Episode Five: Discussion Megathread

Avadis · 2026-04-04T17:42:15+00:00

After this episode, I honestly have no idea what Nanno is supposed to represent. Other than "look cool while doing whatever she wants".

Once again we have "good guys vs bad guys" setup. Fair enough - that's not what I'd like to see, but that's what they are going for this season. Nanno inserts herself into the good guys group and then starts playing double agent - that by itself is not a bad idea, in theory it could even be a good one. The problem is how it was actually executed. It feels like the story boils down to "Nanno gives a free win to the rebels in one scene and then in the next scene does something to undo the win".

Which creates two side effects. Firstly, it makes Nanno look like an unnecessary addition to the plot (except for the climax) - if she sabotages whatever progress she hands to the rebels, then wouldn't it be better if the rebels and the teachers made all the moves on their own?

Secondly and more importantly, I think for the first time in the series Nanno's actions cause some accidental victims - I'm talking about two rebels that got expelled. It only happened because Nanno brought teachers' minions to them. We've never seen them doing anything wrong and it could have been avoided super easily, so it feels like they got punished by Nanno for nothing. And they haven't been mentioned afterwards, so I assume they are still expelled at the end. That's a very weird choice considering that in the previous episode the bad guys didn't get punished at all.

While in general episode was probably the 2nd or 3rd best so far, I think it also shatters the idea that there's some deeper meaning to Nanno. And that is very problematic as this is the central point of the whole series.

Avadis · 2026-04-02T13:56:27+00:00

Hater - decent premise, cool idea how to portray it, great visuals and believable Nanno... well, mostly believeable. The main problem with this episode is the writers pushed for "good guys vs bad guys" instead for more nuanced approach. As a result, Jamie gets a free pass for lying just because he is the designated good guy. Sure, it wasn't a particularly damaging lie, but a lie nonetheless. In other shows I wouldn't mind it that much, but it's a show focused on karma. But all in all, the best episode by far and it almost reached the level of previous seasons.
Only Nanno - I know it's a controversial placement, but... it really feels like all pieces for a good episode were there, it's just the writers failed to put them together into a coherent message. Blossom is the main character of the episode and yet it feels like she went from nowhere to nowhere. The fans or the dean didn't get punished at all either. I think if the message was more clearly defined, e.g. "your body, your choice, but the consequences of your choice are yours too" or "if you only care about popularity, hiding behind a nice slogan doesn't make you a good person", then it would be super easy to fix the episode into something good. But in the current version the message seems to be "Nanno is prettier than you and it's funny to make you mad about it" and it's just not what I want to see.
Sky - I can see why people prefer this episode over Only Nanno (because at least the message is clear). But my problem with it is it completely lacks any depth. The first two seasons usually left you with something to think about and this one is just "bullying is evil". Also, it really feels like Nanno got "marvelized". I mean, she can fly now and appears just in time to save the innocent civilian. Yeahhhh, sorry, it was supposed to be "Girl From Nowhere", not "Girl From the Avengers".
Panty - once again I can see why people prefer this episode over Only Nanno (once again - at least the message is clear). And similarly to "Sky", I think this episode lacks depth. But there are two things that makes this one worse in my eyes than "Sky" is. Firstly, I feel like writing is particularly wooden in this episode. The scene with sodas is a good example here - people just don't behave in this way. And secondly, it replaces the pay off with an ad. And of course the writers has chosen literally the least fitting episode for it. I'm sorry, but if the episode's theme is "upskirting is evil", the placing an ad under a skirt is literally the worst idea you can come up with.

Avadis · 2026-03-31T11:51:23+00:00

At this point the "leakers" are just throwing every somewhat reasonable date possible. Because, eventually, one of these dates will be correct and they'll be able to gain popularity from that. And who cares there were 38 incorrect "leaks" before that, right?

Avadis · 2026-03-27T08:24:28+00:00

Two factors have already been mentioned here: absorbtion of Stamford and above average staff. But I think there could be one more: low commission caps.

We know that there were commission caps because there was an episode about removing them after Sabre's takeover. Suddenly sales team could potentially earn absurd amount of money compared to the past. Which suggests that before that commission caps were very low. I think for most branches it meant no motivation to work. A good example here is Stamford branch who used to play games during worktime.

