A/N It's called aspect of the demon, where a demon's blood can transfer an aspect or ability of the demon to someone else. Buffy developing telepathy that nearly killed her for instance in season 3, that's aspect of the demon. Der Kinderstad has three abilities that could transfer, super strength, invisibility and energy absorption. Which one did Johnathan get? Or will he get more than one? Buffy got one aspect from a drop of blood, Johnathan got hit with a lot more than a drop. 😲
The timeline is really going to start diverging now. The insane swim coach, well let's just say a more responsible School Board made sure a sane coach was hired and of course Angelus isn't going to be trying to end the world with Acathla. Although Acathla itself still exists.
We'll get back to Johnathan, don't worry.
Syg, the comics, yeah, acid trip describes them pretty well. But Joss was really increasingly unhappy as he was forced to change his vision of the show by the audience and the network, so much so that he wanted to make Normal Again canon by making Buffy related to Scott Summers and have him tell people she was in an asylum. When I found that out I thought about the fact that the episode happened during the Trio's time and then I found a fan theory that the Trio represented the audience. If so, given how big on metaphor Joss was, it just screams that he blames the audience for the insanity.
Back to Giles, him being an evil mastermind is more believable than he's that freaking incompetent that he consistently left his Slayers and their friends so very vulnerable to harm and manipulation for so long. I can't get passed the fact that he was supposedly a highly trained, highly educated adult and they were teenagers. By virtue of training alone he should have been able to prevent a lot of the crap they dealt with and yet he was often the reason there was a problem to deal with in the first place.
Fans of Buffy/Angel and Buffy/Spike are willing to overlook the issues with Giles because Giles never stopped her from being involved with them. But he should have, that's the thing they overlook to get the 'romance' they want. There's no good, legal, moral or in world explanation that makes his tacit acceptance acceptable. But the creator of the show never wanted her involved with them in the first place, both were only supposed to be on for a few episodes and then destroyed or moved on. The superhero he was trying to create involved with the kind of creatures she was supposed to be destroying was never supposed to happen.
Suspension of belief really can only go so far and the more I rewatch and the more I research behind the scenes, the more I analyze because there's just so much that doesn't make sense.
Unless there's at least one evil mastermind oracastrating all of it. Was it Giles? Well, he's either a puppet or a puppet master, and he either manipulated the Scoobies himself or allowed them to be manipulated, there's no middle ground, because he was a complete failure at the jobs he was being paid to do.
######
Johnathan's situation was currently unknown to anyone, although it wouldn't be too long before the group called the Scooby Gang found out, but for now they were blissfully ignorant that someone else in Sunnydale was developing superpowers and busy getting through the quarantine for the flu. By the time the quarantine had ended a very nervous Willow and determinedly stoic Oz were preparing for their second full moon cycle.
"Three days out there?" Buffy asked. "You'll miss school, that's a very unWillow thing."
"No, I won't be missing any school, Buffy." Willow assured her. "The property Oz's family owns is less than twenty minutes away from Sunnydale. The moon starts rising after sunset. Even in winter that's plenty of time to get out there and be ready for when the moon rises and it sets about twelve hours later which gives us plenty of time to get back to town for class. So you'll see me tomorrow."
"Well, good. A day without Willow is a sad day for Buffy." Buffy grinned at her best friend. "How are you handling the whole werewolf thing anyway?"
"Well, Oz and his Uncle made some modifications to the enclosure so we each have our own area -."
"No, I mean how are you handling it?" Buffy asked gently. "We haven't really talked about it since it happened last month. You've avoided the topic every time I tried to bring it up. I'm worried about my best friend."
"Oh, well. Moderately terrified." Willow admitted. "I can't tell my parents, they'll assume I'm insane and lock me up or think I'm a monster and grab pitchforks. There's really no middle ground there and I'm used to being alone where they're concerned, but I'd love to be able to count on their support the way you can with your mother. She's trying to understand and be there for, well, all of us really, but mostly you and Dawn and I could see that for myself the last couple of weeks. Makes me wonder if I wouldn't be better off just making a complete split from them, like Xander's done with his parents."
"Oh, Willow. Before coming to Sunnydale my parents were very uninvolved in my life too." Buffy admitted. "Everything that happened made Mom realize just how uninvolved and that wasn't at all the kind of parent she wanted to be. My Dad either, he tried so hard last summer to connect with me, but I was dealing with the whole dying thing and wouldn't let him. I'm hoping this summer goes better, I'm not in that hole anymore. But I just want to remind you of something Xander was willing to dope slap into me. You. Are. Not. Alone. You've got Oz and the Osbournes and you've got the Scoobies. So learn from my example on what not to do when your life goes 180 on you. Don't shut us out."
Willow nodded. "Be prepared to dope slap me if I forget, okay? Only don't use Slayer strength or you'll give me a concussion."
"Depends on if you use Xander like a stripper pole, like I did. Than Cordelia will be the one giving you a concussion. She verbally shredded me and they weren't even dating yet."
"Yikes."