ijuin

Susan was probably involved.

Ey, where did she get those miniature clothes?
And why is there no milk with the cookie?

"When the price of pumpernickel hits a dollar a pound, head for the hills." — Groucho Marx

Just had an epiphany about Helena and Demetrius' role in this story. Way back in "In the Shadows" we see Edward, Wolf and Cranium discussing their investigation into the disturbance in the forest and getting that warning from Pandora about the "Egg", they didn't get any more information about it so Edward takes them off the case and states his intent to "enlist the assistance of some friends"  following it up with "let's just say there's a reason I know so much about Immortals".  Remember how Jerry said that Edward was a VIP in the world of the paranormal.
I've stated my belief that Helena and Demetrius have been following Elliot around because they were asked to, it's also been very strongly implied that Magus is the "Egg" that Pandora mentioned, and Magus knew that Helena and Demetrius had an improper death. I'm now thinking that Helena and Demetrius are the "friends" that Edward spoke of, they would be better suited to investigate the activity of another Immortal and if they did uncover anything important, their improper deaths might have been caused by Pandora to prevent them from reporting that back to Edward. Part of that info would have been the plan to use Elliot to get Magus back into the mortal plane but their memory only just mentions "blah blah follow blah blah Elliot blah" so they just assume that he needs to be watched but not sure why.

I have always had an odd love-hate relationship with Karma meters. I like the idea and it does add variation to the games, but sometimes the choices are so STUPID. For example, in classic KotOR where you play a force sensitive character you keep getting choices between Light and Dark Side. In one situation you meet a man being mugged by gangsters. You can elect to save the man (Light Side), ignore the event (Dark Side) or kill the muggers because they irritate you (Dark Side.) Okay, no problem. But afterwards you can either help the man a bit more (Light Side) or extort all his money from him (Dark Side.) Er, what?
Let's say you were trying for a Darth Vader style character feel. I can totally see him kill some muggers because they irritated him. But can I see him taking the victim's money afterwards? No. Why not? Because it is TOO SODDING PETTY. It is so much beneath Vader's dignity that it is ridiculous. And that is the problem with Karma meters. They all too often oversimplify, or worse yet, do evil for evil's own sake, purely for the muhahahaaa of it. If I play a villain, I'd like my evil to at least make sense.
This can also be a problem with Good, but in my experience Evil tends to be the more egregious of the two. (Or Light and Dark Side, or in the case of Mass Effect, Blue and Red.) Sigh.

Forgot this one, not sure who made it. Hauled it out for April Fool's day

I think she is looking at Ashley if she has same reaction to the conversation as she has.
You would be surprised how good in grammar can average roman citizen get if bad grammar brings the risk he will be labelled barbarian. Romans were proud people.
Do you also thinks Charlottle might not apologize if not for the "get a life"?
... 1) As if they could say anything which could stop such ship. 2) It already launched.

I'm happy about how happy something made me!
I think I've mentioned that our local public library is closed for renovations.  For the next year and a half, they'll be moving 40% of the collection to a temporary location, which will be opening in one week.  Anything not in their top 40% (or checked out when the main place closed last week) will be in storage, completely inaccessible, and we'll have to request stuff through interlibrary loan to get any of that material.
The temporary location happens to be directly across the street from our animal hospital.  Pretty cool, to get to have the official public library close enough to walk to on half a lunch break!  They're still putting the place together, and I went and peeped through the windows at lunch today.  There were shelves, some full and some empty, chairs, computers, check-out stations, most of the necessaries were in place.  I could even see stairs leading down to a basement area, which were prettied up and not blocked off, making me think there's more library down there, too.
As I stepped away from the window to walk on to Subway, I realized I was grinning from ear to ear!  I'm feeling so excited that we're getting a new library to explore right across the street!  Books and movies and programs and magazines....it doesn't matter that it's less than half what we already had access to every day anyway, and what will be there is the same old stuff.  It's still so cool!
I'm happy that I still feel that child's excitement at the thought of what can't help but feel at least a little like having my very own special library, moved there just for me.  That I can't wait to explore the new space, discover where everything is, stumble across new stories I haven't read before.  I can't wait to see what sort of children's area they come up with, what sort of displays, how they'll work around having so much smaller a space.  Maybe sneak over there at lunch when I'm not tied up in surgery, and just sit and read.

One of the kittens we fostered (remember KittenCam?) has grown up to be a very pretty cat under the care of our friends and their daughter. The now-cat looks very much like her mother did, but has substantially more energy (just like her brother from another father, our cat).

Yes, overriding a being's free will to the point where they will obey a command to commit suicide is likely one of the most heinous things that Immortals can do to non-Immortals.

Yay for Charlotte being pedantic.

