#i was in my museum curator mode

[illjustpretend]

Finally mounted this absolute BEAUTY 🤩

THANK YOUUU @alexsiple YOU LEGEND

Just like the other tapestry, I customized it with a curtain rod pocket and tucked the tassels behind it across the top edge. A piece like this deserves the extra prep time 🙌

[peyton-warren]

📄 WIP Tag Game 📄

Lloyd x Curator!Reader

This made me giggle when I first saw it…sooooo many ways for him to terrorize a curator 🤣

I love Lloyd, he’s such a hot mess

Only thing I have written so far is notes and bits of dialog. This is the biggest chunk in my document so far. I had thoughts of Curator! Reader at an exhibit opening, dressed to the nines, entertaining rich ass donors.  Suddenly she hears THAT voice cut through the crowd.  She flies into defense mode and searches the crowd for Lloyd.  Finds him flirting with someone or schmoozing someone, grabs him and pushes him to the door with a "no not now. Not you, you need to go.". And he loves how flustered she is at his presence.  And is all like "no no sunshine I was invited by your board of directors" shows her the invite.  Which means he made a substantial donation to the museum.  And her heart sinks. And she panics.  She can't have him there.  He's a distraction for her .... somehow he got her to bend her curatorial ethics or he tricked her to steal something from her museum. Still not sure of the whole story, and there will be sex involved as well because Lloyd...

Wanna ask about my WIPs? Ask game is over here.

[endlessthedestiny]

okay I read the good omens screen play / shitscript and....... it was something. here are a good idea of what happens there, for those who dosent want to read it

if you don't know what the shitscript is, it's basically a script for a scrapped good omens movie written only by Neil in 1992. it's very different from (I think) any other media/adaptation we had of good omens. apparently neil HAD to make Crowley evil, but I don't know much about it...

tw: abusive crowley

so:

Crowley owns a night club. (yes, Lucifer style)

Aziraphale works as a museum curator.

Also, Crowley cheats in every chess game and wins, making that Aziraphale never won (rather cruel if you ask me) and he hates earth. like really despises.

the plot starts with Satan (here he is more like his sandman/Lucifer2000 counterpart to be honest, even being called Lucifer MORNINGSTAR at some point) gives Crowley the antichrist (Adam).

Crowley is supposed to take care and raise Adam, but when he came back to the club, he put Adam in Madame Tracy's bag to talk to his employee.

Madame Tracy takes Adam home unknowingly. (yes, she will be the one raising him)

Crowley has a fucking panic attack seeing that he lost Adam (also he's fucking pathetic. why didn't he just chase the taxi. stupid).

He drinks alot to calm himself, and then Aziraphale comes into his club and asks what's wrong

Crowley explains (more like spilled) to him what's happening, and Aziraphale decides to help him find Adam. With the condition of being able to make Adam good.

Also theres Anathema. As a child she feels (?) that the antichrist was born.

11 long years of azira and crowley looking for Adam in every city offscreen later............

Anathema goes to tadville (the place where madame Tracy and Adam live) looking for something. she is convinced there is something weird happening.

Madame Tracy's the only one who accepts to rent her a room.

In this version, Madame Tracy's is the "crazy old lady who was hot when she was younger but now she's oooolddddd and craaazy" which is problematic (at my vision)

Adam basically takes care of everything around the house, the bills, breakfast.

Adam resembles more Warlock than Adam from the show... He sometimes is unnecessarily rude towards others, but I think that makes sense with the fact that he had to be so responsible all the time.

He dislikes Anathema at first. But they grow to be friends over time.

theeeen.... Satan calls Crowley again and they talk about the antichrist.

Crowley says that Adam is evil just like him and beautiful blablabla, and then Satan takes a look (using DemonicPowers™) at Adam's face and is very pleased.

Then Crowley comes back at his club and has another panic attack.

Aziraphale visits him again, and again asks what's wrong.

Crowley explains that he met with Satan again, and sarcastically says that he told the truth.

Aziraphale takes his sarcasm seriously and (I think) he was happy that Crowley at least was honest.

Crowley then simply says (and I quote directly) "you are so.... stupid.... you don't deserve to live. I didn't tell him anything. If I had, do you think I'd be here right now?" which is just... damn

azira gets sad and then Crowley basically says that he knows what Adam looks like and azira suggest that they should go to one more town. just one more.

Crowley gets ughhhh fine and they go to Tadville.

Then we get a scene of Adam taking Anathema to his hidden place and showing her his miniature replica of tadville. he says some creepy things about how that in mini tadville everyone does what he says, it's all his.

In the next day, Crowley and Aziraphale go to Tadville. they start looking for a room, but some lady heard Crowley calling Aziraphale "angel" and goes homophobic mode.

Everyone doesn't want to rent a room to them, except Madame Tracy.

Then Adam arrives with the groceries and Crowley immediately recognizes him. Him and Azira take a stroll on the beach, and Crowley says that he's very grateful for Aziraphale.

Aziraphale says he isn't going back to London and Crowley simply says "well, we found him, i don't need you anymore" and Azira reminds him of their agreement of making Adam good.

They invite Adam to go with them for a day in London, and Madame Tracy authorizes much to Adam's content.

They go to London, and in the museum, Azira shows Adam the beauty of humanity and all.

When Adam goes to the car, Crowley tells him that humanity is being above everyone, not caring for anyone (basically, that evil talk etc)

When they get back, Anathema discovers through looking into a crystal ball and seeing Adam's face that he is the antichrist.

Then, Adam goes to talk with her.

Anathema tries to stab him, but she psychologically can't. And she tells him he's the one who is going to end the world.

Adam gets scared for his life and runs away to his hidden place.

Satan transformed his place into a magical scenario full of games and fun and talks with him.

He basically convinces him to enter his side and Adam (who is very fragile because anathema just tried to kill him) agrees.

Basically, the town turns into a huge theater with everyone acting like puppets.

Satan thanks Crowley for raising Adam, and grant his wish of letting him go to Alpha centuri.

As Crowley is waiting for the next comet, Aziraphale goes to him and tries to convince him to help humanity and heaven.

Crowley basically says "hell nah im not helping you"

Aziraphale says "but we are friends."

And Crowley simply replies "Were." :)

Theeen, Aziraphale challenges him to one more checkers game.

They play, and Aziraphale finally wins. But only after cheating.

They find Anathema and she gives them the knife.

Aziraphale enters in full angel form (white clothing and all) and goes to talk with Adam.

