Hey again. How do you guys stat/reflect friends/contacts/allies/familiars?

For instance, how would you do:

Butters as a useful contact and occasional friend? Or Murphy/Stawlings in the early books?
Mister or a kick-butt rescue dog?
Bob the Skull or a similar resource with occasional very useful stuff?
Mouse, or a pseudo-character beast-creature?

I could see doing many of these as an aspect, but some of them seem to be a bit much. Thoughts?

Howdy folks,

So I've sort of wondered at the weakness of Channeling compared to Evocation for only 1 point of refresh. Just that Evocation comes with 2 more elements (2 points worth of Refinement) and a Specialization (1 point worth of Refinement). Additionally, Channeling doesn't allow Refinement for anything except items. It seems that to be an effective specialized Fire mage, you'd need to take Evocation rather than Channeling: Fire. Thoughts?

And sorry if this has been discussed before. I was unable to find it.