AC Cast — the recurring characters of our productions #

A reusable casting bible for every illustrated/felt AC production (pop covers, marketing campaigns, grant films, papers). Drop a character's block into a gpt-image / gen-promo / gen-felt prompt to keep figures consistent across the whole body of work. Two media dominate our productions:

• Needle-felt diorama — hand-crafted wool puppets, visible fibre, bead eyes, stop-motion film-still vibe (Isle of Dogs / Aardman). NOT cartoon, NOT plush, NOT cute. Used by most /pop covers and the Restless Egg film.
• Hatched colored-pencil + gouache on white paper — print-comic restraint, diegetic light only. Used by the keymaps paper covers and the "computer help call" /pop covers.

Source-of-truth prompt files are cited per entry — read them in full when you need the exact wording. Keep this file updated as new characters are cast.

Leads #

Jeffrey (the recurring lead) #

The constant across nearly every production. Recognizably the man in marketing/lib/jeffrey-refs.mjs (SHOOT + SELFIE photos) — late-30s, medium brown hair, short brown beard, red plastic glasses.

• Signature props: a yellow Sailor Pro Gear fountain pen clipped at the chest; an embroidered yellow felt bear emblem on the shirt; pale-blue pinstripe button-down; cobalt wide-leg trousers. (Vape pen as an alt prop in candid/internet-creator contexts.)
• Felt form: brown felt-yarn hair, short felt beard, hazel bead eyes, pale-flesh felt face. Source: pop/dance/bin/cover-prompt.felt-portrait.template.txt (lines 5-10).
• Illustrated form: see the keymaps cover, papers/arxiv-keymaps/figures/cover-prompt.txt.
• Framing: programmer + internet-native creative-computing artist (painting is the root, not the headline — see grants/ssrc-just-tech-2026/). Usually absorbed in playing, never an ad-hero pose.

Ensembles #

The pixsies (the /pop "pixsies" album crew) #

An unnamed felt ensemble (identity = a shared look, not a cast list) that surrounds jeffrey across pop covers/visualizers.

• Felt puppets, bead eyes with glossy screen-catching pupils; the uncanny "tells": tiny LED beads glowing cyan-green under the felt skin (temple/ ear/eye), hairline face seams, slightly off-human head proportions.
• Rounded human ears only — never pointed/elf/fae (despite "pixie").
• Wide diversity (all ages/races/genders), "grad-student energy" — thoughtful, a little tired, joyful. Eclectic clashed felt wardrobe (glasses, beanies, cardigans, tactical-vests; militaristic / girly-cute / cyberpunk-techwear).
• Each holds a tiny AC laptop — the one non-felt object, shiny hard plastic, lid bearing the PALS logo (two Keith-Haring-style linked outline-people). Free hand often raised palm-forward ("we are human").
• Mood shifts per release: eerily still + watching (trancepenta) → manic grinning party-demons with live-fire eyes (hellsine).
• Source: pop/dance/bin/cover-prompt.felt-portrait.template.txt (canonical look); fullest crew description in pop/hellsine/hellsine.illy.txt (~156-217).

NELA Computer Club #

A real Chinatown-LA meetup, rendered as a packed cinema crowd (archetypes, not named characters).

• The clubbers — nerdier front-rows; plain gear (flannel/hoodie/tee/soft sweater), each with a small open clamshell laptop of varied make (ThinkPad, Framework, old MacBook, Pinebook, sticker-covered) showing real content (green terminal, sprite editor, music staff, paint, oscilloscope).
• The cool-LA crowd — fashion-aware locals 20s-40s (vintage tees, oversized button-downs, leather, gold, dyed hair); NO laptops — they hold snacks + drinks (striped popcorn, pretzels, tallboys, natural wine, haw flakes).
• Room/palette: deeply saturated sage-green velvet (seats/walls/carpet) under a riot of multi-colored screen-light; warm brass-sconce gold. Club brand = black-on-white monospace ASCII/box-drawing (░░░/▒▒▒).
• jeffrey sits among the clubbers, off-center, never the host.
• Source: marketing/campaigns/nela-now-instant/cover-prompt.txt + brand-brief.md.

Recurring foils — the CEOs #

Specific named tech CEOs drawn as jeffrey's peer/double on the same eye-line (never a hero/villain pose), paired with him by a shared object — a matching Sailor Pro Gear fountain pen (jeffrey yellow, the CEO another color) or the PALS laptop. Felt versions wear tattered/frayed felt clothing.

Bill Gates #

Older, grey hair, soft rectangular glasses, muted sage-green crewneck sweater; a deep-red Sailor Pro Gear pen clipped to his collar. Pensive, faintly melancholy. Hatched colored-pencil ("computer help call" series).

• Source: pop/marimba/marimbaba.illy.txt (~34-43); pop/RELEASES.md (search "Gates").

Mark Zuckerberg #

• Felt, young (~20-21): pale freckled felt face, slight overbite, curly light-brown felt-yarn hair (cowlick + forehead curl), navy felt hoodie with a faded crimson Harvard-style arch, anxious/overwhelmed; operates the one PALS laptop. Source: pop/dance/bin/cover-prompt.felt-portrait.template.txt (line 12); trancepenta cover.
• Illustrated, modern: onboards jeffrey through a portal into a grey Horizon-Worlds metaverse (amazing grace / amaythingra story). Source: pop/RELEASES.md (~274-287).

Cross-production motifs (the casting glue) #

• PALS laptop — shiny plastic, lid = two linked Keith-Haring outline-people.
• Sailor Pro Gear fountain pen — jeffrey's is yellow; CEOs get a different color.
• Yellow felt bear emblem on jeffrey's shirt.
• LED-under-felt glow — the pixsies' uncanny tell.
• Laptop geometry rule: one screen, on the inner face only; a laptop seen from behind shows a plain blank lid back — never a screen/glow bleeding through.

Source files (read in full when needed) #