#sooley is but a young whippersnapper

[contacthigh520]

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.