Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Knight. He Likes To Be Fucked Much Harder Than That.

lets synchronize with mama

using the astral duo event and the rainy season event, we can approximate topper's age.

tl;dr, topper is an old man. ദ്ദി૮ • ﻌ • ა ---

to start: in astral duo, we learn that double eclipses occur "once every fifty-four years and one month." [1] later, eiden goes back in time to a period that quincy estimates is "[a]t least... two double eclipses ago". [2] so, that's at least a century ago from the present of the astral duo event. during that time, we see quincy's best friend zaro (love u zaro) and quincy during a past eclipse. then, in the rainy season event, eiden has to go fetch rei and quincy from a memory stream using father and topper's connection to them respectively. [3] it turns out this means eiden entering father and topper's memories of rei and quincy to find them. [4] [5] when eiden enters topper's memory of quincy, there's a funeral going on. after quincy gives a vague answer about who the funeral is for, eiden concludes, "(He must be talking about his friend from the tribe all those years ago...)". [5] the friend is, of course, zaro, because that's the only tribe friend eiden knows about.

topper isn't with young quincy in astral duo, which makes me think he didn't know quincy back then*, but he does seem familiar with quincy by the time of zaro's funeral in rainy season. so that gives us a rough timeline (from oldest event to most recent): >= 108~ years ago: young quincy and zaro do chores during the double eclipse. (they seem like they could be anywhere between their 20s and 30s with the conversation where quincy grouses about being old and preferring a younger tribe member calling him 'big brother' rather than 'uncle'. [2]) ??? years ago: quincy caught topper in a trap and decided to keep him. quincy has his sr sprite here instead of his r sprite (which is used to depict his younger self), so it seems some time has passed. [6] ??? years ago: zaro dies and quincy stands outside the funeral in the rain. topper brings him an umbrella. [5] 0~ years ago: the astral duo event given quincy's general angst and zaro's vibe, we can assume zaro is what you call 'a normal human guy' with a normal human lifespan. (well, actually, based on quincy's 4th astral duo room, he may have been relatively long lived for a human since he outlived everyone else in the tribe quincy was close to.) so, let's say zaro lived to be about 100 years old. that means the timeline looks like this: >= 108~ years ago: young quincy and zaro pal around during the double eclipse. (zaro: 20s or 30s) ??? years ago: quincy and topper meet >= 28-38~ years ago: zaro dies at 100~ years old and quincy attends his funeral. topper gives him an umbrella. 0~ years ago: the astral duo event

we also know topper met quincy after all of topper's siblings died? [7] that doesn't really mean anything because we don't know if all his siblings died when he was a baby, but it does give him the vibe of having 'outlived' his siblings? that seems to suggest that he'd been alive for a while. he definitely seems to be an adult by the time he gets captured by quincy. still, without knowing how his species ages, it's kind of impossible to know how old he was when he met quincy. 28-38 years old is already way longer than a irl stoat lives so.... the real world equivalent isn't very helpful when trying to gauge what age topper became an adult topper.... for the sake of adding some time for 'before he joined quincy' and accounting for toppers existing social life pre-quincy, i'll just say he was like. 5 years old when he met quincy. using all this information, we can (very roughly) gauge that topper is about ~35-45 years old, at least. did we need to know this? no, not really. ╭( ´꒳` )╯♫⋆｡♪ we do know that father is older than topper tho! [7.2] so, this gives us some kind of measuring stick there. this also lets us approximate that quincy is somewhere around ~130-140 years old, which is younger than i thought. (let me know if i'm forgetting some key lore;;;) from there we can determine minimum and maximum ages for the yokai and familiars using the program booklet, which states, "The age of the yokais, familiars are arranged in order: Kuya > Quincy > Rei > Aster > Morvay > Yakumo > Garu." [7.3] of course, this all depends on quincy's approximation during the astral duo event that he and eiden timetravelled back to "[a]t least... two double eclipses ago". [2] so all the ages given here are more like minimums.

sources: 1. astral duo - forest alterations 2. astral duo - time fossil 3. rainy season - without a trace 4. rainy season - to their memories 5. rainy season - parting words 6. rainy season quincy - room 3 7. neon carnival (2nd anniversary) program booklet: 1, 2, 3

also quincy's 4th astral duo room, which i didnt give a number lol *I know Topper isn't always with Quincy, like during the flashback (in Razor's Edge - Just What Is This Place?) when Huey was still alive and Zaro was dead. Topper and Quincy definitely knew each other by that point, but Quincy probably didn't bring Topper because like... it wasn't the vibe. So, there is the distinct possibility that Topper and Quincy did know each other during the period of the Astral Duo event flashback. However, I don't think that's super likely because, in Rainy Season Quincy's room 3, the Quincy who catches Topper uses the SR sprite instead of the R and he talks like our Quincy, i.e. depressed, instead of happy, shounen vibes flashback Quincy.

