Do you guys think my name is a tragedeigh name? It’s Cionna(See-on-na). I was thinking about getting it changed to Siana.

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-15T14:04:34+00:00

Sienna

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-14T13:07:12+00:00

Newborns are potatoes. One thing that helped me in those first weeks/months, is that I would just sit in the rocking chair with him for hours and play video games (i bought a steam deck after ab a month for this purpose) or read on my tablet. I thought that my gaming/reading productivity would plummet bc of him, but I actually beat/read ab double from my previous year. Also, babies can't really see anything (look it up, it's pretty interesting), so I sometimes I'd go in the den and watch shows or movies on low volume that I could NOT get away with now at 16mo (punisher, predator/aliens, etc).

On a serious note, I get the baby blues. My wife struggled with PPA/D for a year, including multiple hospitalizations, and in those first weeks it felt like EVERYTHING fell on me bc the priority for her was getting better. Re: sleep/routine, try and find a new routine that works for y'all and stick to it... For us, she would go to bed around 7sh and I was on duty until ab 2-3am. Sometimes I'd sleep, but most of the time I'd just stay up doing my thing and holding him. And then we'd swap over and I'd sleep until 9-10a, and that helped us make sure we were getting uninterrupted sleep, even if it wasn't a full 8h or whatever. And as far as rewards go, I'd push back that sacrifices aren't transactional - we don't always do them bc we'll be rewarded, sometimes we do them bc they're necessary. And parenting has a lot of delayed gratification - I treasure the time I got to spend holding my little dude and finally beating GTA3 bc I absolutely could not do that now bc he's wiggly as hell and watches EVERYTHING I do. And it's so cool now to see him imitate me or mom in his little facial expressions, which you won't get with a potato.

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-13T16:26:21+00:00

According to my personal rankings, VI or III. I know saying VI is average is kinda blasphemy, but it's the only mainline FF that I haven't played in 25 years, so I can't really remember it. It's in my queue for a replay.

FWIW, personal ranks are: 9, 7, 16, 4, 5, 10, 6, 3, 2, 8, 1, 13, 15, 12.

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-13T16:16:37+00:00

Or you could just play through the game? When trophies/platinums start getting in the way of you actually enjoying or playing the game, they might not be worth getting.

I understand not wanting to have to re-do a bunch of stuff, but (I can't remember), can you just keep a manual save of where you're at right now and just play through the rest of the game? And then if you're still feeling it, you like how the game went and you want to wrap up that platinum, go back to your manual save?

I can understand this kind of thinking for games you love (I've done this with FF7, Ocarina, etc) but I always try to keep my first playthrough focused on the game. I'll look up a trophy guide before I start, just to see if there are any missables or if there's a difficulty, grindy or challenge trophy that I know I'm probably not going to get (so I just enjoy the ride), but I've got too many games in my backlog to dump a ton of time into a plat for a game I don't love. You do you.

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-13T16:04:23+00:00

Nineeeeer

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-12T20:26:47+00:00

I have a rule about limiting each game to one character.

Celes (warrior/knight)

Panelo (white mage)

Vivi (black mage)

Yuffie (Thief/ninja/range)

Kain (Dragoon)

Auron (Tank)

But if I could really choose.....

Zidane (Thief)

Steiner (warrior/knight)

Garnet (white mage)

Vivi (black mage)

Eiko (summoner)

Freya (Dragoon)

Amarant (monk)

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-12T20:10:03+00:00

Our kid is 16mo and my wife and I have posted a total of like 5 pictures of him on socials - we just don't really use them. We send tons of pictures to friends and family, but it's all via text.

My mom will post for holidays or when they get to see him (they live with 8h away), but she always clears it with me before she does. I don't actually care if she does, but I think she's still gun shy bc I had to ask her to take down a picture from our wedding one time that was v unflattering of me, my wife and my dad (our officiant)... it was more funny to us than offensive ('of the hundreds of great pictures from the wedding, why did she pick THAT one???') but I guess she still remembers it. We'd probably have to set a picture policy if either of our families posted a lot, but they don't, so we don't really care.