Aziraphale basically does "reflect about it" talk to Adam, and Adam seems to not care.

Crowley then goes to Satan and says "I'm not going anymore" and Satan turns him into a snake.

Aziraphale interrupts and points the knife at him. Satan simply desintegrates the knife and hurts aziraphale.

Adam after seeing Madame Tracy's puppet form and reflecting about what Aziraphale said he decides to take a step back and fix things.

He goes to Satan, heals Aziraphale and transforms Crowley back and basically says "I'm not going." and turns everything back to normal

Satan is like ??? and Crowley simply says "wait you didn't rebel to your father too?"

Satan laughs and disappears.

everything ends well

theeee end :3

well, it's not the worst thing in existence but certainly not the best.

good omens but the aziracrow is the most toxic yaoi ever.

[redfurrycat]

My GOD Red, you are like a top-tier Museum Curator of Fanfiction <3<3<3 Those fic rec lists you make are the greatest things ever :):):):) (I just bookmarked a whole bunch of Cowboy!Jake ones from the list you made :) - I Bookmark instead of 'Marking for Later' because if I mark them for later I will, ironically, forget about them :P whereas the Bookmarks are right there on the dashboard on your profile)

anyway, YOU ARE AMAZING I LOVE YOU HOW DO YOU HAVE THE TIME TO FIND/READ ALL THESE???

HEY!!! 🤗

"Top-Tier Museum Curator of Fanfiction"

OMG. Do you think I can write that down on my CV?! This is the best achievement ever. Who cares about diplomas and previous work experiences?

THIS. This is the best thing EVER!!! =D

Thank you for telling me this. <3

I'm glad you find them useful, and more importantly, that you find fics to add to your reading list. There are SO many wonderful content out there. I'm humbly trying to offer another way of finding and consuming the goodies. I've used so many recs lists for previous fandoms... So I'm more than happy to do it for the TG/M fandom (or like for the Hangster ship in particular...although I have plans to extend my work to several other ships as well).

Whatever works for you!! As long as you can find the stories easily, it's not important how you organise your library! :D (I'm going all in: open tabs, marked for later, word document, bookmarks, phone notes.... xD)

GOOD JESUS. No way. I don't have time to read all the recs before actually reccing them. No way, nope.... You know I still have some marked for later fics that were published at the very beginning of the Hangster fandom? And people keep creating content, so it's hard to keep track of my to-read sometimes.... (By that I mean, keep writing wonderful writers, KEEP WRITING! <3)

Now, I DO spend a lot of time finding and organising fics. Like A LOT of time...👀 I rarely read the fics for pleasure when I'm in 'reccing' mode. Instead, I'm using my super awesome research tricks in order to create a helpful (at least, I hope it is) repository of TG stories. (It's often way too elaborate the way I do it, but whatever, I have no chills whatsoever.)

You're a sweetheart for sending me this ask, I appreciate. <3

Love you too & enjoooooy the goodies! :D

🐈💕

*

You can find the Masterrecslist HERE.

(I'm also in the process of reorganising the post for better navigation, so expect a big update at some point in the future.)

[lamodebygvmiao]

La Vie En Art 👗🎨🎹🎻🎭💃 - Le Monde selon Andy Warhol @Chaufferie de l'Antiquaille, Lyon 🇫🇷 Gradually settling in this beautiful city full of #history and #culture, it's time for me to explore the #artistic side of #Lyon. Whether it be #visualarts 🖌️🎨🖼️, #classicalmusic 🎻🎹🎶🎼, #opera 🎭, #ballet 🩰 or #architecture 🕍 - and especially #fashion 👗, I ❤️ all of them. I’ve created social media group, La Vie En Art 👗🎨🎹🎻🎭💃 to get the #art lovers in town together to embark on an artistic/#creative journey with me for #gallery/#museum visits, #music/#dance #performances, #exhibitions and casual get-togethers to discuss/exchange news about art on a regular basis. Our kick off meeting took place at "The world according to Andy Warhol" exhibition paying tribute to this most popular and controversial American #artist of the #60s with 50 meticulously curated #photos. An interesting contrast formed between #AndyWarhol’s #vibrant, #flamboyant and #popart #style #vinyl #designs and a series of #portraits of the artist standing with a giant #sunflower 🌻 symbolic of his love for the #beauty of #nature and #simplicity has fascinated me all the way.

PS Text me if you're interested in joining my group.

________________________________

Follow La Mode by GV Miao on:

Blog: http://la-mode-by.gvmiao.com/

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La Mode by GV Miao fashion blog fb page: https://www.facebook.com/gvmiaovickivictoirefashionistaz

La Mode by GV Miao's Fashion Project of the Year: https://www.facebook.com/lamodebygvmiaofashionprojectoftheyear

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Twitter: http://twitter.com/GV_Miao

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[fountainpenguin]

"She's into superstitions: black cats and voodoo dolls... I feel a premonition- that girl's gonna make me fall..." (x)

---

New Dog's Life chapter today! ~ 3rd Life series fan-season

Chapter 23 - “Cooldown (Pearl, Lizzie, Mumbo, Scott)”

❤️ Read on AO3

💛 Start from Chapter 1

💚 More Pixels Imperfect fics

---

Pearl puts research into camera accounts and brings home books for her nonexistent roommate, EthoCam… Er, Rhetoric. Lizzie and Joel enjoy date night. Mumbo collapses in bed after an exhausting break-up. Scott puts on his ambassador hat, entertains the Fox Dragon, and reviews a fey contract with a peculiar white-eyed man.

(First 1,000 words under the cut)

---

PearlescentMoon - Bat

Status: Reflective

Venue manager, event coordinator, and seasonal business owner

💙  🧡  💚

When Pearl lets herself through the door, the whole flat is quiet. From the pale smell, nothing's cooking in the furnace. But then, he can't, can he? Then he'd be burning my charcoal. She dropped by the library tonight and borrowed a book on soul twins who never became official camera accounts. That should subtly break down the Yes and Nos of what Rhetoric can do. All the librarian villagers were happy to help. She even ran into Gem, which was a surprise. Gem's eyes lit straight up.

"You're back! Hope you had a good time. And how's Impulse? Is he better than he was after last week?"

"He's all right, I think. Had a rough go of it mid-session, but he said he'd share the story on movie night."

"Oh, that's good. I've been worried more than I need to be; I want to smack him. Hey, I'm on snacks tomorrow, right? I'm thinking popcorn balls."

