Surviving the Felon: Week of 03/08/2025
The Felon is still President, but we are all still here. And we are continuing to resist, smile, laugh, and find joy in our lives despite his best efforts to squash it all. We made it one week into March. And although its hard to keep up with all the horrible things happening in the world, that means that we have more opportunity to drown all those terrible things as we find our light.
As usual I’ll go through some of the bad things in the world. But only some. Its impossible to keep up with every little thing not to mention exhausting. Many of the news companies and internet sites already have a lock on all the negativity. In fact that is their bread and butter. All the more reason to run through the horrible things quickly. The faster we focus on the little good, the quicker we can collectively replace negative energy with positive.
The Bad
Well let’s get this over with. And I want to start with an issue that is currently causing me a lot of anxiety. The Nazi wants to privatize Amtrak and the US Postal Service. I work for a local commuter rail. And if Amtrak gets privatized, I fear that local services like my job will be next on the chopping block. I’m certain given what oligarchs like him consider valuable, that my job will be cut. Yes I know its a bit of a reach, but this is one of the first times that I personally might be impacted by everything in such a cruel way.
As for the many myriad of issues that do not effect me, there are too many to count. The Felon’s massive betrayal of Ukraine will have horrific far reaching effects. Most certainly empowering the Window Shover high among them. The risk of gutting Social Security and Medicare also has the potential to cause widespread misery. And never forget, that misery and pain are the point. These people get off on cruelty and see themselves as God that can lord over us. Do not see them as such. They are just petty men that have risen to stations undeserved.
As our parks are gutted so greedy shit heads can steal the resources and eliminate third spaces, it feels like all the good is being ripped away from us. But we can’t let despair win out. We have to fight these people as they cut down our trees. We must resist them when they gut funding to prevent diseases. And as The Nazi removes funding for other services to steal the money for himself so that more of his satellites can explode before crashing back down to earth, we must stand up against these evils with the determination to outlast them.
The Good
Well the horrible part of this post is done. Let’s laugh for a moment that I still have not properly made my exercise plan manifest. Yet the fact that I keep documenting my procrastination here not only means that readers will eventually hold me accountable, but that I also will only be able to deny myself doing better physically for so long. This last week I didn’t have the excuse of a once in year Pokémon Go event. I’ll be the first to admit that this week I was just lazy.
I had originally intended to return to Berserk this week as I received the last two deluxe editions that are published, but Tower of God has completely sucked me in. Since I know there is plenty of story left, I have decided to finish the current arc I’m reading, the Hell Train and then return back to finish Berserk. After I finish both series though, I’m not sure what to read next.
I’m continuing to use dopamine bursts with reward to motivate work. Yes I’ll continue mentioning this important aspect of my life over and over again. its my wish that we live in a better world where people are able to work in ways that benefit them. I understand that the way I do things is not how everyone does. And I also realize that this method doesn’t always work even for me. But when I look at how much more motivated I have been to complete tasks lately the results speak for themselves.
Video Games
As I write this post, I’m running around the final dungeon of Metaphor: ReFantazio, grinding out all the archetypes on every character while working on getting everyone to max level as well. That’s what is needed to get the last few achievements I’m missing in the game, specifically the secret bonus boss and a super hard version of the final boss. I’m close to the end and I’ll miss playing such a masterfully crafted game.
I didn’t play Helldivers 2 nearly as much this week, but that is fine because the game will still be there for me next week and the several more beyond that. A lot of my free time has been on Metaphor and I’ll be working on overcoming some of my ladder anxiety to try playing this game with randoms as well. Its gonna be a tough hurdle to jump because of years of bad experiences, but I know I can do it. Especially in this game where a lot of the toxic multiplayer elements don’t exist.
Genshin Impact has been a lot less aggravating this week than last. I told MiHoYo in the last survey that I did not enjoy the event from last week. And while I get that there needs to be hard content for big spenders, the problematic timers and whatnot made it a little too clear what their goals for that event is. I’m still gonna keep playing the game because one event is not enough to sour something I have spent years playing and thinking about.
I finished both my first single player Civilization 7 game and multiplayer one too. In the former I won a culture victory which as of this blog post I feel is way too easy to win. Something that both the community and the game developers agree on. In the multiplayer game, I tied with my friend who also chose a culture victory, while I went after science. It was a funny final turn where we both won after carving up the world between us.
