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It seems like being reborn hasn't made Helena and Demetrius any less prone to enlisting innocent others in their fight against evil. Despite the good intentions, they are not very nice people, are they?

With such a wild name as "Anime Style Martial Arts" Mrs Kitsune may have been inclined to dismiss Greg's Dojo, just like Noah. But this may have made it MORE attractive. If Nanase's mother found the Phys-Ed and Sports programs at Moperville Schools to be inadequate or unacceptable she might have looked for an outside exercise or sport for her daughter. A crazy title and a few flashy moves might be perceived as an equivalent to putting marshmallows in cereal, a way to get kids to swallow something that is good for them.

Ever get into one of those discussions about superpowers? "If you could either fly or turn invisible, which would you choose?" Most of the time, when invisibility is discussed, it doesn't take very long before the idea of sneaking into locker rooms or following women home comes up. For some men, spying on women for their own gratification is not exactly an abhorrant idea, and most men who would never do so themselves have been in enough discussions with men who would that it's easy for them imagine someone taking it out of the realm of fantasy and actually trying to spy on women in real life. Add in the cultural idea that having external genitals of the opposite sex in the same locker room will somehow overcome all self-control and cause men to commit rape or sexual assault (eg be seen as an excuse for it) and you have a lot of people who would reject the option of anyone pre-op being allowed to share facilities with those born into their gender.

He wasn't wrong. He was just putting it off.

My brother's girlfriend foisted two more kittens on us several months ago. And, of course, we couldn't afford to fix either of them. Cut to this morning, and the girl of the duo is a proud mother of five. So tiny...

Or clearly remembers when the age for military recruitment was twelve?

Assuming that Edward told Mama Kitsune who not-Tengu was, then we can assume that she is now aware that there are magic-users who are actively hunting her daughter. Under such circumstances, there are really only two sane responses: 1: get Nanase much MUCH better protection or 2: ensure that Nanase becomes as strong as possible. If Mama Kitsune is also aware that Nanase's closest friends are all magic-users, then she can accomplish both of these ends by doing whatever she can to have all of the Main Eight develop their strength. Of course, most of it would be done behind-the-scenes, since she is not yet willing to let Nanase know how much she knows about it all.

Compared to this time, I think she was only mildly annoyed. I think the last time we saw her this angry was when she was dealing with Not-Tengu. We still do not know everything about them. But they are certainly not looking good right now. Except possibly to those who would otherwise have been victims of the vampires. What truly makes what they do problematic is that they seem to have alternatives -- other mages, the DGB, the French version of the DGB -- and for some reason they are not making use of them.

Dan has tweeted that immediately after the MV5 story is done, the next one will be about Grace playing video games again, the NP "should" last 6 weeks (barring any delays or extra stuff Dan thinks of). He hasn't said what game Grace will be playing but this tweet: I responded back with the guess of Fallout NV (New Vegas) since Dan had been playing a lot of that recently. This got a like from Dan. Now, this may not be confirmation that I guessed correctly, it could be just to acknowledge that I know he's been playing that, but it does make me wonder how Grace would handle playing any Fallout game. I've only played New Vegas and haven't completed it either, but I do know that you can either be the hero type that helps those in need and takes out the bad guys, or you can be a real jerk and steal, kill and double cross for your own gains. We know Grace hates violence, but only when it's real people involved, she's completely fine with movies portraying violence because she knows it's not real and she likes watching the good guys kick arse, so the question is, how would Grace play Fallout? Logically she'd likely play the good guy, but what if she decides to try her hand at being a bad guy for a change, she knows it's just a game, but can she still bring herself to some of the more questionable activities in New Vegas? If it was Fallout 4, I could only see one thing happening. Grace: "I can make roasted dogmeat? Why would I want to eat him!?!?"

Unfortunately, it is close enough to true of a sufficiently large minority of men - rarely that they are compelled (and those few have a duty to recognize this flaw in themselves and avoid, not seek out, such situations), but more often that they think they are entitled to take what they see - to make it a reasonable concern. That minority is well under 1% in civilized societies, but there are far smaller dangers that large numbers of people are seriously upset over. I suspect that genuinely transgender people are vastly UNDER-represented in that minority, but it seems to me that the assh*les who do are also more likely to be the sort to go to, say, a public gym they've never been to before (and probably will never go to again) and falsely claim to be trans in order to gain access to the women's locker room. And if I were, say, a high-school principal, I wouldn't want a trans kid who's presenting as their gender to undress in EITHER the boys' or girls' locker room - not to protect the other kids from them, but to protect them from the other kids. (This policy would also remove any temptation for other teenagers - who are more prone to do stupid things than adults are - to falsely claim to be trans in order to get some free peeks.)

