Molly flaunts her boobs, period.

Lash was capable of creating ILLUSIONS without Harry realizing it, changing actual reality is completely different.

Which is why I mentioned Lasciel as doing the actual tweaking. -She- was the one with the power. But she was bound in the coin, and further in the spells Dresden placed around the coin. Probably unaware due to the shields. But Lash was very aware, and apparently able to communicate in some fashion with her other.

iirc, we know that the Erkling was human at one point.


Both existing is not the same at all as both being equal.

     Well, let's just get it over with. Molly Carpenter is at least 20 years old at the time of Changes. As in physically adult, within a few percentage points of final growth. Anyone found any reference whatsoever that Mab and Molly have any sort of resemblance, save the fact that they are both female? Dresden would have noticed; more it would have conflicted with the padawan as student and non lust object and Mab as uber hottie. The resemblance would have been there even before Molly got as old as she is. No one's noticed. There should have been some indication. If 'Mab' arose after a mortal wizard travelled in time and ascended, a lot of entities would have noted and remembered it. So far, nothing....

Hi Dale 
Duck shall address your cunning objections, one by one:
•   Ummm, the most -likely- suspect for messing with LC to keep if from killing Harry is -Lash-. He dies, she loses a host. And being resident in his head, she was in the most advantageous position to see the issues, and know what he did wrong and how to correct them. I think he would have known if someone of Mab's ilk had crashed through the apartment protections, and the lab protections, fixed his toy, and left, as she could not have reset those protections. They were his, after all. Not hers.

•   REPLY: Lash is actually the least likely suspect, after Marcone. If she could mess with his head to that degree, and mess with Bob as well ( remember Bob doesn’t know who messed with it) then there is no reason at all for most of her other deceptions. Second, this is actually the weakest link in my theory; not because Mab has to blast thru his protections and needs to be Molly to get in, but because she does not. Mab has his number, from the debt she bought from Lea, and can walk right thru his magic’s anytime she wants. What she needs to be Molly for is to know about LC in the first place, and to have foreknowledge of events accurate enough to know exactly what moves to make in those scenarios. Also, Mab is the only suspect that could just waltz past Bob without being detected.

True enough, oh quackly one. But you forget; -Lash- is nothing but an image memory of =Lasciel=, who just happened to be in an old coin buried beneath the floor of the lab at that time. If Dresden had been killed there, her coin would have been there for some time. As in until the wizard's numerous protections -all- failed. Someone rented the dump. And found the hidden basement. And found some reason to dig up the floor. And found the coin. Lash didn't have the power, true; but her original did. That original was bound by the coin and the spells Harry cast around it....but we are talking about a fallen angel. And nothing Harry did was too overtly religious, that we know of. And no doubt there are rules binding the Fallen that we know nothing about. But -together-, it just might have been possible for Lash to make Lasciel aware of the problem, and Lasciel affect -the model- through Lash. No rules violated, and no waiting for the next stupid mortal to find her.

•   Actually, nothing says that Demonreach -is- 'directly under' the Stone Tablet.....or the sacrificial alter, to be more precise. The actual text in SK states that Mab -and Titania- created the place where Harry & Co fight, to settle the issue. Not that it existed all the time, unmoving. Two, they reached it by 'walking up a magical stairway into the sky' from the shore at Chicago. How far out into Lake Superior is that island again? If the area around the altar was templated on Chicago (as dresden commented on), then they would have had to travel a long way to get there. And how do you explain the dual nature of the tablet? Half the year, it is anything -but- a focus dark magic, as it is owned by Summer. The Fae have always been dual natured, as they represent nature itself. So unless you know of a well of light magic, just as deep and powerful as Demonreach, that no one knows about or has the slightest inkling exists, to act as the counterbalance to Demonreach.... Fail
•   REPLY: counter fail. I think you are confusing the table, which is the sacrificial altar used by the sidhe in their accession ceremony, and thus a source of true dark power, with the other items ‘winter’s wellspring’ and ‘summers fire’ from proven guilty, which are specific to the natures of the courts. Second, why would the fae choose to put the table there, if they could have put it anywhere? The Equator for an epic battle would have made more sense. They put it over lake Chicago; over a source of dark magic 75,000 years old. That’s right, Demonreach isle has a source of dark magic beneath it over 75,000 years old; and the Isle itself was badly injured by something that happened at the start of the last ice age…

And back atcha. No, I'm not confusing them. The Stone Tablet as described matches the description of just about every sacrificial altar out there. Stone, sigils of some sort, horizontal surface that strangely enough seems to be just about reclining human size (Harry and Mab fit on there, didn't they? As did Lily and Slate). Just because it passes between the two courts at seasonal changes does not mean that the thing wasn't used for sacrifice in the past.
     And the thing about putting it over Demonreach is that the existing hints are that this is a place that -could- be one of the Outer Gates. Winter fae and Demons are not the same thing; in fact the Outsiders would destroy them just as handily as they would mortals. And so far as we know, neither fae court has dared open those gates.
     As for why it was in Chicago. Aurora has established her base there. And that area is a known nexus. Not for dark energy, but -all kinds- of energy. It was a place of power that favored neither side....which would keep in line with the balance the courts have to maintain to preserve the mortal world.

