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automaticdata · 2 months ago

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HGCZ reaction-y thing part 5

"Ok hey, I have some time, let's do some more reactions!" *proceeds to get through a significant chunk of the first story before remembering I'm supposed to be writing stuff down* *then gets distracted by a video game* Um. Oops?

There's A Room Where the Light Won't Find You through Birds of Prey:

(warning, some UnOrdinary webcomic spoilers)

There's A Room Where the Light Won't Find You:

Kind of expected this to pick off where the last one left off, but it's tackling another aspect of the superhero stuff, so it makes sense it doesn't.

Did not expect Scar to get uncomfortable from the media, but it makes sense, especially if Pearl is getting close-ups and he isn't sure how.

Scour, huh? Hmmm. Can't think of anyone associated with the word Scour ...

Scar is now calling Cute Guy "Cutie" does he even realize he's flirting???

"hot stuff" does Cute Guy realize he's flirting??? are they both oblivious???

Swirling cloak of magic and a moon mask - yep, that's Pearl. Why is Pearl doing villainy things? Must find out more ... (also Scour makes sense as a name if she's collecting info - scouring for info, you might say)

The irony of HotGuy asking Pearl for an interview XD

Hart??? who? and does this mean Pearl knows who Grian is? What is the relationship between Pearl and Hart and Grian?

Pearl showing up at Scar's when he's still changing out of his HotGuy outfit? suspicious. She saw his cat in the window? very suspicious, she may have seen HotGuy inside, too.

(this is when I realized I was forgetting to write stuff down oops)

Ah, Pearl just moved in, that explains why she's there with no explanation. I was wondering if her cover story was interviewing actor!Scar or something, but "oh hey I just moved in" works, too. It does mean if she hasn't noticed he's HotGuy yet she probably will in the near future, especially if he's entering his apartment in his superhero gear.

Soup group reference ftw

"Hart was here, this is the Soup Group's doing" omg the Soup Group is the group of friends Scar was talking about earlier omg. My guess is Hart is Gem - we saw her have a heart on her jacket earlier, and she's associated with deer (aka harts). I wonder what Impulse's villain name is?

Wondering if the guy Scar fights, the runner, is Impulse, but it also sounds like there's other people they got to be lackeys because Cute Guy talks about catching a "stray," but he would have recognized Scour or Hart.

HotGuy nearly dies and Pearl makes it about the shop? Kinda cold, wow.

Okay so like. Side note, because collateral damage comes up in a lot of videos on youtube critiquing superhero movies, but I think it's important to note I think there's a difference between a superhero causing damage in order to get to the bad guy and a superhero getting caught up in damage that a bad guy causes. Unless I'm missing something, this was the latter. Scar did not aim at the flower shop; it sounds like it was behind him and he was flung into it. It would be different if he, like, missed a shot with an exploding arrow, but this was him being the victim, not the perpetrator.

Keeping that in mind, Pearl has managed to weaponize the Soup Group's attack the way the media IRL can distort things. I don't want to bring IRL politics into this too much, but I remember getting kinda aggravated with a particular popular news station because the network created drama between two primary candidates with separate views, just so they could get more eyes on the primary debate they were hosting. In that case, it was the network prioritizing profit above all else, but it did have the result of creating internal turmoil among the people who supported these two similar candidates, possibly splitting the votes for them and affecting the primary. And that was just when they were motivated by profit; technically, media can do a lot worse (and some media companies do.) By prioritizing the opinions of the shop owners whose property got destroyed and ignoring the fact that the superheroes were injured and didn't cause the damage by themselves, Pearl is helping construct a narrative which in some ways is just as dangerous to the superheroes.

One of the things in the UnOrdinary webcomic that's interesting is that the authorities have turned public opinion against vigilantes, and it definitely has a huge affect on the story. The vigilantes who see that the authorities are doing shady stuff are seen as foolish people motivated by glory by most people. The novel that is seen as "causing" the rise in vigilanteism is literally illegal, and being found to have a copy of it gets you suspended from school, put on a watch list, and the book confiscated. [UnOrdinary spoilers]When the author re-released the book on the internet, he was killed for it.[/spoiler]. It makes it so that helping people who are crushed by the system is seen as a bad thing by the general public.

(I spent a good amount of time trying to look up how to spoiler-text that and I don't know if I'll remember to HTML that up when I'm done with this (because HTMLing it and then returning to rich text editor deletes the HTML, apparently) or even if the HTML will work if I do remember. Sorry if I spoiled UnO stuff for people. Edit: the span tag did not work for hiding the spoilers and got rid of the read more, so ... yeah. =/)

What Pearl is doing here is actually kind of clever and really devious? It's making the media a tool for the villains, and turning public opinion away from the superheroes.

Okay, back to reacting.

Does Pearl feel guilty? or is something else going on? Hmmm ....

