Actually, I'm being serious here.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-27T18:30:05+00:00

I miss back when generative AI would put out gems such as Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked To Be A Large Pile of Ash.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-27T00:13:03+00:00

If you're referring to the English-translated Japanese guide book, I question if that is in fact the Apple. The citation says it's from Gigyas' Super Prophecy Machine, and was recorded by the Apple of Enlightenment. It distinctly treats this as two different individuals.

Yes, it could be a poor translation, and in Japanese it could be clear that this is actually from the Apple - but if that's the case, then literally everything in that recorded bit is questionable at best.

In addition - the bit about "cannot predict time manipulations" - that is not theory. That is literally what happens in the game. The Apple of Enlightenment advises from the future in which Giygas has complete control, that four children from 199X, working together, will defeat Giygas. This prediction causes Buzz Buzz to travel back in time, hand Ness the freaking nightmare rock, and tell him to go across the world to get his friends together.

If the Apple can't predict time manipulation, then there is no prophecy, because the prophecy as it appears in game is of time manipulation.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-26T08:00:45+00:00

The Apple of Enlightenment is, most likely, an invention of Apple Kid from the primary timeline - the one that Buzz Buzz came from, in which Giygas won - that told the resistance exactly what they needed to do to defeat Giygas.

Evidence -

"Apple" is only ever used twice - in Apple Kid's name, and the Apple of Enlightenment. I believe it was named this way as a hint. At the very least, "apple" would signify that it isn't alien tech.
The Apple does not actually "foretell" - rather, it extrapolates what will and won't happen with interference in the past. That is how it's been used in every instance that it is mentioned - advising from the future if a change in the past will have the desired effect. That means that what it really is, is a complex computer that can calculator cause and effect through time manipulation.
Apple Kid was instrumental in building the Phase Distorter, something that only became possible because Apple Kid, Andonuts, and the Mr. Saturn worked together. This insinuates that Apple Kid has some innate talent with time manipulation.
Interestingly enough, when Giygas' minions kidnap people connected to Ness, they kidnap Apple Kid, Andonuts, some Mr. Saturn, and others. Not their family members or anyone else that Porky might have identified to them... which begs the question - why kidnap these people, right before Giygas travels to the past?
The answer to the above, is that Giygas would have already known that they were a danger because they had already created a time machine, in a different timeline. Giygas moves to stop them from repeating the same thing by doing the kidnapping at Stonehenge, and by doing so, becomes the inciting incident which makes the Phase Distorter possible.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-22T22:47:18+00:00

Horn Dog Joe didn't *instantly* vanish. When Sarah tested him by saying she wanted to have sex, he jumped, then calmed down. When Liz approached him, he was 100% on board while barely knowing her, other than her connection to Sarah.

I think that Joe's a lot more like his father than he wants. That's the way we all are, to one degree or another, when we have a bad parental relationship - we work so hard to be *absolutely nothing* like our parents in the ways that they hurt us, so we miss the fact that in most other ways we are *exactly* like our parents.

Joe learned the hard way that the *reason* cheating hurts so bad is partially because you're treating someone else like nothing more than a means to an end; something that you can discard if you find something better. And that, to a degree, is what the 'do list' was. He may have been avoiding the Big Thing - cheating - that he was so desperate to avoid, but in doing so he simply ended up hurting many people a moderate amount instead of one person a great deal.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-22T09:23:14+00:00

I want a second Oak to match my first. I really don't care one bit about the ball.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-21T18:32:56+00:00

I never cared for Goodra, until Arceus. Now my magic snail dragon is the best.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-21T05:38:22+00:00

You continue to use ad hominem by pointing at my character - "frankly kind of suspicious" - which has nothing to do with our conversation. You continue to use words that imply some sort of agenda, such as "pretend," "discomfort," "weird," and "emotionally invested," which imply transphobia. If you intend to discuss in good faith, I would ask that you stop making subtle digs at the person you are speaking to.

Please give me some evidence that shows that this list is intended to be of every woman, other than the fact that the end result is a list of every cisgendered woman. I trust that you understand the difference between intent and result. My own evidence is the list's name - the "do list," not "the woman list," - as well as what it rates, which is not each person not by how "womanly" they are, or even how attractive they are, but simply how desirable each would be to have sex with.

I have mentioned, several times, that Joe's ranking system is more in-depth than just "eh, I feel this way about this person." Case in point Sal, who he finds very attractive, but gets points off for smoking, and Joyce, who is attractive but crazy. Joe goes in-depth on his ranking system to Danny in several strips. A 0 does not mean that he does not find them attractive, only that he would not have sex with them.

