Remembering Tugrik (1970-2025)
"My heart has joined the Thousand, for my friend stopped running today." --K'has, quoting Richard Adams, Watership Down
It is with heavy heart that we must report the passing of Tugrik d'Itichi, aka Tug, real name Tori (or Tor) Amundson, a much-respected figure from the early years of the fandom.
[Editor's note: Much of this was gathered from things said at the memorial service held on FurryMUCK, from social media, from people who responded to my inquiries, and with the help of the wizards on FM. Thank you all for sharing your memories.]
Tugrik was born on July 14, 1970. During the 1980s, his late teenage years were spent in the area of Kalamazoo, Michigan. He was a computer nerd, exploring BBSes and soon the early Internet. Along the way, he found Furry fandom and MUDs. He was an early member of FurryMUCK, and became one of its wizards (an admin/moderator) in the Spring of 1991.
Tug's online character was a large, four-legged blue creature incorporating aspects of dragons and equines, with hands that could serve as hooves. It was unique, personal, and a species he'd developed over the years: the Monoceri. You can read what he wrote about them on their info page.
Tugrik's ref sheet, by @Airukitsu (click to enlarge)
Matching his online self, in real life Tugrik was a huge person. Even if obesity hadn't been part of it, he was tall and stocky to begin with. FurryMUCK admin Drew compared him to Stoick, Hiccup's father from How To Train Your Dragon. Though his physical stature required adjustments to his living style, he adapted and accepted himself as he was. Kaliffio recalled that artist Phil Foglio, upon seeing Tugrik pass by, realized that Tug looked like one of the Hoffmanite characters from his Buck Godot comic and shouted out "Stop! I need to draw you!"
In the summer of 1992, Tugrik organized a great multi-day birthday party for his friend Hatch. At the time, large furmeets were a rare event outside of California, and something like 30 furry fans attended what became known as CedarCon. We first gathered at Tug's family's place in Michigan, then drove to Cedar Point amusement park in Sandusky, Ohio. People came from as far as California, Florida, Canada, and there was even someone from Britain who happened to be visiting. Tugrik was wonderfully warm and welcoming, something that came easily to him. Wherever he went, online or in person, the friends he attracted felt like communities.
As with many people in information technology, Tug gravitated to California in the early 1990s. An early home of his was the Voops-n-Lupes household in the San Jose area, and in the late 1990s he moved into his own place with his friend and collaborator Revar. They remained roommates for the many years that followed. Tugrik certainly wasn't the only person who helped make the Bay Area and FurryMUCK a welcoming environment to people in the fandom, but it also wouldn't have been the same without him.
Outside of furry fandom, Tug was primarily employed as a contractor in network engineering / architecture, sometimes for large corporate projects. He believed strongly in user privacy and security. If you have a LinkedIn account, you can see his resume, which included working with Netflix during their transition from DVD rentals to streaming services.
One of his biggest passions was what become known as Maker culture. Tugrik loved to create, make, program and build. He attended Burning Man for several years - one of his projects was a laser that would point into the night sky to point out passing satellites, as their solar panels reflected the sun. Or he'd bring his more whimsical Hippo cart.
At his online memorial, Revar said, "He built one of the very first WiFi to cellular hotspots, and a bit of his code is in pretty much all the hotspots built since." This was the Stompbox, that made it into volume 3 of Make Magazine (pages 60-67; you may have to scroll down or wait to click through an ad). Or in Todd Knarr's words, "If you have a Wi-Fi hotspot with cell backhaul? He built the first one for Burning Man. You like how well GPS works on your phone? He was a key part of the AGPS installs that allow that."
For a couple of years in the 2010s, Tugrik rented out a workshop space where he and his friends could do projects, that they called Monoceros Media. Wood and metal work, 3D printing, etched circuit boards, large-format color printing, laser cutting and engraving... If you attended furry cons during this time, there was a good chance you might have seen badges, tags or awards that had been made in his shop. He was also a keen photographer, and for several years ran the fursuit photo booth at Further Confusion. Then of course there was the Nuka-Cola vending machine. (Give the images some time to load.)
