and truly wanted to be my *teammate*, not just someone his results are tied to. The next day, he showed up not too long before tournament time, after I’d been there for a few hours… he said he was going to go warm-up, and I resumed focusing on whatever casuals I was into… a little while later, I thought I’d check in with him, and I walked over and I felt pretty guilty when I laughed out loud upon seeing the ~20 game win streak he’d put on some poor guy. That dude got up just completely defeated a minute later when it was time for the tourney.

The gameplay details aren’t important, but basically, we did really well, as individuals and as a team, and I know that I played better myself knowing that he had my back. Objectively speaking, it was the best I’ve ever done in a tournament, and I know that it will always be a great memory of him and of my fighting game career… really, a great memory of my life, if I’m being real. It was an amazing feeling, and it was awesome to share it with him. I was on cloud nine, probably bouncing off the walls and ready to keep the high going in casuals, but not long after the tourney ended he said, seeming completely unphased by it all, “Ok, well good job man, I think I’m going home,” and walked out haha

He got busy with an internship and hadn’t been coming around much, but I last talked to him a couple of weeks ago on MSN… we had some great conversations, and this last one was no different. We barely even talked about gaming – mostly the fact that his internship was becoming a job with better pay and hours, and he said he’d be able to get to Next Level more often. I was excited, and told other people who had asked me about him that we should be seeing him more. They were excited, too. I wasn’t the only person who thought he was a memorable guy. People always perked up when he came up.

Anyway, I’ve written a wall as usual, but this was helpful for me as if I hadn’t been writing it, I probably would have just been working myself into more sadness. I’ll just finish by saying that I thought very, very highly of him. So smart, 100% real and genuine, humble, considerate, and, of course, a bad ass Rose player to top it off…

;(