"Popcorn balls sound amazing, actually. I'll make sure I'm stocked up on butter."

"How d'you feel about two movies back to back? I found one I'm DYING to show you guys."

Now the soul-twin book rests in the bag at her waist, hidden by the black cloak that marks her uninterested in the courtship events of the night. Pearl moves through the flat's entryway, glancing left and right. All the lights are off. Can Rhetoric turn on lights?

I didn't even think about that when I went out. Oh, this is a toughie… She didn't bring back any treats on purpose, not wanting to offend him. She did pick up a random book on folk tales and another on hybrid biology. These, she leaves on the kitchen counter. As a museum curator, maybe Rhetoric considers himself a historian and potential expert on both these subjects.

Maybe he'll scoff. But according to the patient librarians, account-less soul-twins can hold books and turn their pages just fine. They just can't write in them because it would update the book, and they can't rip out the pages because it would create paper. If you're account-less, you can't update blocks.

That's the word, by the way. Soul-twins… She never actually knew that. She's always just called them "cameras." Did you know you can be account-less as the player, and it can be the camera twin who gets most of the creator bleed and activity levels?

It's not common, but apparently true. It happens on occasion if the same creator is juggling three or more accounts at a time and largely uses that third one for spectating right at the start in those early days. Traditionally, the first account to sync goes to the player soul. The second sync goes to their soul-twin, whether they're often on spectator mode or not. The third can be a coin-flip as a completely new pair of souls is spawned in, syncing up to an already established Minecraft player who may actually prefer spectating this time around.

Food for thought. I wonder if Moo's ever been bugged when I've called her a camera. Maybe I should ask if I can meet up with some of her friends. Maybe we can all do a Q&A night. You could write a paper on this stuff.

… or a book, evidently. Pearl checks the signed name again. Pixlriffs. Of course it is.

If this is insightful, I'll have to drop something off to thank him. But she'll wait until the full moon's faded out so he won't get the wrong idea.

Pearl leaves the books she got for Rhetoric at the end of the counter, next to the bar stool she drapes her Not Courting cloak over. She'll hang it properly some other time. For now, she wants to set the scene: I'm not trying to come on too strong. I just happened to leave a few books here, that are mine, and when I'm away, nothing's stopping you from taking a little looksie at them.

When she turns around, she catches her new roommate standing out on the balcony, one elbow on the rail. Did he open that door? Did she leave it open? He gazes into the courtyard below, swishing his tail back and forth against his heels. It stiffens when she creaks the door open. "Don't talk to me," he mutters, not turning around.

"Right, I won't- Not for no reason, now. Still, I have some housekeeping things we should go over."

Rhetoric's tail twitches again. "No. That can wait. Literally, don't talk to me. I was getting fresh air. As fresh as you can get under bedrock, anyway. Now that you've returned, I'll stay in my room and keep my head down, but it's a full moon tonight. I don't technically exist, but I'm still a hybrid. Give me space."

"Okay," Pearl concedes. There are seven fox ambiance defaults: burrowing, hunting, napping, courtship, marking territory, playing, and stealing. On top of that, the urge to flee from players is a legit part of their coding. Rhetoric's maybe or maybe not feeling courtship tugs, and neither of them wants to deal with that. If it's not courtship, that urge to find his own private space is probably gnawing at his spine. She's not giving up on him, but she'll wait until he's less prickly.

Pearl returns to the kitchen and starts prepping a mixing bowl. Rhetoric's ears snap up. He turns his head. He has gray eyes. They're dull from lack of color, but almost puzzled or wary when he studies her from across the room. He says, "You're an anivore, right?"

"Just a little bit- I'm a partial anivore. I need code to keep my energy up, but I actually can eat other foods without feeling sick. My diet's still restricted." He doesn't look away, so she doesn't stop talking. She barely looks at him, though. "I know fox hybrids can change color between white and ginger when they respawn. My friend Grian's a parrot and they're the same way- the soul spawner might spit them out with different feather colors than what they had before, based on RNG. We bats are like that. Right now, I'm a vampire bat. I used to be a fruit bat when I was first spawned. The type of food that actually refills my hunger meter shifts between respawns, but my stomach can digest all of them."

"So you're an omnivore."

"Well. Yeah, I guess so."

Rhetoric folds his ears flat against his night-black hair. "I don't have proper code. I'm not real."

"Nah, I don't nip much off other people. I barely need any, see; I nip my own code." Pearl lifts her arm, gesturing to the space between her sleeve hem and her hand for emphasis. "Tastes like macaroni and marshmallow right here at the edge." For the sake of it, she doesn't ask if he's ever tasted code before. Probably not. She pauses for breath anyway so he can have his chance to speak.

"That's… disgusting." Rhetoric waves his tail for a second, keeping it low, then almost rotates full around to talk to her. "I had a visitor today."

"What?"

"Some phantom wearing green. Yellow hair. Black bandana. He didn't give his name, but I found him rather rude. I'm half tempted to report him for harassment."

Martyn. Pearl's instinct is to volunteer the name, though she catches herself and hesitates just before she can. "Oh. I'm sorry he bothered you. Was he hunting? Maybe he clocked you as not having slept… ever."

Rhetoric shrugs, dismissing her thin attempt at comfort. "He broke in. I'd talk to Scott about upgrading your security, if I were you."

[Full chapter on AO3 - Link at top]

[bots-and-cons]

This is a little odd you may ignore it if you want to just if you don’t mind posting to say your are ignoring it but how would Predaking and/or Darksteel and Skylynx react to finding another predacon (using my oc Nightwing as a filler he is a wyvern predacon) who is sparkmates with a (Arctic Star) Triple changer (flight mode and ground mode) neutral.

(ArticStar’s backstory is she a the cybertronian equivalent to a museum curator and specialized in predacon history, she avoided the war but was stranded for a long time on earth After shockwave sent the predacon clones but before the start of Transformers Prime, avoiding other cybertronians on earth she was very isolated until one of the predacon gaurds gaurd I Decepticon tech and emerging stores, Nightwing, on earth got injured chasing her down when her hiding spot was found and ArcticStar could leave him there and afterwards he turned a blind optic to her snitching Decepticon energon as a neutral. Unfortunately the other predacons weren’t as lucky surviving on earth so long as emerging stores ran out unless you knew how to locate it via tech like ArcticStar, the rest is history. Since I’m the show it showed Shockwave sent predacons to earth and they were recovering those bones) I was just wondering your take on the reactions especially after Predacons rising and Predaking being technically betrayed by both autobots and Decepticons.

