#making up for decent helpful changes with stupid corporate changes to be more profitable

[saint-nevermore]

tumblr is one of the only refuges artists have without fighting twitter’s worsening algorithm or instagram’s image crunching so i think on top of being vocal about bad changes, be vocal about the good ones too. like it or not, the Blaze feature is an awesome addition as it allows artists to boost their own work. the sponsored artist alley thing that shows as an ad spot is an excellent compromise between not having ads and helping the user base. the addition of top posts on a blog are good. if you send feedback complaining about the user-hostile updates, always mention previous versions that were better and why, and any new updates which are good and why.

#add customisable top three posts and support for both the mobile view AND custom blog themes because they don’t have to be mutually exclusiv #go ahead with features to simplify the experience for new users but leave options open for older users #or anyone who can dive right into a custom blog if they wish. people love options #the mobile overlay view is actually pretty good it just shouldn’t replace custom blogs. #the tumblr store could be used to sell artist work without it being weird brand marketing like] #nobody wanted tumblr merch. but a different design every month with a different theme may be better #i feel like this website is so close to being great for artists. they just keep making it harder by #making up for decent helpful changes with stupid corporate changes to be more profitable

[qqueenofhades]

Okay, I’ve read Joe Biden’s plans.

I’ve just sat down and spent several hours actually reading all the damn plans on his website, the whole thing, so you don’t have to. And here’s the conclusion:

They’re pretty good.

Are they absolutely everything we want immediately? Maybe not. Are they a solid Democratic agenda anyway? Yes they are. Are they better than Trump?

Light years!

His Violence Against Women plan is lengthy, detailed, and pays specific attention to violence against Native, lesbian and bisexual, low-income, disabled, rural, transgender (especially trans women of color) immigrant, domestic abuse victims, and other vulnerable women. He calls for replacing and expanding Obama-era policies and funding for campus sexual assault programs that DeVos trashed, and for providing money for culturally specific services that are sensitive to the diverse backgrounds of survivors. He also notes that sexual assault, while it predominantly affects women and girls, needs to be taken seriously and addressed for people of all gender identities.

His gun safety plan is forceful and lays out several steps for banning assault weapons, taking existing weapons from offenders, closing gun purchase background check and other legal loopholes, addressing the intersection between domestic violence and weapons ownership, and reducing or eliminating weapons and ammunition stockpiling.

His plan for tackling climate change and creating green jobs is also lengthy. He makes the connection between economic, environmental, and racial justice. He pledges to immediately rejoin the Paris Agreement and restore American leadership on the issue in pushing for even stronger climate standards, make climate change a central part of our trade, international, and justice goals, demand a worldwide ban on fossil fuel subsidies and tax breaks (!!!) and if the Green New Deal is passed, to sign it, as well as for the U.S. to achieve 100% clean energy and zero percent net emissions by 2050.

His healthcare plan is decent. It offers an immediate public option for all Americans regardless of private, employer, or no coverage, and generous new tax credits to put toward the cost of coverage. It strongly protects abortion rights and federal funding for Planned Parenthood, as well as rescinding the “gag rule” that prevents U.S. federal aid money from being used to provide or even talk about abortions in NGOs abroad. It attacks generic and drug price gouging. It calls for doubling the capital gains tax on the super-wealthy (from 20% to 39.5% paid on capital gains by anyone making over $1 million) to help fund healthcare reform. He also has a separate plan on the opioid crisis in America, and on older Americans and retirement, including the protection and re-funding of Medicare and Social Security.

His immigration plan is lengthy and detailed. He apologizes for and acknowledges the excessive deportation that occured during the Obama-Biden administrations, pledges to do better, and attacks Trump’s current inhumane acitivities on every front. The policy of children in cages, indefinite detention, the metered asylum system, and the Muslim Ban are gone on day one. In this and his LGBTQ plan, he notes the vulnerability of LGBTQ refugees, incuding LGBTQ refugees of color. He proposes streamlining of visa applications and prioritizing the immediate reunification of families. It also specifically states that ICE and CBP agents will be held directly accountable for inhumane treatment.

Speaking of which, his LGBTQ plan is comprehensive. It pays attention to multiple intersectional issues, down to the high rates of incarceration among trans people of color. (He also notes the rates of violence against trans women of color particularly.) He calls for a complete ban on conversion therapy and the discrimination against HIV-status individuals, as well as removing the ban on blood donation from gay and bisexual men. He will remove the transgender military ban immediately. He calls for funding for mental health and suicide prevention among LGBTQ populations.

His plan to empower workers calls for raising the federal minimum wage to $15, as well as indexing this to median hourly wages to ensure that working-class and middle-class wages grow closer to parity, and implementing strong legal protections for unions. He expresses support for striking workers and to empower the National Labor Relations Board in workplace advocacy. Farmworkers, domestic workers, gig economy workers, and other non-traditional labor groups are included in this. He will restore all Obama-Biden policies related to workplace safety and regulation.

His plan to restore American dignity and leadership in the world calls for immediately investing in election security and reform, restoration of the Voting Rights Act, immediately restoring White House press briefings and other Trump refusals of information, tackling criminal justice reform and systematic racial discrimination, calling for campaign finance reform, and basically blowing up all the stupid things the Trump administration does on a daily basis. It also calls for an end to all ongoing wars in the Middle East, restoring the Iran nuclear deal, and new arms control treaties with Russia, among general repairing of international alliances.

His plans for K-12 education and post-high school education call for greatly expanded funding across all levels of 2-year, 4-year, and other educational options. There will be no student loan payments for anyone making under $25,000 a year; everyone else will pay a capped amount and be completely forgiven after a certain period. Public servants qualify for up to $50,000 in loan forgiveness. This is not total loan forgiveness for everyone, which is obviously important for me and many of us, but it’s acceptable to start with. Additionally, his wife is a teacher and has a proven track record of calling for education investment and supporting public school funding.

His plan for housing addresses the needs of formerly incarcerated, LGBTQ, veteran, low-income, sexual assault survivor, black and Hispanic, and other vulnerable populations at risk of losing housing. It calls for a tax on companies and corporations with in excess of $50 billion in assets to fund comprehensive new housing initiatives, including $100 billion in accessible and low-income housing development. It includes extensive investment in public transportation and a high-speed rail system. This ties into his plan to repair infrastructure and invest in new technologies across the country.

His plan for criminal justice reform calls for the end of mass incarceration, the decriminalization of marijuana, the automatic expunging of all cannabis convictions, and an end on jail sentences for drug use. It highlights systematic institutional racism and the impact on black and brown people particularly. It calls for an end on all profiteering and private prisons. It focuses on reintegrating offenders into society and funding the needs of people released from prison. It proposes to “expand and use the power of the U.S. Justice Department to address systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors’ offices.” It broadens funding for social services and other programs for people who are otherwise placed into the prison pipeline.

There are more plans, which you can find here. These are the ones I read top to bottom. I am not by any means a Joe Biden fangirl; he was not my first choice, my second choice, or really anywhere on my list. However, having carefully read through his policy documents, I can say that:

He has at the least a good team of advisors who are keenly aware of the political climate, and is willing to both restore Obama-era standards and to improve on them where necessary. Obviously, all politicians’ promises are politicians’ promises, but this is a solid Democratic platform with obvious awareness of the progressive wing of the party.

If progressive legislation is passed in the House and Senate, he will sign it, including the Green New Deal.

He represents a clear and definite improvement over Donald Trump.

Is he everything we want? No. Are his policies better than I was expecting? Yes. I advise you to read through them for yourself. It has made me at least feel better about the likelihood of voting for him.

I realize it’s an unsexy position, especially on tumblr, to advocate for an old centrist white man. I’m not thrilled about having to do it. However, speaking as someone who was very resistant to Biden and still doesn’t agree with all of his previous legislative track record, that’s my consensus. He is a candidate who broadly aligns with values that I care about. His policies represent a concrete end to the damage of the Trump administration and gets us on the right track again.

Joe Biden, if he is the Democratic nominee, will receive my vote on November 3, 2020. I urge you to consider what I’ve laid out above and join me.

#hilary for ts #politics for ts #long post #if you're gonna argue with me about this #at least read the plans first #i'm still not super excited #but it's acceptable #it's much better than trump #it does more than i expected #and that's a good start #so there we have it #joe biden

[labourites]

Worn down by a decade of austerity, and mesmerised by and addicted to new technology and mindless entertainment, the people failed to take warnings of the dangers of their new leader seriously.

He was funny, charismatic, and popular, and in his apparent candour and jovial demeanour, made a refreshing change from the boring, serious and often aloof leaders of the past.

Almost imperceptibly at first, the democratic rights, institutions, processes, and protections built up over centuries were quickly, systematically, and ruthlessly rolled back.

The international bonds designed to maintain peace and prosperity forged in the aftermath of two World Wars were weakened then fatally undermined.

Full-time, well-paid, permanent, and meaningful jobs rooted in functioning communities were replaced with low-paid, insecure, and soul-destroying ones in anonymous hollowed-out hubs.

Decent pensions, free healthcare, and social care for all were gradually replaced with privatised, profit-motivated and individualised insurance.

Access to impartial, objective, intelligent and high-quality news and information designed to inform, educate, and entertain, which helped to foster tolerance of diversity and mutual respect, and which helped to ensure the powerful were held to account for their misdemeanours...

...breaches of trust, and outright lies and corruption, was replaced with partisan and polarising ignorant hateful and willfully misleading rhetoric designed to make people angry, stupid, suspicious and divided, yet simultaneously docile, obedient and malleable.

And the nation’s enormous wealth, produced by centuries of colonialism and the hard work and innovation of its people, was transferred into the hands of a powerful, brutal, manipulative, and insatiable elite.

And then, under cover of a global pandemic which led to 150,000 tragic but largely avoidable deaths — more than twice the number of all British civilian deaths in WWII — the increasingly authoritarian Government Ministers opportunistically wielded their previously unimaginable..

power not to protect and enhance the lives of Britain’s people, but to increase their own power, to line the pockets of their already grotesquely wealthy supporters by suspending the usual checks and balances and norms of behaviour...

. ..to usher in draconian legislation designed to ban protest and limit opposition, and to fill powerful positions with allies similarly prepared to say, do, or deny anything in exchange for the chance to have a seat at the top table.

Much of this the world has seen before: the rise of damaged charismatic ‘strong man’ leaders promising the impossible, prepared to say anything their fanatical supporters want to hear, no matter how untrue, irresponsible or dangerous...

...and who are unafraid to eliminate from their inner circle anyone daring to disagree with or blow the whistle on the direction of travel; the relentless demonization, scapegoating and silencing of ethnic, religious and non-conformist minorities as well as judges, lawyers...

intellectuals, experts, teachers, community leaders, campaigners, protesters, charities & disabled people, along with any journalistic or political voices challenging their authority; the systematic undermining & ‘taking back control’ of the legal, media and educational systems;

voter-suppression & gerrymandering; & the co-opting of very rich individuals & corporations into a project seemingly designed to restore the nation’s pride, but in reality whipping up a populist nationalist jingoistic & xenophobic mindset, based on fantasies of exceptionalism.

Everyone who knows any colonial or twentieth century history knows the script, and we know beyond any doubt that ordinary people, and especially the troubled or vulnerable, are in great danger.

We know that a handful of media owners, hedge-funders, bankers, corporate leaders and especially a tiny number of Libertarian ideologues with unimaginable wealth are now many years into their project to remove any and all barriers to ‘economic growth’ and profit maximisation -

...no matter what the true cost, such as worker, consumer, citizen & environmental protections designed to keep people and the environment safe & well - along with replacing the system of taxation & welfare with a barbarous survival of the fittest ideology, devoid of compassion.

The British Government is supported by a global network libertarian billionaire funded think tanks, private institutions, lobbyists, political publications and “news” media organisations.

For now, a thin veneer of democracy remains: a Government elected within a dysfunctional political system that requires fewer than three in ten of the electorate to support it has no need to publicly declare a dictatorship.

It just has to keep voters angry, resentful and divided by offering a constant supply of scapegoats and folk devils, onto which the problems caused by their greed, cruelty and mismanagement can be projected.

The Govt know that all they need do is invest in sufficient propaganda to convince their passionate supporters that even though the measures they are taking may initially appear to be antidemocratic & will cause them hardship to begin with - perhaps even for a generation or two.

