The Meadous Museum

[termineur]

The Meadous Museum is a two-story structure with many, many open rooms for exhibits detailing the world of the Meadous and the worlds outside of it. It is a work in progress, the exhibits being created by the residents of the Meadous themselves.

Connected to the Museum is the butterfly pavilion. It provides an indoor space to enjoy nature year-round, but there are many open pathways to let bugs and animals in and out through to the outdoor garden. There's a koi pond in the middle of the pavilion, which connects to the river to the west. The pavilion also connects to the greenhouse to the east, allowing a seamless indoor transition between the three buildings.

As of now, there are not nearly enough exhibits in the Museum to fill its space:

Upper floor
The upper (ground) floor to the museum holds information about the Meadous itself. The walls are mostly white with dark wood strips as accents leading up to the many oddly-angled skylights. Thanks to all the windows, the lighting almost makes one feel like they're still out in the open air. With the ceilings higher than they seem on the outside, the whole place feels light and airy.

About halfway down the main hallway leading into the exhibits is a line of thin black paint and a markered note: "Timeline starts here." Across from the note is a set of glass double doors leading into the beginnings of the cafe. A large counter has been carved and finished out of a single wide, fallen tree. It appears that someone is also making chairs out of this tree, as there are about ten of them finished so far. There's the start of a sink space on the far counter, and clearly some things are starting to get hooked up.


Continuing on down the main hallway brings you to the exhibits. The first thing you'll come across is a large map of the Meadous, painted on a display wall. It details any large buildings, such as the Library or the Watchtower-- but no one's individual houses. A small sign under it states that the map may not be accurate, because the world itself may have changed since it was last painted.


Moving on from that is a set of photographs of daily life in The Village- these photos are high-resolution, vivid, and sharp. In microfont at the bottom of every photo, KD6-3.7 is printed. Most importantly, though, they're moving! They seem to have about half a minute of animation.

A couple of photos show people taking food down from the unusual trees here- the Chocolate Tree and Chinese Takeout Tree, respectively. A small note next to each of them says that these trees were wished for, and anyone is free to take food from them. There are also photos of ducks and geese floating peacefully in the Wishing Pond, and a panning shot of horses in full gallop across the meadows themselves.

There are also a few drawings, including the Remember Tree and now-native creatures from the Void. The ones in the Meadous are pastel colors.


A room down from the Meadows exhibit is the combination Dunes/Beach/Sea area. There isn't much here yet, but there is another photo (similarly moving and by KD6-3.7) of sunlight glittering on the sea, as the clouds slowly roll by and seabirds drift on the breeze. A few more photos depict pastel crabs skittering across the sand. There are also a few more drawings, sketches of the dunes as well as of the snakes and beetles that live there.


One of the more complete exhibits is The Islands. In this small section, there are a few sketches of the local wildlife, drawn in a sharp and heavy-handed style. All the animal sketches are labelled, from the chocobo to the syldra. In another case, a number of colorful crystals are displayed, and a note indicates that they are from Volcano Island. A large three-dimensional wooden map depicts the three islands: Volcano Island, Lagoon Island, and Atoll Island. And finally, a smaller display case has one of the panels removed and the other three sides painted black. Inside is a few blue crystals, and the box shows that they glow rather beautifully in the darkness.


Also on the upper floor, towards the front of the building and behind those two glass doors, is the beginnings of a cafe.

There is also a small auditorium, although one needs to follow the signs to the back and left of the building to reach it. Once entering it, it feels almost cut off from the rest of the museum- a perfect place for lectures and musical performances.



Lower Floor
The lower (basement) floor to the museum has a much darker, cave-like feel to it, with the walls being covered in dark wood strips. The dark down here helps illuminate the display cases that much more easily. This area is meant for everything that's been encountered outside the Meadous, both worlds of origin and worlds that have been visited.

The Void: The largest exhibit details the Void. Included in the front are a number of drawn portraits, and they are labeled with names: Dia, Noc, Eve, and Rae.

Next to the portraits are John Watson's details of the event. With them is an additional sign with words from Royce Melborn:

The four sisters offered those who helped gifts. These gifts included a vial of color that reflected the receiver's personality, a painted glass vase in which plants never wilt, a book describing the most impressive details of what the individual in question accomplished, and a fan that helped said individual remember their best and most cherished memories.

In the new world the sisters created together, aided by the color that the Meadous collected for them, a tree was planted. The tree's name is Ahrakon, and it is the oldest tree, the protector of all trees. It is Dia's companion.

Underneath, there's a picture of said tree, painted by Royce in a fashion far more clumsy than this, since he's not exactly the best of artists:


Nearby is a book in a display case, received from Rae and donated by Royce. It is titled The Majesty of Colors.

Recuerdo: This is exhibit is much smaller, but does include another report from John Watson on what happened there. Next to it, in a display case, is a brightly-colored guitar.

Timeless: This exhibit currently only exists as a sign and a display case of two wind-up toys, one a fox and one a dog. A small sign in the case reads 'From Vixy'.


Beyond the Visited Worlds are the Home and Secondary Worlds. The first one you come across is Panem. It only has a map for the moment.

