#dragoneer

He died because the medical industry in the US refused to help. He was murdered in a million little ways, with a million automated systems.

He was on bluesky no more than five hours ago, now he's gone.

Dragoneer ran FurAffinity, which is more or less the furry art site. It looks like its' from the early aughts, has no native pdf support, and has zero discoverability or algorithmic function. It's home to me, it's always been home.

No matter how often I moved or how often my life radically changed, there was FA. I met my husband on the forums. Through the majority of its' life, Dragoneer kept it running. He never sold us out, never tried to keep up with trends. It's a community.

And there is something bitter about losing someone who was key to keeping one of the relics of the internet before corporations took over.

We have our home, but it's lost its' keeper.

Dragoneer died of complications from a lung infection. His last social media posts detail a frustrating ordeal with his insurance and have ignited criticisms of the US healthcare system.

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Because I remember how long I had to wait for surgery even after they'd confirmed my cancer diagnosis, wondering why they couldn't just get it done, since, ya know... the whole deal with cancer is that it gets worse the longer you leave it alone...

and just how hard it is to get scheduled to see a doctor in general. My endocrinologist is always fully booked months in advance. It is literally impossible to reschedule with her unless I want to wait two months. I've wondered before why there aren't enough other specialists locally to give her (and her patients) some breathing room.

I won't pretend for a second that FA was anything like an unalloyed good, but it's been a solid foundational furry website for nearly twenty years now. that's important.

ᵃʳᵗ ᵇʸ ˢⁱˡᵛᵉʳᶠᵒˣ⁵²¹³ ᵒⁿ ᵈᵉᵛⁱᵃⁿᵗᵃʳᵗ

Dragoneer is dead and I'm a little fucked up about it.

When I was a kid and thumbing my way through the furry community in the early-mid 2000s, I genuinely thought his fursona was public domain. I'd see it everywhere I went and drawn by so many different people. I suppose that goes to show how important of a figure he was.

We didn't know each other and never interacted personally, and I'm not writing this to be a eulogy. It would be wildly inappropriate to write such a document. What I can write about is that I'm part of the furry community because of FurAffinity. From when I was I kid absent mindedly browsing the site, to being a closeted teenage furry peeking in on it like it was a precious secret, to now as a out and proud queer adult and regular user of the site, it has been my omnipresent connection to the furry community.

I say furry community instead of furry fandom because I think the word fandom undersells what it means to us as a collective. I stopped lurking in the community maybe a year and a half ago, and in that time I have made lord only knows how many genuine friendships in that short span of time. When I had my bottom surgery and was in horrid pain during recovery, my furry friends were my most reliable support network outside of my husband, my doctors and my therapist. Heck, a friendship I've already had for a decade now is becoming stronger in part because we have this community in common.

You don't get this from other "fandoms." Sneakerheads aren't this overwhelming queer, weebs don't have community leaders the same way we do, and Star Wars nerds are more likely to question if you're a "true fan" than they are to celebrate with you. Furries are unique in how they build space for each other, and how they make time to listen to and support each other. I challenge you to find a self-described Jedi forum that treats its members with this level of dignity

Furries spaces are overwhelming kind and patient. Proclaiming yourself to be a proud furry gets you a predictable amount of cringing stares from folks outside of our spaces, but what other language is there is to sum up how we feel about ourselves? I scarcely feel more welcomed and included in this community than I do anywhere else, and for this era of our community we have Dragoneer to thank for giving us perhaps the most recognizable and accessible space for furries to connect with each other that we've ever had.

This community has warmth and kindness and empathy worth celebrating, and in all the words I've used in this mini-essay I still don't think I've properly expressed what it means to me that I've found a home here. Truthfully, I don't know that I can. I'm just happy to have a place here with all of you.