— ultimately all the Government’s actions are necessary and in the country’s long-term interests, to persuade their supporters that only a strong and ruthless Government can save and protect the British people from the barbaric Others, who hate and envy ‘us’, and who want to destroy ‘our’ unique heritage and cultural identity by replacing it with ‘their’ weak, impure, emasculated and inferior version of ‘our’ once globally respected Great British bulldog spirit.

Like all tyrants before them, they faithfully promise to represent ‘the will of the people’, & to give their loyal supporters liberty & ‘real’ freedom — freedom from a ‘tyrannical nanny state’; freedom from the ‘inferior foreigners’ stealing our resources & dictating our laws; freedom from the ‘faceless technocrats and bureaucrats’ who don’t understand real, authentic people like the Government do; freedom from ‘an intolerant woke virtue-signalling authoritarian Left’ and an out of touch ‘liberal metropolitan elite’ who speak with forked tongues and...

who serve only their own interests; freedom from so-called ‘experts’ motivated by selfish ambition, who feather their nests on the endless gravy-train paid for with unjust taxes; and freedom from the ‘ungrateful pushy minorities’ and ‘deviant migrants’ who seek to exploit the...

resources, tolerance & kindness of the British people. They claim these enemies within want to impose their alien anti-British culture, & to force to submit & eventually usurp the the strong, proud & superior indigenous white British population gifted with ‘common sense wisdom’.

In reality, what they have actually given the British people is by far the most antidemocratic, intolerant & authoritarian populist nationalist Government in modern British history, who care not one jot for the people they disingenuously claim to serve, & who are systematically..

dismantling the progress Britain has made toward the noble objective of a fairer & more meritocratic society, formulated after millions of citizens were killed resisting an antidemocratic, intolerant & authoritarian populist nationalist Govt which increasingly resembles our own.

How did we get here? Forty uninterrupted years of increasingly deregulated free-market capitalism.

#great britain #british politics #boris johnson #ukpolitics #kier starmer #tory lies #uk papers #uk parliament #tory corruption #uk labour #fuck boris #fuck the tories #capitalism is evil #capitalism #david cameron #british problems #Brexit Reality

[narrowtriangle33-blog]

This is the karma of Working Class white people.

"“Sorry, not sorry. These people are not worthy of any sympathy. They have run around for decades bitching about poor minorities not “working hard enough,” or that their situation is “their own fault.” Well guess what? It’s not so great when it’s you now, is it? Bunch of deplorables, and if they die quicker than the rest of us that just means the country will be better off in the long run.”

“Is it bad news or good news? Middle aged undereducated white Americans are Donald Trump’s base. They brought us this clown and ensuing insanity. It’s bad news they are dying off if you happen to love one of them or are one of them. But, it’s the welcome news of hope that without that demographic dwindling and eventually gone, our chances of another Trump are significantly less. Now that’s good news.”

“maybe they should takt the advice they used to give minorities, take responsibilty and pull up your boot straps,only when it’s your boot straps you find it’s not so easy as a sound byte.”

“Hey as long as those white people keep voting republican they will continue to die off….. How stupid could you be….”

“I don’t see much profit in planning on them ever voting democrat. However, there can be progress in forcing them to eat the shit they’ve been feeding other people for so long.”

“I for one have little sympathy for these despairing whites. If they can’t compete against people of color when everything has been rigged in their favor, then there’s really no help for them. Trump and his G(r)OPers will do little to elevate their lot. If anything, these poor whites will be hired to dig grave pits and assemble their own coffins.”

“They have every know advantage in America; culturally, environmentally, educationally, etc. There is absolutely no reason that they should be in such despair. They should pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”

“As long as it only affected minorities, whether it was jobs, drugs, or a decent life it was an non issue. We were told by these very people that we were being to sensitive and not really trying to get a job, or the worst bs of all that we just wanted to have a free handout rather than ever work a real job. Well you know what, karma is a bitch and if these people choose to continue to vote Republican and try to deny other from attaining the American dream, they deserve no better than what they are getting!”

“Wow! You’re really going to sit on your unearned perch of white privilege and tell us, US?, people of color that WE? are standing above them and “sneering down” at them. These people are the white racist who voted in a white racist as president. And you want us to look upon our oppressors as victims? And seriously you show your own arrogant racism with your whitesplaining ‘splaining?” comment. You’ve got some serious nerve trying to use our own terms against us in a blind bid to have us feel sorry for the vile racist oppressors of this so called society.”

“I agree it’s sad. And likely it is due to the collapse of the structure they built based on entitlement. Males of other races have had the same challenges the whole time, and have been told to suck it up buttercup. Time for these guys to take a dose of the same medicine they’ve been doling out for years.”

“Those numbers ain’t even real. They are made up by the white supremacist power structure to make the over privileged oppressors look like some kind of victim. It’s sick, and disgusting. It’s the same kind of crap they do with crime statistics. They try to make us, POC, the victims of white hate and oppression for centuries. Look like the criminal minded victimizers and the racist white power structure {ie the white population from top to bottom, upper, middle and lower class alike} look like victims.”

“One feels maybe a modicum of sympathy for those “white, poorly educated, middle-age Americans”. One does not wish for one’s fellow citizens to suffer. But, those same “white, poorly educated middle age Americans” need to own up to their responsibility, if not complicity, in their own predicament. This is what happens when you vote for Republicans to public office. Republicans are a disease, a pestilence, a cancer on the American body politic. Republicans do not give one goddam whit about “white, poorly educated, middle age Americans”. Republicans only care about their wealthy, corporate benefactors. Republicans only care about inflicting harm and suffering on everyone who is not elite or wealthy. Stop voting Republicans into office. Start voting in people who have your best interests in heart and at hand. Otherwise, continue to feel this despair white America. Republicans will NEVER help you overcome your economic plight.”

“In the 60 ‘s &, 70 ‘s these people didn’t have to compete for jobs .they got jobs because they were white even when blacks were more ,qualified. . Now it’s a knowledge economy and more minorities are getting higher education. .For years these same people voted against their own interests by voting Republican.. No they’re reaping what they sow.”

“Difficult to have any sympathy when My coverage is threatened because ignorant white trash are too stupid to know that the ACA and Evil Obamacare are the same thing. The factories closed down forty years ago. If you didn’t leave Detroit or Erie or Kentucky as I did to stay current you need blame no one but yourself.”

“This is where standing around basking in white privilege and chanting USA! USA! USA! when presented with differing and challenging opinions for decades has taken them. You have to go out and make things happen for yourself, change jobs and even move if necessary to make a better life sometimes. Nobody who wasn’t born straight and white fails to understand this. These people would rather project their own failures and shortcomings onto minority groups, buying into myths about non-existent welfare queens and trickle-down economics and all of the other snake oil sold by the right and wallow in nostalgia over how “great” (for them) everything was in the 1950s when they could pull themselves into the 21st century.”"

#fuck white supremacy #fuck the usa #fuck the republicans #fuck white people #please spread this #please sign this petition #please speak up #please spread awareness #please spread the word #share the word #spread awareness #spread the word #spread the message #spread this #raiseawareness #raise awareness #help reblog #help raise awareness #help post

[realitysangle]

Okay, I’ve read Joe Biden’s plans.

I’ve just sat down and spent several hours actually reading all the damn plans on his website, the whole thing, so you don’t have to. And here’s the conclusion:

They’re pretty good.

Are they absolutely everything we want immediately? Maybe not. Are they a solid Democratic agenda anyway? Yes they are. Are they better than Trump?

Light years!

His Violence Against Women plan is lengthy, detailed, and pays specific attention to violence against Native, lesbian and bisexual, low-income, disabled, rural, transgender (especially trans women of color) immigrant, domestic abuse victims, and other vulnerable women. He calls for replacing and expanding Obama-era policies and funding for campus sexual assault programs that DeVos trashed, and for providing money for culturally specific services that are sensitive to the diverse backgrounds of survivors. He also notes that sexual assault, while it predominantly affects women and girls, needs to be taken seriously and addressed for people of all gender identities.

His gun safety plan is forceful and lays out several steps for banning assault weapons, taking existing weapons from offenders, closing gun purchase background check and other legal loopholes, addressing the intersection between domestic violence and weapons ownership, and reducing or eliminating weapons and ammunition stockpiling.

His plan for tackling climate change and creating green jobs is also lengthy. He makes the connection between economic, environmental, and racial justice. He pledges to immediately rejoin the Paris Agreement and restore American leadership on the issue in pushing for even stronger climate standards, make climate change a central part of our trade, international, and justice goals, demand a worldwide ban on fossil fuel subsidies and tax breaks (!!!) and if the Green New Deal is passed, to sign it, as well as for the U.S. to achieve 100% clean energy and zero percent net emissions by 2050.

His healthcare plan is decent. It offers an immediate public option for all Americans regardless of private, employer, or no coverage, and generous new tax credits to put toward the cost of coverage. It strongly protects abortion rights and federal funding for Planned Parenthood, as well as rescinding the “gag rule” that prevents U.S. federal aid money from being used to provide or even talk about abortions in NGOs abroad. It attacks generic and drug price gouging. It calls for doubling the capital gains tax on the super-wealthy (from 20% to 39.5% paid on capital gains by anyone making over $1 million) to help fund healthcare reform. He also has a separate plan on the opioid crisis in America, and on older Americans and retirement, including the protection and re-funding of Medicare and Social Security.

His immigration plan is lengthy and detailed. He apologizes for and acknowledges the excessive deportation that occured during the Obama-Biden administrations, pledges to do better, and attacks Trump’s current inhumane acitivities on every front. The policy of children in cages, indefinite detention, the metered asylum system, and the Muslim Ban are gone on day one. In this and his LGBTQ plan, he notes the vulnerability of LGBTQ refugees, incuding LGBTQ refugees of color. He proposes streamlining of visa applications and prioritizing the immediate reunification of families. It also specifically states that ICE and CBP agents will be held directly accountable for inhumane treatment.

Speaking of which, his LGBTQ plan is comprehensive. It pays attention to multiple intersectional issues, down to the high rates of incarceration among trans people of color. (He also notes the rates of violence against trans women of color particularly.) He calls for a complete ban on conversion therapy and the discrimination against HIV-status individuals, as well as removing the ban on blood donation from gay and bisexual men. He will remove the transgender military ban immediately. He calls for funding for mental health and suicide prevention among LGBTQ populations.

His plan to empower workers calls for raising the federal minimum wage to $15, as well as indexing this to median hourly wages to ensure that working-class and middle-class wages grow closer to parity, and implementing strong legal protections for unions. He expresses support for striking workers and to empower the National Labor Relations Board in workplace advocacy. Farmworkers, domestic workers, gig economy workers, and other non-traditional labor groups are included in this. He will restore all Obama-Biden policies related to workplace safety and regulation.

His plan to restore American dignity and leadership in the world calls for immediately investing in election security and reform, restoration of the Voting Rights Act, immediately restoring White House press briefings and other Trump refusals of information, tackling criminal justice reform and systematic racial discrimination, calling for campaign finance reform, and basically blowing up all the stupid things the Trump administration does on a daily basis. It also calls for an end to all ongoing wars in the Middle East, restoring the Iran nuclear deal, and new arms control treaties with Russia, among general repairing of international alliances.

His plans for K-12 education and post-high school education call for greatly expanded funding across all levels of 2-year, 4-year, and other educational options. There will be no student loan payments for anyone making under $25,000 a year; everyone else will pay a capped amount and be completely forgiven after a certain period. Public servants qualify for up to $50,000 in loan forgiveness. This is not total loan forgiveness for everyone, which is obviously important for me and many of us, but it’s acceptable to start with. Additionally, his wife is a teacher and has a proven track record of calling for education investment and supporting public school funding.

His plan for housing addresses the needs of formerly incarcerated, LGBTQ, veteran, low-income, sexual assault survivor, black and Hispanic, and other vulnerable populations at risk of losing housing. It calls for a tax on companies and corporations with in excess of $50 billion in assets to fund comprehensive new housing initiatives, including $100 billion in accessible and low-income housing development. It includes extensive investment in public transportation and a high-speed rail system. This ties into his plan to repair infrastructure and invest in new technologies across the country.