Pokémon Go
There was not a Pokémon Go event this week to talk about. But a new season of PvP happened instead. Grumpig, Lapras, Claydol, and several others became much more powerful with balance changes. And I’m looking forward to see how the meta develops with these changes. Maybe one day I’ll make it past ace to veteran. With some optimism it might even be this season. Its been a year almost since I first made Ace. It would be nice if I could go further.
After the Unova Fest ended, I turned my focus towards the long term post research that will eventually reward me with a Shiny Meloetta. These long term research quests are one of my favorite aspects of Pokémon Go. They give me something long term to work towards and slowly inching every day towards them gives me those little smiles in a world that wants to snatch them away.
I’m sure that plenty more will happen in this game. There are a lot of people worried that Niantic selling the game to a company based out of Saudi Arabia will make the game more predatory and I understand those fears. But at least for me, until the game becomes unplayable, due to changes, I’ll continue going outside and playing. Now if only I had more time to go on hikes.
Anime and Shows
As the Anime season continues, my excitement grows. Re: Zero, Solo Leveling, and Dr. Stone are all approaching high points in their stories. And especially in the first one, where not every character always makes it through, despite Subaru’s best efforts, its a shocking thriller from beginning to end. I know less about Solo Leveling and even less about Dr. Stone but the latter is dealing with dangerous people, while the former is diving into its own Hunter x Hunter style Chimera Ant Arc. Perhaps Solo Leveling will dive into what made that arc so infamous. Only time will tell.
I watched a few episodes of One Piece this week. It’s a small drop in the bucket compared to the sheer scope of the story. But as the season of Anime will soon wind down, I’ll have some more time to focus on it. It just so happens that Re: Zero is one of my all time favorite shows and so a lot of my energy is focused on it.
What I did watch this weekend was a majority of Invincible. And what a ride it was. I’m glad I saved this show to be binged cause I laughed and cried a lot. Personally I think the overall story and the themes the show focuses on, much like the comic are superior to the ones that The Boys look at. Invincible takes a serious look at the aftermath of destruction of every day people when super heroes and villains smash up entire city blocks and the consequences of such. Not to mention the heavy themes of revenge and what it means to kill. There is only one episode left and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
Dungeons & Dragons
This week, I only ran one session of my campaign. Mostly because the player off on their own adventure has story elements that were dependent on what happened in the other session. But I’ll be progressing their story soon enough. As for what happened, you can check out a summary of that here. It was a wild one involving aggressive palm trees and a horrible powerful Archfey who quickly humbled the group.
Running Feywild style adventures has been a challenge for me. There is many reasons that I don’t normally include Fey in my stories. Their line of thinking is hard for me to properly convey. But I refuse to let something that is difficult to write about prevent me from crafting a well written story. And for that reason I’m thankful for the patience of my players as I experiment on themes and ideas.
Writing and Editing
Now that I am past a section that needed to be completely rewritten, and another segment that required almost an entire new chapter, I feel more confident in editing. I still have a long way to go before I finish editing my first Earth Everafter Novel. And its clear how much I have improved as a writer since I first wrote it. Making so many changes is frustrating to say the least, but I have to keep my head up high and continue to excite myself over the prospect of how incredible this story will be when properly published.
I’m still focusing on my blog posts for now as far as free writing. Editing is more important at the moment so that I don’t stretch myself too thin between my different works. Still, if I find myself hitting against a wall while editing, I have other options to write. That has usually been my best method of attack against writers blocks.
Wrap Up
As things continue to look bleak, we must always look for hope and light even where there might not be any. Fascism seeks to crush art and happiness. It uses Capitalism to squash anything that doesn’t empower the rulers. Writing is a form of resistance. As is painting, singing, dancing, playing an instrument and so much else. Its no coincidence that The Felon, The Nazi and all their other minions continue attacking liberal arts. Those topics among others are what takes their power away.
The world might seem like a dystopia, but we have written stories about this before. Music teaches us how to resist. Art gives us a reason to live. There is so much out there that we can use to stop this and fight back. But we can’t get mired in feeling powerless. Instead we need to focus on little smiles, small corners of light, and anything that keep keep our happiness intact.
I keep writing these blog posts as I reminder to myself as well as others that we can survive this. Fascism will eventually tear itself apart. Any ideology that thrives on othering and paranoia does. Which is why the rest of us need to focus on our communities. Find friends that share interests with you and smile with them. Cherish those members of your family that you have healthy relationships with. As darkness comes for us all, we can use light, love, and even hope to push it back and outlast it. With all those tools at our disposal we can survive The Felon.