#cm comparison sets

[ltwilliammowett]

Today we're heading into the eternal ice of Antarctica and keeping a special lady company. The beautiful Endurance is waiting for us in door no. 7

More about her here:

The three-masted schooner barque designed by Ole Aanderud Larsen (1884-1964) was built by the Framnæs shipyard in Sandefjord, Norway. When she was launched on 17 December 1912, she was named Polaris. She was 43.8 m long, 7.62 m wide and weighed 350 tonnes. In addition to square sails on the foremast and gaff sails on the main and mizzen masts, she had a 260 kW steam engine, which allowed a maximum speed of 10 knots (19 km/h). The ship was designed for polar conditions and constructed to minimise the pressure of the ice masses. With a thickness of 28 cm, the frames were made of greenheart wood, a particularly stable type of tropical wood, and were twice as thick as on conventional sailing ships of this size. The hull of the Endurance was designed to be relatively straight-sided, as it was only intended to sail in loose pack ice. She was therefore calmer in the sea than ships with a spherical hull, such as the Fram; however, this came at the cost of not being lifted significantly out of the pressure line in ice pressures and was therefore unsuitable for encasements in pack ice.

The ship was commissioned by the Belgian polar explorer Adrien de Gerlache and the Norwegian whaling magnate Lars Christensen, who actually wanted to use it for polar cruises of a more touristic nature. However, due to financial problems, Christensen was happy to sell his ship to Shackleton for 11,600 pounds sterling (approx. 934,000 euros, as of 2010) - an amount that was less than the original construction costs. Shackleton renamed her Endurance after his family's motto ‘Fortitudine vincimus’ (‘Through endurance we shall conquer’).

The Endurance left the port of Plymouth on 8 August 1914, around a week after Great Britain's entry into the First World War, and completed the journey to Antarctica with a stopover in Buenos Aires without any problems.

Before the crew of the Endurance could cross to the Antarctic mainland to cross the Antarctic as planned, the ship was trapped by the pack ice of the Weddell Sea in January 1915 like ‘an almond in a piece of chocolate’ - as the much-used comparison goes. After resisting the force of the pack ice for 281 days, the Endurance was crushed by the ice on 21 November 1915. The expedition team had previously saved themselves on a safe ice floe. Thanks to a masterly feat of seamanship and navigation, Shackleton and his crew managed to get out of this desolate situation without any losses with the help of three lifeboats that were salvaged from the Endurance.

Initially continuing with the pack ice and later on ice floes, the castaways drifted northwards in their camps along the Antarctic Peninsula until the floes broke into small pieces. They finally reached Elephant Island in their lifeboats. There, one of the boats was converted and set off for South Georgia with 6 men to fetch help, which was successful. Months later, the remaining men who were still stuck on Elephant Island were rescued by a Chilean navy guard boat.

In 2019, a private expedition attempted to locate the wreck of the Endurance, but was unsuccessful.

In January 2022, the Endurance 22 expedition began the search. The S. A. Agulhas II brought the expedition, in which marine physicist Stefanie Arndt from the Alfred Wegener Institute took part,[3] to the last coordinates of the Endurance mentioned. From the historical records, the expedition members knew that the ship must have sunk at ♁68° 39′ 30″ S, 52° 26′ 30″ W. According to the rules of the Antarctic Treaty, the wreck is a protected historical site that may not be touched.

On 5 March 2022, the expedition found the ship with a diving robot at a depth of 3008 m, 7.7 km from the recorded position. Photographs showed the wreck standing upright in excellent condition.

[twistmusings]

Eternity Float Event

CW: Spoilers below the cut but I thought I'd share some of my favorite details about the Eternity Float Event and mini character analysis because it's exceedingly cute? 😭

First, it's so sweet to me that the first person Jade picks to come with him is Azul? Azul refuses because if he does go Mrs. Leech will spoil him with food so he refuses (my boy still definitely struggles with food policing himself) but that's actually very sweet. Georgina herself is, notably sad about Azul not being there (even more so than being sad that Floyd didn't show up? Which is hilarious because it means she probably expected Floyd might lose interest but she's actually sad Azul didn't come to see her. She definitely adores Azul and sees him as part of her family too.) Plus Azul being flustered that Mrs.Leech gets along so well with his mom and grandmother is very funny.

Jade guilt trips no less than five people into going with him by manipulating the hell out of them. It's extremely funny because being in the Fandom when it was first released in the U.S., most people at the time assumed the most dangerous twin was Floyd because of his mood-swings. Your honor, I would like to petition the court to consider that Floyd is, in fact, just a morally grey little guy. Or like, very big guy, but you get the point. He seems to be the least likely of the three to actively do something sadistic or swindle you.

Azul pawning Jade off onto Yuu and being relieved that he successfully distracted Jade from harassing him into going. As it turns out, even he sometimes needs someone to come collect that freak of a man.

Jade has dreamed of being in a wedding, not as the groom but as a part of a tradition to try and tip over the newly weds gondola and admits he's been dreaming about it since he was young. The way he phrases the statement tells us a lot about Jade's motivation for wanting to do this because he notes something to the effect of "people cheer loudly when the Moray manages to tip the boat over fully". Jade is, once again, being kind of a brat and despite his claims that he doesn't like to be the center of attention, he really wants to be the center of attention actually.

Less about Jade specifically, but it is worth noting that this ceremony is specifically for when a human marries a merfolk and the couple remains on land (if I am translating correctly), meaning that it seems to indicate that there really aren't weddings in this form in the Coral Sea.

Of course, we get to see Jade's mother, Georgina, and the first impression of everyone in the group is how tall she is. She is noted to be a) taller than Jade, b) twice as tall as Riddle, and c) her sprite is taller than Malleus with his horns. I don't personally take the comment about being twice as tall as Riddle as 100% fact, but that would mean she could be as tall as 320 cm (around 10 feet). If I go based on sprite measurements, however, I would guess she's a few inches taller than the highest measurement of Malleus' horns. Considering Malleus with his horns clocks in at around 202 cm or 6'6", and measuring their sprite heights, I would guess she's close to 213 cm or 7' tall.