His plan for criminal justice reform calls for the end of mass incarceration, the decriminalization of marijuana, the automatic expunging of all cannabis convictions, and an end on jail sentences for drug use. It highlights systematic institutional racism and the impact on black and brown people particularly. It calls for an end on all profiteering and private prisons. It focuses on reintegrating offenders into society and funding the needs of people released from prison. It proposes to “expand and use the power of the U.S. Justice Department to address systemic misconduct in police departments and prosecutors’ offices.” It broadens funding for social services and other programs for people who are otherwise placed into the prison pipeline.

There are more plans, which you can find here. These are the ones I read top to bottom. I am not by any means a Joe Biden fangirl; he was not my first choice, my second choice, or really anywhere on my list. However, having carefully read through his policy documents, I can say that:

He has at the least a good team of advisors who are keenly aware of the political climate, and is willing to both restore Obama-era standards and to improve on them where necessary. Obviously, all politicians’ promises are politicians’ promises, but this is a solid Democratic platform with obvious awareness of the progressive wing of the party.

If progressive legislation is passed in the House and Senate, he will sign it, including the Green New Deal.

He represents a clear and definite improvement over Donald Trump.

Is he everything we want? No. Are his policies better than I was expecting? Yes. I advise you to read through them for yourself. It has made me at least feel better about the likelihood of voting for him.

I realize it’s an unsexy position, especially on tumblr, to advocate for an old centrist white man. I’m not thrilled about having to do it. However, speaking as someone who was very resistant to Biden and still doesn’t agree with all of his previous legislative track record, that’s my consensus. He is a candidate who broadly aligns with values that I care about. His policies represent a concrete end to the damage of the Trump administration and gets us on the right track again.

Joe Biden, if he is the Democratic nominee, will receive my vote on November 3, 2020. I urge you to consider what I’ve laid out above and join me.

#Joe Biden

[videogamesincolor]

Resident Evil 2 (2019) - Not quite the ‘re-imagining’ it purports to be (SPOILERS)

[Written: Feb 4-25, 2019. As always, act brand new on my post, you will catch the fastest block in the west.]

The 2019 iteration of Resident Evil 2 shares a lot of common ground with games like Silent Hill: Shattered Memories versus something like Bluepoint Games’ Shadow of the Colossus or even Sega’s Yakuza Kiwami series. 

The first game is a re-imagining – effectively a reboot –, recreated from the ground up with almost little to do with its predecessor. The others are genuine remakes that change very little in the way of the framework or structure of the game and merely recreate or repair its presentation with the graphical fidelity (or control schemes) of the present era.

While both profit and rely on nostalgia, a remake has the specific ‘obligation’ to maintain what came before it. A re-imagining has cart blanche to do what it wants under the pretense that it has no obligation to restore or replicate. In the case of Resident Evil 2, it’s a bit funny in the fact that the existence of its reboot was reliant on the 2002 remake of Resident Evil.

During the re-release of the 2002 Resident Evil remake in 2015, Capcom more or less ransomed the idea of making a “remake” of Resident Evil 2 by placing the burden of that reality on the shoulders of Resident Evil HD. Or rather, the shoulders of their consumer base.

If Resident Evil HD didn’t meet publisher sales expectations, no “remake”. It was an easy sell, of course, because the Gamecube remake was not a game everyone played (on account of Nintendo console exclusivity). To no surprise, Resident Evil HD ended up being their “fastest selling digital title” in 2015. That same year, Capcom officially announced the Resident Evil 2 “remake” was becoming reality, went radio silent, and the aged fandom wept.

Common knowledge, but Capcom originally wanted a remake for RE2O in the vein of the 2002 remake. Mikami, however, was preoccupied with Resident Evil 4. He would never return to look back on the series because Capcom was Capcom, which inspired Mikami to depart from the company.

I think the assumption folk made (at the time), was that because the reboot was necessitated by the financial success of Resident Evil HD, Capcom might go for an experience similar to the 2002 remake, but with the graphical fidelity of present day consoles.

Graphical remasters and remakes are a “hit and miss” production. They happen because publishers (and by extension, developers), know there is profit to made in the machine of nostalgia, not (necessarily) because they’re interested in preserving or restoring old games. You see developers clearly holding back the desire to remix instead of being completely restorative, removing things they either didn’t like or expanding on things that couldn’t be done with previous hardware. 

Yet, “if it ain’t broke, just update the visuals, maintain the rest”, is an adage some prefer. More often than not, remakes end up splitting older and younger audiences down the middle regardless of what changes or what remains. And that’s without taking into account bugged and half-hearted releases that never get addressed by devs.

But, Resident Evil 7 (“we swear it’s not a reboot”) happened, and it was fairly clear what direction Capcom was going to go in. While Capcom and fanbase for the game were content with calling Resident Evil 2 a “remake”, Capcom later insisted, “This is not a remake. It’s a retelling, a new game built from the ground up.” So, on the surface, RE2R definitely has more common with Shattered Memories than it does 2002’s Resident Evil. But, where Shattered Memories wasn’t interested in treading so familiar waters, the same cannot be said of this reboot.

The 2019 iteration of Resident Evil 2 is a monkey’s paw wish of a game, just based on the observation of how the established fanbase is reacting and my own personal feelings (as someone with no nostalgia for it). For some, they got exactly the experience they wanted (more RE7). For others, modifying the game (on PC, naturally) to recreate an experience closer to the 1998 release is a must. And then there are some who are simply disinterested in the game, content with the original, or dissatisfied with the creative or business choices made by Capcom (and given Capcom’s track record, I can’t blame them).

Within the game itself, there is a lot about the reboot that feels unfocused, hindered by budget, last minute decisions, a blandly retold narrative, and trying to cling to abstract bones in an effort to maintain the audience it courted, when abandoning those bones might’ve been a better idea.

I. Presentation – The "Realistic” “Re-Imagining”

If Marvin’s final moments with Leon or Claire weren’t enough to convince you the of the severity of the situation, maybe a emotionally manipulative scene with Dad and Zombie child will.

The Resident Evil series is not one known for its screenwriting. If anyone’s being real honest themselves, the shit’s bad 90% of the time, reached peak stupidity in RE6 and just kinda self-destructed from there. YMMV, but Resident Evil is the “so-bad-bad-its-good” game you could enjoy up to a point. The 2002 Resident Evil remake took a particularly poor script localization and improved upon its delivery, right down to the voice direction (which could still be a bit stilted). Yet, you never got the feeling RE1R was striving to be anything other than what it was: A cinematic-based video game that reveled in the aesthetic of Gothic environment design, mood, and b-movie monsters with a world domination plot thrown for extra spice. It had a decent sense of humor, and often poked fun at itself.

RE2O built its foundation on the basic principles of the original (isolation, aesthetic, framing, mood), but focused a little more on its humor, body horror and action-movie flair. The plot of RE2O was as bare-bones as it got with the presentation of its narrative. A new cop and an AWOL cop’s bike enthusiast sister wind up trapped in a police station, accidentally stumble across a corporate conspiracy and must escape a giant underground complex before it blows up. Simple stuff. And the dialog – with a fairly improved localization and English performances – got you from point A to point B.

For everything I didn’t like about RE7 (from its aesthetic, plot, combat, creature design, and its bologna white characters), it was, to some degree, an attempt to recapture the camp and b-movie horror that RE4 so firmly embraced without damaging its atmosphere. RE7 was self-aware enough to embrace the inanity that was its premise in a way the series had only recently attempted again in Resident Evil Revelations 2, which also had its tongue firmly placed in its cheek. Resident Evil is a game comfortable with its silliness, but can still deliver a tense mood and atmosphere.

It’s disappointing that RE2R adopts the tone of, “Please, take me seriously”, with all the self-awareness that RE6 had when it tried to be an action/thriller.

RE2R’s primary issue is tone and presentation. From the jump you can tell the scenario writers of RE2R want the game to be this gritty drama with “complex characters”, grounded in reality, right down to the HBO-levels of profanity and the redundant use of “bitch” littered throughout the script. In an attempt to remold a cast of characters designed for the absurd into “realistic” persons, what you get characters largely disinterested in their circumstances. Claire and Leon seem only mildly inconvenienced by the end of the world. They casually shout over explosions (that might as well not have happened), and often can’t be arsed to sound anything other than annoyed by most events that unfold around them as repetitive canned reactions regurgitate through the speakers.

The script doesn’t trust scenes like Leon’s one-to-one moments with Marvin to sell the dire circumstance. So, casually chauvinistic characters like the Gunshop owner (who got comically bodied by zombies) becomes a saccharine drama piece that stalls the progression of the plot in what might be one of most disingenuous moments I’ve seen in a game. When monsters like William Birkin, Mr. X, the Licker, and the plant monsters eventually begin to appear, they stand out and heighten the already problematic uncanny valley present in the game, and seem better suited for the elder games of the series.

You never really get moments like Chief Irons sorrowfully lamenting, “And to think taxidermy used to be my hobby”, Ada shrugging dismissively at Leon’s pride as a police officer, Annette getting conked upside the head by falling debris, or Claire tricking Mr. X into jumping over the ledge to go after the G-Virus hidden in Sherry’s locket and straight up calling him a sucker. The drab, washed out presentation of the plot, played so deadly serious, honestly made for a joyless experience.

RE2R asks and answers the questions like, “What if Leon was wearing civvies on the way to work?” or “What if Ada Wong pretended to be an FBI agent?” A lot of it comes off like a fan novelization that proudly boasts “My version of how Resident Evil 2 would go”. The first time you read it, maybe it’s an interesting take to indulge, but the more you revisit it, the more unessential or cosmetic the changes end up feeling. (The only real cosmetic change that doesn’t seem weird to me is the idea that the police hijacked a museum and made it their dumping grounds.)

A lot of changes to the plot seem to function largely on the assumption that things like Ada posing as a civilian, Sherry being sent to the police station by her parents (as opposed to leaving her in a unprotected living residence with no immediate help), the RPD knowing about the Mansion Incident and brushing off the survivors (Chris, Jill, Barry, etc.), or Ben the reporter locking himself a jail cell to avoid other monsters, are things that strain suspension of belief or just wouldn’t happen in “real life”. So things of that nature either get removed or reworked altogether, often times for jump scares telegraphed a mile away, or left hanging for prequel baiting (because Capcom knows folk are going to be clamoring for another remake of RE1 and RE3).

The plot and its progression feels condensed down to something that’s like the bullet points version of RE2O. It over-simplifies what was already a simpleton of a narrative, largely to compress a lot of events into two campaigns that now never work in harmony. To add insult to that injury, Claire and Leon never communicate, let alone work together. They pretty much forget the other exists, thus making that friendship pretty non-existent.

Say hello to your friends. Say hello people who care. Nothing’s better than friends.

With regard to the two campaigns, for all the focus Capcom places on Leon – the mascot of the reboot itself –, Claire’s campaign is probably a better presentation of a rebooted RE2O, even with its drawbacks to Claire as a character overall (more on that later). The highlight of Claire’s campaign is the fact that her friendship with Sherry Birkin remains intact. I actually think it gets a better representation here than in the original, or what was only marginally improved in side-games like Darkside Chronicles. The downside is that the two interact even less than they did in RE2O, the plot separating them immediately after forming a partnership.

There are some genuine moments of scripted walk-n-talk between Claire and Sherry as they explore the early parts of the game, which in turn makes Claire a far more engaging character than she is with Leon (who is devoid of any real charm or personality in this reboot). The downside, however, is that Sherry is reduced to a prop, where she was a far more proactive party in the original game. That and by the end of Claire’s campaign, there is a lot of “shitty mom” apologia from Claire, whose basic human decency makes her better guardian than Annette Birkin.

Annette Birkin is questionably re-framed as a sympathetic and even tragic hero character who “never meant for this to happen”, never-mind she and her husband (who is also framed as a victim) were involved in the testing, abuse and deaths of orphaned children in the name of science. Then there’s the whole virus that turns people into zombies. But, yeah, what a tragic figure.

My primary issue with the narrative of Leon’s campaign is that they decide to tie him more into the Umbrella plot (aka, Ada and Claire’s shtick) instead of having him focus on finding a way out and helping other people. The reboot actually had the opportunity to employ the “help the other survivors” bit I always felt was dropped in the original (but revisited in Outbreak), and put Leon’s altruistic character into more action. But, then the reboot removes this motivation altogether by making Marvin and RPD’s rescue efforts a complete and utter failure (thanks, Capcom). 