You don’t have to use by characters I was giving you a base line for the predacons to react to. Or you don’t have to right reaction headcanons at all if this is too far out of your comfort zone and you just don’t want to. Either way have a great day 😄

Yeeaaaah, so I'm not gonna do this, because for some reason all my brain can see is the OC parts and I don't write for other people's OCs. I know that's not what you really asked for but anyway, sorry. If you want to you can send something else since I rejected this one. Also a little tip, at least when it comes to me, is that I recommend not mentioning any OC stuff in your request, because for some damned reason that's all my brain can focus on if it happens

[ruleofbirds]

𝚍𝚎𝚟𝚕𝚘𝚐_𝟶𝟸.𝟷

Moa's Ark & Zealandia

https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/moas-ark-1990/series

Moa's Ark (1990s TV series) opening animation. It was during the 90's that scientists formulated the "Zealandia" protocontinent theory and complexity of how species migrated over time, putting the last nail in the coffin of the idea that everyone got a free ride over on a piece of Australia. Going through Aotearoa's natural history doco archives has been a lot of fun.

Hello again! I took a bit of a break in posting long- form updates, but I think there's enough on my mind for a second batch of posts this week. After that there will again just be small updates on the Instagram until May - when I may have some sort of concept media for the sim to show off. For now I'll aim for a focused peek into a couple of aspects of it as usual.

This post is going to be all about the Moa, the species that got me hooked on this project. It's also going to be about species variation, and the tension between scientific accuracy and visual accessibility.

Moa skeletal reconstitutions at Te Papa Tongarewa, Museum of New Zealand.

A couple of interesting facts about the moa;

-We currently classify them as nine species. Here is a full catalog of every time someone thought they'd found a new one:

-Within many species, female moa can be more than twice the size of males (yes, this is one reason so many moa "species" were identified)

-Moa are unique in that they had no wings (not even the kiwi's tiny t-rex stubs) and, thank goodness because so many NZ species can be traced back to evolving from Australian fauna, their closest past relatives are South American tinamous rather than the emu.

-They also got a bad wrap for their past perception as tall, emu- like, big dumb grass grazers. Actually, while they're nowhere near as smart as multi-sense-foraging kiwi, they could identify and feast on a whole variety of twigs, herbs, leaves and berries - most of which were found in the more common forest than grassland.

This is why they have a bulky build and head-forward posture (until kinda recently, museum curators tended to give them that tall, emu/giraffe like posture, even adding extra vertebrae for show.)

Whanganui Regional Museum (This isn't close to the worst examples)

So; how do I even begin to approach the scope, as well as potential uncertainty, of data we have on the Moa?

Here's one way: Oversimplification!

Screenshots from Godot editor & runtime previews for compatibility (web) mode and forward+ (basically more shaders) renderer. The camera is RTS- style; getting the runtime shots was a bit finnicky.

I've started to build low-poly models in Blender for the fauna, which in the future I'd love to rig for animation and get super technical with appearance variation. For now I'll focus on the system for placing them in the right biome and basic pathing behaviour, and the Moa will be a North Island giant moa based vaguely off this model for an AR national park exhibit: https://moaparkotorohanga.wordpress.com/2014/07/08/a-collection-of-moa-feedback-from-trevor-worthy-and-lizzy-perrett/

While I'm not working directly on the simulator for the next while, I am building this 2D tool to represent the moa's species variation; it is *incredibly* helpful to have just set up a system where I can add and edit instances of a broader Moa "class", and I'm looking forward to giving each species its visual character (the main creative liberty I'll be taking is colour coding from grey to brown to communicate which of New Zealand's islands each species populated, as well as their preferred biome (there's 3 main ones: subalpine mountain, wet podocarp forest, dry forest/ lowland)

Moa "collection" project at time of writing.

If this exercise has highlighted anything though, it's just how difficult it is to reduce life's complexities to a single shape that represents a single numeric value. Those who read my last posts may remember that any given moa species' size may have varied over time and with temperature, (generally bigger during ice ages and smaller out of them) along altitude, (generally bigger and bulkier higher up) and just within species based on how they adapted to any given place. Not to mention the relatively massive lady moa.

And since we're only working with what's left of them all - the only intact gizzard samples proving that whole diet theory, and most of the remains we have to work with, are those found in Pyramid Valley in Canterbury (a swamp with surrounding mosaic of vegetation and forest) - who knows how to truly depict what life was like tens of thousands of years ago.

From the Moa book by Quinn Berentson

A very cursed JavaScript "spreadsheet".

So, very long-winded post. I hope you found something interesting within! Something that made you think about nature's craziness maybe. I meant to get across just how much there is to scientific communication, and I barely touched on how I aim to keep the overall narrative in focus (or basically be aware of it.)

I can't wait to work on this more collaboratively, with folks who really know their stuff about ecology and the cultural aspects of Aotearoa - I think the potential for collaboration and education is what's keeping me going with this project.

Until next time ! - here's some of my highlights from a trip to the Zealandia ecosanctuary.

Kia hora te marino

Kia whakapapa pounamu te moana

Hei huarahi mā tātou i te rangi nei

Aroha atu, aroha mai

Tātou i a tātou katoa

Hui e! Tāiki e!

May peace be widespread

May the sea be like greenstone

A pathway for us all this day

Let us show respect for each other

For one another

Bind us all together!

[victorluvsalice]

Happy Birthday Nebby!

@nebbychan -- As per your suggestion of doing something with your Modern AU takes on Dan and Kiya from MediEvil (specifically "Maybe the two chatting at a museum about their favorite time periods (Dan can brag about his minor degree in Medieval Studies and Kiya can do the same with her Egyptology studies)"), here's the pair at a museum, specifically chatting about Medieval European and Ancient Egyptian weaponry! Because, to be honest, the first things that popped into my head when thinking about the prompt were these two posts on wacky polearms by prokopetz. XD Hope you enjoy!

--

“...and that one, right there? That’s a Bohemian Ear-Spoon.”

Kiya raised a suspicious eyebrow at him. “You are definitely making that one up.”

“Nope,” Dan told her with his biggest, toothiest grin. “Completely real. Check out the label.”

Kiya squinted at him, then turned her attention to the identification tag plastered to the case. A moment later, her eyes went wide. “What even,” she declared, standing up straight.

