unOrdinary

[Kantaki]

The last thing John needs is to go back to torturing people who can't stand up to him, even if they do deserve it in this instance. Arlo did the right thing for everyone involved by shutting it all down.

Oh, no doubt about that.
But with how Arlo immediately has to save them from attacking John?
I can't say I'd have minded him being a tad slower.
Might've been a learning experience.

But yeah, for John it is better this got stopped before he might have gone to far.

[Thales]

Ah, we're getting a heist. And a little bit more of a look at power technology — aura sensors seem useful in this world for stopping pretty much exactly what's happening here. And it's definitely interesting that John's mother is associated with this place. What is conversion technology?

[-D-]

What is conversion technology?

Remember Vulcan?

[TeChameleon]

Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to the backgrounds in this series, while I'm thinking of it; they're really nice, and they're not something that's easy to do, even if there's some kind of shortcut in place.

Those Rowden Royals were just suicidally stupid, weren't they? Flat-out too dumb to live. I'm honestly surprised this society isn't straight-up Mad Max chaos. Either there's something behind the scenes that we haven't seen yet, or the author is playing a bit fast and loose with societal development.

This heist should be interesting- wonder if it's going to be 'something goes wrong and Serafina has to be badass', 'something goes wrong and Serafina gets caught', or 'things go fine, but there's a horrible revelation'? Or some mixture of any two or all three, I guess.

[Taevyr]

Just wanted to give a quick shout-out to the backgrounds in this series, while I'm thinking of it; they're really nice, and they're not something that's easy to do, even if there's some kind of shortcut in place.

Those Rowden Royals were just suicidally stupid, weren't they? Flat-out too dumb to live. I'm honestly surprised this society isn't straight-up Mad Max chaos. Either there's something behind the scenes that we haven't seen yet, or the author is playing a bit fast and loose with societal development.

This heist should be interesting- wonder if it's going to be 'something goes wrong and Serafina has to be badass', 'something goes wrong and Serafina gets caught', or 'things go fine, but there's a horrible revelation'? Or some mixture of any two or all three, I guess.

The Rowden Royals are easily explained: teens who've hardly every been forced to face consequences in their lives, and are too young to properly grasp that there *will* be things and people that are either fully out of their league or can't be bludgeoned into submission without experiencing it directly. Like a smart teen that fails to learn proper study techniques because "he'll pass anyway" and flunks out of university, or a promising athlete that doesn't see the point in being careful with his body until his knee goes bust.

[Thales]

And more information about John's mom and conversion technology. Changing abilities, which is presumably how Arlo's aunt had an ability other than a barrier. Are the limitations on which abilities can be converted similar to ones on John's abilities? He didn't copy Claire's future sight, and he struggled to copy Sera's too. John's mom seems to be the powerhouse he inherited his aura-related abilities from. We don't know what the deal is with her, but she's ranked 9.1 with something called "Channel Master". The document says that conversion technology only works on people with "high channel output", which Sera interprets to mean high-tiers, so maybe this means that John's mom can control the strength of people's abilities? Possibly this explains the end of today's strip?

[Kantaki]

New comic

Well, assuming this is Spectre's plan- and not, for example, rampant paranoia on our heroes part or Spectre's eviler, government backed counterpart trying something - they might actually do nothing on the mountain.

Get John to go ballistic on their pawn* (yer expendable, Terrence) to isolate him from the Wellstone kids and strike which someone with a (weak) non-combat power when he's all alone.

On the other hand, if that mission is a typical example of Spectre's competence, there might be a all out attack on the whole hiking group.

*Which is easy, honestly.

[-D-]

New comic

Well, assuming this is Spectre's plan- and not, for example, rampant paranoia on our heroes part or Spectre's eviler, government backed counterpart trying something - they might actually do nothing on the mountain.

Get John to go ballistic on their pawn* (yer expendable, Terrence) to isolate him from the Wellstone kids and strike which someone with a (weak) non-combat power when he's all alone.

On the other hand, if that mission is a typical example of Spectre's competence, there might be a all out attack on the whole hiking group.

*Which is easy, honestly.

Well, if I was a betting man:

- We know that Jane samples interact weirdly with power and that John fighting Sera drained Sera for a reason
- Spectre steals their tech from NXGen.

It could be that the de-powering drug might have a different effect on John than expected. It could be that presence of a Aura Manipulation inside another's body acts as a sort of blocker, i.e. prevents any other power.

However, John knows how to manipulate his aura and he is very compatible genetically, so for him it either doesn't work or maybe even empowers him, which would be a nice way to resolve the situation.