Tugrik pursued his hobbies with great enthusiasm, and this passion was infectious, encouraging people around him to try new things. Chip Unicorn said, "He enjoyed life to the fullest, sought out what he wanted with laser-like focus, and went for that." Drew said, "Meeting Tugrik was an exercise in watching someone who pointed themselves in a direction, and turned all the jets on. [He] did things with full effort, regardless if it was work, hobbies, or play." And he had so many interests! Photography, road trips, motorcycles, amateur radio, computers and networking, audio equipment, cooking and barbecuing, flying drones, and much besides. He travelled to Japan. He liked tiki drinks. He loved thunderstorms.
Tugrik was also generous, from little things to big things. He took care of a friend's cats and would surprise people with gifts. When he got his own place in San Jose, he had a spare room that he offered to a succession of friends who had moved to the Bay area, while trying to get settled. He ran a furry node on FidoNet. In 1999 he took on the responsibility of running the server for FurryMUCK. He hosted domains for people, such as Revar's Belfry WebComics Index and Mark Stanley's Freefall web comic.
There was perhaps another side to Tugrik, less often seen. Flossi said, "Tugrik was deeply worried that he was putting on a mask to his friends and hiding parts of himself. He was much more of a quiet introvert than I think a lot of people knew. He never sought the popularity he had, and really just wanted to pursue his hobbies and have fun with friends. To be inventive in the things that intrigued him. To pursue some interests for a time and then move onto some new hobby. But he had a kind heart, and he kept giving what he could back to the fandom and his community. Sometimes doing far too much than he really should have, and exceeding his own reserves."
And from Glumilan, "Living with him, I saw many of the things that people have mentioned here... his generosity, his gregariousness, his easygoing charisma, his astonishing intellect, and his drive to learn and discover. ... In those times, I saw another side of him. He's remembered as boisterous and gregarious, but he also had a kind of shyness to him, somehow. A sensitivity and vulnerability, a yearning for genuine connection ... While that yearning could make him vulnerable, it was also one of his many great strengths, what drove him to build so many important friendships and networks. He was a singularly remarkable person, and that really made you want to be his friend. And when social connections weren't as successful, he had extraordinary grace and resilience in handling those."
As an admin on FurryMUCK, if you were being immature or annoying to other players, Tugrik would let you know. He was a calm presence. Over time, if you grew as a person, he didn't hold your past behavior against you. Many who felt intimidated by his online reputation would discover, years later, that they could have heartfelt, genuine personal conversations with him, and even forge a friendship. Introverted or shy people would be surprised when he'd talk with them or be spontaneously asked if they wanted to hang out.
Interacting with Tugrik, there was a genuine feeling of his intelligence, empathy and authenticity. There was no pretense. In his more personal moments, he enjoyed inhabiting his monoceros self online, and could share intimacy. Luagha noted his being on another system: "While his play and chat on Furrymuck was extensive; he was also very happy with his play on a Pern-mush, where he played a runner-beast - a Pernese descendant of Terran horses; naturally long-legged with coarse, shaggy hair. Of course, runner-beasts can't talk, so he was more of a presence in roleplay scenes; cropping grass, accepting treats, and hauling heavy objects as needed."
Around 2018, Tugrik and Revar moved to a house in Portland, Oregon. Tugrik added gardening to his many hobbies, and had pet cats. Unfortunately he ran afoul of Long Covid which exacerbated his pre-existing medical conditions, and in his last year he had issues with mobility and formerly easy tasks such as typing.
He passed away on July 31, 2025, and a service was held for him on FurryMUCK on August 8. Around 100 friends and colleagues both old and new gathered, and we spent over four hours sharing our stories, feelings, impressions and experiences. There was talk of creating a memorial item on the system, or re-naming something in his honor.
