Episode 90 of the Letters Page: Nightmist & Harpy

Under an hour? Are they allowed to do that? c.c

All I know is that HarpMist shippers can rejoice in the "magical friends" descriptor at the top of the show notes. :V

While listening to this episode, I remembered how much C&A (Adam in particular) want a fighting game based on Sentinels, and thought how Uncontrollable Flock would be a perfect special attack in a game like Marvel vs. Capcom.  Then I remembered Setback and his goose, and got the mental image of Harpy opening a portal, unleashing a stream of birds that does a 50+ hit combo, and finishes with this goose that comes out and whacks the opponent a few times.  Then I thought it would be even more hilarious if there was like a 5% chance that instead of the goose, you get a guy in a chicken costume that combos the opponent with a spinning fried chicken sign.

Although in some ways I feel like Harpy has the same problem as Setback (they're supposed to want to balance high and low birds/Unluck but in practice you often just want them to be high), I do feel like they captured Harpy's frustration well in the game.  I always start off trying to be careful and take advantage of high magic, and inevitably end up saying, "Eh, this is too hard.  F* it, BIRDS!"

Edit: Oh, and regarding their idea that there be a superhero/supervillain named The Pupil who was a giant eyeball: let's not forget that it's been done.

This, 100%. Staying high arcane takes a good bit of luck and playing more support than wading into the fight. But birds? Birds are everyone's friend. By which I mean everyone will get a bird, whether they want it or not. :V

I actually prefer to stay high magic most of the time, unleashing the birds once in a while for big bursts of damage and then working on getting those tokens back to purple (I mostly play Darkwatch Harpy, so this might be a thing). 

On the episode itself: 

-I really liked that bit on magic, how you need a well defined sense of self to avoid being manipulated by magical things (and also to get your elf right). Makes magic feel more esoteric and personal. 

-Gonna take a good while before I get used to all these characters changing names (plus some alternate universes). At least we don't have to differentiate Heritage and Legacy from Legacy and Beacon anymore, what with them being dead and all.

-Not a fan of Harpmist. Mentor/Student romances are really not my thing. 

-Harpy had one of my favorite arcs in SoTM, from spoiled edgelord who went on to regret her life choices, to student who barely managed to control her power, and "ending" as a vital part in the battle for the multiverse. Now to see how she'll deal with her new job. 

They are also super unethical, super problematic, and super counterproductive to the whole mentoring thing.

For the record, I don't think Setback is meant to be a balancing act; or rather, the balancing act is that you have to sacrifice something in order to get Unlucky tokens (or vice versa)

Eh, I admit I don't see this as a general rule. I had initially assumed it was just a matter of one adult teaching another adult a skill the second adult happened to not already know, which isn't a problematic power differential. She certainly has spent time also teaching Argent about magic and they pretty clearly have a peer relationship.

But this episode definitely cast more of a mom-like aspect of Nightmist and her teaching Harpy to be a better adult in addition to teaching her magic which hadn't been apparent before, which does change things.

I just want to see the comic page where they have some kind of blow-up fight and Harpy calls her "MOM" really sarcastically.

I want the one when the word just slips out, and she thus tries to play it off.

That would be even better. :D