[Thales]

I'm pretty sure John gets affected by the power dampener too. Like Arlo, he was a lot less effective in the siege defending Sera. Then again, it's possible it's not so much that he's getting zonked by the power dampener as that he doesn't have anything strong to copy from nearby.

[-D-]

I'm pretty sure John gets affected by the power dampener too. Like Arlo, he was a lot less effective in the siege defending Sera.

Sure, but this is based on ability removal being related to Jane's power, rather than the dampener.

[Kantaki]

New comic

I don't think Arlo is comfortable with Remi carrying him off like a princess.

Not much to say on the mountain battle.
The Spectre goons seem pretty ruthless.
I'm gonna withdraw my rant* until I see what exactly the plan was.
Don't see what Spectre has to gain from this though.

*I actually had one typed up as a first, but as stupid as this seems maybe there's actually some reasonable strategy behind it.

[Taevyr]

Not much to say on the mountain battle.
The Spectre goons seem pretty ruthless.
I'm gonna withdraw my rant until I see what exactly the plan was.
Don't see what Spectre has to gain from this though.

I presume the main goal is having more high-rank abilities to try and replicate, and high-rankers they might blackmail into doing their dirty work in exchange for a "cure".

I do get the distinct impression that, considering those snipers and the others' knifework, the only reason the fighters among the students are still alive is because they don't want them dead. Which is probably the biggest advantage John, Blyke, etc. have

[Kantaki]

I presume the main goal is having more high-rank abilities to try and replicate, and high-rankers they might blackmail into doing their dirty work in exchange for a "cure".

I do get the distinct impression that, considering those snipers and the others' knifework, the only reason the fighters among the students are still alive is because they don't want them dead. Which is probably the biggest advantage John, Blyke, etc. have

See, this sounds like a bad plan*. These are Sera's friends, holding her powers hostage should be leverage enough.
This just turns assets into enemies.
Hurting the Safe House kids isn't helpful either. Even ignoring the risk of accidentially killing someone (Which, okay, comic book/ action story logic) hurting people your targets care about is unlikely to make them more cooperative.

Also, good luck keeping this a secret. On a second thought, never mind. The Authorities will probably help with that.

*I'd say the kind of plan where you loose your hat, but evidently they already did.

[Anteros]

I believe that we've been told that there are multiple factions within the organization. This may be a move by one of the others rather than the one belonging to Sera's sister.

[-D-]

Here is my wild theory.

Ability removal isn't actually removing ability. And the cure for ability removal is dampener.

I base this on Sera vision getting blurry (post restoration) after interacting with John/Jane blood sample. Plus Spectre probably stealing from NxGen. From meta standpoint it would be a dramatic twist, even if uru likes to drag story around.

How it works

Ability removal permanently adds Jane's power to target. We don't know if people can have multiple powers in one body. Even John doesn't have multiple powers, he has one that mimics others. So when you get injected with Channel master, it being stronger simply shuts down your existing power. John power is hard to manifest even for him, let alone someone used to another set their whole life.

When they get "cured" of ability removal, they instead get a damper that limits Jane's power and that allows your original power to assert itself.

Being in proximity of Channel/Aura manipulation, weakens Sera, because it starts restoring Channel master, overriding original power.

Injecting John with it, might just be biggest mistake Spectre made. Because it might turn him from 7.5 (4) -> 9.1. He has all predisposition to actually go beast mode on Spectre.

[Kantaki]

New comic

Wow. Those guys are really committed to this, aren't they?
I mean, it's not exactly overkill, quite the opposite I suspect, but that's quite a bit of manpower.

Also, kinda inclined to agree with John here.
This stunt makes Spectre's mission statement seem kinda suspect.
You can't tell me there wasn't a way to do this without targeting the Safe House kids.

Not that those clowns have shown anything that would give me any degree of confidence in them.
And no, the fact that they're splintered in several factions only makes it worse.

The comment section seems a tad overeager regarding the incoming violence though.

[Ninja Dragon]

Those comment sections are pretty bad. The one I follow had to be moderated due to a flood of racist attacks against the author.

Anyway, the fandom is melting down about John losing his powers. What do y'll think? I'm not super hyped about this development but there are about 30 different places this can lead to so I'm not super worried about it turning bad.

[Taevyr]

Spoiler: Potential spoilers

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Anyway, the fandom is melting down about John losing his powers.

So, uh, looking at the latest chapter available on webtoon for free, you really ought to tag that as a spoiler.

Those comment sections are pretty bad. The one I follow had to be moderated due to a flood of racist attacks against the author.