I don't know which comic number it was, but wasn't the last sight of Magus pretty much his begging assistance from Sirleck in distracting the Immortals watching Elliot? Sirleck didn't wan't to be the bait, but I'm willing to bet other aberrations would suit him nicely. We may be seeing the opening bid on Magus making his move with aberration backing ... or we're still in the organization stage and an unexpected griffon started throwing monkeys into the works.
[sarcasm] Oh, no, I'll have to reread the archives to find that comic. [/sarcasm]

Another reason for Helena and Demetrius awakening Nanase in France?  Maybe Mama Kitsune already believed that Noriko's actions may draw attention to the rest of the family, and wanted to make sure her daughter would be able to defend herself. Her speech to Nanase before the New Years Eve party about her and Ellen going around helping people potentially making enemies could have been from experience with Noriko.

Yes, overriding a being's free will to the point where they will obey a command to commit suicide is likely one of the most heinous things that Immortals can do to non-Immortals.

No we don't. We only know that she knows more than we know she knows, which is already way more than Nanase know she knows.
... that makes sense. I mean, I still think Mrs. Kitsune don't like her daughter hunting monsters, but yes, it's entirely possible she realized she can't do anything against that ... she DID sent her to the school Raven teaches in, after all ...
It was SUSAN who was sent there couple years earlier. Nanase actually known enough french to go there without parent intervention.
You forgot to mention one assumption you are making: that she wasn't aware that there are magic-users who are actively hunting her daughter BEFORE. Despite her "I don't have a sister", she knows much more about Noriko than we do.
... maybe her reaction to Ellen dating her daughter would be worse if Ellen wouldn't be magic user. She likely tried to keep her away from Tedd before, but now she seem to gave up that plan and might be scheming to empower the Main Eight ...
(About the "aware of her friends being magic-users" ... well, even if not directly told, she likely could realize what Greg's training is doing. So we can assume she knows about Elliot, Ellen and Justin being magic-users or on the way to becoming them, and she likely knows about Susan. Not sure what she thinks about Tedd. Not sure if she knows Sarah and Grace at all - she may not even know about them being Nanase's friends - wait. She gave Nanase the task of helping Tedd courting Grace.)
 

Maybe not though, would Jerry think that Immortals owed Susan a debt if Helena and Demetrius were just simply bending the rules? He didn't know that they did anything until he met Susan, Grace and Sarah. Immortals might rely on just observation to determine if another Immortal has crossed any lines. In the case of Pandora, marking people without their knowledge is worse than what Helena and Demetrius did to Susan and Nanase. Especially in the case of Dex where she pretty much had control of him through that pendant.
 

You wanted kitten pictures. There's only three of them now (see the Sad thread), but there's still kitten pictures.

So little...

I made another thing:

 

Hmm, a thought: Might the spike in vampire attacks be part of Sirleck's plan to keep Helena and Demetrius occupied? Sirleck would be ensuring that they encounter every Aberration that comes into the area, both to keep them busy, and to keep them distracted from noticing him (as he said, body snatchers are even more hated than vampires, given that they not only steal a victim's life but also impersonate the victim and steal the victim's reputation and relationships).

Most actual transgendered persons, as opposed to false claimants, would rather forget that they have the "inappropriate" set of genitals. A MTF person is far less interested in having access to nude women than in being one of them--wanting to feel like and be seen as "one of the girls". She would not want to display or use her male parts for unwelcome sexual encounters, and would in fact prefer to pretend not to have them at all.

Most actual transgendered persons, as opposed to false claimants, would rather forget that they have the "inappropriate" set of genitals. A MTF person is far less interested in having access to nude women than in being one of them--wanting to feel like and be seen as "one of the girls". She would not want to display or use her male parts for unwelcome sexual encounters, and would in fact prefer to pretend not to have them at all.

Unfortunately for trans and intersexed people, recognition of their rights to be regarded as the sex that they perceive themselves as rather than the sex that others perceive them as are lagging decades behind recognition of homosexual rights. There's still the narrative going around that some men will choose to impersonate women for malicious purposes.

Hmm, a thought: Might the spike in vampire attacks be part of Sirleck's plan to keep Helena and Demetrius occupied? Sirleck would be ensuring that they encounter every Aberration that comes into the area, both to keep them busy, and to keep them distracted from noticing him (as he said, body snatchers are even more hated than vampires, given that they not only steal a victim's life but also impersonate the victim and steal the victim's reputation and relationships).

Hmm, a thought: Might the spike in vampire attacks be part of Sirleck's plan to keep Helena and Demetrius occupied? Sirleck would be ensuring that they encounter every Aberration that comes into the area, both to keep them busy, and to keep them distracted from noticing him (as he said, body snatchers are even more hated than vampires, given that they not only steal a victim's life but also impersonate the victim and steal the victim's reputation and relationships).

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.)