Beyond that is a small exhibit listed as Earth - Gabriel Gray. A small placard indicates that 'Earth' appears to exist for multiple people- however, there are slightly different variations of it for most. A small Map of the Earth is up, with only the continents labeled, and next to it is a Map of the United States of America. Unfortunately, the states are labelled a little incorrectly- Arizona and New Mexico are mixed up, as are Wyoming, Montana, and Nebraska. The exhibit goes on to detail what life was like in 2010- there are descriptions of technology, including the internet, cell phones and smart phones, and a few sketches of what automobiles of this time looked like.

And there is a small section labeled 'Abilities,' with the following note: 'In my world, there is currently an exponential evolution of humanity. More and more people are gaining amazing abilities that would otherwise be impossible. These abilities can frequently be hard to control and, considering the amount of power behind each one, dangerous. Currently, humans with special abilities keep them a secret, but it is inevitable that humanity will have to deal with this paradigm shift soon. - Gabriel Gray' Next to that is a list of abilities and a small icon indicating what the word might mean. Listed abilities are: Intuitive aptitude, telekinesis, cryokinesis, pyrokinesis, electrokinesis, technopathy, disintegration, enhanced memory, enhanced hearing, enhanced strength, flight, space-time manipulation, illusion, induced radioactivity, melting, lie detection, precognition, rapid cellular regeneration, sound manipulation, super-speed, and ability absorption/nullification.


On this floor is the archive, to which Renart has graciously donated a Book and Paper Repair Kit.



There is nearly constantly someone in there working on something or other, and the place is starting to take shape as a museum. There is a sign up front encouraging people to donate interesting items they might find to the museum, as well as a note that Gabriel is available to help with any exhibit set-up.


--Please feel free to comment below with donations or even sections of the museum your character has worked on themselves. I will add it to this post! This is meant to be an OOC reference, as well as an IC one.--


Last updated on October 11th, 2018.

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[ignes_fatui]

There's a small but densely populated section of the museum dedicated to the Meadous' sky and celestial bodies. A wall-spanning chart depicting the ruby-red stars of the Meadous takes up a large portion of wall, with thin white lines drawn to note constellations. Also on the chart are more detailed satellite photographs of individual stars, colorful nebulae, and comets, as well as a collection of diagrams and notices in neat, angular handwriting which list and illustrate various facts, including:

• The planet on which the Meadous sits is roughly 12,800 kilometers in diameter, which we're able to calculate by how long it takes for Spacepuncher to completely orbit it.
• The Meadous' sun is approximately 100 times larger than the planet. The Meadous' moon is a quarter of the planet's size.
• The Meadous exists in a geocentric system, with the sun and moon both orbiting it.
• The Meadous' atmosphere extends 85 kilometers up from sea level - unusually low, compared to other worlds with interplanetary voids.
• The largest star in the sky identified so far is in the Canis Pianist constellation, being over two thousand times as large as the Meadous' sun.
• The smallest star in the sky is in the Roach and the Ducks constellation, and is less than one hundredth the size of the sun.
• There are other planetary bodies in the sky, though they seem to be very, very far away.
• Up until the 83rd of Winter, Year 3, the stars were much closer in and appeared as five-pointed symbols that were "drawn" in glowing light when viewed through a telescope.

To the star chart's left are a two sets of blueprints, each drawn up in clear and comprehensive detail with their specifications written in various different handwritings and languages, and each with photos of the finished projects and short descriptions mounted underneath.

The first section depicts a cartoonishly rabbit-shaped rocket ship. Much of the writing is in Zephyr's own childish print, large and enthusiastic. The photographs depict it standing tall and proud in the Meadous' high mountains, near where the observatory currently stands (though it's noticeably absent from the photo), and sitting in a crystalline landing bay, surrounded by rabbits. The plaque beneath explains that this Gummi Ship was built as a collaboration between Zephyr and the inhabitants of the Meadous for the purposes of taking their first voyage to the moon's crystal kingdom. It was launched on the 37th of Summer, Year 4, and when not in use Zephyr keeps it in their room.

The second section depicts a metal sphere with a telescope and four large, almost insect-like wings protruding from it. Bizarrely, the metal shell has an intricate paintjob with an eyes and roses motif, blueprint is labeled Spacepuncher. Spacepuncher was launched on the 23rd of Summer, Year 4, and was built by the inhabitants of the Meadous as an exploratory probe meant to gather data about the sky in greater detail and about the Meadous from above. It is equipped with two cameras, a high-powered telescope, a tracking system, a barometer, a thermometer, a dragon-o-meter, and a transmitter to send its findings back to the Meadous. It takes the satellite 24 hours to circle the planet on which the Meadous sits, and in that time it passes over eight distinct other realms. Aerial photographs of each one are lined up below the plaque, with their statistics listed next to them.

To the star chart's right is a pair of maps. One is much larger than the other, and depicts the Meadous, as seen from above and in the full bloom of spring. The streets are all labeled in the same neat handwriting as the rest of the exhibit. The second - smaller and with a great deal less annotation - shows the enclosed yet sprawling crystalline city on the moon, with its many varied districts.