Curate, connect, and discover
Okay I'm a dumbass and didn't ever realize or notice that tumblr has a tag cap, because at least to my knowledge it does not tell you that you've hit a limit. So I shall rant about a kinda dumb headcanon I have for the states.
Warning: This bitch is longer than I thought it would be, you have been warned!!
ALRIGHT SO. The way I tend to draw the height for states is based off of two things, their state size and vibes, this is however excluded for the OG13 and then some.
This rule-ish not applying to them is because they all have actual families. Now you may be thinking "What the hell does that mean" and I am so glad you asked.
I haven't really talked about outside of the headcanon things but both New Jersey and New York have families, NJ his moms and technically the devil from the bible, NY his grandparents.
This also goes for the rest of the OG13, they all have families that while those who raised them aren't around anymore that family line still is. This is to the exception of Maryland because he is somehow even farther from being human than states normally are.
Anyway because of this, the OG13 heights are not based in state size, instead it is technically a strange mix between family genes and land size, only technically because those like Mass and Virginia are both taller(mass) and shorter(ginny) than one would assume based on state size. It's basically a ruelette on whether or not you get genes over state size and somehow Rhode STILL managed to be short as hell, bro rolled wrong TWICE XD.
Now it should be interesting to note that it's pretty much only the OG13 that have weird height despite the few other states who have family are locked to their state size. This would include Texas, Louisiana, both the Dakotas, Utah, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Minnesota Wisconsin and Michigan- I see these three at least somewhat related in some way shape or form so thats why they are together like that.
So despite states out side of the OG13 having actual human families they are related to, it's only the OG13 that aren't state size locked and there could be some reasons for this.
For one it could be that colonies more or less aren't locked to their size, mainly because colonies can mix and it's shown quite a lot in history that there were no firm lines between colonies. So it would make sense that when the states (then colonies) were growing up they weren't locked to the size of the colony and rather just their family genes.
It could also be that because they were already adult age (or close to it) it was too far for weird border magic to effect them since they were too old and such. This would make sense and work well with this idea that the other states with families outside of the OG13 are sized locked because their borders were a lot clearer by the time they were older.
Another reason could be because they all have families, which yes doesn't make much sense but here me out. All of them excluding NJ and Maryland had normal human families, it could be that because they had families they were only labeled as personified states once the country became a country. This doesn't mean that they weren't already personifications, just that you have to be labeled a state for border size to take effect, however once again since they were all already adults or almost adults, it wouldn't take effect.
And the final reason I can think of could just be that they were a special case, considering the fact that (if I'm remembering correctly) there aren't personification of the Canadian provinces in canon. It very well could be that yes normally states whether they have family or not are state sized locked, but since they would have been a special case in that there weren't personification like them before that the magic creating state personifications was newly born and didn't have rules yet. This would also explain why they would have families to begin with, the magic had to pick those who lived there to be those personifications, meaning they originally human. The only real problem with this one is the fact that states outside of them have families, however this could be explained, it could have been a lack of people in the area to build a personification from, it also could have been in the southern states case that because family is pretty important there, it made sense to chose those from families instead while still keeping the rules in place.
Now this is a whole lot and it kind of sounds like I've gone insane thinking about this but honestly this is mainly just me typing before I think lol. Is it clear that I needed a reason as to why some states are not close to their state size, because I feel like it is.
I do want to say that the states do have some control over their height, Texas could get taller but it would feel wrong and that goes for most already tall states, it's vice versa for the smaller states who may already be at their height cap by default. I'm not super sure if the OG13 should be able to change their height slightly, mainly because they are all more human to an extent than the other states, of course ignoring whatever the hell Mary is and the fact that NJ is related to the devil from the bible because lord knows those two are not as close (or close at all in Mary's case) to being human like their fellow states with families.
Now height isn't super important but I feel it can explain some dynamics people may have. If you have a tall friend and a short friend, theres gonna be a lot of short jokes. Two short friends and it's a whole lot of complaining about not being able to reach anything. Two tall friends and it's either complaining about feeling claustrophobic in lower ceilings or feeling like your god because your taller than everyone. Two friends of the exact same height and it will always be a competition to see who is truly taller (it's neither but their in denial).
You have to think about these things when making characters because it can effect the dynamic, obviously not by much but still, it's important to know. So while this might seem like far to much thinking when it's literally just a funny internet series that was the only way you knew the news during covid, I find it important. Sure I may never actually write a proper fic and I will probably really only stick to my funny lil drawings, it feels important.
My drawings are like snippets to what happens in the day to day crazy-ness in either the Statehouse or just with the states, thus it is important to me that I have their heights to how I have my headcanons set up when drawing. It's small details like that, that convey a story when drawing without doing an actual comic, it brings life when I know my drawings can be a little stiff, it's about the story and maybe that's just the writer within me talking but I don't care XD.
Basically I just like having some sort of reason as to why the heights for the OG13 aren't consistent with their state size when I draw them. What can I say, I'm a dork :D.