For one brief shining moment, it felt like the FurryMUCK of over 20 years ago. A time when the Internet was younger, when it felt like the potential would continue to grow and flourish. For many of us, there was deep regret that we hadn't kept in touch with Tug or each other, and that it took such an event to bring us together again. And yet that renewed togetherness spoke so strongly of the effect that knowing Tugrik had had on our lives. Whether he wanted it or not, the waves he generated have not been forgotten, and he enriched us all from the experience, even from the other side of the Rainbow Bridge.
For more about Tugrik:
- If you didn't know him, you can get a feeling for what he was like from his Livejournal, with posts from 2010 to 2016, and its photo section.
- His Twitter account, followed by his Bluesky account (may include some NSFW content).
- His FurAffinity page (may include some NSFW content).
- He was Big Blue Tug on Flickr and on YouTube.
- If you have an account on FurryMUCK, you can visit areas he built by using the command "tport #7121", then heading north.
Because much of this obituary has been gathered from multiple sources online, we apologize if there are significant gaps or errors. Please feel free to correct or expand upon details in the comments section below, or share your reminiscences. And most of all, our heartfelt condolences go out to all his friends and family.
We miss you. Galumph and run free, Big Blue.
Sunset photo by Araquan.
Comments
I wish I had known him better. He was always a quietly supportive presence. I had no idea just how far-reaching that support went.
If anyone finds an actual newspaper obituary for him, please pass it along--I've tried to get his name placed on the new Memorial Wall at Fur Affinity, but the mods require an official obituary, not just social media posts (of which there are many.)
--and thank you for assembling this tribute, dronon. It's lovely.
I feel like this happens a lot online. Someone dies, and then people who used to know them regret not staying in touch, when more often than not, they were just a click or call away. The article says he was shy and introverted, but could still be a normal person. To me, getting over it when someone used to be annoying and obnoxious but they grow up, or forgiving them when they were assholes but they changed, that's not supposed to be a rare virtue. It's supposed to just be normal. Making friends with people in spite of or even because of their differences, is normal. The internet helped normalize it if it wasn't normal enough already. Then, people who thought their normal was better, became "the new normal," and that was the internet from then on. So now, nobody forgives, and they just carry their grievances with past communities and people over to new ones. Then we wonder why none of the adults want to talk online, period, unless it's to have pissing contests with randos, and the kids increasingly would rather talk to bots. Can we entirely blame them?!
One of the first online communities I ever joined was mostly a chatroom that added one of those ultra-simple message boards not too longer after. It wasn't furry, but it was very high-fantasy themed, and it wasn't a MUCK. Everything was almost pure HTML, including the chat, and if you don't know how that even works, don't feel bad, I never wrapped my head around it either and that style of both chat and board were gone well before that era of the internet was even over - think 97-00-something. I did eventually sour on that community, and it started with something called "pruning." Now, I get that server space, especially back then, was at a premium. But the first thing I ever saw on this site, before even entering the chat was a page they'd set off to the side dedicated to a member who had passed away fairly recently, and like this memorial, it spoke of his good deeds and virtues, which included hosting a repository of free graphics for n00bs who want to make their own webpages but don't have graphics software/skills. They also had a log of the last time he was on the chat. They eventually deleted it, and then the board, then the chat, and I wondered what any of it had been for. They still to this day have the intro page, for some reason, promising an all new chat "coming soon," so why did they have to abandon one of the only pieces of their friend like that to digital rot?!
But that memorial was there for a long time, a good several years, and most if not all those old members had left. When I joined, the grieving process was still lingering a bit, and perhaps completed by the time everyone had moved on. So maybe it's understandable. What's not so understandable is why nowadays, people won't learn from any of this. I feel like people *did* used to learn something, change, grow a bit when a friend died, and the complications of it being an online friend meant you had to deal with it differently, mature more. It was harder. And that's why I regret hearing some of the earliest internet dwellers lamenting that it took a tragedy to bring them together for another few hours - which will probably be the absolute last time most of them talk to each other.
