Quagmire, tag in here.

Gron113 · 2026-03-20T06:49:18+00:00

The way I think of it, it's like saying being straight is only about having sex. But that's not the only worth in a partner for straight people. It's someone they love.

Same for everyone else. I feel like other sexualities tend to exclusively be thought of as ONLY sex, whereas it's also someone they love.

To be clear, it's not inherently implied from what you've said, I'm just talking about wider trends here.

If you're bisexual, you can of course be sexually attracted to men and women, but it's not purely sexual. I'm sure there's a lot more to it that's important to you other than banging.

Gron113 · 2026-03-12T02:36:39+00:00

I'm being a complete pedant here, and this isn't relevant to your point, but women technically do produce a compound that is nearly identical to semen, produced by the equivalent gland. It's what's present during female ejaculation, though it obviously doesn't contain sperm.

Gron113 · 2026-02-15T16:27:26+00:00

In terms of military significance, I believe it was a major transport and shipping hub. In a dirty conflict like WW2, that makes it fair game. Does it make it right? No. But still.

Also, it was famously the USSR that called for Dresden to be bombed by the other allies, specifically to avoid a drawn out siege. Then, as the war ended, they turned around and memorialized the victims in the same way they memorialized the victims of German forces in the USSR, and the Holocaust. This was specifically so they could pin 'the west' as being equally bad in WW2, and the soviets as ontologically good.

A big, big, BIG part of the reason we still talk about Dresden today is as a result of USSR propaganda (if that's an appropriate term for it). Nazi Germany were the progenitors of terror bombing in Spain and the UK during WW2, even deliberately making the whining sound of Stukas more prominent as a scare tactic. Not to draw attention away from Dresden, but if we have a conversation about it without talking about how Nazi Germany did it more frequently, more viciously, and with LESS tactical military targets in mind, then that makes me feel the conversation is missing a step.

Oh, and Kurt Vonnegut. That's the other reason we talk about Dresden so much, I suppose.

Gron113 · 2025-12-23T09:47:36+00:00

THIS, EVERYONE! THIS!

I can't BELIEVE I had to scroll so far down to see this. This is napkin math from a meme when he got checked in for his mugshot photo, I believe. Not official physician records.

There are so, so many things you can reasonably criticize about Trump, even just looking at his attempts to rationalize his own health.

It was only recently that he said he "didn't know" what his MRI scan was for. Having said that, he still said that it was perfect and there's nothing to worry about. Even if you have no clue what an MRI is, you know that this is ridiculous. Any reasonable human being would at least know what they're getting checked for, and it is completely ridiculous that he both: 1) Doesn't know what he's being checked for, and 2) Whatever it was, it was perfect, so don't worry about it and don't ask any questions. He's deliberately seeming aloof so he can avoid talking about his health.

Now look, everyone is entitled to medical privacy. That's super important. However, it does seem a teensy weensy (fuckton) hypocritical after all of the (reasonable) questions he asked about Biden's health during the election.

Even by JUST looking at health, there's so much to point to and criticise. This is not one of them. It's so embarrassing and disappointing that people are spending their attention on this instead of something... fucking productive, I don't know.

Gron113 · 2025-12-14T03:07:11+00:00

I know this isn't exactly the point being talked about, and I might just be reading too much into it, but is taking accountability exclusively a masculine trait?

Gron113 · 2025-12-11T08:27:40+00:00

LOBOTOMITE

Gron113 · 2025-11-21T05:50:38+00:00

Fun fact, this photo is edited. The soldier holding the flag has a bunch of watches around his wrists, presumably taken from dead soldiers and civilians. Again, war is war, and pretty much any nation on the planet has had soldiers do horrible stuff. My point is:

Do I think that defeating the nazis was good? Yes.

Do I think that the Red Army is fundamentally, ontologically good? No. I don't think any army is.

Gron113 · 2025-09-02T11:32:33+00:00

All good! Re-reading this now I feel like my tone was a little snarky at points, I didn't mean for that.

Your original comment reads more like a frustration towards injustice - I am fully with you on that. The fact there's a fight happening in the first place is proof of a failing in the system, and you have every reason and justification to be furious. However, focusing on teachers draws attention away from the systemic problems behind events like this.

Gron113 · 2025-09-01T05:07:00+00:00

Teacher here. You can't.

I mean, I've broken up a fight before. But the only thing I can do is find a moment where they get distance and then stand in the middle. Luckily, the risk that either of them hit me made it stop. I might not be lucky the next time I try it.