Just want to add, while that might mean Jade and Floyd are still likely to get taller, it could also mean that her husband is simply *much shorter* than her and the twins take after his height. Either of these are possible, considering we don't know exactly how Merfolk biology compares to human biology and how far into life they keep growing.

Speaking of fish and growing, one set of lines that stood out to me is when Jade mentions that he gave his mother Floyd's nicknames for inspiration for their outfits. Riddle is visibly a bit upset by this, and admits he doesn't like the comparison to goldfish because they are "small and red". Georgina apologizes for Floyd being rude (though she laughs as well) and tells Riddle "when released from captivity, goldfish can grow very large". Riddle seems to be excited by this, however Jade laughs. I believe Jade assumes Riddle is excited by the prospect of getting taller. Given Riddle's backstory however... and this is complete conjecture, it seems like Riddle may be correlating it to being under his mother's control and is excited that he may "grow" when he's free.

[minecraft-inspo]

Did you know that the lineage leading to geckos goes all the way back to the Jurassic? Geckos represent one of the oldest divergences of extant lizards, second only to the obscure Dibamids, with all other lizards (including snakes!) being more closely related to each other than to geckos. Fortunately for us, stem-geckos from the Mesozoic are well-represented in the fossil record. We likely already have one in-game, depending on your preferred taxonomic interpretation of the long-tailed lizard Schoenesmahl, which will be joined by an additional three: Ardeosaurus, Eichstaettisaurus, and Helioscopos.

Ardeosaurus is a small lizard known from the Late Jurassic of Germany. It has been found in the Altmühltal Formation, which represents the famous Solnhofen Archipelago environment, from which famous dinosaurs such as Compsognathus and Archaeopteryx hail. This would have been a tropical, insular setting, inhabited by many small reptiles such as this one. The taxonomic placement of Ardeosaurus and its nearest kin remains unsettled, with some papers placing it as a stem-skink, iguanian, or even a stem-squamate. However, it is most often recovered as a stem-gecko. Ardeosaurus is known from complete specimens and is around 20 cm long. 

Eichstaettisaurus was originally described as a species of Ardeosaurus, before being separated out later. Like Ardeosaurus, this lizard is known from the Altmühltal Formation, however, in contrast, it is also known from Early Cretaceous fossils in Italy. Both preserve similar marine lagoonal environments, suggesting comparable habitat preferences across this entire period of time. Eichstaettisaurus is generally recovered closer to extant geckos than Ardeosaurus, which likely represents a slightly older branch in gecko evolution. No specimen of this lizard preserves the entire tail, but comparisons of the larger specimen with Ardeosaurus suggests a length around 15-20 cm.  Helioscopos is an Ardeosaurid known from the other side of the world: the Morrison Formation of the western United States. It was described from a disarticulated skull near the end of 2023. The description of this taxon identified it as a stem-gecko and reinforced the identification of Ardeosaurus within this stem group as well. The presence of geckos in both Europe and North America is consistent with other shared fauna between these regions during this time. As a member of the Morrison fauna, it would have lived alongside many of the most famous dinosaurs, including Stegosaurus, Allosaurus, and Brachiosaurus. The name Helioscopos means “sun watcher,” a reference to the large pineal foramen, which likely indicates the presence of a parietal eye, a primitive light-sensing organ in the center of the skull. Assuming proportions similar to Ardeosaurus, Helioscopos was likely around 15 cm.

[aeserathedreamer]

Remembered another convo i had with that same friend.

They asked something like “why do the eversions of the trios in wktd and hwbm look and feel so different? The wktd feel much more human than the everted hwbm trio”

And it gave me so many thoughts that im gonna compile (hopefully) all in this post.

Ok the first thing to look at their different contexts, and what eversions mean for each.

So the wktd trio are in a conservative religous environment of the midwest, eversion is embracing the non-human, in this cultural context what is human is a much narrower definition, any queerness is seen as inhuman and other.

In comparison to the hwbm trio, who grew up in space, free to define themselves, their context of being human was much wider, and thus to not be human far stranger.

The wktd trio while inhuman, were still concepts a human can somewhat conceive of and also retained some human components, an angel of light and eyes, a storm of blood and hands, a flood that is a witch.

The hwbm are less nailed down, they fused with their ship-selves, but they also became so much more, bands of stars and nebula and things just at the corner of your eye.

Another component to consider, on the final set of days intro, Saturn says “The shortcut to attaining it is to forsake everything that humans already are.” I think another component is that the wktd did it the hard way, despite all the pain and risk, they stuck together and embraced what made them inhuman, they didnt quite let go of being human, not to the extent children of space do post-cm ending.

Which leads to why? Well i think its cause the differences between the terrestrial and stellar existential threats, the latter were always much weaker than their terrestrial counterparts. And thus the ability to evert much more difficult, They could never possess people like back on Earth, but you can become it by using a gravity reactor and turning inside our, letting go, and embracing the unknown.

Whereas the wktd, were able to assert themselves despite the overwhelming culture-gravity pressure, and thus a more powerful existential threat, they didnt have a shortcut.

Also this is just my ambient thoughts after typing it all out, but i wonder if the fact that in wktd, the “devil” is described loosely, always with fear and losthing, whereas hwbm the existential threats are clearly defined, maybe not measure, and do you measure all that isnt? And so with those cultural contexts each of the girls eversions are expressions of what they think their respective existential threats are.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Happy with the staff content this year but am I the only one who is disappointed with the PV we got? It's basically a slideshow of art we've already seen, major downgrade from the year 1 PV that had literally all the events. There was a drop in quality of the anniversary PVs over the years and it really shows this year. Sorry if you find this too negative I don't mean to hate I just wish Twst would do better for it's ANNIVERSARY.