His plot lacks any real momentum, largely because the game nixes his original cast dynamic. Despite nothing crucial happening in his campaign until the end of it, his bears the greatest consequence on the reboot’s compressed narrative. The outright removal of his friendship with Claire, and even the briefest interaction he has with Sherry, makes Leon pretty bland as hell. 

The only time he comes off as remotely personable is when he interacted with Marvin. Otherwise, it’s one eye open, one eye closed with this iteration of the character. The fact that he’s less of a take charge personality, and more of pushover (to sad degrees) also makes for less entertaining interaction all around.

You can tell someone with no ability to write or direct romantic subplots handled this. Whoof.

And while I’m not against reworking the Ada/Leon dynamic where the start of an attraction is a little less like a brick to the head (”Ada wouldn’t do that. I KNOW her!”)?  A): this is Capcom, so that didn’t happen, B):  It’s still pretty much like a brick to the head, only this time it’s last minute, with less foundation, and outright unimaginative. Nothing about the execution of the “romance” in this game works at all. Where Ada and Leon at the very least had a functional rapport and partnership in RE2O, in the reboot the majority of their time is spent in passive aggressive disharmony. The outright antagonism between the two characters in the reboot is not only boring, but not remotely conducive for what follows near the climax.

As something that takes up the majority of his narrative, for worse instead of better, a lot the dialog – a direct consequence of what they choose to do with Ada – is comprised of uninspired “enemies-to-lovers” shtick, right down to drab flirt dialog and throwing one’s words back at the other (“I didn’t realize you were keeping score” / “I didn’t realize we were keeping score”).

The worst thing about his campaign is Ada’s depiction. The reboot effectively turns her into a character who does more damage to her own agenda than Leon being remotely present. I get the writers think having Ada posing as a federal agent is “smart” or “realistic”, but the character instead comes off as more suspicious than a civvie with a gun. She’s a pretty terrible spy in this reboot. Reboot Ada is an antagonistic character with zero charisma or personality, there’s no fun in finding out her ulterior motives. On top of that, the FBI shtick is probably the dullest iteration of the character since her “fringe observer” status in her RE6 campaign. 

But, where you had complete control of her and she was motivated by her own subplot (that did intersect with Leon, sometimes), realized in gameplay and plot, RE2R reduces Ada to a purely cinematic and expositional tag-along character with no agency in the narrative. A lot of what was done to and happens to Ada’s character is purely in service of Leon’s plot and actions. They really fire-bombed the character, but if you’re a hardcore Ada/Leon shipper, then her function will have served its purpose, both for you and Leon’s arc.

Marvin Branagh is humanized on such a level he is no longer the same character from the original game, but his role is effectively the same one. Like Ada, Marvin was re-contextualized largely as a sacrifice to Leon’s character arc (this is not a vibe you get with Claire’s campaign ever). Chief Irons, who feels like he appears out of nowhere, with no buildup, has been reduced to this kind’ve ineffectual kidnapper who disappears just as quickly.

Resident Evil is at its best when it knows it’s an interactive horror b-movie – with action elements – and has a director who knows how to balance all those elements. Beyond the singular moment wherein Claire Redfield declares “I’m gonna kill the monster” while wielding a six shooter and Annette Birkin is actively cheering for the death of her Frankenstein husband, RE2R never tries to be that kind’ve game. It actively runs away from schlock, and so it is the less remarkable product.

Things gleamed from Resident Evil 2′s abandoned direction offer a far more interesting “re-imagining” than 2019 end result. To a degree.

Part of the problem with Capcom’s attempt to “re-imagine” RE2O is that it wants to cling so badly to the framework and story beats of the original game instead of creating an identity of its own. It wants the ability to say, “we’re a totally different story!”, but at the same time does very little to become a different story, and exiles itself to this island of nowhere because it actively alienates the connections to the games that come before and after it.

This is where I think, while a lot of people disliked Shattered Memories, it’s a better re-imagining of the original Silent Hill, because its bold enough to actually commit to that definition. Capcom’s execution here is pretty half-hearted, deliberately so.

I’ve only just chosen to acknowledge the prototype of Resident Evil 2, but despite knowing the devs were not happy with the end result (and just scrapped it), it does a lot of things that this reboot honestly should’ve at least attempted.

Not only does it handle the character plots in a way where scenario nonsense would not be a problem, you basically had (what are now) established (or nixed) characters in different roles, reasonably isolated from the RE1 plot, working in tandem with your player characters (Eliza and Leon) and their cast of characters, who were never designed to meet until the apparent end of the game. Also, Marvin had a larger role and a functional relationship with Leon (I hate Capcom).

As a “retelling” of RE2O, RE2R is pretty weak. There are so many ways Capcom could’ve “re-imagine” RE2O if they were being genuine about that, but the final product more or less proves they weren’t. It’s over-reliance on referencing or leaning on things from RE2O hinders more than helps the game. It invites comparison to what is a better product despite its age. 

The reboot wants to be taken seriously, and does everything it can to project that image to the detriment of its presentation. RE2O more or less reveled in its silliness, and shlocky horror movie tropes and knew you would enjoy the ride anyway.

Separate Ways, Broken Scenarios

Claire and Leon working together, solving the problems...

RE2O’s scenario system was a fairly interesting way of presenting the story of two characters, and I always wondered why this was never more of a thing in games. Claire and Leon’s plot were separated on two discs (PS1). Leon was first, Claire, second. Completing one character’s “A Scenario” unlocked the other character’s “B Scenario”. Certain gameplay actions created minor consequences to affect the respective character’s scenarios (if you took a certain weapon or item over another, it wouldn’t appear in the other character’s alternate scenario).

The scenario system and the corresponding plots of the player characters were clearly developed in tandem with each other. Whatever goofs arose from therein, the narrative position of the characters remained firmly in place (largely because they were told through cinematics).

Claire’s B scenario always felt the most changed because the cinematics had to accommodate for a change to get Claire in places I was otherwise unaccustomed to seeing her. Legit, some of the cinematic differences were wild.

Back in June 2018, Capcom made it clear that RE2R was not intended to have a scenario campaign at all. The decision was (apparently) made back in 2017, when it was clear doing an A/B scenario was going to be costly on a AAA budget. It was only going to be a single campaign for Leon and Claire. So, Claire and Leon’s campaigns in RE2R are, structurally and plot-wise, “Scenario A and B did a fusion dance”.

In execution, their campaigns are like choose your own adventures. It asks the question “what if you went with Claire?” and its answer is “Leon de-spawns and doesn’t appear again until the end of the game”. It’s definitely not “Two strangers walkie-talkie a plan to escape a zombie infested city”.

Inside or outside, the B Scenario for the player characters barely differentiates itself from Scenario A

In this case, they should’ve stuck to their guns, just released one campaign per character (it’s not exactly like the absence of the B scenarios would actually impact their sales. Not with the fans whipped into a frenzy) and focused on getting their plot to work a little better.

“Claire B” and “Leon B” come off like a slapdash cut-and-paste job that made me question whether or not I had hit something on the controller that was causing the sequences to skip right through whole gameplay segments. Yet, now armed with the knowledge of a year before, it would explain why nothing in this game’s presentation ever feels like it gels, or was hastily put together.

Another issue the RE2R’s alternate scenarios make is not maintaining the characters static narrative placement as RE2O did. I think this is where you really start to see how little interest Capcom had in Claire as a character versus Leon. 

RE2R’s “Claire A” Scenario opens with a brief clip of Claire on her bike, talking to someone on the phone about Chris, then hearing something in the gas station store. The game then proceeds to put her in the exact same circumstances as Leon, which is baffling. They really have her doing the Leon shtick and repeats what she did in “Leon A”, but inside the gas station. Whack.

If you play “Leon A” first, she appears out of nowhere like she’s been attacked outside the gas station somewhere nearby. Her motorcycle isn’t even anywhere in view, so, the natural assumption you make is that maybe they’ll show that later when you play “Claire B”. Maybe there’s another area you can explore.

Nah. In “Claire B” the exact same cinematic plays again, trailer music starts, cut to black, and, it jumps to her intro scene in “Leon A”. At no point are you given a unique gameplay level or cinematic for Claire to bridge the gap between Leon heading for the store exit and Claire being chased by zombies that suddenly surrounded the gas station. She lit. just spawned into the area! Whack.

Now for some awkward car dialog

The original game was smart enough to give you a cinematic where she scoped out an empty diner and happened across some zombies while Leon’s boots were being accosted outside by zombies near his jeep. It really sold the idea of events happening concurrently to two different people within the same area.

Claire in “Claire B” doesn’t even get a section where she runs through the city after escaping the T-bone incident. The game just drops you in the graveyard, and then drops you at the rear police station gate where Leon spots her outside. You do a lot of backtracking in RPD with zero character interaction, and then, about an hour into the game, you end up on the exact same track as you did in “Claire A” (meeting Sherry, saving Sherry, Birkin #3-5 fight, escape) with no scene restructuring or whatnot, just the standard “Extended Ending” shtick.

“Leon B” in RE2R shares the exact same problems as “Claire B”. It feels like an abridged version of “Leon A”. Beyond Leon standing outside the gas station store and instant transmission’ing to the back of the police station there are zero story differences. But, with Leon you always have the reassurance that you can just play “Leon A” if you want a more complete experience.

Driving motorcycles in the rain is, factually, an accident waiting to happen

Claire regardless of the scenario you choose for her, A or B, will never get a unique starting gameplay moment of her own. While I think they did a far better job of reworking “Claire A” better than either of Leon’s scenarios, that’s disappointing. Claire really feels like something of a afterthought. 

Other detractors from the scenario nightmare include Mr. X following you around in the A Scenario and the B Scenario, instead of the B scenario only. Mr. X went from a fairly unsettling stalker of a boss enemy, who worked on slasher movie principals (the monster appears out of nowhere when you least expect him), then quickly transformed in a wearying exercise of dodging an enemy type that overstays its welcome. Both scenarios feature the helicopter crash and skylight Licker ambush, etc., etc.. 

If they couldn’t build upon or better realize what the 1998 game did, then the B Scenario was best left to the wayside. Naturally, Capcom didn’t follow their own advice and the want to cater to nostalgia bit them in the ass. 

Water is wet.

II. Gameplay – Night of the Living Bullet Sponges

Lickers (who are still terrifying) are practically one-hit-kill monsters now. Yippie.

There is a lot about the cinematic presentation of the elder Resident Evil games that defines much of its identity. An identity strong enough that most games that came out during the high point of its career were content to copy or refine its formula (Temco’s Fatal Frame, Konami’s Silent Hill 3, and Capcom’s Onimusha and Haunting Ground for example). There is a lot that loses the more it – a two decade old franchise – attempts to keep up with an ever-changing landscape of what’s considered modern-gaming-at-the-moment, instead of going to sleep like Onimusha, or even being forcefully put out to pasture like Silent Hill and Dead Space.

RE2R is a standard third person shooter that de-emphasizes cinematic presentation within its plot and its game space. There are no establishing cinematics, and the Kamiya action-movie-esque flair that made the last stretch of the climax what it is, is thoroughly absent. RE2R instead opts to – present the plot of the game completely within the game space itself with minimal cinematics. Sometimes it works, other times, it doesn’t.

Lickers drop unceremoniously on your head in your first encounter, Mr. X just appears out of nowhere then hounds you like Jehovah’s Witnesses, the sound of a helicopter crash goes whizzing by in time for you to walk past the model that’s already in the wall, Marvin becomes a zombie with no real sense of mourning or terror about his passing, Ada Wong gets the worst on-screen send off, etc. Cinematic moments that were meant to emphasize and foreshadow the decaying situation of the police station and the stakes of the characters are just kinda nullified.

Sherry Birkin’s gameplay segment is one of my favorite parts of the reboot.

I think one of the reasons Claire’s campaign leaves a better impression on me than that of Leon’s is what they decided to with Sherry Birkin’s part in her plot. Leon’s scenario has Ada trudging through a boring sewer corridor hunting for fuse boxes and then the game knocks her out so Leon can come to her rescue. With Sherry, you get something a little more creative, something that doesn’t treat her like a momentary distraction from the player character like it does with Ada. The entire orphanage level, from its presentation, to its level design, is probably what I would’ve liked to haven seen more of in the game.