I hope I'm wrong, but if they want to memorialize him, or any furry, it can't be done by just naming something, creating a space in a text-based online game. Or just one off memorial pages and YouTube videos, or uploading fanart to FA or wherever. I'm not saying not to do those things, but that's because I've been doing these things for over a decade, and I'm telling you, it never gets easier, and you seemingly never get closer to preserving their memory, only further as time goes on. Especially because you're trying to build a digital railroad to a person who can't be "famous enough" anymore, because they'll never be "current enough."
So what I'm saying is, if this was your friend, or even if they weren't but they're a legend to you because of their length of time in the fandom, you need to shove their image in every face, put their name in every mouth, the same way we only even have the name "Hercules" because someone made it a legend. I believe Red Savage deserves to be a legend because she was my friend and a damned good writer who never got her due. How many people believe Dragoneer deserves to be a legend despite all his flaws? And I still agree with them. So you're going to tell me one of the OG furries who also contributed to the very design of our modern internet doesn't deserve to be made a legend?
Since these are older netizens, I hope they won't let him be forgotten as easily as my friends let their friends be forgotten, let's just put it that way. If he really is that important, I hate to say "we" here, but we do owe him a lot. Red was my best friend, but I'll not go as far as to say she's a bigger deal than... What was that, wifi to cell hotspots? In other words, that thing I realized today I really need to get a router for because it'd be more reliable than wired here? Yeah, I don't think Red would feel betrayed in my saying this, he's easily the bigger deal!
I'm sorry to have to say this, but Tug himself would be the first to say "don't do that".
Have a good one.
Never met him in person but I was familiar with his character and some of his online presence, though had no idea the scope of all his accomplishments. The fandom has lost another shining star :(
RIP
Follow-up: There's now a short obit posted at Legacy.com with some more photos.
Pyat and Tricuspa combined their logs of the online memorial service, and cleaned up the text. It's available as a Google doc file but I don't know for how long.
Cedarcon was my second in-person furry meet ever, and quite a social deep dive for me, getting in a rented van and driving down from Canada with about six other people. 33 years later, a lot of the trip is a blank, but random memories survive. DustyKatt cooking a huge amount of beef stroganoff. Watching a video of a Victor Borge comedy special, and either UHF or The Wizard of Speed and Time. Listening to Cooner and Yippee Coyote bounce in-jokes off each other ("Escondido!" - "Aieeeee!"). In retrospect I think one of the Californians attending tried to pick me up but I was too naive to notice.
At the amusement park, a sudden torrential downpour. Tugrik and a large woman named Ruby waiting in line for over an hour to try out a new roller coaster that did an upside-down loop-de-loop, only to find out they couldn't ride it because the shoulder harnesses wouldn't fit over them. There was a booth that did custom images on t-shirts, and artist Paula Schricker asked if she could instead get a design put into her sketchbook. When she came back to pick it up, they'd obviously looked through her sketchbook and left a job application form in it.
A bunch of us went on a water ride where everyone sits around on the edges of a large circular tub that rotates around and gets pulled through a series of pools, channels and small waterfalls. We all got wet except for Wolfkidd and Stephan. Wolfkidd commemorated this in a drawing later, gloating about it. What he didn't commemorate was that we insisted we all do the ride again, and the second time, both Wolfkidd and Stephan got soaked by every single waterfall. And then of course the story I told at the memorial about Tugrik and some other guy failing at sharing a bed.
The second time I got to hang out with Tugrik was when he gave me lift from Irvine to the Bay Area after ConFurence 7. That was a really pleasant drive, I forget who else was in the car, possibly Revar and Lisa Ienacco, I remember her discussing the game dev of I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
In fact that whole car ride was better than the next four days combined. After thanking Tugrik for the lift and moving on, I understand my subsequent hosts had to return to their day jobs, and they couldn't control the rainy weather, but some advice on hosting: Don't offer a couch then relegate your guest to a mat and a sleeping bag on the floor because your roomie didn't tell you they were inviting another guest. When your guest says they don't want to watch The Lion King, don't insist on watching The Lion King. When your guest asks you to wake them up early so they can visit San Fran on the one day with nice weather, don't let them sleep in until almost noon. If there are plans for a furry dinner get-together later, maybe let your guest know too. Don't leave your guest in the hands of the founder of Eurofurence who takes hours on a shopping trip for plush toys while constantly insulting your country and all the different ways that America sucks, for example because it's not easy to buy C4 plastic explosive.