[For everyone's reference, here are the anniversary PVs in order of release: 2021 / 2022 / 2023 / 2024]

Mmm, now that you mention it, I noticed this trend with the Halloween PVs 🤔 For year 1, there was a video that showed all members of the NRC casy, even those that did not receive cards at that time. There were then several short variants of the PV released for year 2/Endless Halloween Night (part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4). Altogether, they feature all of the characters, including the students from year 1 but heavily shadowed and with glowing eyes to indicate ghostly possession. Even Glorious Masquerade features all of the students that get new cards for the event plus Rollo, although there are notably more still shots here. The Stage in Playful Land CM, by comparison, is significantly shorter and only shows us the three SSRs (Ace, Ortho, and Kalim) as well as the two new characters (Fellow and Gidel).

As this anon has said, the anniversary PVs have changed a lot over time too. The first one was the most animated and integrated several event outfits. The second one was also animated a fair amount, but you can tell corners were cut in some places where they transition to photographs/still images. This alone works thematically given that the player is a photographer, but you can still catch dips in quality when it comes to the art style. I remember finding Deuce running and the Kalim + Silver flying scene odd, as well as Jade and Trein's faces strange in general. Then the third PV rolls around and it only features the third years; the animation also seems to be much more sluggish (although this could be a stylistic choice; not sure). A friend actually recently pointed out to me that Lilia's pose looks like he was pulled straight from other assets; his artwork in the animation is almost the exact same as his smiling expression in the game. This year's is the most different (+ most static) and, like year 3's PV, only provides "new" content for a select few characters (the dorm leaders). They also reuse pre-existing illustrations already found in the game that don't seem to be picked for any particular reason (like, there are random Master Chef/Culinary Crucibles groovies in there). This direction, I'm guessing, is less costly and more efficient than making an entirely original animation, which is what was done in previous years. (Not that Disney or Aniplex is hurting for money to fund this, lol) Would I have preferred another PV in the style of year 1's? Yeah, for sure. I want to see other events and their outfits animated! Was what we got this year bad? Not necessarily; I think the production and editing was very technically impressive, but I'm still sad we didn't get anything substantially "new" to chew on (as someone who isn't a fan of most third years or the dorm leaders). Maybe it's just something we perceive as a deficit only because year 1 set the bar so high. It is what it is; whoever was in charge of the anniversary PV was probably doing the best they could with whatever budget they were given 😔 Let's hope that next year's will be a return to form, or that at least the money/effort is being redirected to other bigger projects (maybe the anime?).

[dokidokisadness]

Werewolf training - prologue

summary: A werewolf hunter adopts a werewolf pup in order to make a living weapon out of him.

[btw this is losely based on WoD and werewolf the apocalypse - mostly bc I don't have any of the books yet and honestly never played it, but I really like the concepts and the world.]

Tw: minor wump, dehumanization, ableism, religious themes, living weapon.

it's appearance is clearly inhuman. the long hairy ears, snout shaped nose, thick eyebrows and pointy teeth were more than enough for it to be set apart from the other infants at the orphanage. genetic deformity was the diagnosis given by pretty much everyone who saw it at the time.

the unusual features called the attention of many doctors during the first years of it's life, however, as it grew older the nuns responsible for the place began wondering it was a matter for the church to handle. Doctors were gradually replaced by exorcist priests.

Luckly, that was when I managed to find it. A werewolf, I could tell simply by glancing at it. Agressive, volitile, a beast, now even more dangerous since provoked by the medicines and the loud word of god. As it stood it was a tiking bomb waiting to burst and my job, as a professional hunter, was of course to kill it.

It was my job, but… well, I was young and the monster in question was still a only a small menace compared to the finished product. Malnurished, small, naive and only a few years old. According to this guide “To tame a perfect hunter” it was still under the appropriate age for conditioning. Needless to say I picked it up for myself.

As for now, my little project is near finished. It took years to achieve the current result and I’ve come to realise it won’t truly end very soon. Rather, it is a lifelong deal. I named it Moss due to it’s greenish tangled fur. I’m confident you’ll appreciate it and it’s usefullness on the last years and approve him as an official in the guild. The picture and general data is on the other envelope.

. . . . . ╰──╮

Name: Moss;

age: 4~6

Tribe: unknown;

height: 130 cm;

weight: 13kg;

╭──╯ . . . . .

I kept the name short, I heard most hunters keep it simple. no human names, no last names.

The age is dificult to tell since it is tall, yet clumsy and lacking in plenty motor skills. the orphanage said it used to look infant only a year ago.

The tribe is he came from is most likely bone gnawers or silent striders, I'm tenting to the bone gnawers. it looks nothing like most silent striders I've seen.

The info above was collected on the day it came into my hands for scientific purpose, so thay I am able to show my methods and results in comparison to what is usually done . The current data on it will be sent once my study is approved.

[joltai-showa]

The sheer insanity of Iwagakure genetics

or a mountain village that seems to be made up of two clans - giants and gnomes - that started to intermingle with each other after the foundation of Iwa. With various degrees of success.

So recently I saw a post crying/laughing at the fact that Deidara (166 cm) is so tiny considering that he is an infamous terrorist belonging to Akatsuki and generally a threat to society that deserves S-rank slapped on his bounty. Now, being a vehement Deidara defender that I am, I wanna show that Deidara, being a child of Iwagakure, has a pretty okayish height, considering how absurd people in Iwa are built.

(me setting out to write this post detailing how Deidara is not three McDonald's sauces tall (he absolutely is))

So, to start off, I think it's important to establish a few things that can be generally observed from the data given on all characters in databooks, because from this we can actually see what Kishimoto (as the source for this data) presumes to be "normal" height ranges for characters in Naruto world

(and no we will not be discussing the weights that he assigns to these people, Kishi has ZERO clue how muscle mass works and it shows, as most of the characters would end up borderline anorexic with the amount of kilos he claims they have. KISAME AT ALMOST TWO METERS TALL, WEILDING A GIANT FUCKING SHARK-SWORD is supposed to be just over 80 kilograms??? are you fucking serious???)

