How Tall are the SWTOR Boyfriends?
This was written some months ago, but the Theron Height Poll has inspired me to actually post it.
Basing my metrics around 1) the average male height in the USA where I live (5'9" or 1.75m, according to google) 2) what would be funniest or cutest when matched to their personalities and dynamics with the player character. Bear in mind: I am not operating under the assumption that being a short man is something to be ashamed of (it isn't in the real world and it isn't in Star Wars), but some of the husbands in this video game have personalities that are...enhanced by engaging in a little playful stereotyping. You'll see what I mean.
Jorgan: 5'11-6'/~1.8m, hovering somewhere in the above average range. It makes him more intimidating to the average private who makes the mistake of getting his attention, but by the same token, more charming when he warms up to the Trooper and proves himself just a big fuzzy kitty. With a big fuzzy sniper rifle
Andronikos: 5'6ish, 5'7ish (~1.7m), hard to tell because he slouches. He only really stands up straight when he's trying to be a big tough guy
Quinn: 5'7"/1.7018m. No ambiguity because his posture is perfect. Alternate Interpretation: However tall your SW is, he is exactly 6 centimeters shorter. Come Here Elbow Rest
Doc: 5'4"/1.6m. No, not because I think his womanizing personality is him "overcompensating"; in fact Doc's height is only ever an advantage in his romantic conquests. He comes on so strong that him being particularly tall might be intimidating. But nah, he's just a little birthday boy, so the hot people in his orbit let their guard down, allowing him to get in close and hit 'em with a pickup line related to his medical expertise. Being small also means he's harder to hit when helping retrieve wounded resistance fighters from the battlefield #BalmorraForever
Felix: 5'11"/~1.8m, he gets an ABOVE AVERAGE height bc he is an ABOVE AVERAGE husband can I get an AMEN
Torian: You ever met a high school freshman and been fucking shocked that children are allowed to be so enormous? The kid's like, 14 years old and shot up like two feet over the summer, and it feels illegal? That's Torian. He's 19 and he's been 6'2"/~1.87m for the past five and a half years, but he's still a little gangly and the only reason he knows how to control his extremely long limbs is he's literally a trained fighter. Alternate Interpretation: If your BH is taller than 5'10, he's 5'10 exactly
Corso: 6'/1.82m. I know I just said negative associations around short men don't exist in The Galaxy Far Far Away, but Corso seems like the kind of guy who would somehow independently develop a complex about his height, if he was short. The fact he doesn't means he must be tall
Vector: God, I really wanted to make him on the shorter side of average to pair with his mild-mannered personality and contrast the more unusual elements of his speech and his eyes, but his sleek character design makes him feel tall when I'm looking at him. He's also the only LI I've drawn beside one of my characters, and I just sort of unconsciously made him tall because my agent is kind of short, and it looked appealing. Results inconclusive; some boyfriends can grow as tall as starships while others can be as small as mites
Arcann: 5'8"/1.72m. (Thexan was 5'9")
Theron: No taller than 5'9"/1.75m. Theron seems like a pretty normal guy when you meet him, until he reveals himself to be an insane little freak (affectionate), so giving him the most Average Height Possible feels correct.
Koth: However tall Lana is, Koth is exactly 2 cm shorter.
Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk. I encourage spirited debate in the replies. Girl LI Height Opinions still percolating
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SWTOR Secret Santa 2023
This is for @levedor-legacy for the SWTOR Secret Santa 2023 – thank you @frauleiiin for running this!
Here’s a Life Day story starring “a deadly can of Arizona Iced Tea,” the Himbolorian himself, Orriel Devero.
~~
Orriel stared at the Galactic Trade Network.
…Math was hard.
Life Day was one of Orriel’s favorite holidays of the year. He knew it was expensive, so he made it point to pick up a few extra bounties. He even did some of the silly ones that really didn’t require a bounty hounter, but hey, if they were willing pay to see him get mauled by an agitated loth cat stuck in a tree, Orriel would do it.
He went to scratch his head, but then he remembered that he still had his helmet on – always did on Vaiken. The problem was the Life Day sales. Were they really sales? Or had the prices been jacked up a few weeks before and now there was a ‘sale’? Orriel wasn’t a genius, but he was streetwise enough to know a few tricks people used to boost sales.
Sale or not, credits came in on the regular – Orriel was a damn good bounty hunter. Hell, he was the Grand Champion of the Great Hunt. That said, Gault was the one who tracked the credits and investments, and Mako made sure all those credits continued to exist for Orriel – not Gault.
Somehow, though, whenever Life Day rolled around, Orriel felt uneasy about whether he’d have enough. Anxiety wasn’t his thing but… he wanted to get it right for everyone.
…well, almost everyone. Orriel still wasn’t sure what to do about the newest crewmember. It probably hadn’t been the best idea to pick up a new crewmember from Belsavis, the Pub’s secret prison planet. At the time, Orriel had needed a hand, and he never really knew how to end a contract with someone…
Ok, so he did, but that was going to be a mess for 2V to clean up, and even droids deserved Life Day. And Skadge seemed like one of those guys that would always turn up again, even if he was dumped on an abandoned asteroid. Fortunately, he kept mostly to himself underdecks. He had little interest in the other members of the crew.
It wasn’t just the new crewmember that had Orriel worried about the finances for Life Day gifts. There was Mako.
…she was his best gal. His only gal, if he was really honest. He wanted to get something special, but… whenever he looked at the ads for rings and stuff like that, none of the women were like Mako. They didn’t have dirt and oil under their nails, and they definitely didn’t seem to know their way around a blaster or a kolto probe. In the type of work they did, a ring that could get dented, broken, or have the stone fall out was no good. Or it could get stuck on her finger and have to be chopped off – Mandos liked women with scars and battle wounds, but Orriel was pretty sure Mako wanted to keep all of her fingers, regardless of how hot he thought it was.