The game puts you in the shoes of Sherry, but instead of traveling through sewers on your own, you’re exploring and searching an empty building that invokes a mood similar to – but not like – 2002’s Resident Evil. Obviously, this choice was made to keep Leon and Claire’s paths from intersecting (fuck that, I guess), and in a lot of ways, the game abandons the mechanics of Resident Evil and becomes a modern Clocktower game.

Chief Irons becomes the scissorman to Sherry’s Jennifer Simpson, and you, the player, have to navigate a fairly limited space to get away from him. They basically expand upon the Natalia stealth segments from Resident Evil Revelations 2 and create a fantastic gameplay segment full of distressing near misses and a legitimate win for Sherry. (I only wish they had allowed her to lock Irons in the bathroom. He would’ve Nicholson’ed his way out anyway.) Unfortunately, it ends with a Deus Ex Birkin appearance and leaves the player asking more questions that it’s not interested in answering on any level. Also Mr. X just spontaneously appears as well, which only compounds the Deus Ex Birkin thing.

Where you could soccer kick a head from a zombie in the original, Claire and Leon can barely expend energy to shake ‘em off their shins. Fantastic.

Combat wise, in a lot of ways, RE2R feels like a chore. A regression of the advancements that RE4 and RE1R was able to strike a balance with, but later iterations leaned too heavily on or used too little. Hell, I even think it’s a regression of how Dead Space approached combat. RE1R encouraged the player of doing away with zombies much in the same fashion as its counterpart and RE2O, with tactile and visible indicators that the zombies were dead (pools of blood under the body, dismemberment, headshots), but, it also threw in the risk of dealing with a new threat (Crimson Heads) if you chose not to oil and burn the bodies you left behind as you cleared the area. The gameplay was solid about letting the player know their resources had been put to good use.

RE4 encouraged smarter gunplay, aided by laser sight, and critical damage hits to other areas of the Ganados. The risk of taking headshots were being attacked by the parasites that could take large chunks of your health out in tandem with the mobs that – one way or another – would catch up to you. Dead Space took the critical hit system of RE4 and transformed it into a mechanic that made the complete dismemberment of the Necromorph critical to survival. Effectively, both you and the enemies were fairly balanced against each the other. You were never so strong that you could blast through your opponents and your opponents were never so OP that you lost unnecessary resources trying to kill them.

The same really cannot be said of RE2R. Nothing about the combat or enemy encounters feels particularly balanced for much of anything save busywork and resource death. There is no real balance between yours and the strength your opponent. I’ve heard RE4’s adaptive difficulty is still in play here, but if it is, its implementation here is not great. I certainly never reached that flow-state where I felt I was in harmony with the game.

Yeah, I didn’t miss this bit at all.

Headshots are nullified in a way they’ve never been in the series, and right off you can tell what the devs consider a “challenge” in terms of gameplay. Zombies eat bullets as badly as any mid-tier B.O.W., regardless of what difficulty setting you choose. In standard I saw six-to-nine bullets go into the head of a zombie and there was no guarantee they were dead until you saw their head explode or maybe saw them twitch. In hardcore (my sister’s preferred mode), zombies will eat eight-to-twelve-or-more bullets to the head and the consequence is the same.

It’s imperative to try and incapacitate the undead, because minimizing your enemy count in RE2R is an exercise of frustration and often, a waste of bullets. Zombies move far faster than they did the original iteration of this game, practically zapping over to you no matter how much space is between you and them. They do just about the same, if not more, damage to you. The common defense against this is grenades, flashbangs and knives. If you haven’t used them for other things (like Ninja vanishing or crowd control), it’s the quickest way to get out of their hold. It’s simply not as reliable or was enjoyable a method to fight the zombies off in the vein RE4 provided (German Suplexes, kicks, elbows to the face, a knife that isn’t dollar store plastic, dodging, etc.).

If you can avoid them, by all means, avoid them. The consequence, however, is if you have to backtrack, well, you might be running into a bigger crowd, one that may include the problem monster of the given area (Lickers, Mr. X, Dogs, Plant Monsters, etc.) and potentially less resources. It’s a particular problem in the police station with Mr. X following you everywhere and not being remotely helpful enough to do some of the killing for you. He just gently pushes them out of the way.

A lot of the time, my sister was preoccupied with head-shots (against all odds) while I spent my time (trying to) cap their knees, and remove their limbs (so they couldn’t grab us after I capped their knees) so we could sprint our way through environments when the opportunity presented itself (largely to save ammo for another problem area). She’s the better shot, I’m only great with projectile weapons (so Claire’s campaign is even better to me in that regard), which I largely prefer on principal of strength. For me, there is no real satisfaction in the game’s combat, not even in a fight-or-flight sense (prime example: the village and castle encounters in RE4), or on a level capable of inducing the worst panic attack in me like Dead Space 2′s opening hospital sequence.

I was frustrated with near misses. My sister was a little more forgiving about the changes despite never being to make the clean headshots she wanted. We only really agreed on mutual dislike of the boss battles, but’s more or less how we feel about all of RE’s bosses. There is not a single one we’ve enjoyed fighting, and the worst ones were all in RE6 (which literally had us not talking to each other for days afterward) and Revelations 2.

Local zombie mocks police station’s lack of shutters

RE2R is pretty generous with its ammo cashes, with most of what you need readily available. The map, for the most part, makes locating items easier, but spotting them poorly lit environments, and around mini horde-like numbers that seemingly materialize out of nowhere is a bit of chore. Rarer types of ammo, like shotgun or automatic weapon ammo are often hidden in safes or lockers with combination locks.

Resource management returns in the reboot, copy-pasted from RE7, right down to the stark menu and a minimalist design that makes item management, I guess, less busy (color wise). It works, so it doesn’t bother me in context. The maps are definitely easier to read and a little more explicit about what items are where, but have otherwise maintained the “cleared” / “in progress” blue and red dynamic. 

Depending on the difficulty level you’re playing on --- easy (assisted), normal (standard), or hard (hardcore) ---, your resources will be readily available to you, somewhere in the middle, or few and far between (in practice). Hard mode will have you rely on ink ribbons to save your game (like a standard PS1-PS2 game), and I think there are no checkpoints. Save points are scattered in new locations and are a brief safe haven.

Puzzles in Resident Evil have always been a series of frustrating events, particularly slide-and-complete-the-picture and “find the missing themed piece” puzzles. But, this game actually made me appreciate them, largely because the gun-play is no longer a satisfying aspect (and probably will never be again). 

Mechanically speaking, a lot of the puzzles or item hunts from RE2O are sort’ve retained, but they’ve been mixed up or their importance to getting to one place or another has been (extremely) reduced or made even more convoluted. The reboot is definitely not that interested in puzzles, so it feels and is designed less like a dungeon crawler.

Item hunting in order to solve puzzles requires you backtrack quite a number of times through the environment-of-the-moment. However, backtracking is perhaps more nightmare-ish and gauntlet-like than previous entries because it seems like the game spawns more zombies into the area. And with Mr. X basically breaking the exploratory pace of the game, the want to explore your environment is actively discouraged.

[Sighs Loudly For a Thousand Years]

Despite the game’s over-reliance on Mr. X, breaking from the series formula of not over-exposing its mini-bosses (the Regeneradors, Verdugo, or even that huge Centipede in a Trenchcoat for example, were not following you everywhere), Mr. X was, for a short time, the only ‘combat’ element in this game that invoked the right kind of déjà vu.

It was actually satisfying knocking him down, and ducking his punches at the last minute. I mean, at least it was in levels having nothing to do that Ada Wong segment. (Then. he. kept. coming. back.)

Ending him isn’t quite as satisfying as it is in the original game. Not because he effectively became an SNK boss, but because the component that makes that fun (The Resurrection of Ada Wong and the emancipation of the Rocket Launcher) was removed entirely from the game for a sequence far, far blander in comparison.

III. Non-Union for Billion Dollar Corporations

Around 2015 or so, there were rumblings (outright vocalizations)  from unionized voice actors that shed some light on some particularly horrible business practices that developers and publishers were carrying out on voice actors. They were either not being paid their due, or not allowed proper rest-time during the jobs they worked on. Big studios like Insomniac Games, EA Games, Activison, and the like were mistreating voice actors, often to the point where some confessed to experiencing vocal damage, stress or injuries sustained from shitty work conditions and people who clearly viewed their occupation as a lesser division of their project’s production.

At the same time, well before the strike became officiated, Capcom made the conscious decision not to hire unionized voice actors for the production of the Resident Evil 2 reboot. No one knew about this until 2017, when the game was well on its way to being released the following year (before a delay pushed it to 2019) and the Strike was ongoing. Alyson Court (on-again-off-again VA of Claire Redfield), Matthew Mercer (the most recent VA for Leon), and Courtenay Taylor (the most recent VA for Ada Wong) all announced that they weren’t reprising their roles in the game because the reboot was not a union project, but it was not a result of the strike.

Some vocalized their displeasure with this, even going as far as to say that they wouldn’t buy the game in a show of support of the actors. Others aren’t sparing it a glance because they’re otherwise disappointed with the creative direction anyway. But if the reception of the game from basic users – aware of the circumstances or not – is anything to go by, solidarity will typically lose out to FOMA (Fear of Missing Out). Especially if you’re not getting anything out of it personally or emotionally as a consumer of media.

I’m not particularly interested in demeaning non-union voice actors, (I’ve watched and paid for many a-thing that used non-union labor). Capcom, despite working on union projects, also continues to dabble in non-union label as well. I know Capcom’s likely wasn’t interested nor aiming to help voice actors not represented by SAG-AFTRA (or other organizations) become better known or gain better opportunities.

The less money they can probably shell out with non-union work, the better it is for them in the long run. Knowing the striking voice actors didn’t remotely get what they wanted out of negations (and probably didn’t get the support they wanted on account of whataboutism) will probably only embolden Capcom and other publishers and developers to make/continue behavior like this, whether or not another strike ever occur.

Resident Evil has never been particularly known for its voice acting beyond the scope of how terribly it started out in 1996 and kinda petered out on the platform of “meh, it’s not completely terrible” with later entries.

The series could hire some fantastic voice actors (Rino Ramano, Karen Dyer, Sally Cahill, and Paul Mercier, for example), and a lot of them can deliver some dud performances regardless of experience. At the end of the day, unless they have an equally strong director and screenwriter, you’re going to end up with an embarrassment of riches that may become memes one day (“Complete. Global. Saturation.”).

That said, RE2R’s issue seems to lie primarily within the writing. In an attempt “humanize” characters, major to minor, the script is often littered with profanity that not only distracts from the point of what you’re reading or listening to, but adds unnecessary fat to a script that’s already bogged down with dialog and text.

The downside to a rebooting a 20 year old game, is when corporations indulge in fandom bullshit. RE2R is pretty rife with cutesy dialog meant to whip the “Cleon” shippers into a frenzy. Its nauseating, really.

Claire and Leon’s conversation at the back of the police station is a prime example of that: Instead of having the dialog delivering urgency of the scene,  the objective of the characters we get an aimless exchange full of flirty dialog, and two characters not all that concerned with zombies materializing behind them (given they take forever to put the fire under their boots). In RE2O, at least the writers were smart enough to have the characters meet in a zombie-free room or hall.

I’ve seen people make the Realism™ argument constantly with this game (esp. when counterpointing the gameplay criticisms), but, "realism” is a weak argument and esp. when you’re simply looking to be dismissive. When dialog begins to wander from its point, when profanity hinders more than helps your delivery, your story not only loses impact, it rather shows you’re a mite lazy or weak as a writer. 

Comparatively, RE2O was able to communicate the urgency, anger and tone of their characters, and under no circumstances were they this reliant on profanity or long-winded dialog. The issue isn’t that profanity is present, or that the game is text or dialog heavy, it’s how its executed. And at present, the execution is lacking in a strong focus or reduces the game to script written by someone who just realized, “wait, I can make characters swear????”

I can honestly see why a lot of protagonists in survival-horror games were silent for so long outside of cinematics, or simply had substituted thoughts (”I better find Ashley quick”). Running commentary really does break the immersion. 