(also obviously all stats and comparisons will be done in metric because that's how they are given in the original + I do not care for systems of measurement that have magical units like pinkies, toes, armpit hairs, football fields and the temperature in Arkansas, New Suckerland on May 7th, 1969)

The inspiration for this post was an old work posted back in 2016 on ficbook where authors compiled the height and weight data on most major characters in Naruto plot and started losing their marbles trying to make sense of it, but what is important for us right now is that they made a sorted table with all that stuff. I am not going to bother reposting it here because all text data in the table is written in Russian, which, I presume, most people reading this post don't speak, so I will simply provide the general observations that can be seen from it. The majority of adult men across all countries and eras seem to go from about 170cm (this is where Danzo of all people is located) to 185 cm (Maito father and son, Kakuzu, Hashirama are all around this point), meaning that if an adult man is above or below this range, then they can be considered pretty tall or pretty small compared to the rest of ninja world population. Then, if we look at adult women, we can see that they are spread out from about 160 cm (in the table that I am looking at we have Uchiha Mikoto at around 163 cm) to about 175 cm (the tallest woman that I can see in this sample is actually Terumi Mei of all people, at just 174 cm). So, women outside of this range can be treated similarly to men outside of their respective range. Finally, we got the teenagers, and the data on them is a bit wonky, as we have a bunch of ~16 year olds for Shippuden and a bunch of ~13 year olds for OG Naruto, but most boys go from somewhere around 165 to 175 cm (with the addition of guys killed in Shippuden it can go lower, to 155ish), while girls are about 160-165 cm tall (and then we have Tayuya, a 14 year old girl who was just 148 cm. jeez Orochimaru fed this girl nothing.)

And you are confused about this data because "wtf why is everyone so small, most adult men are supposed to be around 180-190ish cm tall" - you need to remember that Naruto, first and foremost, is a manga written by a Japanese man who has his own ideas regarding the general height of people. Japan, obviously, is not exactly famous for having tall people (compared to the rest of the globe anyways), and, from what I can see, the data on Naruto characters is actually pretty consistent with what can be observed in Japanese population.

(and yes I did google it and it seems like Kishimoto himself is 170 cm tall. so. yeah.)

But now we go onto the fascinating territory of our analysis - people in Iwagakure! Because god fucking dammit do they need to be studied, something weird is happening in Iwa and no one talks about it.

Kishimoto, while writing the manga, did an Araki meme and forgot about Iwagakure's existence, so there's actually a pretty limited number of characters that we need to go over to send ourselves into the Twilight zone!

Let's start with the OG among the OG, the first plot-relevant Iwagakure shinobi that ever appeared in the manga - the three jonins that team Minato encountered during the Kannabi bridge mission!

(yes, these guys' names and stats were given in the second databook)

(yes, it takes 239 CHAPTERS to actually see some Iwa ninja in the manga. it's rough trying to get some lore on Iwa, it's really fucking rough in here, Kishi does not remember they exist)

And during Kakashi Gaiden it seems like Kishimoto did not go completely bonkers when it comes to Iwa shinobi's heights, so these three are actually kinda sensible in that regard? But let's get into details, shall we.

Let's start with Mahiru that was doing the reconnaissance on the invaders near Kannabi bridge

(Mahiru, a brave Iwa jonin, trying to prevent Fourth Shinobi World War from happening by taking out the most prolific war criminal in the next two decades🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡chapter 240)

He is actually 176 cm talls, kinda closer to the lower bound, but nonetheless not that far away from the avarage.

Continuing with these guys, we are now onto the big guy of the group, Taiseki

(seeing his brave comrade's failure, another valiant Iwa shinobi steps in to prevent the Fourth Shinobi World War by not allowing the most prolific war criminal of the following twenty years to continue his existence🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡chapter 242)

Taiseki was a respectable 189 cm tall, and you'd think he'd be one of the more impressive ones in Iwa, but... no. no. just wait.

Finally, we have Kakko, but I like to call him "Now I am become Death, Destroyer of the Worlds" or just simply "canon event"

(seeing all of his comrades fail in face of the most prolific war criminal in the next twenty years, this bold Iwa ninja decides to use the power of gravity to beat the power of friendship, and is now enjoying his well-earned packaged juice🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡chapter 243)

Kakko here is 180 cm tall, which concludes the first three characters that we ever got to see from Iwagakure, and all of them are pretty reasonable when it compared to the rest of the shinobi world, with Taiseki being just a little bit above the upper boundary for adult men, but pretty insignificantly.

And now we are in Shippuden where shit gets wild, because most of the Iwa characters we are introduced to are shown around this part of Naruto's plot.

I will keep the most interesting line of them all - the Tsuchikage family line, because if there is one thing Iwa is better than Konoha it is in how absurdly nepotistic the governance is - till the end, because it's the funniest thing ever, so let's go over everyone else beforehand.

Our first major (ex)Iwagakure character is actually Deidara (who is the reason for this post existing)

(huh, now that's an unfamiliar face to Deidara's right. really makes one wonder who could it be🤔🤔🤔🤔chapter 357) (also Kishimoto fucked up their height difference, Deidara should be around his chin level lol)

Deidara breaks the pattern of normality set by his predecessors back at Kannabi bridge, and now we have a technically adult man at just 166 cm. So. Well. Yeah, he's pretty small. But he did leave the village at around 11 years old, so maybe spending half of his life on the thug life might have affected his growth prospects?

So while we are on the topic of Deidara, let's also talk about the unit he was working while still part of Iwagakure - Explosion Corps. And there was actually another member of Explosion Corps that we are introduced during the plot - Gari

(chapter 515. yeah sorry couldn't find anything better for this guy)

And Gari here is around 174 cm, soooooooooo, still kinda on the lower side, but better than Akatsuki's token femboy, that's for sure, but maybe the lack of nutrients during teenagehood is indeed the problem?