I assume that all of them know at least the generalities of what happened to any of them unless: It's very old, from before they were at all aware of each other's magic; or It's very new, they haven't had time to share it; or There's some agreement or expressed desire to not share it. So Ellen and Nanase know things about Noriko that the others (particularly Tedd, Elliot, and Grace) don't know. And I doubt that Sarah has told any of them, except maybe Susan, about her power - even if there has been sufficient time, which isn't clear. And of course most of the group know nothing about the current contact with griffins except maybe what has been on the local news, yet, but they presumably will be told about them soon. I wouldn't say it's a compulsion, beyond a sense of duty ("these horrible things exist, most people can't fight them, I can, therefore I must" or alternatively "this is the tradition of my ancestors, I must uphold and continue it"). Combine that with Primary Protagonist Syndrome, or alternatively the monsters' ability to detect who might become a threat, and you get a line of monster-hunters.

Of course parents aren't always sensible when it comes to their kids, even when the well being of said children is at stake and especially when it involves things they'd rather not think about their kids doing. I'm the sort of parent who would rather empower their child with knowledge than pretend that if the kid doesn't know about something they won't try it. I also wonder if part of the whole monster hunting bloodline includes some level of compulsion to hunt monsters, rather than merely an affinity for a powerset that makes them adept at it. I find myself wondering whether the martial arts lessons were originally the idea of Nanase or her mom, if the latter it was undoubtedly to ensure her daughter had at least some knowledge of how to defend herself in the (very probable) event it become necessary.

I'm reminded of a line from a Something*Positive strip, one from several years ago: "It's not a matter of whether or not someone's watching over you, it's just a question of their intentions."

Yeah that was one of the things I mentioned in either a reaction thread or the wild theories thread back in the old forums, that hesitation has to mean he was about to say something that involved Noriko, but had to stop himself and just talk about Edward. Like "His parents are VIPs"

I have long considered this a supremely offensive notion in so many ways. That it is a large part of the mindset that makes it possible to blame victims for being sexually assaulted does not precisely further endear it to me.

You mean, at this point, Tedd still hasn't had a bunch of the revelations about himself that he's had by the furthest-forward times we've seen, and so here we see little bits of inner conflict welling up and out? Yeah. The Moderator: Ahem. I just realised that I did WR...S an injustice when I initially posted a remark speaking out against his post. I misread it as a rather rude criticism and now I see that it clearly was not intended so. My apologies to both WR...S and the forum at large. ~tOH.

I'd say that if ever the road to hell were paved with good intentions, this may just end up being it. Nanase looks like she's going to have some particularly choice words for Helena and Demetrius.

Considering we are talking about beavers, the route through water might be preferred.

I suspect that Mrs. Kitsune won't allow Nanase to go hunting monsters fulltime before at least two degrees and child. (Or one degree and two children?) Tedd sure have his research, but DGB would probably pay him for it. I'm not. Or at least Edward doesn't think so highly about those teachers, as he didn't mentioned them AT ALL. Sure, it's possible that those teachers don't like to teach children, but that only shows they are not as competent. ... also this. We can't be entirely sure it was Moperville high school - but yes, it does seem most likely. But remember also that Arthur Arthur tried to deport Raven to Russia, which presumably happened soon after he arrived ... and Arthur Arthur can't be THAT old.

You mean, at this point, Tedd still hasn't had a bunch of the revelations about himself that he's had by the furthest-forward times we've seen, and so here we see little bits of inner conflict welling up and out? Yeah.

Why would it depend on that? If Raven really wanted to train Grace and/or her friends, he could easily talk to them outside of class. Still, I think it's up to the Main Eight to ask him first if they want his help. I'm sure DGB has some competent magic teachers, but yes, I also think it'd be wiser to train with Greg or Raven. Arthur may not be an antagonist, but he doesn't seem to be very useful as a leader and I doubt he'd want a bunch of kids learning magic under his supervision, especially since he still wants to keep the availability of magic a secret. Of course, I could be wrong and the only way he would want those kids to learn magic would be under his supervision, but that might not end well. I agree with all of this. Like Scotty already said, Raven most likely sensed Justin's power as well. My guess is that he sensed the skills Justin had learned at the ASMA dojo before he got his mark. Anyway, wow, I was way off when I said that Raven doesn't know about most of the Main Eight. I think you're right, Sarah and Susan are probably the only ones he hasn't met or heard of. Noah told him about Elliot, but it's unknown if Noah told him that Elliot is Ellen's brother, though I don't see why he wouldn't have told him that. Oh yeah, I almost forgot, EVERYONE knows Elliot now, so it really doesn't even matter how much Raven knew about him before. This theory has some holes in it. I don't doubt that Pandora was the one who slowed the flow of magic in Moperville years ago, but it can't have happened when Raven first moved there. Remember, Raven taught Tedd's parents and Nanase's mom in high school and the whale said that Moperville had had more magic than usual for "most of Tedd's life" - in other words, long after Raven moved to Moperville and taught Tedd's parents. I believe that Raven had a big fight with his mother fourteen years ago for whatever reason, and that's when she decided to slow the flow of magic in Moperville to either give her son more magic to use as an apology or to see him struggle to figure out just what the hell had happened.

Every time I see a terrorist act committed by people who claim to be of the same religion as me, I die a little bit inside.