Miraculous Ladybug vibes with Scar wanting to go on a date do something as civilians and Cute Guy saying no. But instead of the ML trope being a recurring gag, it's used as an actual plot point that had emotional significance to both the characters involved. HotGuy desperately wants to hold onto his friend, and Cute Guy is scared of what happens if their identities are revealed. It works, and it works well unlike ML but that is very off-topic I'll shut up now.

Love the contrast between Cute Guy being cautious and thinking it would be better for the material to burn while HotGuy is like "screw it I'm saving the civilians." Inter-hero conflict caused by differing priorities/ideals - A++.

Honestly not sure what to think about the Scour/Pearl v HotGuy/Scar scene. Scar managed to remove her leverage over him by revealing her identity, but I don't know if he did the right thing letting her go. It could be good, it could be bad; I honestly don't know.

I do think it's cool that he cut her off before she revealed Grian's identity to him. Like, even though he wants to know who Cute Guy is, the dude respects his sidekick/partner enough that his gut instinct is to silence someone before they reveal his identity, even if the only person they're revealing it to is Scar himself.

Hmmm, sounds like it may have been a good thing letting Scour go free ...?

wait wait wait DON'T JUST DROP THAT INFO AND LEAVE, PEARL, WHAT

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Love the art that follows it, both the very serious sketch and the contrast between happy civilian Pearl and Scour.

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"why do social media founders turn to villainy" omg lol

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ZEDDIT????? XD

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Birds of Prey:

First thought on the cover was Etho (probably because of the mask) but then I realized it was Gem.

Grian being nervous about Hart and feeling the phantom pain of the gunshot wound D=

(.... and it was at this point that I got Baldur's Gate 3 which proceeded to consume my life for awhile, this the delay in this reaction being posted, sorry)

Grian beating himself up over losing Hart. =/

"Grian has always been confident as a vigilante" -- even during the chicken debacle? XD Sorry, not relevant to this story I know, but funny nonetheless.

Oh no, confirmation (sort of) that Jimmy's dead. It's possible the "no body" thing is significant, but I don't know if HGCZ is one of those "if there's no body don't assume death" stories, so ... considering last we saw it looked like Jimmy was shot in the head, I'm going to assume dead unless we find out otherwise.

Grian, man, you need to stop beating yourself up. You aren't going to be perfect, and no one expects you to be perfect. =/

My CodBros fan heart is aching for Grian. He feels so bad about Jimmy's death. D=

"Truthfully, he knows the exact moment Cuteguy started slipping" D= D= D=

The stakes are definitely higher, and they're taking their toll on our protagonists.

Oh boy, Hart found their hideout? That's not good. =(

The problem with taking a break between reading stuff is now I'm going, "wait, is the ticket thing they're talking about the same one we saw earlier from HG's POV?" but I don't remember details enough to say for sure without doing a reread. If it is (which is what I assume), it's really cool we get to see that moment in the context of everything Grian's going through and his POV.

It has not escaped my notice that Grian is more protective of HotGuy's identity than his own.

Grian, you need to give yourself a break. You need time to mourn Jimmy, to process the fact you got shot, and all the tangled emotions that go with that.

I can actually hear Hart's dialogue in Gem's voice, idk why it's so easy to imagine but it is.

Hart, how exactly did killing Jimmy do anything to attack the problem from the root? (Yes I'm still bitter about Jimmy's death so sue me).

Not sure what I think about the reversing mutations thing yet.

"Hope you don't mind that I've come to pick up my bird" XD

It's not professional therapy, but it's a start. Grian's taken a tiny step toward healing.

Okay so like. Reversing mutations. I think part of why I struggle with my opinions on that is because it's not something that we really have a basis in reality to form an opinion on? Like. Mutations don't work in reality the way they do in superhero stories, so reversing them would also not work the same way. The closest frame of reference I have for it is like the "mutant cure" in X-Men, which I don't know if that applies here.

Like, in X-Men, the mutations are spontaneous and genetic. People are born with them, even if they manifest themselves later. So "curing" mutations is like. Trying to "cure" someone of having blue eyes. It's something that's happening naturally through DNA, and "curing" it won't fix anything. It's just a bandaid on people's prejudice in the X-Men universe.

In HGCZ, if I'm remembering right and understanding correctly, the mutations were caused by an external element (skulk) being introduced to the environment. People who did not have mutations before suddenly got them. This means the mutations are less like IRL mutations and more like a disease/side effect caused by the skulk ... but one that doesn't actually harm its host body, most of the time? so like. I honestly can't think of an IRL comparison that works.

And I think that's what makes it hard to like. Get a sense of what the HG+CG POV vs the Soup Group POV is at this point. We've seen people complaining about vigilantes, but not really about the mutations as much. Are the mutations harming people? Are people getting sick from them? Do outside groups covet mutations and they're trying to impose them on unwilling populations or weaponizing them for military use?

I assume we'll get a better idea of what's going on with the Soup Group later, but the "reversing mutations" thing definitely has potential for an idealistic conflict that will be interesting. I just don't think we have enough info to know what's behind it yet.

#hotguy comic zine #hgcz #data reacts

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