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riding-the-sunset-bird · 1 year ago

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A character reference based on all four Steps of Our Life! It's only "sort of" a height reference as well since obviously they're not 100% accurate (the devs don't have specific heights for everyone to my knowledge).

I did dig into the code to try and get characters at their "normal" heights but there are other matters at play too (example: Nicolas is obviously "taller" than he should be because he needs to be pushed upwards to be visible enough above the game's text box; likewise with other very short characters).

Still, this should serve as either a nice reference guide for every character or a "height reference" in the sense of getting an idea of which characters are shorter/taller than others.

I'm also going to detail some extra notes below the break, including posts from GB Patch's Tumblr that reference any defined heights (with Cove being the obvious one) or general height things, as well as some more stuff about the MC's height in comparison to the three love interests depending on what you pick.

Cove's height is listed on GB Patch's FAQ as 4' 1" in Step 1 (also stated as "mostly average, perhaps a bit on the short side"), 5' 4" in Step 2 (in-game this is defined as "very tall" on the MC's potential height spectrum, as that is the only option considered on par with Cove's height), 6' 0" in Step 3, and 6' 4" in Step 4. A fun fact is that Cove's final height was originally 6' 3" (191cm) instead.

Derek in Step 2 is under five feet tall (this post also lists Cove as "around 5 and a half feet tall" which you could take as either close enough to 5' 4" as stated above or a potential original height he had that got changed). In-game, he's "short" but not "very short", as having your MC be "very short" will prompt narration telling you that you're shorter than Derek, whereas "short" only has you relate to him in smolness generally.

Step 4 Derek is "mostly average." He wouldn't be considered tall nor would he be considered short. His youngest brother Nicolas will "probably end up as a similar height to him" once he's more grown up.

Step 4 Baxter is "taller than average, but not especially tall."

I've been informed that, on the Our Life Patreon Discord, Step 4 Derek's height is listed as 5' 9" (175cm) whereas Step 4 Baxter's is listed as 5' 11" (180cm), so those are their defined heights. Before that, both of their heights had jumped around somewhat. A post from 2019 said that Derek was 5' 11", but a post from June 2021 said that Baxter was 5' 11" and Derek was 5' 9" (so consistent with the Discord). Then there's also another post from July 2021 (you'll have to scroll down for this one) that listed Baxter at around 5' 10" while Derek was 5' 8"/5' 9". If you're insane enough to try and use the character reference too, then Baxter would actually be around 6'1" at minimum since he's taller than Step 3 Cove (though you could also make the same argument that this means the mom trio of Pamela, Noelani, and Kyra must be decently tall as well since they're so close to Cove on the character reference).

I don't have any experience with GB Patch's other game, XOXO Droplets, so I don't know what ages the characters are in it, but since both Shiloh and Jeremy are characters seen visibly in Our Life, I thought I'd also mention that they're listed as 5' 10" and 5' 5" (or 5' 5 1/2") respectively in XOXO Droplets. Jeremy also apparently grows to 5' 8" in his 20s and he's 22 in the Our Life Cove Wedding DLC (I don't think this is spoken of in the game specifically but he's labeled as 22 in the code).

As for the MC and how their height plays into things, "tall" and "very tall" as well as "short" and "very short" tend to be considered the same for the most part in the game's code. It's not that there isn't a difference at all (I would say it's still notable), it's just that sometimes the game may be more vague about height differences. My post about Errands references this where you don't need more athletic points due to being "very short" instead of "short" to give Cove a piggyback ride.

A guesstimate I'd make is that about 5% of the time, the game will take note of whether you're "very tall" instead of "tall" or "very short" instead of "short." Otherwise, you're either "generally tall," "average," or "generally short." There are also other instances (usually with Cove) where the game might just check if you're either generally tall (around Cove's height) or not generally tall (i.e: definitely shorter than him).

This is actually relevant to the heights because, following all above information, one would assume that Step 4 Derek is average, Step 4 Baxter is tall, and Step 4 Cove is very tall going off the MC's potential "height spectrum" of very short, short, average, tall, and very tall, but it's not entirely the case.

A "tall" MC (generally tall) will look "down" at Step 4 Baxter just as he will look "up" at them or they'll look directly at each other if the MC is "average," same as Step 3 Baxter, but--

when the game has any instance of differentiating between "tall" and "very tall" (they never do this for Step 3 Baxter so the base assumption would have to be that he's just average height), things change.

During Baxter's apology in the wedding of his Step 4, Baxter dips his chin to look at the MC if they're "short"/"very short," levels his chin to look at the MC if they're "average"/"tall," and then lifts his chin to look at the MC if they're "very tall." A generally tall MC still has to lean down to kiss him if they choose to do so though.

Also, during the intimacy scene with Baxter (either in his office or his living room), if the MC is "very short," "short," or "average," it states that Baxter is taller than them. If they're "very tall," then Baxter is shorter than them, but a "tall" MC is "almost the exact same height" as him.