🧡 • dumbo octopus!

there is no platonic explanation for this. there's no romantic explanation either. frankly they just don't like eachother at all

Timelapse for my piece for rei zine + finished product

... peace on planet bottom, then there's whatever this is

(tags from @toptop-fuwafuwa-star) ooooo!! yeah that's v fitting for garukaru... and it def works considering their relative good health! it seems like his original pack is doing well in misty vale, so he'd be pretty much off the hook! plus, he did protect gramps/cashel to the best of his ability until the very end. to my knowledge, everyone who has a gemstone and wasn't an original clan member was born with it. yakumo was born with his, for example. so i lean pretty heavily towards the idea that the gemstone can only be transferred once the previous gemholder has died and 'transferred' the contract via bloodline. going in that direction, it was probably his grandpa (or other relative) who died before he was born that passed his gem onto him.

ok ive been thinking about this since like chapter 12 and chapter 16 is just around the corner so:

here’s my theory about how clan member contracts work + the contract powerscale 📝

so huey signs a contract with someone and they each have to fulfill it. simple enough. in return for fulfilling the contract, huey gives them a fraction of his essence (which culminates in a gemstone on their body) and they go on a roadtrip to fix the altars every once in a while

each original clan member signed their contract for a reason. we have pretty good guesses for some of them quincy: to protect the tribe/tribe’s land (pretty much confirmed as of razor’s edge) olivine’s ancestor: to assist(?) the church dante’s ancestor: to protect the solaria yakumo’s ancestor: to protect his loved ones (see: misty vale) what happens when someone doesn’t fulfill their contract? based on rei’s flashback in ch. 12, i’m guessing that the body part their gemstone is connected to + their essence begins to go haywire. rei mentions he ‘never chose to enter any damn contract’ while his gem huey also mentions that rei must learn to ‘harness the power’ he was given. it seems like part of that ‘harnessing’ is using huey’s power in service to the original contract.

rei, it seems, was not doing that. this is in contrast to someone like quincy who spends a great deal of time protecting and aiding the forest tribe and, likewise, possesses an incredible amount of power.

i think olivine is in a similar position (though he doesn’t know it). he’s got a lot of control and power and, unlike yakumo and edmond, his gem wasn’t cloudy when eiden met him (although, his sr also covers his gem with a decorative gem so?) (at any rate, iirc, eiden doesn't notice anything wrong with his gem). (EDIT: i have been informed that eiden does comment on olivine's gem in his h-story room when he sees his real gem. so olivine was also Not Doing so Hot.) olivine's ancestor (likely) asked for power to care for/protect the church and olivine has been doing that (monster semen not withstanding. we’ll get to that.📌) + regulating with the altar. the more a clan member ‘fulfills the purpose of their contract’, the more power they reap from it. it’s hard to say this definitively because some of the original contracts are very ambiguous.

this puts quincy + olivine + kuya(?) in the upper tiers edmond + yakumo + g/karu(?) are in mid tier

the familiars + blade are N/A (never signed a contract)

and then bottom tier are rei and dante. who also happen to be the only main clan members who have been conspicuously sick as part of their character rei, we know spent an ample amount of time doing something outside of klein (i.e. not fulfilling his ancestor’s contract). so, we know where his dysregulation came from and it likely didn’t occur based on the few childhood flashbacks we get from him. but what about dante? how did he fail his contract as infant, straight from the womb??? (assuming that was the cause of his sickness)

well. when he was born, solaria wasn’t doing very well. and, honestly, his parents weren’t doing a great job running the show. it also probably didn’t help that he was stopped from doing anything that could help solaria since he was isolated to palace grounds.

that is until the night of the riot when he ran and sought out the elemental spirit of fire's trial.

we don’t know exactly when dante ‘stopped being sick’ but i’d hazard a guess that it was after his trial with the elemental spirit of fire. the essence + power he gained from the contract with the elemental spirit of fire (i.e. his agreement to protect the fire territory) stabilized his essence and thus, his health. his newfound health (plus a lot of training) gave him the strength to improve solaria and become what he is today. (as an aside, similar to how kuya provides a lot of insight on huey, dante provides a lot of insight on contracts and communication with the elemental spirits. his contract is directly compared to the contract scrolls used by huey (by blade in chapter 10 part 1). in that chapter we learn that failure to fulfill his contract will result in his death. otherwise, we see that he gains power and favor from the spirits.)

even though solaria has improved a lot, i think dante's essence from huey might be permanently effected given that in sunburst fever, he can’t use magic w/o the elemental spirits. in general, he seems to struggle with outputting essence compared to other clan members.

tl;dr: huey’s contracts make you more powerful if you do what you said you’d do (or your ancestor said that they’d do) and, if you don’t, wuh oh… 📌 so olivine and the monster semen. yes, he did try to sabotage the church, so why didn’t he face a huge backlash? well… he also protected the church and, despite trying to harm it, he did his best to maintain it as well. so, what might seem like a huge breach of contract, is actually alright. the church didn’t face any major harm and it was protected. bada-bing-badaboom also, a possible question might be ‘so what about the mid-tier guys?’. so, yakumo and edmond don’t appear(?) to be actively fulfilling their contracts (though yakumo is well on his way).

what’s important is that they aren’t violating their contract. from when we meet them, it seems like ‘neglect of a contract’ does lead to degradation of one’s gem (cloudiness of the gem, poor condition in general) and would eventually lead to illness (like rei), but it’s a much slower process. it’s a good thing eiden regulated with them when he did.

very pog chapter…. all the huey and rin lore i could ask for tbh

its out