“I know!” Dan said, laughing. “And you know what? That thing is not nearly the weirdest polearm out there. I’ve seen one that looked like one of those fancy pointy spikes you see on top of churches with a blender attachment on the side.”

“Seriously? European weapons are bizarre,” was Kiya’s opinion on that. She glanced up at him. “So – did they tell you in uni why that one’s called an ‘Ear-Spoon’ of all things?”

“Oh, this is one of those weird ones where the original name doesn’t translate well to English,” Dan explained. “But most people think it’s ‘cause they call those two triangular bits forming the guard the ‘ears.’”

“Ah – well, that’s better than what I originally thought.”

Dan tilted his head. “Do I want to know?”

Kiya made a motion like she was jamming something into her ear while pulling a face. “I think you can guess.”

Dan grimaced, his very teeth seeming to flex with the motion. “Yeah...kind of prefer to avoid that kind of ear-spooning,” he said, absently brushing his bangs a little more over his eye patch.

Kiya winced. “Yeah, I – sorry, I didn’t mean to–”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Dan assured her, holding up his hands with an awkward grin. “Shit happens, you know? It’s not a big deal or anything. I definitely don’t want it spoiling our date.”

“Me either.” Kiya took one of his hands, smiling warmly. “I’m having a really good time. I didn’t expect learning about the fifty million polearms Medieval Europe invented would be so interesting.”

Dan snorted. “Well, I gotta make sure someone other than me gets some use out of my minor,” he said, smile much more genuine now. “And it is pretty neat that they came up with so many different variations. You wouldn’t think there would be that many ways to change up ‘sharp pointy metal bit on stick.’” He regarded Kiya curiously. “You get anything like that with Ancient Egyptian weaponry?”

“Not really – Ancient Egypt honestly had something of a problem making any effective weapons until the New Kingdom period,” Kiya said, slipping into “curator” mode. “And even then, they mainly advanced because they’d been conquered by the Hyksos – foreign rulers who slipped into power while the main Egyptian dynasty was crumbling – and they were able to pilfer a lot of knowledge of arms off them before they drove them out.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Mainly, using bronze tips on their spears to help them hold an edge better and longer,” Kiya said with a little chuckle. “Though they also created the javelin in that time, and they used that to pretty great effect in their later campaigns. Honestly, though, my favorite Egyptian weapon from that time period is the Khopesh.”

“Oh?” Dan leaned in, intrigued. “What’s that? Guessing not a spear?”

“Nope – a large curved sword that looks something like a sickle,” Kiya told him, grinning. “Only with the sharp edge on the outside. Pharaohs from that time period are often depicted wielding it because it was known as a very dangerous and powerful weapon – one more than fit for a king.” She giggled. “And like your Ear-Spoon, the name might come from a body part – some scholars believe it was derived from the Egyptian word for ‘leg’ because it looks vaguely like a haunch of beef.”

Dan laughed. “That’s great!” He looked around the room. “You think they might have one of those here? I know they’ve got an Egyptian exhibit...”

Kiya linked her arm through his, face bright. “Let’s go and find out.”

--

Bohemian Ear-Spoon On Wikipedia

Ancient Egyptian Weapons: The Evolution of Warfare

Khopesh On Wikipedia

[tspud-whiteboard]

Update 2023-06-25

OH. Oh geez. Okay. For a good while now, the idea has been floating around that there really should be a space for some other characters as well - Mariella being the most requested one.

Now what do we do, what do we DO. It's one week before the deadline? You know what, fuggit. Submit your Stanley, Narrator, Settings/432/Timekeeper, Curator or ANY OF THE OTHER G'DAMN TSP CHARACTERS that also mean a lot to you.

Characters, items, places. Where even is the Line™ when it comes to being a character in the Stanley Parable. Get creative!

The same 300x400px format applies.

It HAS to be someone or something in the actual game (Original Characters would be their very own can of worms that I'm not willing to open at this sweet, precious moment).

You can submit ONE picture per character - but that does mean you can send, say, one for Mariella, one for Line™, one for Stanley's Wife, one for Pencil Sharpener, one for Broom Closet... you get the gist.

I suppose you kind of have to hurry up with that now because I don't want to extend the deadline into Forever... sorry about that! But it could potentially be very fun to see what other characters deserve a spot in our hearts and on the Board!

This is overwhelming? Dang straight, you're telling me. You don't have to draw ALL OF THESE, oh my god. You only want to submit your Narrator? Yes please! Stanley's computer is the only character you ever cared about? Yes, that's good, too! Nope, you want to draw the entire cast and that terrible green wallpaper with the eye pattern? I dare you. This is meant to be a fun collab, so you better only be doing what's fun for you. Ignore my constant prodding you with a hot iron poker, that thing's just for show. Much like the deadline is. I mean, no, the deadline is real, of course, but it's not like this blog will instantly fold back up into its tiny suitcase form on July the 1st and be gone forever. I'll more go into idling mode. Whatever that means.

AnyWAY, I put a Secret Fifth Thing option in the tags for [Submissions]. Huhuhuh. For your convenience.

I'll draw a few as well, yes yes. Might stick them all on the Curator board - she still seems a tad lonely over there, and what better place to put More Cast Members than a museum!

Well, you heard me. Go go go, draw draw draw! No pressure or anything. I'm. I'm as confused as you are, honestly.

[the-rockstar-lestat]

Louis doesn't seem to want to show us the inside of your house. Will you do it please Daddy?

All right dears, as you wish.

Now, remember, this isn't QUITE the same house that Claudia burnt down because, well, Claudia burnt it down. Not to the ground, of course, it was rebuilt over the years, rented out as apartments. Jesse, in her time as a Talamasca agent, bought it out, began the process of ...excavating? Shall we say?, looking for proof of our time there. I owe the correct restorations of the paint and wall paper to her and her steamer. But it was I, friends and fans, who lovingly restored it, with the few original furnishings I could find, and other antiques dating from our time, and mostly modern things that LOOK right and that remind me of what we had, based on my memory. We lived here from 1800 to 1862, so as you might imagine, we changed and redecorated it several times over the years, to remain á la mode. So, like all restorations, I had to pick a year to work on, and I picked (mainly) the last years I remember, the last time I was happy here. So most of the decor and furnishings are from then. Sometimes I cheated, because I found something RIGHT, or an original piece (we sold things over and over. You'd be surprised what survives. ) Or something was particularly sentimental. Or I just wanted to. I'm restoring MY home, after all, not curating a museum.