Now here's where the fun begins - Iwagakure has two jinchuriki, Roshi and Han. Let's take a look at how tall they are, and what we see is...

(I realized that these two got a pretty awesome colored page in Minato's oneshot, so here they are. still kinda amazed that Kishimoto in 2023 remembered that Iwa exists)

Roshi here is 149 cm tall.

While Han is 228 cm tall.

Holy fucking shit what the fuck is that. Just how. What. Where DID THIS come from. Should it be mentioned that it's WILDELY away from the norm? Also how the fuck did you manage to get two people in your village with this much of a height gap??? Han is literally 1.5 Roshi????

Okay, things get weird, but surely that won't become a pattern, right?

Now we get to the last non-Tsuchikage/Tsuchikage-blood related shinobi from Iwa, and it's Akatsuchi

(chapter 454)

And Akatsuchi is a big boy. A very big boy. So big that he is in fact exactly 2 meters tall. Also I am looking at the wiki and in Boruto he grew another 12 cm even if in Shippuden he is already 20 years old??????

(like, bro, what the fuck? why do you need another 12 cm?? where did you even get them??? Deidara is forced to scrape at the bottom of the barrel and tying up a shitty ponytail just so people can see him during Akatsuki meetings, while you get 12 cm for free for no reason???? share them with Deidara??????)

Okay, this is becoming bizarre, but maybe Roshi and Deidara are two outliers who just happened to be small, while the rest of the village is likely to be more on the larger side?

And this is where we arrive to the Tsuchikage line.

Mu is the only one amongst four who is not related to the others by blood, so let's get him out of the way

(chapter 547)

He is 173 cm tall, which, okay, fine, technically on the smaller side, but still acceptable.

Now we are finally on what I call poor Kurotsuchi's bloodline, because WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS THAT

(chapter 575)

This is Ishikawa, the first Tsuchikage, the founder of Iwagakure, Onoki's grandfather and Kurotsuchi's great-great grandfather. HE IS JUST 145 CM TALL. 145.

THEN WE GET TO ONOKI HIMSELF

(chapter 454. yes I am using the same spread for Onoki, Kurotsuchi and Akatsuchi)

AND GUESS WHAT. HE IS ONLY 130 CM. ONE FUCKING METER AND THIRTY CENTIMETERS.

AND NOW WE GO TO KITSUCHI, KUROTSUCHI'S FATHER AND (HOPEFULLY) ONOKI'S SON-IN-LAW (BECAUSE OTHERWISE KISHIMOTO SOMEHOW ROBBED US OF THE INSANE IWA LORE ABOUT HOW ONOKI MARRIED AN ACTUAL 3 METER GIANTESS)

(chapter 515)

AND WOULD YOU LOOK AT THAT. KITSUCHI IS 217 MOTHERFUCKING CENTIMETERS TALL.

AND AFTER ALL OF THAT WE FINALLY COME TO POOR KUROTSUCHI WHO HAS ALL OF THAT IN HER GENE POOL

(god I fucking love Iwa uniforms. she fucking slayed so hard in it. she ate and left no crumbs.)

And against all fucking odds she made it to 164 cm. Which. Honestly. Good god girl that's the best outcome you could have hoped for.

And that's how our "wtf is wrong with Iwa in terms of height" posts comes to a close. I hope you had fun going ape shit at the random assortment of facts regarding these guys. I sure went insane.

Moral of the story: don't bully Deidara for his height. He's trying his best. There's probably a halfling up in his family tree. He and Kurotsuchi are fighting an uphill battle against the genetics. Likely all kids born during the Third Shinobi World War do. They probably didn't get fed that much as toddlers. Except for Akatsuchi. That guy probably steals bits of vertebrae from his classmates and teammates.

[letomills]

Download: SFS / Mega

[Custom versions are here.]

I love @katsurinssims 's idea to replace the CM and TM private school uniforms with age conversions of ambodynehrujacket (see this post and this one). Since I just shared my edits of the custom versions in this big ambodynehrujacket-centric post, I thought I'd apply the same edits to Katsu's defaults in case someone is interested.

More details and previews under the cut.

I used the same files as Katsu's. What I edited:

• replaced the textures with higher quality ones (taken from the lifos - then my 'no wrist shadow' edit from the custom versions also applies) • removed blank bump maps to reduce file size • replaced the meshes with my versions (see comparison pictures on this post):

CM (replaces cmbodyopencoatlongpants_pvtschool) ↓

TM (replaces tmbodyopencoatlongpants_pvtschool) ↓

• edited the property sets - the outfits are still unhidden in CAS like Katsu's are but now instead of appearing at the front with a CC star, they're at the back with the other BG content:

[Mini tutorial: When you default-replace a BG outfit and need to extract its property set, your default replacement will appear at the front of CAS with the CC star as if it were custom clothing, unless you add these 2 lines in the property set: version (dtUInteger): 0x00000002 product (dtUInteger): 0x00000001 It's not a requirement to make the default replacement functional but it ensures the player isn't going to delete that piece of clothing from CAS thinking that it's custom and accidentally delete a game file. And it also looks cleaner imo.]

[mortallyperfecttimemachine]

SO YOU WANNA build a greatsword, but you have no money and you is me?

Fret not... me, wood is kind of affordable. And I've seen it used for training swords before. And not being proficient in a required skill set has never stopped me before.

Follow along as this delusional woman attempts to build herself a sword.

The first thing any successful project needs is a plan. I know little about greatswords and next to nothing about how to wrangle wood into the shape of one, I need to do some research before I do anything else.

So, naturally, the first thing I did was spend money on materials.