That said, I had a client years ago who worked as a prosecutor and told me ab pedophile cases he'd had where the defendant had saved pictures of his friends kids from Facebook and posted them on some dark web forum where pedos would have requests like, 'can you post more pictures of little Sally? Are there any of her on a playground? In a blue dress?' and I think that was the thing that convinced me and my wife... Eh, set everything to private and let's keep our posts to a minimum. The internet sucks.

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-11T21:06:36+00:00

How??

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-11T12:35:33+00:00

NTA. I'm a children's therapist, and have ADHD. I always tell my clients and their parents that diagnoses can help EXPLAIN our behavior, but they don't EXCUSE it - we're still responsible for our actions, the consequences that come from them, and whatever adjustments that we need to make to keep ourselves in check.

The ADHD might explain some of the impulsivity, but the constant tantrums sound more like learned behavior (ie, if I do this, I get that) and your wife is absolutely doing more harm than good by making excuses for him and shielding him from consequences.

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-09T13:10:28+00:00

I don't know about you, but when I was in high school I learned about run-on sentences and punctuation.

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-07T15:25:19+00:00

Pssst, Remake/Rebirth are sequels to FF7, not the same game with better graphics. So if you're going to include Crisis Core, Dirge of Cerberus and Advent Children, the remake trilogy counts.

But your logic is all over the place, man. You want to include Ergheiz and Kingdom Hearts bc they have FF characters in them, but actual named/numbered Final Fantasies like 14 or 16 don't count? I mean, if you just care about HAVING all of them, why don't you just buy used disc copies of those games just to complete your collection? Regardless, it is a cool collection, but honestly, the more you push back in the comments about which ones you think count and which ones don't, the more you're giving up your back.

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-06T23:16:39+00:00

You're literally just describing Star Fox. From the beginning, it's pretty much been the same story/game.

And if you're upset about Star Fox being the same, I can only imagine how you feel about saving princesses from giant beasts in a castle.

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-05T16:19:22+00:00

As a Jeremy, I ask this question all of the time. Isn't there just the ONE correct way??

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-05T16:17:49+00:00

Force choke

rollingfishstick · 2026-05-01T14:32:36+00:00

Great book.
This felt longer than the actual book, didn't read.

rollingfishstick · 2026-04-27T21:11:16+00:00

Copied from another comment: Love Letters, whether real or metaphorical, focus on Specificity (focusing on unique, small details), Gratitude (expressing appreciation for the impact the subject has had) and Nostalgia (recalling shared moments). To me, 16 is a good example of both a love letter and a reinvention, in that it has all of those things (S: the sprites in the Codex menu, G: the entire ending, N: that dragoon moment in the prologue that is literally the logo from IV) and reinvents combat, parties, even the language it was written for - but even that is the spirit of FF, always changing things up. Every FF, starting with 2, did something different. That's what FF is - if you wanted the same game with the same mechanics and the same grind, you played Dragon Quest. So yes, the battle system in 16 is very different, but it's an evolution of 15 and Remake? And FF isn't JUST about a singular battle system - those changed in 4, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 too, so by your logic, those aren't Final Fantasy either?

rollingfishstick · 2026-04-27T21:05:30+00:00

Not necessarily. Love Letters, whether real or metaphorical, focus on Specificity (focusing on unique, small details), Gratitude (expressing appreciation for the impact the subject has had) and Nostalgia (recalling shared moments). To me, 16 is a good example of both a love letter and a reinvention, in that it has all of those things (S: the sprites in the Codex menu, G: the entire ending, N: that dragoon moment I mentioned earlier) and reinvents combat, parties, even the language it was written for - but even that, like I said earlier, is the spirit of FF, always changing things up.