Claire and Leon go from mildly relatable to mechanical models spewing canned reactions that lost their bite forty minutes ago. It’s like being stuck with multiple versions of the Generic Husband from RE7 who “what the fucks?” at every single thing when given the opportunity. So, in a lot of ways, it has a lot of the same problems that made the dialog in Resident Evil Revelations 2 anguish to listen to (hello, Moria Burton), but it lacks such charming (/s) quips like, “Holy balls, my life is awesome!”

That said, not all of the performances are terrible. The voice actors for Claire (Stephanie Panisello), Marvin (Christopher Mychael Watson) and Sherry (Eliza Pryor) probably leave the greatest impression, and are arguably the strongest performers in the game. Christopher Mychael Watson in particular gives a wildly different performance depending on who you’re playing as (Leon or Claire) and has the strongest rapport with Stephanie Panisello.

Nick Apostolides, on the other hand, he just turns in a really unremarkable performance as Leon. Like, in comparison to Mercer, Mercier, he simply does not charisma to inject personality into what is an otherwise really boring version of Leon. He definitely doesn’t have the hammy, but dead-serious delivery of Paul ”why does no one listen to me?” Haddad (Leon’s original VA). 

I think one of the more disappointing sequences in the game is when Leon returns to the main lobby in the station and gets jumped by zombie Marvin. Instead of sounding devastated, Leon just sounds mildly disappointed his C.O is a zombie (Panisello gives you a better impression of Claire’s heartbreak). And because this scene isn’t a cinematic, you as a player are just running around in circles hoping you have enough ammo to kill the bullet sponge zombie Marvin. When Marvin is finally a gory mess on the ground, Leon saying, “Don’t worry, Lieutenant. I’ll stop this” (paraphrasing) to the pieces of Marvin’s body, comes off as unintentionally hilarious, right down to the delivery of Apostolides.

My feelings are about the same on Jolene Andersen (but we all can’t be Sally Cahill, can we?), but also makes me wonder why Capcom didn’t go the distance to hire a Chinese-American voice actress for Ada. They clearly had the opportunity to do so, they found a Black actor for Marvin, but they just didn’t bother with Ada.

The worst performances out of the bunch is probably Daddy Gunshop owner, “Hello Human” reporter guy, Annette “You’ll Never Get the G-Virus” Birkin, and Chief Irons.

IV. Capcom’s Adventures in Sexism Rebooted

One of these characters had some thought put into their design. It’s not the character on the left.

The Resident Evil series is no stranger the sexualization or objectification of female characters. Historically, for every step forward Resident Evil takes with the presentation of its female characters, it takes six steps back. If there is a female character in the series, the chances are she’s going to be wearing something meant purely for the male gaze, while her male companions wear something far more appropriate for the game’s plot. It only gets worse with alternate costumes, which are typically comprised of sexy school girl fantasies, Daisy Duke hot pants, anti-Black fetishism, and little red riding hood looks. (And no, costumes like Chris’ Sailor Man and Mad Max looks aren’t a counterpoint gotcha.)

RE2R, on the surface, seems to be yet another step-up in the presentation department for female characters in the series. Claire is wearing a leather jacket over a black tank top and sports jeans instead of shorts in new her default costume, they even presented Ada Wong in a world’s ugliest looking trenchcoat. Even better, one of Claire’s alternate costumes is a suit pants and shirt look. Claire has three alternate costumes that aren’t even remotely fanservice-y in the least and it’s great.

Then Capcom announced the “Classic Costume” for Claire and finally revealed Ada Wong without the trenchcoat, and it was business as usual. Claire Redfield’s “Classic Costume” in the reboot is, for lack of a better word, closer to fanservice-y than the original leotard under shorts, black shirt, and vest combo ever turned out to be. The only marked improvement made are the shorts are equal to the length of the leotards and no longer look like underwear.

Where the tank top worked with her new jacket and jeans, it throws the entire look of the original costume’s framing off, and based on the cinematics. While it’s nowhere near as sexualized as her Revelations 2 alt costume, Capcom’s intent here is pretty clear.

Effectively, Claire looks closer to a character who would appear in a Michael Bay produced horror film, whose talking points are usually how sexy the actress makes being terrified look. In the original she was simply meant to look “cool”. When she removed the vest, and wore the holster over her black shirt, she did.

Ada Wong goes from wearing a halter top dress with leggings, and flat heeled shoes that looked fairly maneuverable in, to looking as though she’s been zip-locked into a red slip that doesn’t fit her, finished off with a tacky tiny black bow, a choker and two inch heels. 

The entire look of it rather screams at you like a flashing ad banner advertising for an explicit website fetishizing Chinese-American woman. A lot of the fan art coming out of the fandom for Ada Wong in the remake is reflecting more or less that, so the target audience has been completely satisfied in this regard.

She looks absolutely ridiculous in gameplay segments because the dress was designed with no reactionary physics. It doesn’t flex the way a dress does around legs. It looks like a bad mod made by a fan that wanted a “sexier” looking Ada Wong.

Even outside the context of alternate costumes, female characters like 18-Year old Rebecca Chambers (who isn’t even in this game) ends up being oddly sexualized in a photograph where she was originally just sitting on the ground with a basketball in front of her leg, grinning like a goofy kid on a Scholastic paperback from the 90s.

Were it not for the fact that they were legitimately aiming to make Annette Birkin look undesirable, I’d be surprised that she didn’t appear in this game wearing a lab coat, half-open dress shirt, office skirt and three inch heels with heavy makeup.

Meanwhile, Leon Kennedy gets a “Classic Costume” that gets no [major] alternations to its look and thus is restored, unlike Claire or Ada, normal civilian clothing, and a Noir costume. Ada basically got no alternate costumes despite her playability, and I think it was the same with Sherry as well?

Standard, tried and true sexism aside, when it comes right down to it, even if your female character has the reputation of characters like Leon, “How can I make her sexier?” is a question Capcom all too readily answers instead of being creative.

V. RE Engine or, a Trip into the Dark Valley of Uncanny Gray People Land

Photorealism in games isn’t something I’m crazy about and how I react to it ultimately depends on the developer. A lot of video games have been worse for it – dead eye and plastic looking characters is an issue that persists – while very few have used it to the advantage of their creativity.

The major thing that puts me off is the blandness of a photo-realistic white faces. Developers are have shown they can sleepwalk a photo-realistic white face with no issues, but when it comes to the faces of people of color, well, either their biases start to show in the designs (its real easy to make a caricature of Black or non-Black face for video game devs) or their limitations are inherent in their how they see faces that don’t look like them.

I find myself struggling to say what I enjoyed about this game on a visual aspect, because its biggest detriment is without a doubt the RE Engine.

Environment Design - You want it Darker

Creative Assembly’s Alien Isolation did something I really liked. And that’s make the player reliant upon its darkness. You spend as much time in the light as you do enshrouded in the dark. The A.I. systems of Amanda Ripley’s enemies: Hostile humans, androids on an aggressive warpath of helpfulness, and the Xenomorph make hyper-aware of just how exposed you are bathed in the light, just as the dark and shadow make you equally aware that you’re just as open to an attack from the Xenomorph who needs no light to see you should it ever spot you therein.

A lot of the design philosophies in RE2R were built on the groundwork established by RE7, but its disadvantage was the player’s familiarity with RE2O’s level design. In a lot ways, I think they opted for pitch black environments to break that confidence. There are several environments throughout the presentation of RE2R that are turn-the-lights-off dark (which makes for an unpleasant experience for my eyes), but in a way that’s more superficial than essential.

Most areas in the game contain low-level lightning most of the series is known for, but it lacks any of the color and saturation from older games that make set pieces stand out. The most light you’ll see in RE2R is within the lobby, library and upper offices of the police station and the underground lab at the climax of the game. 

The closest the game ever gets to replicating the atmosphere and mood of the older Resident Evil games is probably the orphanage level and the later street level in Claire’s campaign. The lightning and shadows are perfect there.  But, more often than not, RE2R is content to plunge you into a adversarial darkness repeatedly with a flashlight. In addition to the game’s muted or desaturated colors and washed out look, nothing about the environment design really stands out as remarkable outside of the aforementioned levels.

I don’t think I’ve read so many complaints about having to adjust the contrast, color, brightness, and etc just to get one area or another to look normal before this game (in relation to RE). It’s apparently bad enough that PC Modders are creating mods that fix the overall presentation of the game (more color contrast, sharper image, improved lightning). Devil May Cry 5‘s environment and lightning design tends to looks leagues better than this game, and its got its fair share of bland looking levels. 

The screenshot is edited, but this is a solid approximation of how dark it is in a lot of areas.

Where almost no light worked in a game like Amnesia: The Dark Descent, SOMA, Penumbra, or even Silent Hill, RE2R’s design template actively discourages exploration in a way the older games did the opposite. It gives you the impression that the game has more to hide than it does to show you. The 2002 Resident Evil remake is still one of the best examples of cinematic light, dark, and shadow created purely for navigation purposes. The game is seventeen years old (holy shit), and legit, I don’t think there is a Resident Evil game in the series that nails how essential lightning is to your environment like this one.

On an aesthetic level, the reboot fails to capture the period of the world that its predecessor was basically developed, lived and breathed in. Setting aside product placement (“Pepsi”) and musical cues (“Baby one More Time”) is beyond Capcom’s budget, it’s the little things about the environment and level design in the reboot that really fails to say, “Here lay 1998. We’re a year away from the full-blown Y2K craze, floppy discs, and pagers were still a thing.”

There’s a tape recorder, yes, there are big, blocky computers sitting on hardwood desks and gas prices I still can’t believe my father grouched over in comparison to the shit they have us paying now, but, a lot of those things feel like superficial window dressing on a poster board. 

The environment design and world of RE2R feels very much like a 2019 era world with very little ringing true of the 90s.. I don’t think any damages the authenticity of the world much like the design of the characters – who look a little too 21st century as opposed to individuals trapped in a moment of time – now twenty years ago – and the same can be said of the secret evil lair of the Umbrella Corporation.

Everything in the final level of the game feels like something of Paul W.S. Anderson’s Resident Evil (The HIVE), and less like a lab that was built and constructed with what a 90s era architect would think was cutting edge tech and aesthetic of the late 1990s. It got to a point where I honestly think they should’ve just set the reboot in 2018.

Character Design - Petrified Faces and Awkward Mouths

He’s lit. melting in the rain right now.

Photo-realistic characters live and die by how well they imitate life without setting off the alarms in your mind. RE2R falls on the spectrum of “missing your mark” in a lot of ways. Characters in RE7 had the look of wax mannequin dolls walking around terrorizing you’re equally doll-esque player characters (with no heads). Nothing about how these characters were rendered and animated was particularly great, and it constantly triggered the meant response of “there is something wrong with what I’m looking at” that often comes with the uncanny valley.

The biggest issue facing the grand majority of the white characters RE2R is the fact that Capcom is still manipulating faces like they’re still using stylized animation and not an engine “based in reality” to its detriment. Characters are puppet-esque, or look particularly unfinished in the washed out environment and desaturated colors. This is noticeable in throwaway characters like the trucker in the opening cinematic (eating a burger that reacts unlike food) with a face that seems ready to melt off of its model at any moment, Chief Irons, “Hello Human” reporter guy, and the father and zombie daughter from the trite Gunshop sequence begging for its SAG award. None of these characters emote or animate well and draw the eye to the imperfections of the engine than wow you with its animation.

Among the central cast, the characters that look the worst rendered in the RE Engine are probably Claire Redfield and Annette Birkin. Both characters look as though the face models simply did not cooperate with Capcom tweaking the faces. Annette is more puppet-like than say, Claire (who at least has genuine moments of humanity). The less than stellar facial and lip animation is extremely noticeable on Annette's model who might’ve been promoted to minor antagonist at the last minute, because she has no business moving so robotically. It probably doesn’t help matters that Capcom designed her character with the philosophy of “working women don’t care about their appearances” (paraphrased) in mind, which makes their changes to Ada and Claire all the more suspect.

Claire’s biggest issue seems to be that Capcom simply spent less time on her than they did Leon. The model’s face is often stiff and under-animated, so it looks like Claire’s face is struggling to emote. This is especially notifiable when you compare Claire’s model to her living counterpart (who is far more expressive in a still image than her 3D model). Capcom more than likely tweaked the model’s face more than a little bit, and to the character’s detriment. Honestly, it’s comparable to how she ended up looking in CGI film Degeneration (where her face barley animated). Claire’s model really, really, really needed more work, or Capcom needed to find a face they could work with better than the one they chose.