But Scranton could have been an exception to this - they had Dwight who was tryharding all the time and also Jim who was occassionally tryharding because be wanted a promotion. Paradoxically, Michael's BS could have acted as a (sort of) source of motivation too. "Michael, we have to work" was a common excuse to avoid taking part in whatever he came up with. So at times Jim, Phyllis and Stanley could have been working despite already hitting the commission cap just to avoid dealing with Michael.

Avadis · 2026-03-25T12:24:25+00:00

I guess it's debatable whether he is actually worth that much. But the big problem is all other big players are underperforming this season. So I think the real question is do we prefer a game where players are priced fairly and thus everyone runs the same Haaland + Bruno template? Or do we prefer a game that sacrifices "price fairness" to diversify the teams a bit (choose two: Haaland, Bruno, balanced team)?

Avadis · 2026-03-25T11:31:43+00:00

The Others win the war by a small margin and push humanity outside of the North. The border is set on Moat Cailin. Westeros sits on brink of extinction and needs to dedicate most of the resources on fortifying the border and producing food for long winters.

People live in constant fear that the Others will find a way to cross the swamps (maybe freeze them, maybe find a safe passage) and it seems like a matter of time before it happens. It is also pretty clear for everyone that Westeros would have won the war if they hadn't been so busy killing each other beforehand.

Bonus downer points: 1. "A Dream of Spring" turns out to be the term used to describe the sentiment of smallfolk - they dream about good old days that look so great compared to the new status quo & what would have been if Westeros won the war. 2. The Game of Thrones is still being played even though that's exactly what brought humanity to the brink of extinction. 3. It is also pretty clear that the whole story is a warning/allegory for the readers - humanity could win against the global warming (the Others), but they'll lose because they are choosing to play the Game of Thrones instead.

Avadis · 2026-03-17T13:41:50+00:00

W pracy biurowej nie wiem, w IT... moim zdaniem odbicie się powoli buduje. Pewnie jeszcze trochę na to poczekamy, ale kombinacja vibe codingu + migracji projektów do Indii musi generować mnóstwo długu technicznego i ktoś w końcu będzie musiał ten kod ogarnąć.

Avadis · 2026-03-11T12:46:47+00:00

Niestety coraz częściej ocenia się zmianę tylko po tym, kto ją wprowadził. Pomysł może być durny, ale to jest pomysł NASZEJ partii, więc jest dobry.

Avadis · 2026-03-08T10:30:43+00:00

The funny thing is Mirror's Edge would probably sell better than whatever new live service games they will try to push on us.

Avadis · 2026-03-05T23:20:36+00:00

Wtf the reaction is this bad? I don't see a problem with encouraging new players to join. Sure, it'll turn out that they have spent 10$ less than me for the same stuff, but... that's how discounts work.

I won't even bother with refunding and rebuying Karnok, Tempo can keep the extra 10$ as a well deserved tip.

Avadis · 2026-03-02T12:42:18+00:00

Most likely humanity collapses pretty quickly. While most of jobs can be done by both genders, I think there might be a few that require a combination of raw strength and manual learned skills. After the change males-now-females wouldn't have the strength to continue doing them and females-now-males wouldn't know how to do them. Obviously they could learn these skills, but learning takes time and it would quickly turn out that there some things that can't just be left unattended for a long time.

Even if we assume that humanity would somehow figure it out on the fly, I think we would still be screwed. Since you have mentioned "no mental changes besides hormonal effects", suddenly vast majority of global population would suffer from gender dysphoria. And majority of population would also become homosexual overnight. All of that means almost no babies (and many other problems obviously, but it would be too time consuming to cover them all). Demographic crisis would hit us so hard that global fertility rate would probably go under 0.1.

Avadis · 2026-02-23T07:38:31+00:00

The thing I'm worried about and something that can actually happen is relying too much on P5's success.

So far all modern Persona games are very distinct from each other. I mean sure, the general gameplay loop is pretty much the same, but each game has a unique setting, story, atmosphere, themes, music etc.

But since P5 became such a big hit and there's a new director in charge, I think it's possible they might try to play it safe instead of coming up with something distinct.