I bought one 34 x 54 mm and one 24 x 74 mm beam of spruce, each 2 m long (If you prefer your measurements in freedom units, converters are free, I shan't risk making a mistake and spreading misinformation. Consider it payback for all the historical US-American sewing journals I had to sift through). I made sure that they had as few brown branch nubs (that's the professional term I believe), and as many rings as possible, because I half remember something about the latter making the wood more stable. Or it got folded metal vibes. Either or. Honestly my main objective was getting whatever's cheapest, and I left the hardware store only 14€ poorer, two of those having been spent on a sanding sponge to rid my steel swords of rust.

I confess, I did have a slight concept of what to do when I bought my beams. I intend to cut the blade and handle out of the 34x54, and slide the crossguard out of the 24x74 over the handle into place. I guess I'll secure the crossguard with a nail on each side and a wedge from below? Then I'll connect the pommel with a wood dowel and some glue and wrap the hilt in (faux) leather. Let's see whether that plan survives contact with the enemy (actually making the thing).

As for the measurements and the design of the sword itself: while looking for fighting manuals on the montante, I found a translation of Figueyredo's Memorial Of the Practice of the Montante by Myers and Hick, and they include a detailed description of a montante with measurements I assume they got from an authentic, historical relic. I've also had the pleasure of swinging a couple greatswords, and the one I enjoyed most by far was by Regenyei, although the specific sword I held was one of the first they ever made and different from their current design. Nevertheless, they foolishly list the measurements of their TH04 Montante on their website, for devious women like me to steal. Due to some fuckery I'll explain later, I guesstimated that the perfect length for me would be around 163 cm, and lo and behold: that's the exact length of the Regenyei TH03 Spadone, so I included that in my considerations as well. Here are their measurements in cm:

Now, some claim that the difference between an Italian spadone and a Spanish montante is size, the spadone being shorter on average. This is not true. The real difference is like, what kind of triangle the secondary guard is. Crocodile/alligator rules of how parallel/narrowing the blade is. Stuff that's negligible for this project. The misbelief comes from the fact that the spadone is a little older than the montante, and greatswords got longer over time, meaning that older spadone we still have are shorter than their spanish cousins who were created decades later. Newer spadone got longer as well.

Generally speaking, the ideal greatsword reaches from the floor to somewhere in your face. Chin to nose for earlier versions, nose to crown for later ones. Taller than you if you're a German Landsknecht with a 7 kg Schlachtschwert and something to prove. Swords on the shorter end are generally easier for beginners to use. Meaning it is time for a handy dandy me-to-sword comparison diagram:

This is where I got the 163 cm number from. I took one of my new woods and measured what height would be good for me. As I hope is obvious, to me the Myers & Hicks proposal is baby. Little tiny sword. Goodbye. The TH03 is literally the length I guesstimated before. Safe. Cute. A good practice length to get the hang of things.

However. As I held the 168 cm Monster of TH04 up to myself I experienced an emotion I hadn't felt since I discovered butches in armor. I kind of liked it. So, to keep myself rational and grounded, I decided to rely on my dear advisor and council:

The council has spoken. TH04 measurements it is.

Up next: I struggle with wood.

Current cost:

12€ for wood.

Take that beautiful 500€ Regenyei Montante which I crave not at all.

[ang3lwithapen]

I don't care about RO heights personally, and especially not about female to male comparison. But in any case, I think considering you're basing your IF on actual real world data, it makes perfect sense for the female ROs to be shorter than the male ROs.

I have nothing against people interested in authors "mixing it up", but I feel like it has more of a place in fantasy settings, or settings that are more loosely based on our world.

In a setting as yours, I feel like a woman being as tall as a very tall man would certainly add a new "trait" to the characters that other characters would remark upon even more?

But anyway, that was just my opinion about it - my actual question for this ask though is; will you keep the heights in cm too once you repost? I can't for the love of me understand inches, and I feel you for the wrong conversion, because that's what happens to me too when I try to use online converting sites. Each one gives me different results, and I'm no closer to understanding what the heck inches are

<3 yes exactly, I aim to have a somewhat historically accurate story, thus i will build my characters taking in account real data from the time.

I will absolutely keep the cm height, along with the feet/inches one. I just need to find a conversion site that is as accurate as possible so I can write down both of them.

[superdorf1]

Sword of the day (1/15/2025): LEGO® component #98370 ("Greatsword Pointed with Thin Crossguard")

Color variants This tiny piece of plastic holds a special place in my heart. It was in a bunch of Lord of the Rings LEGO sets around 2012, including this Weathertop model which I must've played with for hours and hours as a kid:

I really liked the look of these swords back then, and still do. They were a lot pointier and more dangerous-looking than other straight swords LEGO was using at the time, the models for which dated to 1984 and 1997 respectively:

These things looked downright crude by comparison. They were in a bunch of generic knight sets at the time, and kid me had zero interest in them.

...which is something of a shame in retrospect, because that skeleton horse is kind of metal.

LEGO® component #98370 Years released: 2012 - 2018 Width: 1.18 cm. Length: 3.85 cm. Depth: 0.44 cm.

Sources: https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=98370 https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=59 https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?P=3847 https://www.bricklink.com/v2/catalog/catalogitem.page?S=7079-1

[fourseasonsfigs]

Taolin Forest Wen Kexing (Handcrafted)

This beautiful figure showed up on the artist's Xianyu page as an immediately available in-stock piece, and I pounced on it. You can tell by my profile pic how much I like this costume, after all!

The artist works in ultralight clay, which has been a new medium to me, and so far I've been impressed. It is very light (as the name suggests!) and appears to be extremely flexible. I was initially very worried about her figures breaking in transport, as they all have very delicate thin little details, but everything seems surprisingly sturdy. It bends, but doesn't deform, and doesn't seem to break with careful treatment. I do baby my figs, but shipping / customs is always a wild card.

For something like this, I would normally absolutely air column wrap it to protect it from crushing damage. I don't worry about the fig breaking parts off - I worry about it getting squished! If this fig got crushed it would certainly destroy it, given all the thin, flat loops of clay making up most of this figure.

