Heights...

[placeblocks]

Okay, here is a weird, sort of stupid one, but I figured I'd ask anyway. How do you guys determine how tall the Mindcrackers are in a story? Do you go based off IRL height (or assumed IRL height), off their Minecraft skin (in which they're all the same height), or whatever suits your fancy? I don't adhere to any sort of sexist yaoi tropes of "taller guy is the top" or whatever bullshit (and actually tend to invert those when possible!), but I do still like to know who is taller if one is, and in a case like Pause/Guude, Alex is WAY taller than Jason. Does that mean Pause is way taller than Guude, too?

Totally a stupid post, but I figure some of you might have head canon you want to share or something... I know my world was a bit rocked when I learned Pause was 6'5" IRL...

(Sorry not sure how to tag this one... Maybe a "discussion" tag?)

Comments

[crystalllized]

Alex is 6'5"? I never would have guessed that!

I've always imagined their heights based on their voices, actually, until proven otherwise. The way the human body works, taller men tend to have deeper voices because of the distance between the larynx and the mouth, which creates more space for resonance and causes lower tones to be prominent (I'm a sound engineer; I know some weird shit). So I always imagined the person with the deeper voice to be shorter - Guude for instance I often think of as being pretty short compared to say, Doc, whose voice is much deeper, and even shorter than Pause, which we now know is reality.

But I guess I don't really think of them as having significant height differences either - their skins are all roughly the same height, and while Alex might be a lot taller than Jason, it might only be the difference of a few inches for me. I probably wouldn't use height descriptors in my fic anyway - I like the descriptions I use for my characters in fanfic to be instantly recognizeable, and height really isn't one of them right now.

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There are a couple of pictures/videos of Alex out there where he's just towering over Jason. I think Guude is probably between 5'8"-5'10". He's shorter than John, but not by a whole lot. I believe Kurt, Beef and Zisteau are all 6'2". I understand the whole thing about deep voices, but it's only partially true, because otherwise Pause would have the deepest voice and he definitely doesn't.

I don't general get too descriptive in my fics with regards to height, but I might write something like, "Guude looked up at Pause" or "Even though Pause towered over Guude in height, in that moment he was the smaller of the two men" or whatever. I dunno any exact examples, but I know there are cases where I'd use them and it helps me visualize.

I think I'll probably only worry about height if I'm writing actual RPF. If I'm writing Minecraft characters I'm likely to write them as all the same height. (Though that can be weird too since someone like Adlington, who uses a Minion skin, would theoretically be Minion sized? But clearly he isn't on the server, so... I dunno. Does Millbee have hands or hooves? Is Doc really a reformed Creeper?, is Zisteau really a reformed Zombie Pigman?, etc. THE THINGS I WONDER ABOUT...)

[crystalllized]

Hands. MIllbee has to have hands otherwise how can he lovingly caress his Indian? :P Everyone has to have hands and feet for sexy purposes. Except Beef, who has no legs XD

Yeah, height doesn't always determine the size and space of the vocal area, it is merely one of a few factors. Still, since voice is the only thing that we have from everyone, it's how my brain pictures them.

Doc is pretty damn tall too. I've never seen him in context with the others, watching his basketball vlog I was a little freaked by how tall he is. I'd probably be freaked by Alex, too. Tall people scare 5'4" me. Alex could trample me underfoot!

[placeblocks]

And yet there are a lot of Millbee fanart out there where he has hooves, so I guess it's all open to interpretation, but I agree with you. I'd want him to have at least hands. I'd potentially even interpret him as a "man with sheep-like quality" vs. half-sheep or whatever his skin is meant to be... I REALLY DONT KNOW THOUGH.

I'm not super tall myself, so I know what you mean. And yeah, Doc seems about 6'2" as well. A lot of the Mindcrack guys seems quite tall. I believe average height for a man is like 5'10" so to have a fair majority at 6'+ is impressive.

[guiltyshirts]

My other half is slightly taller than Alex, and similar body type. I'm 5'2". The hugs are *awesome*. :p

[placeblocks]

Daaaaaaaaaamn. I guess if I ever need tips on making sex work between two really different heights, I know who to ask!

[crystalllized]

I regret that I don't have any up votes to give you.

[guiltyshirts]

XD

[crystalllized]

Both my boyfriend and my lover are taller than me, but only by a few inches. That much of a height difference would just intimidate me too much!

Edit: Donntyougetcrushedduringsex?

[guiltyshirts]

It probably helps I enjoy being, um, a bit sub. So I only get the good sort of feels from that. ;) Also he's a giant softie and the gentlest person I've ever known.

It's only now you mention it that I'm surprised I don't. XD He's very aware of how big he is though.

[guiltyshirts]

Interesting! Hm... my world is something of a mashup between RL details and their Minecraft skins, so those heights that I know about are probably roughly similar. That's probably flexible should I really need it to be for a plot point, though.

Side note: they're all human to me, but those with nonhuman avatars have some of that reflected in their clothing. Zisteau has a hoodie patterned like a zombie pigman, Doc wears an eyepatch, and I just decided that Millbee has a rainbow overcoat because it's adorable. :p

[placeblocks]

That's probably flexible should I really need it to be for a plot point, though.