Leon is the character they clearly spent more time on, at least in terms of details. In general, his animations are probably stiffer than Claire. Most of the cinematics involving close-ups of Leon’s face make it appear as though Leon has mastered the art of talking through one’s teeth without moving their lips, and he’s not particularly emotive unless the emotion is an extreme one.

Out of the characters with any remote screen-time or plot-related dialog, the only ones that look slightly more remarkable are Ada Wong and Marvin Branagh. Marvin in particular might be the best example of what the RE Engine can do with unique faces and competent performance from the animators and the actor. 

Ada Wong looks better than she ever did in Resident Evil 6, and while this not my favorite rendition of her character on any level, she is only female character in the game – in terms of character design – that got a decent face model.

The only drawback with these two characters that Marvin looks as ashy white as the white characters (and no blood-loss isn’t a justification for that) and he shares the same thousand yard dead-eye look in his eyes that a lot of the other characters have. The less-than-stellar facial animation is more than a little noticeable in Ada Wong’s sequences a well (was she snarling or trying to annunciate words at Annette?).

The zombies and non-human enemy types look better suited the grayscale, clay-esque look the RE Engine gives everything. Zombies require almost little to no real facial animation, but against the backdrop of reality they are truly out of place (to reiterate). The same can be said of characters like Mr. X or William Birkin’s monster form.

The big sell Capcom made with the zombies and monsters in RE2R is that they could render insane amounts of gore, based on the human anatomy. On paper, it definitely sounds like a cool idea, in execution? I’ve been so desensitized to gore and human guts – within the fictional spectrum – that this really doesn’t impress me. (My sister, on the other hand, needed a moment.) 

It’s like, “Yeah, that guy’s arm is are hanging off alright.” But, unless you’re giving me RE4 or Dead Space level styled deaths, where the gore is put on display with a sort’ve Evil Dead irreverence, well, the most your doing is just demonstrating gross anatomy. It’s cool, but not exactly satisfying, esp. when taking the clay-esque look of the models into consideration. The masturbatory gore dislay is also probably a big reason why firearms and explosives against zombies no longer have the desired effect. The most you’ll be doing a lot of the time is peeling the skin off of a model, which I guess, is your cue to go, “Wow, look these physics, look at that gore.”

There are some developers who really know how to work with photo-realistic environments and, even moreso, how to render photo-realistic characters, be they based on living people or not. Remedy Entertainment (using the in-house engine, Northlight Engine), is one, and Naughty Dog – who still rely heavily on stylization – has only recently entered that threshold during the PS4 era.

A lot of this of course, is a consequence of experience with that medium. Naughty Dog’s history with more animated styles definitely helps more than harms their photo-realistic models and environment. Remedy Entertainment’s persistent desire to render the real world in a 3D environment has simply improved as the tech has gotten better.

Capcom, like Square Enix and the late Konami, was always at its best with hybrid blend of animation and photo-realism. Resident Evil was rendered and designed in such a way that it straddled the line of photo-realism and stylistic animation in way no other games did. It wasn’t too real, and it wasn’t too cartoony.

That creative style lent itself to their level design as one was often not without the other. The Gothic horror design of mansions or European countries, and the stark familiarity of places like a police station, a cruise ship or a prison island, were often picture-esque or surreal by design. The RE Engine is probably the biggest step backward in terms of design and atmosphere.

VI. Conclusion – “All Employees Proceed to the Bottom Platform.”

Hey, look, a callback to Resident Evil 2. Neat.

As a game I played with my sister, passing he controller to her every fifteen minutes, I had fun based purely on how she reacted to the game. Whatever my quibbles, the most fun I’ve had with this game is probably screaming and yelling with my sister, and acting as her personal exposition machine. 

She asks so many questions about what the hell is going on in the greater scheme of the plot. She doesn’t care, per-say, but she asks anyway because she knows I like reading Wikipedia and thus have the answers. I can only tell her what I know from the previous games, which I know effectively don’t count for shit with this reboot.

That said, the reboot just made me weirdly appreciative of what went into the creation of the original Resident Evil 2, especially in terms of structure, gameplay and presentation. The reboot is ultimately something that feels like it was produced within a AAA space, right down to its paid DLC offerings, which once would’ve been natural unlockables in the game. It’s budget was probably sunk by the over-lavish requirements of the RE Engine, and just from looking at it, this game had budget it was straining against. It ultimately ends up making its predecessor all the more crucial and unique.

It kinda highlights just how useless exploiting nostalgia is in the process of replicating things. You don’t get the same results, and in the end you’re only playing an imitation of something that was a consequence of the right people coming together at the right period of time. It’s what makes things like polygonal character skins, or “play this game with lower resolution settings”, give the impression that devs largely miss the point or misunderstand what people like or continue to like about older productions, even when a newer imitation of it comes out (the discussions people have about Metal Gear Solid vs. The Twin Snakes highlights this best, I think).

I enjoyed Bluepoint’s Shadow of the Colossus, they went above and beyond the call of duty to reproduce the original, but I often find myself playing the older far more than its 2018 remake, because the latter ultimately lacks what Team Ico put into that game.

In its attempts to be a retelling of the game, RE2R probably would’ve been better off abandoning the entire framework and creating something entirely new (I say again). But because it never tries to be different enough from its counterpart, especially in terms of story beats, the end result is a condensed soup with missing flavor. Otherwise, I think restorative would’ve been a better move than remixing it. Not something I could say about Shattered Memories. If I could describe RE2R, outside of the interaction I had with it in the company of my sister, “boring” would be the kindest descriptor I could give it. Everything about its aesthetic, to the delivery as a much toned down version of RE2O, was not gripping [for] me.

Comparing this reboot to something like DMC5, something using the same engine, but manages to be more vibrant in design and presentation, makes RE2R look unremarkable in comparison. The visual quality of the game tended to remind me of the presentation of Ready at Dawn’s The Order 1886, which was also heavily reliant on photo-realistic graphics and a washed out presentation.

This game is nowhere near as engaging as its original. And because the campaigns are basically a Frankenstein hybrid of the original A/B set up, a lot of the changes to the plot seem really superfluous or detrimental to the structure overall.

They really did Ada dirty in this game.

Playing the events of RE2O as more overly dramatic or serious effectively makes for a really dull game. A more reality-based RE isn’t something I’m particularly interested in, especially since the end result appears to be a less exciting product. The fact that they did so little with or reduced characters like Marvin and Ada – who are nowhere near as present or independent of the scenario characters as they should be, just makes for a greater disappointment.

RE2R is a reboot of the original 1998 game in all the ways that are reflective of RE7’s design principals, carrying the pretense of realism on its shoulders. RE2R keeps some of the bones of RE2O, but discards the rest in exchange for something trying really hard to be different, but familiar enough to invoke déjà vu. If you spent the radio silence hoping for the lavish recreation Mikami made of his 1996 original in 2002 for Gamecube audiences, you sadly won’t find it here. If anything this more or less proves something like that will never happen again.

RE2R strives to be a third person iteration of RE7 with an older title. If you weren’t crazy for what a lot of people more or less called “Resident Evil in Name Only” when it was released in 2017, chances are you won’t enjoy your time with RE2R. If you were completely and utterly for RE7, the RE Engine and all that this blueprint entails, you’ll basically have a good time with RE2R and whatever else gets remade under this umbrella.

The last temptation I have toward this game is playing it heavily modified on the PC because the mods for this game actually look like something to mess with. I’m just waiting for the “Classic Ada” costume mod, because that dress is some of the laziest character design I’ve ever seen.

#resident evil 2 remake #resident evil #capcom #re engine #re2 remake spoilers #videogamesincolor #marvin branagh #reboot ada wong #resident evil series #resident evil 2 reimagined

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My post was removed from r/smallbusiness because "it wasn't a question". So I thought posting here would be the next best thing. Original post below.TL;DR: Despite an easy, well-paying career, I was miserable at work. I was lost and felt broken. I was looking for something different, but I didn't know what. With some help, I bought a franchise run by some great people.I had been at my cushy corporate job for almost 12 years. During that time, I've pretty much been in the same role. Sure, I've had various title changes, and pay increases here and there, but for the most part, the day-to-day has been the same since the beginning.I wanted to move up the ladder, believe me, I tried, but for one reason or another, it just never seemed to work out. There was always an insurmountable obstacle in my way. The biggest one was the company itself, it was just too damn small, and there was nowhere to go unless the company grew. But, despite constantly maintaining the same headcount, give or take a few here and there, the company never grew as anyone had hoped.It's not that I hated my job, I was actually quite good at what I did. But I started having this feeling a few years ago that I could be doing so much more with my time and effort. I hated having to ask if it was OK to take my kids to the doctor, constantly feeling like I am not being a "team player", or feel like someone is disappointed in me because I decided to take a vacation (my boss rarely ever took a vacation). Also, I didn't like not having a voice. Despite working for my current company for over 12 years, I still feel like I had no voice. There are a few people that make the decisions, and that's it. Obviously, it is their right to do so, but I feel like I should have had some input after 12 years. My boss and I are separated by almost 30 years in age, so that may have something to do with it. But still, I was sick and tired of the company making dumb decisions without my knowledge or input.So, I did what most people would do. I buffed up my resume & Linkedin profile and started looking for something else, hopefully, something better. I had several interviews, but nothing panned out. I had only been interviewing for a couple of months, but I felt as though it was going really well, considering how picky I was being (benefit of not "needing" a job). But then my boss offered me a very generous raise (I had been due for a raise for almost 3 years) so I eased up on the job search and temporarily went back to being content.I felt great for a couple of weeks, then the feeling of dread returned. It wasn't going away. The extra money was nice, but it didn't fix the problem. At some point it hit me, it was kinda strange, it was like a switch being flipped. I realized that I was completely unfulfilled with what I was doing. No satisfaction, just boring, joyless work. I was doing good work, I was really good at my job, and the job was easy to boot (easy to me anyway). But there was this massive void, something that I couldn't quite describe. I'll admit it, I was completely lost. I didn't know what to do. If I left this job for something else, I will likely work in the same type of environment, doing something similar for someone else that I may or may not like. I had some decent business ideas, but I didn't think I had the courage, nor the capital to start a business, so I kinda wrote that idea off.Miserable, and completely broken, I persisted, because I had to (family to support). I guess I'll just put myself into that statistic of Americans that hate going to work every day. I never thought my day-to-day job could make me so miserable, but it did. Unfortunately, I brought some of that negativity home with me as well. I was constantly pissed off and short-tempered. Not at all who I wanted to be. Something had to give.In desperation mode, I started contacting career coaches. They were all expensive, and I was worried the investment wasn't going to be worth it. My resume and LinkedIn weren't the problems (they offered to "fix" them for me), it was my career that was broken. I needed a new career. But, how does one just go out and get a new career?"Why don't I strap on my job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into job land, where jobs grow on jobbies?That's the kinda frustration I felt. Then, something completely unexpected happened. I was contacted by an "alternative career coach". He charged no direct fees for his services, but he was offering perspectives that I never thought about. So I figured it was worth a shot. I am naturally a very skeptical person, so I figured there had to be a catch. Nobody does anything for free. So we meet, and we get to talking about my goals and situation, and he thinks that he can probably help. So he asks me to complete a DISC personality test to determine my skills, abilities, and personality type. So I do, and I fit the profile for what he is looking for, and his services fit for what I never knew I was looking for.Turns out, he is an alternative career coach/franchise broker (they get a percentage of your franchise fee if you buy the franchise). They find folks like me and help us find a franchise that might be of interest. They also help guide you through the process and kinda function as your support team. I know that many people scoff at the notion of buying into a franchise, I was one of them. "It's basically buying yourself a job/career" I have seen that posted around 📷r/entrepreneur many times. Franchise ownership was never even a remote possibility when I started this process. I didn't want to own a Subway, or a Wendys (for some reason fast food is always the first thing that comes to mind when I think franchise). I wanted to have my own idea, and build my business from the ground up, blah blah blah. The entrepreneur's dream. The word franchise felt dirty (to my stupid uninformed mind) and offputting, I had little hope of this actually meaning anything. But I shrugged off that feeling and decided to give it a real chance before I jumped to any conclusions. Again, it's not costing me anything, so it's worth a shot.He sets me up with calls from multiple franchisors that fit my interests. They all go well, but one really resonates with me. It checks off all of my boxes. Great income potential, expandability, low (ish) start-up capital requirements, no B&M overhead, great territory, flexible schedule/work from home, and an industry that I am familiar with and believe in. The icing on the cake was the franchisor. The people are fantastic, their support system is world-class, and they invest a lot of time, money, and effort into getting the business running smoothly and profitable. They aren't in it for the initial franchise fees, they want to make a successful product that earns them royalties and intern makes me money, makes sense. Their people are truly the ones that sealed the deal, I believe in them and they believe in me.Together, the franchisor and I went through a mutual vetting process. We needed to make sure we are right for each other. Just because you want a franchise, doesn't mean you get it. It has to be "awarded", there are a lot of boxes that needed to be checked off before you can be awarded a franchise. You need to fit their profile, you need access to capital, and some have net worth requirements. After talking with numerous franchisees, I decided that it was time to move forward. Luckily, I met all their requirements, so I drove out to their HQ and we both decided to move forward. We decided on a training date (December) and sealed the deal shortly thereafter.It also took a lot of convincing of my wife to let me leave my cushy, predictable, steady paying corporate job to pursue this opportunity. Luckily she believes in me and is willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make the most out of this opportunity. There will certainly be an adjustment period for both of us.Several things attracted me to buying a franchise as my first foray into the world of business ownership. When compared to starting my own business from the ground up, there is a lot less risk in buying a proven franchise system, especially one with such great people behind it. A lot of the heavy lifting has already been done for you. I don't need to come up with my own processes and hope something works. I don't need to make a bunch of mistakes trying to market a new brand/product in my local area. I don't need to figure out a good CRM that does everything I need it to. I don't need to build a new website from the ground up. Yes, I will need to learn about all these things in great detail, and determine how to best use them, but I don't need to waste any of my startup capital figuring these things out either. In a few years. if all goes well with this endeavor, I figure that's when I can build something of my own.Funding a business was a very lengthy and complicated ordeal, if you don't already have the startup capital, get ready to do A TON of work to get funding. Buying a proven franchise and using a broker helps, but it is still a whole bunch of work. I'd compare it to getting 2 or 3 new mortgages, there is so much paperwork and so many documents to sign. It's all-consuming, but such a relief when it is over. Let me know if you want to know more.Ever since I signed my franchise agreement, it's been hard to focus on anything else. I've been in hardcore learning mode for the past few months. But it hasn't seemed like work yet, it's been really fun. Also during this time, I've had to work for my current job. Which is kinda like every day being the last day at school, you can't wait till it's over, but you gotta keep going back. It's excruciating having to switch focus on a daily basis.One of the best days I've had in a long time is when I handed in my resignation. I was nervous, but I had fantasized about that day for years. It went very well, and my boss (company owner) understood. He was happy I was taking the leap. He shook my hand and wished me well.I leave for training right after Thanksgiving (3 straight weeks, on top of everything I've already done), and I couldn't be more excited. I finally feel like I am in a good place with good people, and in the right place at the right time. I am finally in the driver's seat, and in full control of my future. I think it's going to be the ultimate test, it's all on me to make this work. I envision that the next few years are going to be pretty rough. Long hours, lots of mistakes, and fluctuating pay. But I also think that it's going to be incredibly rewarding to watch my business grow and reap the rewards of my hard work. Luckily I have an incredible support system to fall back on if things start to get shaky. But I'll never have to say "what if" ever again. Cause I'm doing it.Based on feedback for my post on r/smallbusiness: Just to be clear, I am a small business owner sharing a story, I promise you it's not an MLM, nor some complicated ploy to make a buck. I'm not a broker, I'm not selling anything, and I don't want your business. But there are a lot of people that have very little knowledge of franchise ownership, so I thought I would shed some light on the subject. It's certainly not for everyone, but it's worth a look if you are looking for something different. If you are interested in learning which particular franchise, feel free to drop me a DM.