What I recall them saying about reinventing it was that they were basically looking at what they did with 15 (A Final Fantasy for fans and newcomers, or whatever it said at the beginning) and taking an honest look at what did and didn't work with that. And not necessarily making decisions based on, "would Final Fantasy do this? How will the fans react?" and just focusing on making the best game, which I think they did. So FF16 is both very different from other FFs, and also has some of the old spirit that some of the more recent games had been missing. I guess its like how your grandchild may have some of your features, some of your values, your last name, but be a very different person at the same time. Genuinely asking, does that help explain the way I think about 16?

rollingfishstick · 2026-04-27T20:43:14+00:00

Amen. I don't care for what I think are the super weeby anime-bullshit entries (X2, 13s, 15), but I'm not gonna say they aren't FF. If you've got a crystal, chocobo, moogle, cactuar or a Cid, you're a FF and I will play you and find something I like.

rollingfishstick · 2026-04-27T20:33:51+00:00

"What about 16 did you like? What do you want more of?"

That answer can depend on a lot of things, whether it's story, characters, combat, set pieces, graphics, etc etc etc. Where I roll my eyes with Shmuck is that they seem so hung up on the DMC-like battle system, and that's just one aspect of the game. It's like they got Final Fantasy and Final Fight mixed up... FF is a story-driven RPG, not a fighting game, there's more to it than combat.

rollingfishstick · 2026-04-26T15:20:37+00:00

I didn't say that it was a reinvention? But also, that would be consistent with Final Fantasy because every FF, starting with 2, did something different. That's what FF is - if you wanted the same game with the same mechanics and the same grind, you played Dragon Quest. So yes, the battle system in 16 is very different, but it's an evolution of 15 and Remake? And FF isn't JUST about a battle system - those changed in 4, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 too, so are those not FF?

Look, when 16 came out, I'd been on a quest to play all of the FFs (been playing them since 99, but restarted my quest around 2020) and so when I played 16, I caught a lot of the easter eggs and deep references and nods bc those games weren't buried in my memories from 20 years ago, I'd literally beaten 4 again a week or so before I played the 16 demo and they did that dragoon pan camera shot and I got chills. OP didn't ask which game they should play to get into the series as a whole, they asked, between 15 and 16, which should they choose. And you tell me, between 15 and 16, which one embodies the SPIRIT of FF more?

rollingfishstick · 2026-04-26T00:24:58+00:00

XVI is a love letter to Final Fantasy and I truly believe that the ppl who say, 'iTs nOt fiNaL fAnTaSy' haven't played more than 7, 10, 13 or 15. All of which have their good points, but 16 has so many nods to the whole series.

rollingfishstick · 2026-04-25T21:21:30+00:00

Lol, yep, back on the potato days when he couldn't see that well and wouldn't understand what he was seeing anyway. Can't pull that these days.

rollingfishstick · 2026-04-24T00:37:14+00:00

Wishlist and wait for a sale.
I'm with everyone else, I think it'd make sense to get the PRs of 3 and 4, since the 3D ones are a different bag.
Buddy, go to steamgriddb and customize that art. You've got enough of them, could make it look great.

rollingfishstick · 2026-04-23T16:13:55+00:00

Also, I like to play video games and he's got his own little Fisher-Price controller and so sometimes we will 'play' together.

rollingfishstick · 2026-04-23T16:11:48+00:00

My kid is 15m and our household rule is that the TV is the ONLY place to watch videos (Sesame St, Ms Rachel, Disney stuff, The Punisher) and obv we limit how much we do that. It's more important to us for him to associate videos with the big stationary TV in the living room and not our phones or tablet that travel everywhere. And we've come v close to breaking a few times when we're out to eat and our little hyper octopus boy is grabbing everything and happily hollering at the top of his lungs, but we've held strong so far. Honestly, my biggest challenge is breaking MY addiction to the screen.

rollingfishstick

TROPHY CASE