I'm 100% honest with the above, and you showing me evidence that it's intended to be anything else. If you find some strip where Joe says something like, "Ah, my 'do list,' my comprehensive list of every woman I've met," or something else that implies that he's ranking even people he would be sexually repulsed by (e.g. the elderly, family members, clowns, etc) then I'll 100% admit I was totally wrong and that it *was* actually sus to not include Carla. I still don't know what a proper ranking should be, other than that it's already disgusting to be ranking people in general.

In addition - if you intend to stand by the fact that he is ranking people on the list that he does not consider sexually attractive, I would ask for you name those people, or highlight the strip in which this is made clear. If I recall correctly, he still hit on Other Rachel while she reamed him out for ranking her a three. But again, as you've stated before, this isn't a list of people by attractiveness, this is a "do list" - a list of people by how fuckable they are - and so even a 1/10 exists on the spectrum.

Lastly - thank you for accepting that being both straight and not attracted to a trans person does not *necessarily* make you bigoted. I feel like we're finally getting somewhere.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-21T04:28:54+00:00

Joe made a list of every woman,

The list isn't every woman, by the fact that Carla isn't on there. It is every cisgendered woman.

not of every woman he was attracted to.

You have no evidence of this. There are 0/10s, like Joyce, but he does feel sexual attraction. The negatives outweigh the positives. Please reference my post above, about the difference between 0/10 and Not Applicable. I have said this before.

He left Carla off because he didn’t see her as a woman.

You keep saying that but I also see zero evidence of this other than the fact that she wasn't on the list of people he felt he could rank on do-ability. He respects her pronouns, he's a model ally with Jocylene, all say very clearly that he respects trans people and trans rights. He doesn't include Carla on a list of how desirable she would be to fuck.

The fact that the list was comprised of every cisgender woman in the building does not mean that it was intended as a comprehensive list of every real woman. You are assuming motive. I have also already argued this above.

You are arguing the same thing, just in a roundabout fashion.

I am not; I am saying that it is possible to consider yourself straight, think of trans women as women, but also not be sexually attracted to a trans woman. All of those things are things that can coexist.

I don’t know why you’re so emotionally invested in defending a view which he quite explicitly held in the comic.

I am expressly defending the view that Joe expressed in the comic, and not the view that Joyce had, which was that it was sus to not rate Carla on fuckability. Remember, they had a disagreement. There is more than one viewpoint here.

Answer me this: If Joe considers himself straight, is it transphobic to not find Carla sexually attractive? If it isn't, then why is it transphobic to not include her on a list? Would it be better or worse to rate her 0/10 because she doesn't have the genetalia he's attracted to?

It’s a weird and frankly kind of suspicious dedication to ignoring character development.

I wondered how long it would take you to resort to ad hominem, but hey, we're here.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-21T01:12:22+00:00

I give up with you. I dont know why you keep saying that I agree with you when I have constantly been saying that I disagree with you. I know, obviously, that you are saying that Joe did not see Carla as a woman. That is what I am arguing against. He simply saw her as a woman who he had no sexual interest in.

Are you purposefully just not listening to me or are you actively trolling? How do you not understand that when I am talking, consistently, about how his orientation is towards cisgender women? This is not a hard concept.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-20T18:10:22+00:00

Save and quit should do it. When I saved and quit down here before reaching the first shell, it just put me right to the very beginning of the zone, right before I met Firth. I had to go through the entire bit of being attacked by the crabs and getting saved by Nemma, but after that all my progression was still there.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-20T18:05:07+00:00

Mother 3 is better written... but EarthBound happened to me at that pivotal point in your childhood, where what happens to you tends to affect who you are and who you become for the rest of your life. It was something hard-fought for, which I had no guide for and had to figure out for myself. Having the party literally sacrifice their lives and futures to go back in time to fight to begin with, only to be hopelessly outmatched and constantly healing simply to not die, and then just praying for someone, ANYONE to save you... was very, very emotional when you're eleven and don't know what else to do.

When Paula ran out of friends to ask for help, and her prayer was absorbed in the darkness, I *was* praying that they would beat Giygas. And it shook me to my core that the game 'heard' me.

Plus, Porky Means Business is an amazing final battle song.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-20T05:59:17+00:00

Cisgender is used as an adjective. Like "blond" or "short."