A group gift from the entire crew was considered, to play it safe… but Orriel wanted it to be from him – just him. Advice for personal gifts to girls was also not probably going to be found on-ship; the only person he knew that had a girlfriend in the past was Gault, and that apparently didn’t end well for her.
“Orriel! Su'cuy, vod!” Orriel turned at Torian’s greeting.
“You got everything you needed?” Orriel asked.
“Had a plan. Carried it out. Easy enough,” Torian replied.
“Ori’jate.” Orriel eyed the GTN kiosk. “…did you get a gift for everyone?”
“Yeah. Having trouble?”
Orriel nodded. “No idea what to get for someone who makes the ship run. How do you express how much you appreciate them?”
Torian sagely nodded. Then he told him, “Explosives.”
Orriel stared at Torian. “Seriously?”
“Don’t overcomplicate things,” Torian advised him. “I know we buy Blizz ordinance weekly, but sometimes ‘more’ of a person’s favorite things is exactly what they want.”
Oh. Orriel touched his hand to his helmet. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Then he stopped, and slowly, surely, he had a thought. “Torian, did we keep the scraps around from when we recast my helmet?”
“Think so. Have to check the cargo bay.”
“Great. Grab a crate of iced tea from the station cantina, and I’ll meet you back at the ship.”
~~
Somehow, accidentally, Skadge was left at Vaiken. Somehow, for unknown reasons, none of his messages were getting through the main comm boards.
Blizz told Orriel that he’d fix it … after Life Day. “Blizz need to fix engine room. New guy messy. No system!” Orriel had been completely unaware of any system of organization created by Blizz, but he took the little guy’s word for it.
Torian had been right; Blizz just wanted more explosives, and he was happy as a droid in an oil bath. “Thanks, Boss!”
Gault, as usual, had printed “GIFT CARDS OR CREDITS” across the top of his LIFE DAY GIFT LIST. He had plastered numerous copies of the list to the interior of the windshield of the Mantis, so Orriel would get the hint this year. He did.
Torian’s gift was one that that Orriel took some pride in. He’d managed to source some spare parts for Torian’s antique techstaff; it’d been passed down on his mother’s side for centuries. Techstaffs themselves hadn’t evolved very much, but that particular model had been discontinued way, way before Torian was born. Orriel knew a guy who knew a guy, and the well-packaged crate had arrived well ahead of Life Day.
Torian hadn’t said much – never did. But Orriel didn’t miss how those blue eyes sparkled at the sight of the parts and then how quickly he’d disappeared off to the ship’s worktable.
Orriel smiled at the small pile of gifts on the dashboard. He wasn’t that hard to shop for: give him gas canisters and cartridges, a vibroknife, and explosives, and he was happy.
That said, Mako had done the best: she got him a new weapons rack that latched into both of his closet doors. When the door was opened, it expanded out to its full size, but when the door closed, it got all nice and compact. Mako was the absolute best.
And when the chrono clicked over and Gault came up to the cockpit, it was time for Mako to get her gift.
Gault clapped his shoulder. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”
Orriel gave Gault a quizzical look, then he headed below to the crew quarters. Mako, being the only girl on the ship, got her own little partition, and that’s where he found her, scrolling through the Holonet on her datapad. She immediately looked up when Orriel leaned in her doorway and gave him a smile. “Hey.”
“Thanks for weapons rack. How’d you get it in there?”
Mako got up from her bunk and walked past him into the hallway. “Blizz says we need to do duct maintenance. Really dusty in there, and the last thing you want is any mouse – droid or otherwise – nesting in there.” Mako tossed a teasing grin over her shoulder as she made her way toward the big viewport.
“Blizz is awesome,” Orriel said, as he followed her. “He seemed really, really happy with all the ordnance.”
“I don’t want to hear it when one of you blows your hand off.” Mako rolled her eyes, but he knew she was teasing him.
And that was his opening. “Yeah, and see, that’s why I didn’t get you a ring. Hand blown off, no more ring!”
Mako looked at him as if he was nuts.
“You’d still be cute, but I didn’t want you risk losing anything because of our line of work – statistically more likely to get injure—” Orriel trailed off at she continued to stare at him like he'd grown a tail.
Ok, probably not the best idea to talk about casualty statistics with her on Life Day right before giving her a present. “But I still want to give you something you can wear, all the time.” He tapped his armor’s chest pocket, and the hydraulics hissed open. “So I’m always with you.”
Her face immediately went soft at those words.
Carefully, Orriel fished the chain out of his pocket. He held it up to dangle between him and Mako. The ring threaded upon it spun and reflected the light of some nearby sun shining through the viewport.
Mako stepped forward, her eyes large, to gently cup the bottom of the chain in her hand, letting Orriel hang onto it for now. “It….it’s green. And the ring– pink –” She stared at it a moment longer. “It’s from your armor?” she whispered.
Orriel nodded, rubbing the back of his head with his free hand, ruffling up his red hair. “When Torian and I recast my helmet, we saved the scraps and the shavings for patches, but then…you.” He rested his hand on the back of his neck for a few moments before gesturing toward her. I—Listen, I don’t know how you feel about the big, big long term – but you should know –”
“Shut up” was the only warning Orriel had before Mako pounced on him, sending the armored figure clattering to the floor, still valiantly holding up the necklace –
Which was soon snatched away and quickly worn.
It was a most excellent Life Day.
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