Clark is taking Kon and Jon out for a classic, super-style bonding flight. Just a quick jaunt around the US and back!
They don’t get far. Somewhere in Illinois airpace, they run across another family.
The three (a hulking man, a snarky teenage boy, and a cackling youngest girl, each a grayscale blur in the blue, blue sky) throw neon-lit beams of energy at one another, quips and insults flying almost as fast as they do. It looks like training. It looks like fun!
The boy of them looks like a younger version of the man. Exactly like, even. Clark is familiar with clones.
The youngest, a girl, looks like both of them, but not quite. Perhaps she will, age sharpening her childish features, but it’s hard to say. More likely, she’s the man’s daughter.
Interested, Clark introduces himself to Dan. He seems to be a hero in his own right, even if Superman’s yet to see him in action. And it’s not often Clark sees a family so like his own!
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so i work for a small regional museum. remotely, i should add. the museum itself is about 2000km west, so i've never actually been there but i research and write articles about local history for them. and because the town was only formally settled in the 1920s and a lot of the museum's supporters are older, the majority of the history i write about is within, or just outside of living memory. this means that people will comment on our posts with memories or connections of their own. they'll tag their friends and family and say 'remember this?'
a few week ago, i wrote a week's worth of posts about immigration, largely displaced persons in the aftermath of the second world war. there was an outpouring of memories and people tagging their family members and sharing them. our notifications were blowing up with people saying "thanks for writing about my uncle" and "i knew them when i was young, but i never knew their story" and "she looks so beautiful here" and "our families used to get together for dinners, i'm still friends with his daughter."
regular people, non-historians, are inclined to think of history as a monolithic past leading up to the present; an easy timeline of textbook names and events. and we think of museums largely the same way. you have the louvre and you have the smithsonian and maybe a modern art museum or a niche museum for skeletons or canoes or one specific guy. museums are reserved for the big things, but they're also for the little things and people that will never be in textbooks.
and i'm thinking about the way people responded to those posts, seeing their own history remembered with the same reverence as the big stuff. maybe you never knew the people being written about, or maybe you did, and for a few days, they are alive again, and your neighbours and your classmates and your councilmen are remembering your family, and they are alive.
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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).
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