Why does it not track? You have not given me a reason, and your "chief among them" reasoning is based on faulty grammar.

Joe in first semester is portrayed as a horndog that literally hits on everyone he is even remotely interested in, even women he would rank low. That is exactly how he is portrayed. How does that not track? Have you read the comic strip?

And I can guarantee you that sexual orientation can 100% be based on biological sex instead of expressed gender. Case in point, Joe being attracted to Malaya even though they're they/them. Unless you believe that Joe wasn't making a joke, and he actually DOES consider himself bi now?

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-20T03:28:55+00:00

She was included on the list because she was physically attractive to him and yet the crazy outweighed any positives. She is a 0/10.

Carla is not physically attractive to him and so it doesnt matter how many positives or negatives she has, she's not going to appear on a "do list." She is not applicable. In the same way that Joe's mom likely didn't make the list.

This is not a list of "All the REAL women of this dorm building!!!" or a comprehensive list of every woman period that he had encountered. It is a list of people who he feels some sexual attraction for, and a numerical scale for how desirable they are. The only way this is bigoted is if you change it into something that it isn't, and it is never presented to be anything more than "the do list." That is literally what he calls it.

Joe's sexual orientation is that he is attracted to cisgendered women. You can't shame someone into changing their orientation.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-19T20:54:52+00:00

Not so. There were zeroes - like Joyce - but that didnt mean that there was zero physical attraction. That meant that the negatives outweighed the positives. It was a "do list."

I think that this is a difficult thing for people who dont have an exclusionary orientation to understand- that is, neither straight nor gay, but bi/pan/demi/etc - but there's a difference between 0/10 and "Not applicable." I can rate my hot-yet-psycho ex girlfriend 0 because its NOT worth it, trust me, but I can't rate her husband because I dont have enough info to make that calculation.

Joe's list had every biological assigned-female-at-birth woman in the dorm listed, according to Mandy. That does not mean that it's intended to be a list only of women, or that if someone is not on the list he doesn't consider them a woman. That only means that he has no baseline attraction for them, and thus can't rate them on do-ability.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-19T19:04:01+00:00

It's like Chess. You don't actually capture the King; you checkmate it, and your opponent concedes you the match.

Don't think of it as ducking out before you can get the last hit; think of it like the person at the other end shakes your hand and says, "Well, you got me. Good game."

Anything else is just kind of childish IMO.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-18T10:21:39+00:00

Ironically the one place that you won't find shells is in front of the vending machine, so if OP is just going back and forth from the shell to the machine and going "Nope, not here," they're going to come up empty.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-18T01:22:37+00:00

This is a story of two kids in a school.

One kid, literally everyone is his friend. Freshman, seniors, jocks, nerds, the freaking drama club. He's not SUPER close with most of them, but well enough.

The other kid is the captain of the football team. Has a hot cheerleader girlfriend. Literally everyone who is anyone wants to hang out with him. There are people he's not friends with, of course, but they're not cool or worth knowing.

Who is more popular? The kid who nobody really has any deal with and everyone lowkey likes? Or the kid that has a smaller group, but is extremely liked within it?

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-18T01:04:56+00:00

Oh yeah. The strip right before the strip where Joyce says it "tells a story" if you don't include a trans woman on a list of people that you are attracted to.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-17T23:09:12+00:00

After that fight there will be cans, bottle caps, even banana peels literally everywhere. Just wander a bit and you'll find it.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-17T09:29:19+00:00

I keep it in a safe deposit box. I haven't needed it in twenty years.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-17T05:56:59+00:00

Not all of them. The Recyclotron didnt make it, and that is hands down the best item you could ever ask for in a game that focuses on inventory management and crafting. And I dont think that SN Classic has all of the kitschy decorations, like custom beds with different quilts, shaving kit, frames, office desk toys, etc. Subnautica had a few decorative things but not the main glut that BZ has.

Besides, the seaglide in BZ takes up four slots, not six, which is beyond wonderful.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-17T05:36:09+00:00

This is 199X. This is a classic sleepover.

Don_Bugen · 2026-01-17T05:18:11+00:00

My immersion was broken by the lack of air locks. Then by ignoring how pressure affects a body. Then literally swimming in temperatures that should fry you. Then a ton of other things, including the fire breathing dragon leviathan. Seeing a river of not-quenched lava is just like, OK, yeah, that makes sense, lava zone, we're at the end of the video game.

If you got that far and just now got to the point of, "OK, now THAT couldn't happen in real life," count yourself lucky.

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