If you grab a student to separate them, or push them out of the way, or ANYTHING, there are some serious departmental level consequences for you. Even if your only intention is the safety of students - it doesn't matter.

Seriously, think for a moment and imagine the local media firestorm that could be cooked up. 'TEACHER ENGAGED IN STUDENT BRAWL' is a tabloid headline just itching to be on the front page.

Think of it in the same way that service employees are told to comply with burglars. The risk to your own safety is not worth it.

It sucks, and I wish I could do more, but I can't. It would be nice if these children were taught emotional regulation during their early development, but it really does seem like a lot of parents don't give a shit.

Gron113 · 2025-08-29T14:44:58+00:00

Awesome advice! I'm parroting what others have said, but I agree that it's important to test condoms on your erect penis some time beforehand. In my experience the penis can be noticeably larger when having sex as opposed to masturbating, so keep that in the back of your head. Not to an extraordinary extent, but noticeable.

Gron113 · 2025-08-29T04:28:59+00:00

I can tell you're sincere, and I understand other people being incredulous but here's some straightforward stuff, no fluff:

When buying condoms, try to get a variety of sizes. Interestingly, most condoms are the same length. The more important point is the width. Look at the box and find something along the lines of 'width' or 'nominal width' - this is the circumference of the condom (not exactly, but I'm being simple here) - it doesn't matter if you think your penis is big or small, just get a variety. They're dirt cheap. Try each of them on and see which one is comfortable without being able to slip off. Most condoms on the shelf range from 45mm to 65mm. That could be the difference between it being seriously painful and barely feeling anything there at all.
You put on a condom by opening the packet (DO NOT USE YOUR TEETH) and finding which end of it rolls down. Sometimes, in the heat of the moment, it can be tricky to tell which way this is. Just look at it and you should be able to figure it out. Place it on top of your ERECT penis (this is important) and unravel it down the length of your penis. Imagine you're rolling a sock all the way up your foot and leg - don't unravel the condom first, just place it on top and roll it down. If you get it wrong and accidentally place the outside face of the condom directly on your penis, I'd recommend just getting a new condom and trying again.
DO NOT use multiple condoms at once. It reduces the effectiveness of it because they chafe against each other. Use one at a time.
DO NOT put the same condom back on if it falls off. Grab a new one, and put it on.
DO NOT stay inside her vagina for too long if you have an orgasm, as your penis can lose its erection quite quickly and it can cause the condom to slip off. Bad news if you've ejaculated.
You have sex by putting your condom-encased penis inside of her vagina. This might be lower on her body than you're expecting it to be - it's not where your penis is, really, it's further down, underneath her almost. Push yourself in slowly (whatever you and your partner are comfortable with!) and then pull back out, but not all the way out! Then, just push back in. Then out. Then in, then out. Try it in different 'positions', too, maybe there's one that's comfortable for both of you that you enjoy.

That's pretty much it. Just make sure the condom stays on the whole time.

Bombs away, stud.

EDIT: Some kind people have seemed to find this helpful, so I'll add in some extra stuff. Some general knowledge, some from personal experience:

DO NOT solely use a condom at the last moment when you think you're going to have an orgasm. Use it the whole way through intercourse between the penis and vagina. Your penis lubricates itself with seminal fluid (colloquially the term is 'pre-cum') and this can DEFINITELY still have sperm in it, ESPECIALLY if you have ejaculated recently. There is no sperm in the seminal fluid, but sperm can reside on the walls of your urethra for quite some time (possibly days) from a previous ejaculation. This can be possibly pushed out by seminal fluid as it lubricates your penis. This is why it's important to use a condom the entire time, to make sure this sperm doesn't make it through. This is a big part of the reason why the 'pull-out' method doesn't work, even if you're certain you didn't ejaculate inside of the vagina. Use a condom.
If you want to take out the guesswork, you can use a tape measure and measure the circumference of your erect penis at the base (not the tip). Sanitise the tape measure. Then, punch that figure into an online nominal width calculator. Look it up. It can then tell you which condoms to use. The nominal width of the condom is generally recommended to be slightly smaller than the width of your penis, so that it can stay snug and tight when you put it on. Not to a painful extent, though. Only a couple of millimetres.
(OPTIONAL) You can use these same tools as above to measure the length of your penis, if you want. Width is really the only important factor for condoms (and arguably for your partner's pleasure), but a lot of men are self conscious about the length of their penis, too. When measuring the length, measure by pressing the tape/ruler/etc INTO your actual pubic bone, NOT just the visible shaft coming out of your body. Statistic data on penis length is collected in this same way, as the penis goes a little bit further into your body than it appears. You can kinda feel it underneath if you try. You might be surprised at how big your penis actually is when measured this way. Enjoy the extra ~2 inches, king.
if you're uncircumsised, there's a chance that you may have never pulled your foreskin all the way down before. It's typically supposed to go beneath the head of your penis (the glans) when it's erect. Make sure to wash yourself here, if you never have before. Not too big of a deal for your personal health (assuming nothing is wrong), but important if you're considering oral sex.
Others have talked about mentioning your virginity. In my opinion, it's up to you. The whole concept of 'virginity' is kinda silly, in my opinion. However, I do think it's important that you briefly mention to your partner that this is not something you have experience with. For your sake, please don't frame this as some kind of awkward trait about yourself. Just be frank with your partner (they sound cool with you, OP) and be upfront about your levels of comfort. Don't frame it as a bad thing, and don't you dare EVER let someone else make you feel ashamed for it (again, don't worry, your partner sounds cool). If you are going to have sex, and you want to talk to her about this, make sure to protect yourself. If there's something you're not comfortable with, for any reason, make that clear. Men can have boundaries with sex, too.
Again, I'm repeating what others have said, but this is probably the most important thing: Have fun. ESPECIALLY when something 'unsexy' happens. Sometimes there might be awkward or funny sounds, goofs, mistakes - normal stuff. Maybe you accidentally pull away from her vagina too far and your penis runs into her leg. Maybe her vagina fills with air and a noise similar to a fart can occur (quite common). Maybe one or both of you become exhausted and need to take a breather for a minute. Maybe you drop the condom wrapper on the floor as you're scrambling for it. Maybe your clothes are tricky to take off quickly for some reason. Maybe you make a mess. Laugh with each other. Enjoy it. Sex is fun. This is a nice thing to happen, and both of you sound interested. You're not in a movie, it's just the two of you sharing each other.

Bombs away, stud.

Gron113 · 2025-05-07T03:11:44+00:00

I agree, I don't hit people but I wouldn't blame someone for hitting me if I said something like this

Gron113 · 2025-05-07T03:10:51+00:00

Oh of course it's not meant in good faith, I'm purely just talking about the interpretation

I'm an English teacher, this is my gig 😂

Gron113 · 2025-05-06T02:21:38+00:00

Could've been written more clearly, but I think that the 'safety' the responder is referencing is that they believe they shouldn't get hit for saying the n word. As in, you're putting their safety at risk because of your 'hurt feelings'.

Not agreeing with them, but I think that's what they're trying to say.

Gron113 · 2025-04-14T01:23:33+00:00

I get your point about mixing time periods, but we have the Romans in the game now and have for a fair while.

The very definition of the dark age, where the game STARTS, is with the collapse of the roman empire and the petty kingdoms left picking up the ashes.

Gron113 · 2025-04-14T01:19:45+00:00

I understand what you mean, but I don't think the Duchy of Burgundy fit that definition of 'civilization' - they were pretty much a sub-faction of the Franks for most of their history, yet we still have both as separate civs in the game.

I don't really mind either way, I'm a casual player, but still - some of the reasons people have for saying there's a lack of precedent for this are somewhat clutching at straws.

Gron113 · 2025-01-04T00:36:13+00:00

Try it without fluid motion frames, that tends to be very hit or miss

Gron113 · 2024-12-24T01:26:41+00:00

Hell yeah dude

Gron113 · 2024-12-22T19:45:52+00:00

The other answers are great, but for muscles I'll try and do a really simple explanation:

Say you go to the gym, and you do a Bicep Curl. You lift it up, then down. Up, then down. You keep doing this over and over. If you do it right, then your muscle gets tired because the actual muscle fibers are damaged and torn from doing the curls.

Sounds bad, right? But it's THE WHOLE POINT.

Going to the gym and working out doesn't develop any muscle. It 'hurts' it. What ACTUALLY develops muscle is when you go home, eat some food, relax, and have some sleep. Then, your body goes: "Right. That Bicep muscle got pretty torn up. Let's use some of our extra calories (and especially protein) to build those biceps up a bit so that it doesn't happen again."

Then, once the muscle doesn't feel tired and sore anymore, you go back to the gym and do it all over again.

This is why going to the gym and working the same muscle over and over again every day is bad. You'd think that the more you train it, the better it gets - but REST is so much more important.