Have I been accused of making life sized museums to times I was happy? I plead the fifth. (Did I use that right?)

Anyway, here are a few pictures. It's not completely finished yet, there's always more work to do, but I thought you might enjoy it.

Our formal parlor. Not that we entertained much. The columns were the very height of fashion in the early 1800s when we moved in. As time went on we updated our decor to the times, but I rather like the neo-classicism so those stayed throughout it's entire lifetime. Red was always my favorite color.

My favorite part of the house. We went through several different harpsichords, before the pianoforte came into fashion, and then we went through several of those. I prefer the piano for versatility, though the sound of the harpsichord's plucked strings has always appealed to me. As we had so many pianos over the years the task of choosing one was difficult, but I went with this one, as it reminded me of the one Claudia took lessons on.

The desk in Louis' study. You can tell what parts Louis decorated because the florals appear. Louis did most of the work of running our businesses and moving the money around that kept us afloat. I....helped. a bit. The wallpaper is genuine. Thank you, Jesse.

Selfie! Louis is always on me for taking selfies in any available mirror, but I LIKED this shot. It's our library. Louis and are both avid readers, and we spent many happy hours here. I'm rebuilding our collection book by book. The mirror I'm posing so fetchingly in is actually a mirrored cabinet we had, full of curiosities. What can I say, we were Victorians, we liked to collect odd things. Of course, we were the oddest things in the house by far.

Louis' room. We kept seperate bedrooms, for appearances sakes. Also, Louis needed his space, and my clothes (then as now) tended to get EVERYWHERE, so it was practical. Also, I'm not sure what's worse, people discovering we had only one bedroom because we were lovers, or that we didn't sleep there anyway because we were vampires. Either way, it was for appearances sake only. And unlike The TV Show We May Mention, we didn't have a handy rotating room to hide them, so we draped them with fabric and passed them off as chests or tables during the day. Care to guess what that daybed really is?

Anyway if the room looks a bit sparce, it's not just because Louis taste is simpler than mine. This room is simply unfinished. I wanted Louis to have a larger hand in its restoration, so it fits his memory and makes him happy.

Her room. Also very unfinished. Honestly little more than a storage space for things we might do with it. This room was a paradise, believe me. Claudia redecorated often as she grew up, and eventually became the unoffical Lady of the house, a title we were glad to grant her (she had exquisite taste. Apparently the swan song of Claudia's decorating sensibility were her and Louis' rooms in Paris, but I never saw those.) So there are many decisions to make in how we want to do this room.

The shade of paint is correct, the original mural that Jesse discovered has since deteriorated, so not worth showing off just yet, and Claudia had a canopy bed with mosquito netting, but everything else....well...I was unable to proceed far into this room. Louis and I are going to work on it together. We'll get there.

[lesbianmarrow]

Even for the artist, in a world stripped of transcendent unities, the strategy of collage, of juxtaposition, makes the best of a bad situation. It is both recognition of, and romantic protest against, the idea that the world is finished, worn out. The best art coaxes a distinct unity out of juxtaposition; bad art deposits scrap upon scrap, endlessly reshuffling the cultural givens into pastiche, as in Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Whether in fin-de-siècle assemblage or surrealist juxtaposition, in Rauschenberg or Larry Rivers, the style of conjunction is central to modern art. In poetry we see it in the fragments of Eliot's "The Waste Land" and Pound's Cantos, in John Ashbery's breathless swoops from image to image. The nervous editing style of most contemporary film has shaped every other art form. In the novel, we have the pop-cultural dumping grounds of Joyce, the luminous lists of Jorge Luis Borges; in architecture, the postmodernism of Michael Graves and Philip Johnson among others. In a single building, postmodernism shamelessly combines the classical (columns and pediments), the decorative (ornament and trim), and the Bauhaus (simplicity and angularity). In museums, as Susan Sontag points out, the Paris Beaubourg is built with movable partitions, so that the relations between distinct exhibits can be redefined at the curator's will. The high forms of popular music are unified recombinant albums—the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Who's Tommy—and more recently, Blondie's 1980 album Autoamerican, which contains songs in big band, reggae, rap, religious-portentous, and rhythm-and-blues styles. Such albums with their peculiar unity assert that order can be assembled only from the juxtaposition of shards. They echo Eliot's line, "These fragments I have shored against my ruins." In fashion, the New Wave extends the conventional assertion that all styles are born equal and juxtaposition amounts to wit. Anything goes with anything else—tuxedo jackets with candy wrappers, leg warmers with sandals—mocking and extending the recombinatory mode at the same time. In the background stands the ultimate recombinatory form: television, the medium that perpetually levels, juxtaposing Holocaust to a soap commercial, news of cluster bombs in Lebanon to an appeal for hemorrhoid medicine, converting each bit into a sequel to the last and a prologue to the next, composing unintended and hitherto unimagined wholes out of parts and proposing that all images are related to all others. Scarecely a punk rock or New Wave album is complete without a song decrying television, satirizing the singer's dependency on it, skating along the slippery edge where irony and subjugation melt together. The fascination TV works on its most furious bewailers is the fascination of meaninglessness raised to a universal principle. Yet the mind-sets of network gatekeepers and New Wave songwriters may not be so different at least in one respect. They are both haunted by the half-felt premise that nothing is new under the sun.

Todd Gitlin, Inside Prime Time

[altheterrible]

The water is only knee deep.

Well I haven’t written a long, rambling post about my life in awhile, so here we go.

Right now, my life has a level of stability that is truly unprecedented.

When I moved to Detroit for grad school and was suddenly away from my family and their drama, I found myself in a much more stable environment than I had ever been, and it was unfamiliar and uncomfortable. I reacted by causing my own chaos, because at the time I only felt normal if I was in fight or flight mode. Hence the years of stitches and hospitalizations and all that jazz.

Now, though, I am in a very stable place and I don’t feel compelled to ruin it. I feel like...instead of getting knocked over again and again by crashing waves, I am standing up in the water and realizing it’s only knee deep. I’m surveying my surroundings for the first time because I’m finally not struggling to keep my head above water.

This is what I see.

Getting my pharmacist license back is going to require paying my fine and probably getting a lawyer as well as acquiring documentation from my therapist that says I am now stable enough to practice pharmacy. That will not be a problem, she is 100% on my side. My sister will be a lawyer in a year so I have that covered. I will not have $1000 in a year, but I should get a decent tax refund this year that I can put towards it. 

