According to the University of Michigan, about 100,000 Americans die from surgical complications from elective surgeries (ie: surgery you can schedule in advance) each year. Earlier this week, August 6th, Dragoneer joined that unfortunate statistic.

Honestly, I don't really have that much to say about the man. I didn't agree with some of his decisions but I didn't really interact with him enough to have a strong feeling for him either way. It's still a crappy and stupidly random way to go out and my condolences to his family.

Still, as  rabbi-tom reminded me in his own recent tribute, Dragoneer helped the fandom grow in ways we would have never dared to imagine when the website was just starting out about twenty years ago now (has it really been that long?) We had a center point where we could gather and interact with other furries all over the world in ways that no site had ever done before. We went from being the weird corner of deviant art to a fandom that rivals the other pillars of nerddom. And though we still have our detractors, most of our detractors have publicly demonstrated that they are more insane then we are.

None of this would have quite happened the way it did without Fur Affinity. And it will be interesting to see what happens now. If the people behind the website had a plan for this, good. If not... twenty years is still a hell of a run for a site especially one with FA's pedigree.