This is all a really long-winded way of saying that GB Patch referring to Step 4 Baxter being "taller than average but not especially tall" might mean that he's some infuriating middle ground between average and tall where he's not quite one but not quite the other either (which honestly is very Baxter of him so I can't even be mad).

#type: helpful #type: cracking the cove #our life #olba #our life: beginnings & always #((If you line up the images yourself then make sure the height of the original images are all the same))#((I don't know if Tumblr squished any.))#((Let me know if I'm missing anyone!))#((I know there's Step 3 Jeremy and someone named Cala in Derek's Step 4 (haven't gotten there yet)))#((but you only see those two on the phone so there is no ''default'' position/size for them.))#((Also I was worried that Tumblr would eat the quality if I uploaded such long images))#((so I separated Steps 2 and 3 and 4 into multiple images.))#((Hopefully that's fine; if you line them up side-by-side it still works out.))#((Me feeling so exposed because now how I design my Coves is here for everyone to see.))#((Feel free to judge my bias towards the color blue.))

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thedandelionresistance · 7 days ago

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So uhhhhh someone's trying to argue that psychiatric disorders can exist on an entirely non-physical level

1. This is from a sociopolitical analysis of the institution of psychiatry, and I suspect is therefore taken wildly out of context at best and is irrelevant to actual neurology at worst.

2. It claims that psychiatric conditions have not (yet) been convincingly SHOWN to arise from physical conditions, directly contradicting the claim that humans are embodied and therefore all human activity is biology-dependent.

3. Unless the claims of genetics being largely unrelated to mental health is about a very specific topic, that's just science denial. The MTHFR gene has been heavily implicated in multiple commonly comorbid conditions that are also suspected to be post-viral in a large percentage of cases, such as chronic fatigue syndrome, POTS, and mast cell diseases. Multiple conditions, from diabetes to bipolar to autism to again, mast cell diseases, are known to be highly genetic, despite the exact genetic cause often still being unclear.

4. The sources used to back up the prior point are: an article in "Independent Science News for food and agriculture", which also platformed multiple articles and even a Twitter thread about the conspiracy theory of covid being leaked from a chinese lab; and an article about how the diagnostic criteria of bipolar was changed and is now overdiagnosed to sell more drugs.

5. The supposedly "suppressed" "negative" articles are potentially out of date (I've had a harder time accessing them). From what I can find, though, the former is a book largely considered more political than scientific, which was criticizing overly reductionist perspectives on genes as related to systemic social inequality. The latter appears to be about personality and "neuroticism" primarily, with little said about genetic roles in psychiatric health. It seems that they do not actually contradict the possibility of even some genetic influence on psychiatric health, let alone physical influence.

6. The whole argument is a logical fallacy, arguing that because we've ruled out some of the few biochemical and structural/physiological characteristics that could cause mental illness, we've ruled physical causes out entirely. It uses two highly specific discrete claims about two disorders in the vast spectrum of mental health, claiming that brain sizes affected in part by antipsychotic use do not seem to cause schizophrenia and that all other differences in neurobiology are likely due to "intellectual ability" and the conveniently vague "other uncontrolled factors". They further use depression and schizophrenia again to talk about how two specific neurotransmitters had not been proven to cause the illnesses - specifically, ones which have evidence supporting their role in other disorders, such as ADHD. While some of the theories of chemical imbalances causing mental illnesses have since been more conclusively disproven, others have had more evidence emerge supporting them having some role in multiple psychiatric diagnoses.

7. That whole paragraph actually only focuses on whether or not there are neurobiological causes for mental illness. Even purely sociogenic mental illnesses, such as certain cases of PTSD, still have been shown to have effects on the brain at a physiological level, while others show up in studies as changes in patterns of bioelectrical brain activity or changes in chemical production or reuptake efficiency. Proving or disproving origin does not actually provide evidence for mechanism. However, in case I am misinterpreting the word "cause" here and it is actually meant as "mechanism", disproving mechanisms is quite literally part of the process to find the true mechanism, and does not actually support that psychiatric conditions occur entirely separately from the physical brain.

Essentially, even aside from the irreputable and irrelevant sources cited, the lack of scientific consistency and sociopolitical focus of the excerpt; the author's repeated self-citations; the failure of insufficient, unreliable, and outdated evidence to support the claims they make; the fact that their actual argument that mental health problems are not "equivalent" to other health issues; amd that psychiatric conditions have not yet been observed as arising from a direct proven neurological source, while actively admitting that humanity is stored in the body, so to speak...

None of this proves that there is not a biochemical or physiological mechanism and/or origin for psychiatric illnesses that, in our search closed eyes in the dark for understanding of the human brain, we are fumbling for. Neurology is a science in its infancy compared to most other medical fields, still stumbling its way through "four humours" levels of rudimentary understanding of the highly complex processing and control unit that is the 86 billion neurons of the human brain. This is even more true when we soften the science of neurology into neuropsychiatry, practically poking experiences of the conscious mind with a caveman-stick. This is not to disparage the sciences, but rather, to point out that we understand so little that we can't even recognize the full scope of our ignorance, that 600 years from now may earn us the same ridicule as blood-letting leeches and cocaine soda for head colds.