But! I do not know if I want to go back to pharmacy. Retail pharmacy is soul sucking. Telling old people they can’t have their anticoagulant unless they have $200/month, telling people they can’t have inhalers or insulin unless they pay...it’s unethical, frankly, and I won’t do it. Hospital pharmacy would be a better fit, but that generally requires a residency and I absolutely can’t even afford to apply for residency especially since I know that with my record, I wouldn’t match.

There’s a certificate in medical writing I want to start working on, but I can’t get financial aid and I can’t afford even one class a semester. But medical writing would be a good fit for me--I understand clinical research, I enjoy writing, and I am good at breaking things down so people can understand them. But, money. Always money.

I applied for a recently-opened lead position at my current job, and the pay bump would be nice, but it’s still only part time. That said, I really enjoy what I do there and I love my coworkers. It’s low stress and no one throws things at me. I would absolutely abandon pharmacy to pursue a career in museums, but it’s such a hard industry to break into. There's a gulf between customer service at a museum and the curators/designers/science folks, and it is huge and impassable.

My sister is giving me more responsibility at the library. I’m going to start running an adult book/movie club in September in addition to running monthly teen nights. I’m doing a murder mystery night in October as well, and the annual trunk or treat. I’m going to be working 5-6 days a month instead of the 1-2 that I have been, so I’ll have a little extra money. I really enjoy working on library programming, I love coming up with ideas for programs and then making them into reality. I’ve looked at finishing my MLIS, but my credits expired last year and I think I’d have to start over. But in Michigan, you don’t really need an MLIS to be a high-ranking library employee, and my sister says she thinks I would make a great director once I get some more management experience under my belt. She’s going to teach me the secrets of grant writing and she’s working with me about learning how to report our data to the state for state aid. I think working in libraries could be extremely fulfilling. I’ve toyed with the idea of sending a resume off to the local medical school library to see if they need an assistant. 

One of my goals for therapy when I switched therapists in January was that I wanted to be able to make a firm commitment to staying alive. I’ve always felt very ambivalent about the future. I wasn’t sure there would be anything in the future worth sticking around for. Now I realize I need to make those things myself. I think I finally am committed to staying alive. I still go down suicidal, life-is-meaningless, I wish I was dead spirals, but they don’t last too long. Idk, maybe it’s the Prozac. Maybe it’s working jobs that don’t make me hate myself. Maybe it’s having a life that’s predictable enough that I can actually plan for the future.

For the first time in my life, I don’t feel the urge to run and leave everything and everyone behind. I’m letting myself form relationships with people that actually mean something to me. I sometimes still feel like if I disappeared, nothing in the world would change, but mostly I’m starting to see the worth in myself that other people keep insisting is there. I’m treating myself better. Trying to rest, trying to be creative daily, putting my needs before other peoples’ wants. 

I don’t want to say I’m happy, because I don’t want to jinx it, but I am content most of the time. I whine and complain a lot, but that’s just who I am as a person; a whiny baby. When I go to bed at night, I no longer wish to die in my sleep. I don’t pray to get hit by a bus or a car or an asteroid anymore. And you know, maybe that will change. Maybe things will get dark again. Right now, I feel okay about that, too. I’m just enjoying my quiet little life and not bracing myself for the next catastrophe. It might come, it might not, but that doesn’t mean that right now, this moment, needs to be rushed.

[ashleysingermfablog]

Wk 16, 15th of June, 2024 Studio Work development

Arcane ways of holding knowledge, knowledge systems for a few

Right: Ashley Singer, concrete driveway, 2024, research image

Left: Ashley Singer, crushed clay flower casts on concrete driveway, 2024, research image

Ashley Singer, spell casts, 2024, guide for viewing floorwork, incantations derived from Graham King's The British Book of Charms and Spells

Arcane knowledge (requiring secret knowledge to be understood) is mysterious and only known by a few people. Folk traditions have become forms of arcane knowledge as some practices have become less popularised through a greater push for knowledge that is transpired with reason, rational, strict or literal logic (not myth) or is belonging to a more popularised cultural view (like pop culture and other universal knowledge systems or knowledge from organised religion). Folk knowledge keys into ways that everyday folk, people and groups of people added meaning to life, events, and happenings like natural phenomena, people's actions and the wills of deities. Fine Art can use modes of arcane thinking to mystify works and the methodologies behind them. By engaging with a greater sense of mysticism and the unknown, or information only 'knowable' to some, a sense of ritual, divinity and mystery is conjured in my practice.

Clandestine meetings or knowledge sharing rituals are evoked in instances like fortune telling, rune reading, many types of divination (through the diviner). As the ages have gone by meanings of flowers, languages of the seasons, folk tales and fairy stories have become more and more recondite. Texts that speak of alchemy, the medieval ages, Victorian flower arrangements, turn of the century fairy tales have become digitised through online sources such as Jstor, online digital archives and museum collections. Falling into the realm of historic knowledge, the practical manifestation of esoteric knowledge systems is lost. Impositions on the evocation of some ancient or old ways of knowing is that the practical action of ancient knowledge may lose traction in family systems and become stagnant or unremembered. By evoking knowledge systems relevant to my Celtic (Cymry) Whakapapa, I am activating modes of thought that currently sit dormant or lay waiting in my family's lineage.

Joseph Jacobs, More Celtic fairy tales 1854-1916, Publication date 1902

Joseph Jacobs, Preface of More Celtic fairy tales 1854-1916, Publication date 1902

Joseph Jacobs, Tale of Morraha in More Celtic fairy tales 1854-1916, Publication date 1902

In art making, making collections of works can be seen as a way of gathering knowledge. Hans Ulrich Obrist in the text Ways of Curating discusses making a collection in the chapter "Collecting knowledge" (Page 25).

From the text: Ways of Curating by Hans Ulrich Obrist (Chapter: Collecting Knowledge and Architecture, Urbanisms and Exhibitions)...

To make a collection is to find, acquire, organise and store items, whether in a room, a house, a library, a museum or a warehouse. It is also, inevitably, a way of thinking about the world- connections and principles that produce a collection contain assumptions, juxtapositions, findings, experimental possibilities and associations.

The compulsive interest of [people] in collecting expressed itself as a drive to collate and understand significant objects: the fossils, minerals, specimens, tools and artisanal products that provided evidence of our knowledge of and theories about the world.

Today, important collections are stored in public institutions.