But, I didn't have to, because the artist packed it in a rigid styrofoam cooler box. This is of course deadly on the shipping fees, especially since my warehouse flags the wooden base as air freight only. But, the only thing worse than paying volumetric air freight charges is getting a crushed figure, so what can you do?

I too am deeply disappointed by my lack of quality unboxing photos. Why did I not remove this top layer of bubble wrap? NOBODY KNOWS.

This is an extremely tall figure, by far my largest figure by a wide margin. The full size, including base, is 27 cm, of which 2cm is the base. This makes the figure itself about 10 inches high for us Americans.

The fan is not clay but paper, which was a nice surprise. I would have been fine either way, but I like the paper. I'm also very appreciative that the artist included it in this rigid plastic box so keep it from getting squished inside the protective cooler. Box. Protective box.

Here he is without the fan. He's gorgeous! You can really see the detail on his belt and his long, elegant fingers.

In fact, here's a closeup of those hands and the beautiful detail on the belt. His fingers may look even a bit longer than you might expect, but that's because they need to hold the fan. You can even see the slight indent for the fingernails. This artist is just amazing. She says she puts her whole heart into crafting these figures, and you can tell.

Holding the fan as so. If you don't think I wasn't a little stressed out carefully wedging the fan in between those beautiful fingers, you have somehow (incredibly) missed all the other cases of my fig related anxiety on this blog. I'm not even a high stress person! Normally.

Alright, let's spin this beauty around, shall we?

My camera decided to focus on many things, but Wen Kexing's perfect face was not always one of them. So we'll get some closeups. But first, let's do our bottoms-up and top-down pics:

Please do note the beauty mark on the middle finger of his right hand!

For size comparison, here's Wen Kexing with his OG official fig counterpart:

You can definitely see what I mean by how big this fig is! Maybe I should call it a statue instead of a fig.

Alright, time for our close ups.

Just beautiful. I'll need to commission a matching A-Xu in the Taolin forest costume so I can have them heading off to Siji Manor.

This figure was an incredible price - less than $50 USD. An absolute bargain. I can't even imagine the time that went into this. This was less expensive than other individual figures or pairs of this size, so perhaps I just got lucky with the artist clearing space.

I had really wanted semi-realistic figures like this when Word of Honor was released and I watched it for the first time, so getting this now makes me really happy. The artist also had a snowy mountain set that I picked up around the same time, which should be arriving here relatively shortly. Please look forward to it! I can't wait myself.

Material: Ultra-light clay

Fig Count: 386

Scene Count: 26

Rating: Pure artistry

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]

[valeriefauxnom]

One thing I always loved about taking things at face value instead of thinking of the more logical, meta reason why this is the case is that it leads to situations like this:

How do we get here?

The answer is art. Well, that, and trying to fit in multiple characters into a single frame coupled with Ranzal being too short to allow the rest of them normal-er heights.

It all starts at this early dragalia life comic, and this panel specifically:

So, apparently somebody (whether the artist actually asked anyone else or just winged it, I don't know!) decided Ranzal was 6'1. Fair, a pretty tall height for such a big dude, right? Well, it's not tall enough when we then put this in mind with pretty much every art with him in the picture and can't be explained by perspective (ie, everyone is likely on a relatively flat surface)

(Yes I know Euden's kneeling in that one but still, don't think standing is going to help him much in this case! He's still got more in common with Daikokuten the Mouse Dragon in that picture than any human or sylvan...)

And yes, these are some of the more egregious examples, but just the fact there's more than one makes this so funny trying to re-contextualize everyone else's height around Ranzal when we look at art like this. Because, as the very first image suggests, Euden is at best 5'1 in some of these arts if Ranzal is 6'1. And since Dragalia seemed to go with a vague 'comparison heights' to keep in line that Euden is taller than Zethia, but not Luca, etc, means quite a few people are absolutely tiny with the only fact that they're shorter than Euden as evidence needed.

Now, of course you can easily ruin this by logical, unfun recognition that Euden is also one of the most egregious size-shifters in Dragalia over the years (which by itself might make for some funny headcanons that he doesn't know/can't remember his own height and just guesstimates if there's some sort of conscious mental influence in trying to return to human form after shifting...Like if he's feeling on top the world, powerful when he's shifting back everyone is suddenly wondering why he looks so much taller, etc), as evidenced by even just these dragalia life panels:

(This would put him at about 5'9/152 cm)

...Whereas this likely only cracks 4' something or another. You get the picture: heights aren't exactly stable in comics or art. And I get it, it'd be a pain to try and keep everything consistent 24/7 over so many comics and artworks.

But oh, is it funny to imagine that everyone in Grastea is falling into one of two camps: huge-normal and very small. There is almost no in-between. You are either 6'+ or you are 4'8. Like...

A party approaches, two taller figures and three small ones. One of them looks like a the leader of this group, a bulky frame and commanding, harsh presence that signals not to play games with him. Surely that's the most dangerous member of the party, right? He looks like he eats whole horses for breakfast and it all turns straight into muscle.

...And then the one 5'1 kid randomly multiplies in size several times over and is now a huge freakin' dragon and setting you on fire/sending a tidal wave at you/kicking up a tornado/electrifying you/breathing poison/etc...

Appearances....can be deceiving?

So yeah, there we have the hilarious and unintentional effects by that one damning comic so long ago provides, if you so choose to take it at face value instead of introducing silly things like facts and logic and an understanding of the difficulties of being an artist!

Bonus round (ie, edit)

Also, judging by this exact one (1) piece of art, Emile very well is taller than Phares. Emile looks like he's hunching over somewhat and is still about even with Phares:

So yeah. Figured I should share that Emile might be way taller than I thought, at least.

[phoenixisobsessed]

Hfkhshshd how big is that metroplex??? Is that like a full size trolley/cabin bag?? Whatever those draggy suitcases are called

Idk tbh I only know what they’re called in my native language…erm. ANYWAY!!

I actually have no clue 2 sec imma find my measuring tape thing.