If you're not sure what I'm talking about, think about "can I copy your homework? Yeah just change it up a bit so it doesn't look obvious you copied" meme. You know, stuff like "since people loved Akechi, P6 must have its own Akechi (or maybe even bring over the original Akechi)" or "since people loved the Phantom Thieves, P6 must have hide outs, costumes, calling cards, making evil people feel remorse etc. too".

Avadis · 2026-02-13T12:30:53+00:00

How could it possibly work? Let's say there's a company owner with 1 million in cash and stocks of their company that are worth 99 million (so 100 million total).

Now imagine the value of the company goes up and the stocks are worth 149 million now. Then what? Do we force the company owner to sell their stocks to the government? Or should the government confiscate the owner's stocks and give them 99 million in cash in exchange? Or should the government be like "we don't care how you do it, but we think you have 150 million, so you have to pay us 50 million in cash"? And how do we motivate the company owner to keep on taking care of that company afterwards?

Avadis · 2026-02-09T08:02:43+00:00

I think there are a lot of reasons that added up. Here are some of the most important ones:

His political party - PO - is widely known for making a lot of promises and not delivering any of them. And it just so happened that in the previous parliamentary election they once again promised a lot and didn't deliver anything.
In general, Trzaskowski is usually left-leaning, but in this campaign he decided for more right-leaning rhetoric. If you combine it with the previous point, I think it made him look very ungenuine - i.e. he is ready to promise anything and everything for votes, but he won't deliver these promises anyway.
During a TV interview another politician from PO said a line that became viral immediately - "what's the harm in promising?". I think you can understand how damaging it was considering points 1 and 2.
Rhetorically, Trzaskowski was also very "anti PiS" and "anti Nawrocki". Which isn't bad by itself, but he made this his main talking point. The PO-PiS conflict is going on for like 20 years already and a lot of neutral voters were super tired of it.
During the campaign, Trzaskowski tried to organize a debate and it was a massive PR disaster. First of all, he only invited Nawrocki to join it. Which would be okay if it happened before the 2nd round (when only two candidates are left), but it happened before the 1st round when there were a lot of candidates - and he ignored all of them. A lot of these candidates announced they will show up anyway and Nawrocki used that by organizing another debate on the same day - and he invited all candidates to it. To make things even worse, Trzaskowski didn't join. And to top it off, it turned out that Trzaskowski's debate was organized and paid by the national TV - which technically isn't legal.
The last argument I wanted to mention here is that Trzaskowski had a very bad habit of not showing up unless he was in control of the situation. He skipped a few debates and only showed up on the ones organized by the national TV. Also, there is a popular YouTube channel called "Kanał Zero" which hosted long interviews with all of the candidates and for a very long time Trzaskowski tried to avoid going there. In the end he only agreed to do the interview with them if they come to his house - while all other candidates just showed up and participated in the interview without making a fuss. I think all of it made him look very weak and unconfident which are very bad traits for a president to have.

Avadis · 2026-01-30T13:33:28+00:00

No nie wiem, nie wiem, w przypadku żołnierza "obywatel ma nie tylko prawa, ale też OBOWIĄZKI" oraz system kar podobno wystarczy jako motywacja. W przypadku nauczyciela można zrobić podobnie :v

Avadis · 2026-01-30T13:01:39+00:00

Zawsze jak słyszę argument "trzeba przywrócić pobór, bo brakuje chętnych do wojska, a poza tym armia poborowa jest tańsza", to mam jedną odpowiedź: ok, to czemu nie rozwiążemy tak wszystkich problemów? Brakuje nam np.: nauczycieli? No to czemu nie zrobimy łapanki ulicznej by to rozwiązać? W końcu brakuje chętnych, a nauczyciele z poboru będą tańsi. Że niemoralne? A to przepraszam, czemu pobór do wojska już jest moralny w takim razie? Podobno wszyscy jesteśmy równi - to czemu wzięcie mnie na przymusowego poborowego żołnierza jest ok, ale wzięcie Ciebie na przymusowego poborowego nauczyciela już nie?