Ouch, that's awful. Can't imagine why anyone who actually reads the comic would think it necessary to attack the author over race, but the idea of it just being a bunch of racists being racist against a coincidentally available target feels worse...

[-D-]

Those comment sections are pretty bad. The one I follow had to be moderated due to a flood of racist attacks against the author.

Anyway, the fandom is melting down about John losing his powers. What do y'll think? I'm not super hyped about this development but there are about 30 different places this can lead to so I'm not super worried about it turning bad.

Writting my previous comment in this thread, I was like, or maybe we'll get same old story as before. Surely uru wouldn't go there. But no, it went there.

While I don't agree with racism and bullying or being angry about this. Having John go through some kind of Sera arc 2.0 feels slow and wasteful. Like we aren't stupid, we know he'll get them back somehow (same with Sera). Author is just wheel-spinning.

[TeChameleon]

Writting my previous comment in this thread, I was like, or maybe we'll get same old story as before. Surely uru wouldn't go there. But no, it went there.

While I don't agree with racism and bullying or being angry about this. Having John go through some kind of Sera arc 2.0 feels slow and wasteful. Like we aren't stupid, we know he'll get them back somehow (same with Sera). Author is just wheel-spinning.

I'd have to disagree with that- I've always read this story as being about John's inner journey and growth as a person, with Spectre being a background element at most- an external source of conflict driving his growth, not a primary story focus. John learning to accept himself, and all aspects of himself, is the core of this story, despite all the superhero trappings (at least as far as I understand it). So a 'Sera 2.0' arc would allow us to explore John and his fractured psyche in greater depth.

... it feels like a lot of people are interpreting the core of this story as a man vs. man conflict (or maybe man vs. society), rather than the man vs. self that it feels like to me.

EDIT- also, uru is kind of dragging out the reveal of whether or not the power removal drug actually works on John a bit- until he tries to use his abilities again, we have no idea if anything's happened (since the drug is based on his mother's abilities, it may interact... oddly... with John's)

[Anteros]

I'd have to disagree with that- I've always read this story as being about John's inner journey and growth as a person, with Spectre being a background element at most- an external source of conflict driving his growth, not a primary story focus. John learning to accept himself, and all aspects of himself, is the core of this story, despite all the superhero trappings (at least as far as I understand it). So a 'Sera 2.0' arc would allow us to explore John and his fractured psyche in greater depth.

... it feels like a lot of people are interpreting the core of this story as a man vs. man conflict (or maybe man vs. society), rather than the man vs. self that it feels like to me.

Well, the problem with that interpretation is that it's pretty much resolved. John fixed his behavior, mostly forgave himself, and the people he cared about forgave him. There's not much interesting left to the story except the Spectre subplot. Which I agree is weak.

[-D-]

I'd have to disagree with that- I've always read this story as being about John's inner journey and growth as a person, with Spectre being a background element at most- an external source of conflict driving his growth, not a primary story focus. John learning to accept himself, and all aspects of himself, is the core of this story

It was. But that **** was resolved in previous season. John accepted his powers, hell he is fine losing them.

Spoiler

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Now he is essentially where Sera was last season. Situationally. He made a bunch of enemies, but they don't know he has no power. And then they will, and then they will take their revenge.

EDIT- also, uru is kind of dragging out the reveal of whether or not the power removal drug actually works on John a bit- until he tries to use his abilities again, we have no idea if anything's happened (since the drug is based on his mother's abilities, it may interact... oddly... with John's)

Spoiler

Show

He doesn't have his abilities atm.

They could spontaneously return, but he'll likely make a deal with Leilah.

[Kantaki]

I'm absolutely cheering about Terrence getting a taste of his own medicine.

Seriously though, at least his faction of Spectre needs to go. And the rest isn't much better, if at all.
Just as bad as what they oppose.

At this point the Wellstone kids might just as well burn the whole mess to the bedrock and rebuild from zero.
Can't really turn out that much worse than the alternatives.

[Thales]

Spectre's plan here seems really bad. They've done a lot of work on opsec, and here they are with a plan that, at best, leaves a ton a witnesses (many of whom probably have well-connected families) to the organization and their dampener and pisses off a major asset. Moreover, "Terrence" didn't just come out of nowhere, so it might be possible to trace him back through whatever interactions he had to have to get registered at Wellston. With how things actually ended up going, they have quite a few agents down — and they're lucky they aren't outright killed — one fairly unique asset depowered, and several syringes of their depowering formula intact and lying around. These aren't wildly unforeseeable developments either! Sera, Arlo, and Remi didn't really help much; Spectre just didn't bring enough force.

