18 year old boys haven't finished growing. Certainly not where brain is concerned at least.
[X] Catch up with Lydia
Everybody keeps growing until they die; in life experience, in attitudes.
But we consider 18 year olds on the average to be biologically and temporally mature enough to vote, sign binding contracts, get married and go to war.
Its hard to argue against training... or at least the sort that doesn't open a pandora's box or twelve.
Training has never been the issue.
In this AU?
Daniel was going to a gym/dojo for martial arts training, which was where he met Lydia. His junior brother Mathew mentioned an interest in weapons, and is now getting sword training from their father. Molly is training with a shih master.
Michael is a military vet. Charity Carpenter is both Michael's armorer and his primary melee sparring partner, which gives you a benchmark for comparison, since Michael holds his own against a two thousand year old swordsman. She carries a warhammer, and there's at least one shotgun in the household that we see her carrying in Proven Guilty.
Its even been explicitly stated in this AU that they run panic room drills in the Carpenter household, and that combat ethics has been a topic of discussion with regards to self-defense.
Training has never been an issue. The Carpenters are happy to provide it or to see you seek it.
The issue here is the idea of a minor seeking empowerment to going out to play supernatural vigilante.
Thats something I would expect both Michael and Charity, as responsible parents who actually give a shit about their kids to have trouble with.
Even Molly, who as a wizard talent had bona fide superpowers, didnt play supernatural vigilante when she temporarily moved out as a 16-17 year old.
Hell, while Dresden started bringing her around on cases as an apprentice, the first combat scenario he actively took Molly into as an active participant was Changes, which was around five or six years after he first took her on as an apprentice, and by which time she was in her mid-20sish.
There's a reason why I regularly sing the praises of Mentor 5.
Having Michael's home office personally weigh in on this shit on Molly's behalf allowed us to skip a fair amount of family drama from back when our social was mid at best for an Exalt.
I'm not expecting him to ever actually go out and kill jack shit, in actuality, unless things have already gone horribly wrong. That said, its not like he wouldn't have a place in our eventual Wolfram & Hart and most operatives aren't going to be used as beatsticks.
That is literally what you voted for, though?
You didnt vote to talk out his insecurities and then get him self-defense training and equipment, you voted to enable him in his goal of becoming a supernatural vigilante like his sister and father and girlfriend, but without their advantages.
The insecurity that was pushing him? Is unaddressed. Im not sure what your expectations are.
To a certain point, maybe, but I think there must always be a chance of failure. If Uriel and the like could, with their manipulations, just weave a perfect desired pattern from the future actions of mortals, then Free Will wouldn't exist.
I dont know if thats true.
Or that there isnt a special dispensation for children; we do know that the rules for children and adults appear to be pretty different for everything from how they react to soulgazes to their ability to see certain spirits.
I certainly dont think that Charity had any guarantee of safety when she went to Arctis Tor.
The update specifically mentioned that Spirit Realm Quest they were planning with Lydia again, regardless of all the issues you mentioned? She is a teenager, too. Something merely being an unwise idea doesn't mean she wouldn't still do it (and as long as Daniel would be the one in risk/paying the price, then Arawn very likely wouldn't care - either the mortal boy proves himself worthy or his daughter learns a valuable lesson).
We didn't offer our help here out of nowhere, we offered it as a better alternative to what they were already plotting.
She also has a phone line to her father literally in her head, and was almost eaten by Corpsetaker the last time she tried something like this six months ago.A lot of hypothetical plans that teenagers sketch out never get past the drafting stage.
Arawn would very much care. If shit goes wrong, and even if it goes right, there's the distinct possibility that Molly and Michael would hold Lydia culpable, burning a major relationship at the very minimum.
Having a Knight and an Infernal mad at you is not a good thing, not when your family already has beef with Winter.
If I had a minor who was talking about taking a firearm to school because he was afraid of a school shooter?
Noone would consider it excusable if my reaction was to buy him a Glock 17 under the justification that my not doing so would just mean that he'd go get involved with criminals to get one.
Regarding Lydia and the Spirit Realm
Library 5 covers a multitude of sins... or you know causes them, but the point is she is an Exalt. They tend to get a bit too focused when a problem is placed before them to fix.
As Lydia has painful reason to remember, Library 5 has limits.
I genuinely cant see a situation in which someone who almost got eaten by a bodyjumping wizard/necromancer by following the instructions in her books is going to go fuck around in almost the exact same fashion less than six months later.
There's monofocus, there's teenage dumb, and then there's stupid.
And Lydia hasnt been characterized as stupid.
There are unfallen or mostly unfallen Yama Kings. Perhaps several of them. They just generally have a lot less influence in the mortal world because if they haven't fallen that means they're staying in their lane and not interfering in Earthly matters as that's not the job that Heaven gave them.
The main exception is the Yama King that's also an ocean deity of the Pacific, so has mortal worshipers and servants because of that. It would be interesting to visit her realm, or the Hell of Never Dying Sorrow to visit Bao Zhong, the last unfallen and uncursed Wan Xian outside of Heaven.
That's Haha no Fukami, Empress of Pearls and ruler of the Hell of Seven Burning Seas
Least corrupt of the serving Kings, allegedly.
There's also First of the Fallen, Yen-Lo and his chosen successor, Ama Odashu, who was a Buddhist saint.
But after that Hell was invaded by Emma-O and allies, killing Yen-Lo, his chosen successor sealed it somehow against scrying and intruders, and only spirits of the compassionate can allegedly enter.
Isn't that intentional? Keep it hidden so that when you do snap, the shock exacerbates your trauma which then makes it much easier to convince the teen to "embrace their true selves" and entrench themselves in White Court society
The only White Court virgin we see in canon is Inari Raith, so hard to draw any conclusions from a single person.
Even Connie Barrowill was already a Whampire when we first see her in canon, she just hadnt realized it.
Connie Barrowill was also the person in the short story that established on-screen that it isnt necessary to kill a person for a White Court virgin to Awaken, just provide enough energy. It just appears to be a matter of storied tradition at this point on the part of the older Whampires who were turned that way themselves.
For the Raiths, very much so, to the point where it would be considered a hostile action to just tell her, that would literally be stopping a White Vampire's reproductive cycle, this is how they make more vampires (and also storied tradition but that is just a way to dress it up) . The Raiths have found that it is rather hard to persuade a teenager to kill the first person they sleep with hence the lie.
The opposite.
Its not necessary if the other person has sufficient life force. Like I pointed out, Connie awakened in canon after having sexual relations with Irwin Pounder, and she didnt even realize that she was a White Court vampire in the aftermath.
Her father specifically came down to try and ensure that she killed her then partner.
Part storied tradition(thats how I was raised), part twisted care that life would be easier for her if she understood how life/nature worked for them.
I can dig up the quotes if you want.