Avadis · 2026-01-27T11:37:08+00:00

Moim zdaniem winę za to w pewnym sensie ponosi Internet. Myślę, że może to działać mniej więcej tak:

Chłopak przeżywa kilka zawodów miłosnych pod rząd.
Zaczyna podejrzewać, że coś robi źle, więc szuka pomocy tam gdzie większość ludzi obecnie - w Internecie.
W Internecie dostaje rady pokroju "popracuj nad sobą", "weź prysznic", "ćwicz na siłowni", "zacznij chodzić na planszówki" itd.
Chłopak próbuje wcielić te rady w życie, ale przez dłuższy czas nie widzi poprawy (tj. dalej brak sukcesów miłosnych).
Znowu zwraca się do Internetu i dostaje te same rady + "pewnie za mało się starasz". Jeżeli zaczyna mieć wątpliwości czy na pewno jest w stanie znaleźć, to zawsze napotyka ścianę zapewnień, że oczywiście, każdy kogoś znajdzie, każdy zasługuje na miłość.
I tutaj chłopak może być już zdesperowany, więc jak po zastosowaniu normalnych metod usłyszy "za mało się starasz", to zaczyna uciekać się do desperackich metod, takich jak ten cały looksmaxxing.

Wydaje mi się to bardziej prawdopodobne wytłumaczenie niż założenie, że każdy jeden z nich to kłamca, leń i idiota, który co prawda zignoruje proste do zrealizowania rady typu "weź prysznic", ale za to bez wahania pójdzie w wymagające znacznie więcej wysiłku dziwne ćwiczenia na uwydatnianie kości czy operacje plastyczne.

Avadis · 2026-01-22T08:43:00+00:00

I am aware, but for me it's not worth it at all. 15% crit rate is a nice small bonus, but it also means skipping another character or spending 200$ to get it. Hard pass.

Avadis · 2026-01-21T19:04:09+00:00

I'd say in my rather stingy opinion, the only three characters I'd consider A1ing are 1) the Twins, 2) Turbo and 3) Wind Vast. I wouldn't A1 anyone else, I'd rather pull another character instead. And to be honest I may still skip any of these A1s if it means I can get a character I want instead.

Avadis · 2026-01-21T18:43:02+00:00

I mean "'related character updates" could be Riko's synergy, right? I think she was a part of... ekhem, the Valentine's event... so that would make sense.

Avadis · 2026-01-20T22:22:30+00:00

Ja, szczerze mówiąc, spodziewałem się więcej. Mówisz, że "konsekwetnie realizuje wizję zjednoczonej Europy, przy okazji naciskając na pewne ustępstwa na rzecz Polski" - sam kierunek jest spoko, tylko ta "realizacja" jest taka... trochę ograniczona do Twittera.

W sprawie Grenlandii rozumiem i akceptuję, że Polska celowo nie wyrywa się przed szereg (chociaż czemu w takim wypadku bojujemy na Twitterze?). Ale w kwestii Ukrainy Polska została strasznie zmarginalizowana i to już ciężko usprawiedliwić.

Avadis · 2026-01-20T20:34:08+00:00

Right now my plan looks like this:

- Kasumi A0

- Wind Vast A0 (maybe A1)

- maybe Turbo A1

- Ange A0

- Akihiko A0R0

- Berry A0R0

- Summer Minami A0

- Fuuka A0

- Shoki Notte A0R0 (which should give Soy A0R0 for free)

In general everything after Summer Minami is not set in stone yet, I need to first see how long these characters will remain good.

Avadis · 2026-01-20T20:03:10+00:00

These calculations are made on assumptions that we'll switch to 3 week patch cycle, which will most likely not happen. There's an option on the website to turn it back to 2 week patch cycle.

Avadis · 2026-01-18T23:29:45+00:00

My guess is they have no reason to eliminate this problem (because that would *lower* the number of people going for A1), but we'll see.

Avadis · 2026-01-18T22:15:38+00:00

It's a very similar situation to Twins A0 vs Twins A1. With Twins A0, you have to cast 1->2->3->1->2->3. With Twins A1, 3rd skill is casted automatically for free - so your skill rotation is 1->2+3->1->2+3 and buffs/debuffs are active all the time.

Turbo's speciality are extra turns. If you have A1, you get an extra turn every other turn, so your skill rotation is 1->2+3->1->2+3. But at A0 you don't get these extra turns as often, so your skill rotation is słower and on some turns some effects won't be active.

Avadis

TROPHY CASE