...Where was I? Oh right. A year or two after Cedarcon, Tugrik messaged me on FurryMuck with a confession. Apparently he'd taken a photo of me at Cedarcon sitting up against the hood of someone's car. Tugrik's current interest was experimenting with software that could animate an image by morphing it into another image, and as it happened, the way I was posed in the photo was very similar to a cheesecake furry drawing of a cat-woman in a skimpy harem outfit, so he had tested the software on that. But then had lost it in a hard drive crash. I was both greatly annoyed and intrigued. To this day I still wonder about it. Getting to chat with Tug on FurryMuck was always a positive experience for me, and that's something I'll never forget!
Thank you so much for linking that memorial, Dronon. I will try to get Fur Affinity to acknowledge that Tug "was here."
I sent a paper condolence card to his family. I am so glad this memorial page was put together for Tugrik's many friends and his loved ones.
I wish that I had known him better. He sounds like one of the great people. Those who knew him were very fortunate, indeed.
Did a commission for him once, basically some badge art, possibly the only one I ever drew. Beyond that, I remember him from my days on FurryMuck, and everything said about him above is 100% accurate. He went a long way towards making FM a relaxed and open place for everyone to enjoy.
I feel like something more is needed, but I won't insult him with old quotes or pithiness. He never needed it. He just was who he was.
There's at least one insufferable prick here who has to 1-star everybody, or at least anybody with a positive thing to say or a kind word about anybody. I'd apologize on their behalf, but they don't have a conscience to appeal to.
You were one-starred for making Tug's death about you, while also dismissing his wishes and what sort of person he was in life to demand everyone go around and start literally shoving his memorial into everyone's faces to "make him a legend".
If you can't understand that, I am sorry for you. Be a better person.
The fuck I was. I said I hope the people who knew him will keep coming together, though I know realistically, they probably won't. I said his friends should keep his name alive. You say he wouldn't want that, okay, so? My friends still talk about our friends that are gone, your friends don't. Some of my friends are still together, theirs aren't. And, so, what? We're from different tribes, literally, we're going to have different values. Deal with it.
Actually after scrolling back up to figure out what you really have a bug up your ass about, it's because you can't come out and say "no, you don't have a conscience" after I assumed 1-star guy was someone we know actually goes around doing that (but we try to avoid mentioning) but okay, seems pretty obvious it was you now. Your post about doing a commission for him, etc, also making it about you. You stop short of calling him a friend, yet you're here trying to "defend his wishes" which I somehow threaten with a post on a site barely anyone reads.
You telling me to be a better person would be like me telling you to drive more carefully. I don't know how you drive, and you don't know how I live. The worst thing I did in that post was smoke a joint first.
You ruined my high, does that make you feel better?
OK dude, you can keep downvoting me like it means anything but I just looked you up because I just knew, knew, you were probably sitting in a bathtub with a ring of dirt around it thicker than this blunt if you have the nerve to 1) use someone's death to self-advertise your commissions and then 2) turn around and tell someone else to be a good person... After getting done telling them not to preach anything at others, period... All because you made a post that didn't exactly agree, made your power play as someone who "knows" the guy but said "have a good day" or something like that, and I let you say your piece and took it in good faith. But then you had to have another go, because you didn't get a response like you wanted.
So basically at heart, you're still the same maladjusted Burned Fur with a hero complex you always were. You literally want to run for office, or did at one time!
Fuck right off! Suck deez nuts! You're one of the fucks that wants to invade my country. I wish you would!!!
As someone who knew Tugrik (though not as well as some) I'm just gonna say that you're all over the place here, settle down.