Guude and Pause get trapped in a hole together and only Pause can reach the top to climb out? Ahahhaha

I find it interesting they're all human to you. It makes sense as all of their skins are roughly human, but for instance, Zisteau has to be a zombie pigman for me. I can't "see" him as human because I feel like he makes such a big deal about being a pigman. (And perhaps partially because I find it a lot more interesting in-universe to consider how this particular zombie pigman became self-aware and friends with humans and smart enough to build a lens, etc. Experiment gone wrong? Mutation? Half-human? Same with Creeper!Doc, etc...)

[crystalllized]

They're all human to me too. Millbee loves sheep and wears clothes he makes from their wool, Zisteau studies the pigmen and lived among them as a youth, Doc...well, he probably has a few cybernetic red stone enhancements, etc. They all dress like they would in real life too, for me for the most part - male, modern human clothes, hoodies and t-shirts and jeans and khakis and sweatpants and such. The skins are representative of their personalities and backstories more than their appearances for me. I dunno why, maybe it's just easier to relate to them and therefore write them as human than as other.

I've been watching Zisteau's videos for a long time, though, and he has not always used the pigman skin, which might be why I hesitate to think of him as one fully despite how much fuss everyone else makes about him being a pigman and how much he makes about it as well.

[placeblocks]

I like the idea that Zisteau lived among the pigmen and perhaps adopted their culture into his own and considers himself a pigman now even though he's not actually one. That could explain why he is the "smart" pigman he is...

[guiltyshirts]

Hehehe. XD

I think I have them all human at least partly because it makes the otherwise cross-species relationships a lot simpler, at least for me to write. I'd feel weird trying to write actual zombie pigman Z and Kurt, so I just cut it out and have him human instead. I do enjoy the question of how pigman!Zisteau, creeper!Doc etc would have come to be, though.

[damnreddit]

You can't imagine how much this thread weirded me out for a moment -- the working title for one thing I'm working on is "Heights". I even still had the tab open.

Anyway! I find myself avoiding the issue of physical description all together. Part of it is just that description in general doesn't come as easily to me as other parts of a story. My first drafts are often almost nothing but dialogue except where nobody's talking. Part of it is that the first story I wrote was between two Mindcrackers who I've never seen as their real life selves, Nebris and Etho, and I'm reluctant to make assumptions that could be wrong. And part of it is that this is a fandom based on voice mostly, and that my mental images even of those whose real life appearance I do know remains a little bit fluid.

I do see them all as human for the purposes of my stories and usually but not always normally dressed. I can't deal with Doc as a cyborg/creeper or Zisteau as a zombie pigman if I'm writing explicit sex about them. The skins for me are costumes, and they don't wear them all the time.

I'm 5'9" and was involved with someone almost a foot taller than me for a while. My mental image of Etho is influenced by him, since their voices are similar. I don't necessarily see Etho as that incredibly tall, but I can't see him as short. I have no real mental image of Nebris at all. I'm hoping he does do a face cam or vlog like he keeps saying he will.

[mindcrack_love]

Until he vlogs, my mental image of Nebris is pretty much RedDye's art of him. Etho doesn't necessarily look like Kakashi to me, but he has heterochromia and pale hair and sometimes wears the mask just to be a troll.

[mindcrack_love]

For reference: Jason and John at Minecon, Jason "distracted by kielbasa" and Alex at Play On Con - bonus Genny in the center, though his knees are bent, and Doc's basketball subscriber special. (Even if you don't really care about basketball, watch Doc's anyway - the emotion he shows afterwards makes me wibble. This is one of the first Doc vids I watched and yeah, my feeeeeeeels.)

As someone with a bit of a height kink (my partner is a foot taller than I am), it may or may not be something I toy with/play with. I don't have much opportunity with OOG, but it's something to think about for the future.

In general with the relationship between skin and "in-fic look": I take the more literal approach in "To Hear the Words", mainly because I have the room to do so and there's some magical/fantasy elements to that story anyway. The "Mindcrack world" existed before Guude started the post-beta-1.8 server; there were the correct number of "Steves"/humans, but they weren't anything special. They may have had some personality features that are similar, though. As the Mindcrackers in our world began simulating experiences similar to theirs, the boundary between the worlds got smaller and smaller, and the "Steves" began taking on the features of the human Mindcrackers. The not-so-human Mindcrackers started out as members of their "mob clans" who had the curiosity and emotional range of humans; as their real world counterparts began interacting on the server, they began rebelling, taking on more human anatomy/features, learning to speak, and in Zisteau's case moving out of the Nether. (To put it jokingly, Doc really is the one creeper who "grew a pair of arms"! No wonder Etho's so intrigued by him.)

Edited to add: oh, and while they don't really "age", emotional "age difference" between Mindcrack-world people is the same as that between their real world counterparts - so while MC's skin is of a middle aged man, he acts younger than most of the other Mindcrackers, and Shree has some of the innocence of a child despite dressing up like a Snoipah.