Better plan: use Terrence to cloak sleep-touch guy, have him ambush a solitary target on their way home from school (or just spike their drink). Cloak the target too, then administer the depowering injection. Less of an elaborate setup, less risk of exposure, fewer people who get to see you. Feasible to repeat too, if you initially target folks who it's not surprising if they'd be absent for a day or so. The teleporter guy can add a significant amount of extra safety to the plan. Yes, the dampener is cool, and lets you overpower high-tiers in a fight. But straight-up fights should not be the first resort of a secret organization!

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Spectre's plan here seems really bad. They've done a lot of work on opsec, and here they are with a plan that, at best, leaves a ton a witnesses (many of whom probably have well-connected families) to the organization and their dampener and pisses off a major asset. Moreover, "Terrence" didn't just come out of nowhere, so it might be possible to trace him back through whatever interactions he had to have to get registered at Wellston. With how things actually ended up going, they have quite a few agents down — and they're lucky they aren't outright killed — one fairly unique asset depowered, and several syringes of their depowering formula intact and lying around. These aren't wildly unforeseeable developments either! Sera, Arlo, and Remi didn't really help much; Spectre just didn't bring enough force.

Better plan: use Terrence to cloak sleep-touch guy, have him ambush a solitary target on their way home from school (or just spike their drink). Cloak the target too, then administer the depowering injection. Less of an elaborate setup, less risk of exposure, fewer people who get to see you. Feasible to repeat too, if you initially target folks who it's not surprising if they'd be absent for a day or so. The teleporter guy can add a significant amount of extra safety to the plan. Yes, the dampener is cool, and lets you overpower high-tiers in a fight. But straight-up fights should not be the first resort of a secret organization!

Kind of makes me wonder if their plan all along was to escalate conflict with the students (or just Sera in particular). Seems like the only thing this operation was guaranteed to do was piss her off, and potentially make her lose her cool, discrediting her branch of Spectre.

Which would still be far too many resources burned for the sake of inter-organization conflict, but it is at least a believable motive.

[Typewriter]

While I don't particularly want a prolonged arc about John losing/regaining his powers or anything I will say that I think a temporary, or even feigned, experience with his powers being gone could be a world of good.

A while ago I posted saying that John can't experience change until he finds himself in a position of weakness being protected by those stronger than him. Right now he's on good terms with people but to his perspective there's no reason to believe that it's not fueled by fear. If he loses his powers (even if temporarily) or fakes having lost them to see how people react it could finally be what's needed to get John and all the other students legitimately on the same side. Not just united against a common enemy but instead actually realizing that everyone else has had a lot of issues that they'd had to work to overcome and accepting and realizing that about each other.

[Kantaki]

New comic(s)

As much as I might dislike Terrence, he really doesn't deserve the Keon treatment.

On the plus side Sera might have some plan to deal with Spectre.
I just hope it goes beyond "shout at big sis's bosses and demand one time access to the temporary ability restoration". (for John, I guess? Or maybe herself to use her power on him.)

The school/principal being under watch is probably bad.
Though every time some official opens their mouth I wonder how this society ever worked.

[-D-]

A while ago I posted saying that John can't experience change until he finds himself in a position of weakness being protected by those stronger than him.

Except he already did. Sera was protecting him from himself, and he mellowed out on the rest of the group.

It feels too predictable and artificially extending the story.

New comic(s)

As much as I might dislike Terrence, he really doesn't deserve the Keon treatment.

I'd lie if I said I agree.

[TeChameleon]

Honestly questioning whether or not the Keon treatment will do anything to Terrence- the little weasel pretty clearly thought he was in the right all along, and from that perspective, having someone show you doing what you consider 'right' over and over isn't going to have a lot of effect.

Someone in the unOrdinary comments pointed out something rather interesting- when John tried to use his abilities... he... sort of did? He could 'see' the blocked channels, it wasn't just 'nothing happened' like it was for others who have been hit with the power blocker. Not sure what, if anything, that means, but it was unusual, at the very least.

And this culture is even further gone than I thought if one high school, no matter how prestigious, merits this kind of scrutiny for the students maybe being taught something 'the authorities' don't like. Then again, if one friggin' escapist book about a character whose most defining trait was that they weren't a complete douchenozzle is considered society-threatening heresy, they've got problems.

[Taevyr]

Yeah, nobody deserves the Keon treatment. Giving teens targeted PTSD for breaking the law isn't right under any circumstance.

And I am indeed curious what John's seeming partial retainment of his abilities means. Probably that he'll get it back eventually, at least, but it certainly has options storywise.