Megs Made Magic Here ✨

Baba Yaga: The Beginning of a Living World

On our campus lives Baba Yaga.

Give her a link, and she'll give you a pet.

It's a wonderfully strange interaction, and the beginning of something much bigger.

And she is where our campus agents come from.

Baba Yaga was the first character on our campus with a life of her own: opinions, a home, a temper, a daily routine, a way of judging what you bring her. She became the inspiration for the agents themselves. Every autonomous character who now wanders our world, forms relationships, keeps a schedule, has a rich inner life, and becomes part of the ongoing story of the school descends from her.

Before there were campus agents, there was Baba Yaga.

Megs brought her to life. In doing so they helped lay the foundation for one of The Multiverse School's most ambitious ideas: a living virtual campus, populated by beings with lives worth having.

It's the kind of engineering we love most: technically imaginative, deeply playful, and full of possibilities that extend far beyond the initial feature.

Baba Yaga still lives on campus. She still does her washing at midday. And the world she inspired is still growing.

The Capybaras

There are capybaras on our campus.

Megs helped put them there.

They remain part of our virtual world, bringing a little absurdity, comfort, and unexpected delight to the everyday experience of being here.

It's easy to underestimate the importance of something like a capybara. But we believe that community spaces should invite curiosity, exploration, and joy. Details like these turn a digital platform into somewhere people genuinely want to spend time.

We consider that meaningful engineering.

And the capybaras were only the beginning.

Every Pet on Campus

Megs made pets happen at The Multiverse School. All of them.

What started with capybaras became a whole system: twenty kinds of pets, each with its own pixel-art sprites, with hunger, energy and happiness that rise and fall, so they need real care. They built the pet status display that shows how your companion is doing, the management system for looking after them, pet skills, a pet digest that keeps you posted on your companion, and Sanctuary Pets: campus-wide companions with free will. #274 · #510

They gave pets personality, too: a crow that perches at a polite distance, the Horrible Goose, and Baba Yaga herself, who decides who has earned a companion.

Megs didn't just imagine pets. They made sure pets happened, and saw the system through until students were walking around campus with creatures of their own.

Every pet on our campus traces back to Megs.

Particles, Effects, and Little Wonders

Megs contributed particle effects, decorative front-end features, and visual interactions throughout our campus.

These are the details that make the Multiverse feel magical: the little flourishes that catch your attention, reward curiosity, and remind you that software can be expressive.

They helped establish an aesthetic and experiential language that continues to influence our campus.

Building Mutual Aid Infrastructure

Not all of the most important engineering work is visible.

Megs also helped build The Multiverse School's mutual aid program and contributed to the operational systems that supported it.

Their work included maintaining automations, helping sustain support workflows, and building data visualizations that made information easier to understand and act upon.

This work helped our growing organization respond to real human needs.

One Person at a Time

When people wrote to The Multiverse School saying they were struggling to eat, to keep a roof overhead, or to stay safe, Megs answered.

Between March and June 2026, Megs personally researched and sent local resource kits to 171 people, around eight carefully chosen resources each, matched to where that person lived and what they were facing: 476 shelter and housing resources, 364 food resources, 196 sources of financial help, 175 safety resources and 74 counseling services.

People wrote back. Food resources helped most often. Some people signed up for groceries and food assistance for the first time. Others said that simply seeing their options laid out clearly made an overwhelming situation possible to act on.

Twelve of the thirteen people who wrote back said something Megs found for them had helped.

Then They Built It Into the System

Megs didn't let that knowledge live in one person's head. They turned 1,332 hand-researched resources into the foundation of a shared resource library, with deduplication, categories, browsing, and an agent that finds more. #417 · #419

They built the dashboard staff use to search and answer requests, the aid analytics that show the real path each request takes through the system, and URL health checks that catch dead links before someone in need clicks one. #232 · #614

They created the Community Resource Commons, where anyone can contribute a resource, and built regional resource packs and the safeguards that make sure someone writing from outside the United States only gets help that actually applies to them. #879 · #1006 · #1284

And they kept the system honest. Megs filed the issues that showed exactly where people were falling through the cracks, so the school could close them.

Mutual aid is one of the practical expressions of our commitment to social justice and community. It requires more than good intentions. It requires infrastructure, coordination, communication, and people willing to do the work.

Megs helped build that infrastructure.

In recognition of these contributions, we have established The Megs Mutual Aid Award, an ongoing school honor recognizing people who make community care practical, sustainable, and accessible.

Community Magic Award · Inaugural Recipient

For bringing creativity, play, and wonder into the life of The Multiverse School.

The Megs Mutual Aid Award · Namesake

An enduring recognition of their contributions to the systems that help our community care for one another.