Quote Originally Posted by Typewriter View Post
John needs to be weaker than someone and have it not result in him being bullied. He cannot change his perspective on the world because he has no reason to trust what people are saying to him - everyone falls into one of three categories for him.

1. Weaker than him and against him.
2. Weaker than him and a lackey.
3. Stronger than him and a bully.

Right now people keep telling him that he should trust them - we've learned our lesson, bullying is bad, etc. - but he has no reason to believe that it's genuine. It's not that they've learned, it's that they're afraid. Or that they don't think bullying is bad - they just wish it was them with the strength to bully. John needs to encounter a fourth category - he needs to be weaker than people and have those people show him genuine kindness. He needs to lose but then get picked back up - or he needs to lose his powers and have Arlo and those he's been beating the **** out of defend him and protect him. He needs that experience to serve as evidence of what they are saying to him.

That's what makes Sera such an important character for him - she was that fourth category. She was the only person in that category. She was strong and she was his friend. He had to work for it but she was evidence that a strong person could accept a weak person. And then Sera became weak and John saw everyone turn on her - he saw people lash out at her - he saw the weak turn on the strong as soon as they were able to do so. People who were afraid of Sera and showed deference to her turned on her the moment they could.

John has every reason to believe that he is right - that Arlo and everyone is lying and against him. That fear is the sole motivator for people claiming to have changed. His strength makes the word of those around him unreliable. He can't trust Sera because she has aligned herself with those who he knows are wrong/bad. Until John experiences weakness and is shown kindness from these people he **cannot** change.
All of this, plus he's also projecting his own personal history on everyone else. When he was constantly bullied at his old school, the moment he started getting power he sought revenge. He fought back. He only ever kept his head down when he was forced to by someone still stronger than him, and he never joined or agreed with the people stronger than him.

Now that he's the strong one, he expects everyone else to behave like he used to, and can't see that his legitimate grievances give some people real reasons to actually sympathize with him. He has no idea what someone with power genuinely buying into his complaints looks like because he's never seen it before, from either side.

Now, with yesterday's update, that critical fourth category just might be back. It depends a lot on one still unanswered question: can John copy Seraphina's ability? I suspect that, at least if she's careful about it, he can't. He has to see an ability being used before he can copy it, and I think seeing the before-and-after of a time stop wouldn't count. The actual use of the ability is too sudden and instantaneous to perceive. If he sees her use Rewind, though, that could be a problem, especially if he can get the generalized "time manipulation" ability from it rather than just the specific application.