By the Renaissance, Wunderkammer-maker Athanius Kircher and other scholars were using 'museum' to refer to any place or object- a study, a library, a garden, an encyclopaedia- where items were collected for learned study.

Further in Chapter: Architecture, Urbanisms and Exhibitions,

Curating can be urbanism, that [curating] can be about the mutation of changing cities.

If cities can be urban sites filled with multiple knowledge systems, then some information of the cities could be found in the vegetal matter that leaves a trace throughout. Is a space for information gathering, a knowledge-bank? Is this also what an exhibition attempts to manifest? An exhibition could be understood as a specific amalgamation of knowledge and knowledge systems represented in space.

Philippe Parreno on French contemporary exhibition Immatériaux:

If you haven't seen the exhibition, it's hard for me to describe it. If I tell you how it was, it will sound like a dream. 'The show was surprising in the curatorial choices, in the manner in which objects and experiences were arranged.

Both sites themselves and what is bought into the site are littered, so to speak, with information. The cohesion between the collection of knowledge brought in by the artist in installation, and the pre-established information of the site space, co-opts and experiences art together. Reading through an exhibition can be done in a way that sees the gallery space (and it's outdoor environment) as readable with the work brought in for exhibition. Perhaps reading the gallery as a site, gives an installing artist the multitudes they need to arrange or co-opt a site in alignment with the subject matter of their work.

Further, I wonder, if it has been made clear by Obrist that collections are information holders, then so too are exhibitions. This may seem very obvious, and perhaps fundamental to the aim of having an exhibition in the first place, yet it is important to acknowledge that the harmonisation between artwork and site is not always forefront to an installation strategy by the curator or installing artist.

If work seeks to ritualise in space, then harmony is key to a convincing install.

On this, we run into two key terms: variable media and dimensions variable

From the text: Dimension variable by New Museum Digital Archive...

“Dimensions Variable” is the standard term for designating the size of an art object which varies or cannot be physically bounded. The artists included in the exhibition sought to explore the ephemeral, elusive, and undefinable by creating and utilizing specific substances and objects with little or no “art” identity: light, prisms, water, motors, plastic, wires, and gas. In so doing, the artists achieved phenomena not commonly visible in art, and were able to express observations and ideas that resisted verbalization — these means challenged the viewer to see what was not physically there.

This could link to the esoteric and ineffable spiritual component of my work that seeks to engage with the cultural understandings and customs of complete rituals in my work.

access below:

From the text: The Variable Media Initiative by the Guggenheim...

The Variable Media Initiative, a nontraditional, new preservation strategy, emerged in 1999 from the museum’s efforts to preserve media-based and performative works in its permanent collection, and later spawned the Variable Media Network (VMN). Initially supported by a grant from the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology in Montreal, Canada, the VMN now comprises a group of international institutions and consultants, including University of Maine, the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archives, Franklin Furnace, Rhizome.org, and Performance Art Festival & Archives. VMN is recognized for its ground-breaking methodology, which seeks to define acceptable levels of change within any given art object and documents ways in which a sculpture, installation, or conceptual work may be altered (or not) for the sake of preservation without losing that work’s essential meaning.

The Variable Media approach integrates the analysis of materials with the definition of an artwork independently from its medium, allowing the work to be translated once its current medium becomes obsolete. By identifying the work’s behaviors (contained, installed, performed, reproduced, etc.) and strategies (storage, emulation, migration, and reinterpretation), artists, conservators, and curators can advance the preservation of new-media art.

access below: https://www.guggenheim.org/conservation/the-variable-media-initiative

[faintingviolet]

Travel Research Books (CBR16 #4-6)

At work we’re in research mode, preparing for our new exhibition about travel in the 19th century. Based on my interests and previous research avenues I got handed the Grand Tour and a piece of the cruise industry as my responsibilities. For the past few weeks, I’ve been scouring all my usual resource repositories, googling some very interesting UK museum websites, and our curator made sure I had…

[messengerofmechs]

OHOHOH Gear, Package, Crown and Family for Castor and Crow?

Ooooooo thanks for the ask :)

⚙️ GEAR - what are your ocs thoughts on science & art? which do they give more importance to? how much value do they place on each?

Pollux is basically a huge museum. There's a lot of emphasis on creation and curating and a lot of value is placed on art. Neither Castor or Crow were directly involved with the museums and exhibits but they were definitely part of their jobs.

Science isn't neglected, but it's not the ideal. Crow definitely values the forensic sciences, and Castor is mainly concerned about what new technologies could do for Pollux on a large scale.

📦 PACKAGE - what are some "most likely to..." that can apply to them?

I think this refers to like those things in high-school yearbooks? That's how I'll answer anyway.

Crow - Most likely to start a true crime podcast. Most likely to be in your vents at 3 am.

Castor - Most likely to embark of a quest for bloody revenge. Most likely to master the stoic thousand yard stare despite really needing a good cry.

👑 CROWN - what does your oc want to be remembered as? why?

Crow has dreams of being a big-name detective some day, but they're rapidly being eclipsed with, you know. Everything. Guy's in survival mode, he doesn't know what his future is going to be like and that terrifies him.

Castor didn't want to be remembered as Pollux's greatest speaker ever, but she wanted to be a good one. Now, she really doesn't want to be the last one. If she's going to be the speaker that failed she's also going to be the speaker that sets it right.

👪 FAMILY - what is their family like? what is your ocs relationship to them? does your oc have any siblings?

Augh going right for the jugular. And also right into to a big gaping hole in my charactizarions. I guess there has to be loved ones left behind when Pollux fell.

I definitely envision that the Ciztens onboard the Dirge have banded together into a support group, despite only being acquaintances or strangers beforehand. (Fun fact Crow and Midnight Luxury Channel have beef, one of Crow's first assignments was a scandal involving MLC.)

Castor's remains a bit distant from them however, every time she sees them the guilt starts.

Aether and Castor had a frequent working relationship beforehand, with Aether in charge of managing Pollux's own prized collection/exhibit of alien vehicles. Aether is the only one out of the surviors to have known Castor personally before everything went to shit.

Castor had a command staff that she was quite close with, but they were divided up in trying to manage the crisis and subsequently put completely out of reach. There was the speaker before Castor that trained her, who she also holds a deep respect for.

And of course, Pollux itself, who Castor fears for most of all.

Crow has his mentors who pulled him from the well, along with his old squad on the police force, all of whom he misses terribly.