Oh I have. Reading about this guy's "illustrious career" was actually validating, ironically, because I truly can rest assured that "be a better person," that advice I've been living by for like, 12 years now, is going way better for me than my much older self-appointed male-ego competition, here. Also, what's with "I knew Tugrik, barely, I did a commission for him one time, ergo sit down, whatever I say is right." It's between me and him, for however long he wants it to be although he's been pretty silent since I found him out. Maybe he's preparing a lawsuit against me *eyeroll*
You know it's bad when Calbeck comes off as the reasonable one.
Reasonable... Reasonable... Do you have any idea of the man's history?! You'll be kickin' the dirt and cursing the sky when he sues for ownership of Flayrah one day with some argument about owning content on it or something LOL
You're seriously bringing up an unrelated person's history in a thread about someone beloved in the community who has passed on.
Also I can't be the only one who feels insulted by the notion that we have to be scolded not to let him be forgotten. SMH my damn head.
1. He was grandstanding for the sake of some bullshit male ego competition thing that I'm so damned familiar with by now that I can smell it from across the internet. So the minute he replied again, I hit Google, and lo and behold I find this comic goldmine of a history. He butted into another sub-thread that had nothing to do with him, just to point out "I'm the guy who one-starred you before" without directly admitting it. Because he assumed I was talking about him when I said whoever goes around 1-starring people when they said nothing really wrong or out of the ordinary. At first I actually assumed it was someone we just avoid talking about here, they have a Rick & Morty avatar, for a hint. He just had to take a shot at a guy who wasn't even taking a shot at him just because he knew he was the kind of person being referred to in my comment, it's just so obvious.
2. If you read that as scolding, well, tough shit. You could make the counterpoint that, for example, this article itself is a start, there's no doubt an entire gallery's worth of art featuring a fursona that long-lived. It's ironically beneficial that you keep firing your little rhetorical peashooters for whatever points you think you're scoring because when you keep engaging like that, I have to think back on what the actual fuck I was talking about while thinking, "damn, another dead furry/internet veteran, it's so bleak." But no, it probably isn't. Surely, n00bs and olds alike will stumble on those creations and contributions just like they would this article.
So yeah, thanks, in a backhanded kind of way. Your inability to find any positivity here compels me to try harder for us both, for some reason.
And it didn't help, apparently.
Everything this guy has done so far has been about getting someone to fight with him in Tugrik's memorial thread, and even the mildest rebuke has him actually going to Google to look for more things to try and get people to fight with him about.
I hope admin gets in here at some point and scrubs away the defacements.
Oh come off it, you're doing what you always do, look for some cause to make yourself a hero about. I'd never heard about you until you made sure I'd know who you are, by replying to me even after I stopped replying to you. You could just mind your own business, eh? But you can't. It's just not your personality. And my personality is to avoid the stupid games, get to the bottom of whatever someone's got a bug up their ass about and decide, is this worth caring about or not? No. I'm not performing the emotional labor you want just to give you more space to perform. For all I know, I'm one of the last people in the fandom engaging with you at all, especially at your age and with the amount of bridges you've burned with this or that group over the years. If you're altfurry, well, that seems to barely be a thing anymore, and if I'm wrong, then why not go talk to them instead of me?
And don't talk like you don't Google someone if they're being a personal pest either! You couldn't do any of what you've done over the years otherwise. There's nothing inherently honorable about wearing a blindfold while someone keeps trying to force a fight on you.
It's just that when you try to dig on me, you find fuck all, because my worst days are not only long behind me, but lost to digital rot. That's because I don't have the hero complex you do. I looked read your words, looked at your posting pattern, avatar - white unicorn with a cigar, definitely one of them types, I said - Googled, badda-bing-badda-boom it's a boomer.
*shrug* we all notice patterns, dude.
Geez, he was my age..! R.I.P.
Fur Affinity has now placed Tugrik on its Memorial Wall.
Guys, can we just knock off with the hostility? This is supposed to be a eulogy for one of the best people in the furry community. Tugrik's relatives might read this and be horrified by the kind of people their son/brother/uncle hung around with.
Impressing Tugrik's relatives would require not putting his name on a cursed site with the worst shithole comment section in the fandom
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