More to the point, anything we process - sensory input, emotion, thought, pain, dissociation even, oppression, poverty, trauma - it all goes through the brain. Our entire understanding, self-conception, and consciousness arise from biochemical, physiological, and bioelectric actions and reactions. The "self" is essentially a simulation run by a fleshy machine as it responds to stimuli and generates aspects of identity from desires to beliefs.

While the point that the excerpt is likely building to in a larger context, that many mental illnesses may originate in part of in whole from factors like systemic injustice and external conditions to the body, that doesn't make the illness itself occur outside of the physical human bodymind. Even experiences like religion and "communing" with a higher power, astral projecting, and so on, require your brain to perceive them as occurring, which means that extremely complex series of chemical production and absorption and electrical signals and activity traversing specific paths in specific regions of the brain are occurring.

The same is true of mental-illness-as-reaction-to-conditions.

To argue otherwise is to argue that some metaphysical conscious separate from the physical human body exists. This is just cartesian dualism, and falls entirely outside the realm of science and well into philosophy. If a "soul" of the self exists that can suffer an "illness" or other "corruption" causing severe distress and dysfunction within the physical world, it is outside of the realm of science to even examine, let alone make claims about. Furthermore, even then in order to be perceived within our physical reality, the brain must process and/or create that perception of said "soul" and "illness".

This is far more into the realm of philosophy than is comfortable, considering that philosophy claiming to be science is just pseudoscience in a stick-on mustache. (I respect philosophy in its own right - love it, actually - but when it plays at being a rational and empirical science, I draw the line. It has its own internal logic systems and reasoning which has little overlap with or application to scientific methodology.)

But, returning firmly to science, the irony is that it's entirely possible that some psychiatric conditions may not be entirely or even primarily neurological. The gastrointestinal, endocrine, lymphatic, and immune system have all been implicated to some degree in having varying degrees of impact on mental health. Some conditions we call mental health may originate in dysfunction of other systems, which may also in turn be driven by external factors. The brain is the control center of the body, and the body processed all consumed materials into needed resources for the brain and body alike.

Some primarily physical disabilities even have significant neurocognitive symptoms, such as brain fog/cognitive impairment and strong mood swings. Some symptoms themselves may straddle the line, such as seizures and sleep disorders/disturbances. Some physical symptoms, such as dysautonomia, have been reported to cause symptom sets highly similar to neuropsychiatric conditions like ADHD, traumatic brain injuries have been observed to sometimes replicate symptoms of dissociative disorders, and Chiari malformations have been noted to sometimes cause anxiety.

Mast cell disorders have overactive release of neurotransmitters as part of the process which drives symptoms, and those neurotransmitters can affect the brain strongly, to the point of causing an array of mental symptoms - some of which even drive further degranulation in a vicious cycle.

In any case, mental illnesses may not all be neurogenic or even primarily neurological. But they are still, in fact, physical. Everything we perceive or imagine must be processed by the brain. Only the imperceptible does not cause any sort of brain action or reaction, and if we are not aware of it or affected by it on any level, it's outside of the realm of science, let alone medicine.

Now, if you wanna talk philosophy, we can argue whether something must be perceived to exist. That's a really fun philosophical topic, one which I contradict myself on, even.

But from a medical perspective? Medicine, including psychiatry and the classification and treatment of mental illness, does require a perceived experience which affects you, which results squarely into some kind of physical process in the brain. That's science, babeyyyyy!

#yes I know I put a couple of memes into my logic #let me have this I went to search their blog after seeing an absolutely bizarre tag #that left me wondering if they don't think chemical processes are physical or something #but honestly this is worse #I don't know how much more I can break down 'perception requires neurological processing on a physical level'#just absolutely beyond the pale take #'psychiatric disorders are not physical' ex-ca-fucking-SCUSE me?!?! 'not PHYSICAL'?!?!?!#and why? because we don't yet UNDERSTAND the mechanisms which drive them?!?!?!!?#like I don't know how to tell you that they thought some physical illnesses were also nonphysical and just demons at some point either #(I know that's not most historical medicine since like. y'know they were splinting broken bones tens of thousands of years ago)#but like that's the level of illogic we're dealing with!!!#not physical my ass #as in if psychiatric conditions aren't physical than neither is my copious empirically experiential butt #which they can eat for subjecting me to this take #I'm being half facetious I'm more in awe than angry #I'm not sure if this is just a result of the severe drop in societal critical analysis and reasoning skills #or if there's something beyond that going on #I'm leaning the former given someone trying to use a marxist political commentary to prove a neuroscientific negative #but just. wow.#if someone commits a logical fallacy on tumblr and no one reads it does it still cause annoyance #lmao that last tag is utter nonsense I'm calling myself out now XD

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