•   Source of power to tap, a mortal soul to seduce and turn, giving them a wizardly source of power to play with. Nothing outside of the Sidhe ordinary there....
•   REPLY: funny, I don’t recall them seducing Ramirez nearly so hard…In fact, the only wizards they have persued have been Maggie, Harry, Elaine, and Molly.

Margaret LaFay pursued -them-, not the other way around....and did it skillfully enough that she managed to tapdance between the courts for quite a few years, apparently. Elaine went to Aurora and asked for protection, not vice-versa. Mab has a stiffie for Harry, true. The actual evidence we have is that Molly was a newbie wizard with no defenses and less awareness, who stepped over the line and provided a beacon for the fetches to use to cross over. JB has never explained -why-, not has he given us a clue as to what may have been done to Molly at Arctis Tor.

•   About a 16-17 year old punk-goth runaway wizard who gets in over her head and is used to lure Harry to Arctis Tor. For all we know, the fetches were turned by the Black Council, managed to finess Mab into entrusting the Tor to them as she led Winter in such a way that she was bound to leave the Tor in their hands (anything smacking of promise is binding on fae, remember), and they let in Namshiel to do whatever it was he did besides destroying a lot of things. I wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't a time bomb or three in her from that little sojourn to Winter, but so far we have seen no evidence of it.
•   REPLY: all the evidence shows that the BC tried to deal with Mab and got outplanned, out smarted, and just plain outgunned. I consider a far more likely reason for the whole scenario is Mab needed to give herself a good quick kick in the arse, and get the whole thing moving in the right direction.

     As we don't know exactly what Thorned Namshiel was after, or accomplished, that is speculative in the extreme. He may have done exactly what he intended, and Mab is still wearing a sucker suit. Maybe there is a reason to trash her fortress, kill all those retainers, let a wizard and others within touching distance of the wellspring of her power (-particularly Dresden-), but if there is, I haven't seen any of the logic behind it......

•   And exactly what kind of ascension spell did she use, hmmm? Mab is kinda immortal; Molly isn't. And only a ritual of ascension could have changed that. Or divine action. Also keep in mind that what was known as Faery was around at least as long as humanity was. Who was in charge all that time before DJ MollyC came and pulled an ascension ritual out of her nether regions and decided to be the poster child for the next Stone Cold Bitch(tm)? Nature has always had balance. Can't have Winter without Summer
•   Nature has not always had balance, very very much the opposite.  And the time I speculate for the beginnings of Mab would be oh…75,000 years ago. Here’s the thing; I don’t believe  that the nature courts have always existed. If they had, the incarnations certainly would not be human. (Behold Queen Mab..the T Rex). I think someone, a wizard, did an ascension ritual on THAT spot 75,000 years ago, starting the ice age, and killing of 90% of the people on earth at that time. Summer and the other queens were added later, to create balance and prevent extinction of all life on earth.

     No, they didn't exist as humanity knows them until humanity's thoughts gave them form. But an ice age is not the same thing as Winter without Summer. And maybe equilibrium is a better term. Yes, there have been periods when one or the other was overly ascendant......and death and disaster followed. You have to consider the continuum, not just pluck one event out of a series of events and say this proves a hypothesis. That kind of metadata twisting is hardly correct. Yes, the island of Demonreach is the source of some very powerful dark energy ley lines. Yes, the island was damaged in some way by the last glacial.....which means that said 'ice age' was started long before your 75,000 year mark, as the glaciers had to form and then advance (a quick fact check showed that what you call an ice age is actually a glacial; we are still in the Late Pliestocene Ice Age, and the event you talk about in part of an 80,000 to 110,000 year glacial cycle of retreat and glaciate. So for Mab to have started this, our time traveller would have had to go back at least 650,000 years. No lollipop....  ). =Something= happened there, no doubt, and the answer may still be there, below the water. But demonic energy is not Winter energy, and neither is the anti life of the Outsiders. Keep that one in mind; Outside is -anti life-.....and while not the greatest thing, Winter is still part =of= life. At present, there is no indicator whatsoever of an ascension rite having been performed on the isle of Demonreach (or at the time whatever happening happened, most likely, the mountain of Demonreach. Keep that in mind; Before the lake filled, that island was one decent sized mountain.....)

•   Er, actually, the line is "I am Sidhe. I am Mab." No different in context than I am fae. I am American. No cosmic symbolism there, I fear.... And again. Balance. Without both, one or the other would destroy the very thing that gave them context.
•   REPLY: Mab always speaks the exact truth.. as others have pointed out, there is no ‘a or an’ in that sentence. And yes, Summer was added later, to end the ice age Mab accidentally started…

Now if she had said "I am the First Sidhe", you might have a point to stand on. However, you just shot yourself in the webbing, as you claim she speaks only the exact truth.....and if she was the 'First Sidhe', she would, by that logic, claim the title. But all she says is that she is Sidhe. She is Female. She is Bitchy. She is tall. She is cold. Simple statement of fact, nothing more. And as there is no evidence whatsoever that Summer was 'added' later to fix Mab's screw up which was nothing but the latest in a consistent cycle of events.....