Okay so I’d say at full height he is ALMOST 60 cm (like 23 inches I think). I have comparison pictures of him next to other items as well.

Lego Optimus. ALMOST DOUBLE THE HEIGHT.

Almost just as tall as The Daily Bugle lego set.

(No that’s not a real gun it’s a cap gun chat chill I’m not American)

Here’s Bumblebee next to Optimus btw!! HAHBASHSB funney.

[valleydoll]

Bear with this very wordy post, there are pics at the bottom that may be useful for doll rebodying fans! Also this is post 1 of 2 so check out the others as well.

If you collect custom Pullip dolls (or really any fashion type doll that comes with a sub par standard body) you’ve probably spent an inordinate amount of time and money looking for a replacement body that better suits your needs. For Pullip collectors it is generally either an Obitsu body, a Pure Neemo body, or a Barbie Made to Move body. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

Made to Move poses amazingly well and feels very solid, but is much taller than the default Pullip body,the hands and joints aren’t the prettiest, and it is difficult to color match to the paler Pullips color range (for the mocha and tan Pullips Made to Move is the best/only option though). This body does allow for head tilted poses.

Obitsu is also a great option and poses amazingly well, has pretty hands and joints, and matches the paler Pullip colors very well (unfortunately there is no Obitsu option for darker toned dolls unless you can find the long discontinued coconut Obitsu). The main issue with Obitsu for Pullips is that the large head tends to be wobbly on the Obitsu body, and the torso has a tendency to come apart for the same reason. In general the Obitsu body can become floppy very easily when used with Pullip head. This body does allow for head tilted poses.

Pure Neemo is super pretty, and has some colors that match the paler Pullips well and also have tan and brown shades available in some of their bodies. The Pure Neemo bodies are also really solid and feel much sturdier than the Obitsu. However the range of motion in the joints isn’t as good as the Made to Move or Obitsu bodies. This body does not allow for head tilted poses.

So which way to go?

I found another option (maybe everybody else already knows this body but I hadn’t seen it before) - the YMY Female Doll Body 24. This body actually is 22 or 24 cm depending on which arms/legs you attach, has a small or large bust, multiple sets of very pretty hands, has a nice solid feel and texture and is a good color match for the paler Pullips (you will want the Milky White, the Super White is in fact ssssuuuuuppppper white). This body does allow head tilt poses if you use the neck pegs that come with it which will work for Blythe dolls or most other fashion type dolls but the peg doesn’t work for Pullips so the workaround needed to make it work for a Pullip does lose the head tilt option. This body can be purchased on Amazon and costs about $18 USD.

Note: YMY does make a male body as well that I will be trying with one of my Taeyang dolls and will update with the result. The male bodies do also offer a tan option so we will see how it works with a tan doll.

Here is the packaging the YMY body comes in:

And inside we see the body along with the alternate leg/arm/chest pieces, hands, and neck adapters:

As noted, the neck adapters included will work for Blythe, Barbie, and most other fashion type dolls but will not work for a Pullip. Instead I used a couple of the adapter pieces in conjunction with a screw and some vinyl bands. I removed the default neck bob and used a dremel to drill a small hole inside the neck to attach the screw, and used the adapter pieces and vinyl bands to create a new neck bob that would work with Pullip (you will need to remove the eye mech and install the neck peg behind it):

Below you can see the body on the doll with the default Pullip body and an Obitsu body that the doll was previously on:

Next post will have some comparison pics!

[cb-writes-stuff]

Project Opal Infodumps

The Keital and Geital

A keital is a square piece of cloth worn by people in the Vandeth Desert to protect their head and neck from the sun, as well as to keep sand and dust out of their mouth. It also keeps them warm at night. All in all, it’s the perfect protection in the desert’s blazingly hot days and unforgivingly cold nights. The prescribed measurements for a keital are 42 inches by 42 inches (106 cm by 106 cm).

A geital, in comparison, is twice the length of a keital, making it 84 inches by 42 inches (212 cm by 106 cm). The extra length allows it to be draped over the shoulders, somewhat like a shawl.

Fig. 1: Sketches of a keital (top) and geital (bottom) from the four sides.

A keital is very functional. It’s comfortable and easy to wear. Everyone has one. Different colors and materials are cheaper or more expensive, as you might guess. Even the beggars of the desert wear keitalen.

A geital, on the other hand, is tedious to put on and thus not worth taking off. Optimally, you only want to put it on and take it off once per day. They’re also more expensive on the whole, being twice the length of a keital. As such, they’re preferred by people who don’t want or need to take it off, such as travelers or the rich. For the former, it even doubles as a blanket in a pinch.

Behind the Scenes: A keital is pretty much just a keffiyeh in everything but name (and real-world cultural associations, of course). It’s put on the same way too. However, I had to figure out how to put on a geital myself. Turns out, you just need to fold the two far corners in to make two triangles, forming one big triangle, then you put it on like normal.

Parts of the Day in the Vandeth Desert

In the time period the story is set in, clocks are a commodity. Not everyone has them. This is especially true in the Vandeth Desert, where resources are scarce and importation is difficult. As such, the day isn’t usually measured by hours. Rather, it’s measured by the length of shadows.

(Okay, so, sundials probably are a thing, but most people aren’t gonna go out of their way to find one to check the time. They have places to go.)

The day cycle begins in irital, or all-shadows (night). Then comes ven ir-sa, first light (dawn; when the sky brightens but the sun hasn’t come up). After that is lashive, sunrise. After that is malantal ir-sa, first long-shadows (early morning), then konital ir-sa, first short-shadows (late morning). Then there’s noon/midday, which is called lon-tal, “shadowless”, because the sun doesn’t cast shadows from directly overhead. Then follows konital ir-gi, second short-shadows (early afternoon) and malantal ir-gi, second long-shadows (late afternoon). Finally, there’s virlashi, sunset, and steiven, “buried light” (dusk; when the sky is still bright even after the sun has gone away). Then we finally return to irital.