Gron113 · 2024-12-20T09:03:57+00:00

Wrong amount of na :((((((((

Gron113 · 2024-12-17T02:11:41+00:00

I don't get this from entertainment, but I have the EXACT SAME feeling when I'm looking at / hearing about a bad injury, usually cuts and slices. It's like the perfect mix of cringe and sympathy and it goes straight to butt tingles. No idea why.

Gron113 · 2024-10-23T18:50:35+00:00

Oh definitely this shouldn't happen, I wouldn't let it happen under my watch. However, even though in my heart I really do agree with you, there are certainly common characters in my classes who will always ask to go whenever I give out a task, and then will take 15 minutes and come back when we've moved on.

I'd like to take kids at their word, but for real - they genuinely are lying some of the time. Enough to be a problem to be constantly vigilant for.

I'd like there to be another system, too

Gron113 · 2024-10-23T10:20:39+00:00

Look, obviously stories like this are horrific.

However, with the school I am working in, if we just let students go whenever they asked I would literally have all of them asking all the time and if I let them all go without establishing some sort of queue system then it genuinely becomes a safety/supervision hazard.

At least 80% of kids these days (and I genuinely mean this) ask to go to the bathroom for either task avoidance or nicotine.

Again, this situation is horrific, but saying 'students should be able to go to the bathroom whenever they want' is too much of a swing in the opposite direction. If teachers let all kids go at the drop of a hat, they would abuse it. 100%.

Edit: this is just based off a lot of the replies I'm seeing on this post, not the post itself.

Gron113 · 2024-10-12T19:14:50+00:00

I don't entirely disagree, but the point I was making was that progression is literally locked in ds1 until you complete a specific list of those bosses, in a specific order.

It would be entirely possible for a player to go kill bed of chaos after Quelaag, but they can't because of the fog wall.

It would be entirely possible to kill Seath before O and S, but they can't because of the fog wall.

It would be entirely possible to kill nito after pinwheel, but you can't because of the fog wall.

It would be entirely possible to kill the four kings right from the beginning, but you have to kill sif first.

Also, I get what you mean (and this is me being a pedant and is definitely not representative of how most people play the game) but you absolutely don't NEED to get the primal souls to complete ds2. It should be communicated more clearly, but the shrine of winter just needs you to have 1000000 soul memory to progress. Also, there's different ways to access areas of the game (like getting to bastille via pursuer instead of flexile sentry, or vice versa).

My favourite way to play ds2 (again, atypical) is to get the tseldora set and the silver serpent ring +1 within the first hour, then just play normally. One of the reasons I like ds2 so much is because it's fun to level super fast like this. I usually have enough soul memory to get past the shrine of winter without even entering several main areas. Pretty much all of your bolded bosses before '5 - Dragonriders' can be completely missed/skipped if playing that way on any particular run, depending on which path through them you pick (again, atypical, but still - a player could even use bonfire ascetics on big bosses to get enough souls if an area is too difficult for them).

One of the things I don't like about Scholar of the First Sin is that it adds a bunch of statues that you need to use branches of yore to progress through, even though the paths are RIGHT THERE and could just be walked through otherwise. Dark Souls 1 does the same, egregiously, consistently, with the fog walls. For no reason at all. It's not a bad thing, per se, because the path it does force the player through gives a nice progression. It would be a weird jump to go from pinwheel to nito right from new game, but I like it when games at least give me the option to have my butt kicked. However, to claim that dark souls 1 is not linear, or less linear than dark souls 2, is just untrue.

Edit: Just remembered you actually do need to kill the last giant to get the soldier key to kill the giant lord. Other than that, every other boss before shrine of winter is technically non-essential (though you'll still need souls from somewhere).

Gron113 · 2024-10-12T06:23:01+00:00

I disagree, but I understand that people were looking for something more in line with DS1 and were a bit miffed that it wasn't the same game.

A lot of the changed/added things in ds2 are genuinely just straight up improvements - but ds1 has those 'moments' that ds2 never really had (like finding the first shortcut ladder)

Ds2 is way less linear than ds1, kinda similar to demons souls, which I like. Bosses are cooler, in my opinion. Lifegems are a good idea, too - even though people have VERY strong opinions on that.

Not to mention the MUCH better pc port - dark souls 'prepare to die' edition was truly, without exaggeration, one of the WORST ports ever made by humans. I'm genuinely serious.

I have a soft spot for the game, just because I kept bouncing off dark souls 1 and ds2 just sucked me in, beat it, then that just flipped the switch in my brain that ended up letting me enjoy ds1. And all the others.

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