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

[jammixes-blog]

Sub Rosa In Plain Sight

The blanks, in any equation, are as important as the rest...

The most dangerous, in any equation, is the unknown variable(s).

Every scientific formula depends on premises. Therefore, the right premises are crucial to create a valid formula.

You can never solve a problem, without knowing all the details... And, if you are kept, purposely, in ignorance, then, someone doesn’t want you to solve the problem. It can be evil idiots, someone who tries to help you, or both...

I am learning a lot, from re-reading The Art Of War. It’s one of these books I can never read too many times, until I know it by heart. I doubt any soldier read it thoroughly, there are mistakes, that could have been avoided, in every conflict, in History. Yet, it is logical, to me, that anyone who applies all the principles, cannot lose. Which sometimes means accepting to flee when it’s time, to disengage from battle, or avoid fighting. To paraphrase: only those who have knowledge of the evils of war make it lengthy, and know how to profit from it. To make it clear, they might not win either, but they’ll sell enough weapons and misery to make a quick US buck. Because, no conflict makes winners with a lengthy battle. In our contemporary world, this might explain why Africa has no political stability, or the Middle-East is prevented from experiencing peace and co-operation. And, that’s why I believe in China and India so much, they proved not to be interested to destroy everybody else, but to thrive economically...very wise. Their armies can walk into any country and occupy it, just by shear numbers. Yet, they don’t. Except for Tibet, but that’s a complex story.

Most of us imprisons our beings in rigid limits, as if they were precise lines. The “Reality” is, we are all bunch of atoms, more or less ordered to shape vibrations that take our visible shape. Because of these arbitrary walls of fear and ignorance, most people condemn the doors of perceptions as “weird” channels. Those are the people who only think and believe what they see or hear, thinking that their subjective interpretation is what defines “Reality” for everyone. Human beings are onions, we’ve only pealed off, superficially, three layers, at most, out of an infinite number of layers. I don’t know about you, but, personally, I get to understand, feel, and see things, beyond those three layers. I might not know all the details of what’s going on, but I usually have a strong unfiltered “feeling”, and I trust it.

One has to be opened to learn. The bigger the opening, and the more extensive the knowledge is.

Those who think they know limited themselves to ignorance. And those who really know, always want more...

Those who can’t learn from others can’t teach either. They are they own objectivity, in their very subjective way.

When you love someone deeply, you can almost feel them, or have an inkling of what they are going through... you can figure out the crux of the equation.

Those who take others for idiots are the real idiots. Those who think others are unconscious don’t know about consciousness. And those who think that they are self-righteous are usually the worst tyrants.

Flexibility is one of the keys to wisdom.

Death never scared me. Mine. The one of my loved ones does. But, I try to make them proud, wherever they are...

I was told, because of my built, in martial arts, that my strength was to look weak. I am slander with relatively thin bones. However, my muscles are solid, my balance pretty decent, and my aim is precise. The Art Of War, since the writer’s identity is still a mystery, says that to win, you have to look disorganized, although disciplined, weak, although strong, and ill-prepared, although you are. I take this very seriously, let others think or have the impression of what they want. But, when the time comes, I call it the 1-kick deal... a very quick clash, to get rid of vermin in light speed. I don’t fuck with any other human being, so, anyone who fucks with me is wrong or evil.

“He’s a Genius, but he’s an idiot”. To which the Genius replies: “They’re Geniuses, but they are idiots.”. 1-1.

No one can feel for someone else, left alone dictate how to feel...

I’ll take most criticism and slander. But, “crazy” and “evil”, I refuse. These are very grave accusations and warrant complete and detailed proofs, as well as me being conscious of it, and have a chance to exonerate myself. I will sue, spending time and energy, the evil idiots who would do that, especially behind my back. Why would anyone, who is right, slander me behind my back, refusing to let me confront such insults? Only real evil and crazy idiots will do something like that. This is where I get merciless, my way, as Gentlemanly as possible, but still making sure that culprits are punished adequately. No one has a right to fuck with me or you, in any way, when it’s wrong, unfair, and criminal, although the evil idiots might not realize it. You do not disrespect or slander any other human being without being ready to be singled out from your coward anonimity  and pay for it, as well as damages. It’s called: “Justice”. and no corporation or Nation, no matter how rich or powerful can escape it.

It is the duty of every Sovereign Nation to protect and defend everyone of its citizens, without exception, on their soil and abroad, against abuse and injustice. This is and will never be exclusive to the USA, The New Atlantis, ever again. And, if a Nation is too weak to impose its Sovereignty, it should appeal to all other Nations to help out, compassionately and courageously.

What happened to the Lebanese PM, Hariri, is a travesty of Justice and Transparency. Why does the Lebanese PM be forced to go to Saudi Arabia, stay there, sequestrated, and forced, from Saudi Arabia, contrary to the Lebanese Constitution, resign from there? It’s bullshit. The BBC never mentioned it, although CBC did. You really want to know the truth? Beyond stupid conspiracy theories? Unlike you, I got nothing to hide, since I am crazy and evil. The whole world is a tribal place, this is the short answer. When it’s convenient, you all know about what is going on. And, when you are deemed to be idiots, it’s all hidden from you, the exoteric workings of global politics become esoteric to the profane, most of us. Lebanon is a good example. Most Lebanese people have lived in constant fear of war, for almost four decades, now. That’s because they all feel the precarious, illogical, and chaotic arrangements, behind the scenes. I, for one, have had enough. The real Balance of Power in the world, right now, is basically The Whole World vs USA. The USA has, since WWII, systematically tried to colonize every region of the world, by imposing an infernal cycle of profits, placing pawns who hand the cash, at the head of as many places as possible, sacrificing the well-being and prosperity of entire nations. The USA has created every conflict and war, since WWII, with all impunity. But, as a talented and hard working Art Director, in Advertising, I know that the reputation of the “Good Person” is fading very fast. I urge Canada to refuse dealing with the USA on the NAFTA subject without Mexico, at the Round Table. fox, coming out of retirement, after the 4 ex-Presidents, hit a chord, for me. Mexico is a cool-ass place, Mexicans are Good, hard-working people, a big factor of the economical successes of the American economy, as well as being real locals of the continent. I always felt a lot of love and sympathy for Latin America and its people, since I always had a great experience. I can’t say the same from the USA and Americans, while a guest, on their soil.

If a Freeman cannot be free, Body, Mind, and Soul, then, there is something fucked up happening, in the World.

I am me, I don’t know how to be someone else. Can you?

Change with the course of Life, when you can. But, never change at the whim of other human beings, for everyone’s sake. Be yourself, proudly. Those who don’t like it can kiss your ass...and mine, I’m with you, on this, always, if you are Good and being unfairly harassed.

I’ve never taken the Bible seriously, but, I do regard Jesus as an archetype, for the Essenes. They are worth getting acquainted with. I think I finally understand the multiplication of bread and fish. My interpretation is that it’s better to be many than one. Thus, 1 fish for 1, can be divided into thousands of pieces, for a thousand, to have a piece each. It takes wisdom to realize the benefits of such a “feast”.

Before I get another beer, since I just spilled one, or parts of it. Anyways, I won’t lie, I just want to drink more, without going “crazy”. Without modesty, I can improve...

[moonchronicles-blog]

It’s Your Own Fault, India, and Your Own Foolishness, Tamil Nadu

I chanced upon this speech by the first Singapore Prime Minister, the Late Lee Kuan Yew. https://scroll.in/article/715572/singapores-lee-kuan-yew-on-why-he-departed-from-nehruvian-welfarism

Lee Kuan Yew was a staunch believer of free markets, and was ideologically different from Nehru. However that is not the crux of this post.

In the above post, Mr. Lee compared China and India on several fronts. Here’s the gist of his observations. 1 China never hesitated to take help from India when it came to IT/other services and learning English. 2 India never learned from China to industrialize and instead continued relying on IT/Telecom and other services alone. 

This was in 2004, but the same applies today.

What is my argument in this scenario?

Remember SIPCOT? SIPCOT stands for State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu, founded in 1972 by the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Dr. Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi. He started it with the intent to industrialize Tamil Nadu and boost its economy, till Indira Gandhi interrupted with her political greed by throwing away Katchatheevu in 1974, with MGR of ADMK and Nedumaran who was then President of Tamil Nadu Congress Committee repudiating DMK’s resolution on Katchatheevu that effectively became a headache for the party till date, despite it not being DMK’s fault by any degree. Then imposing emergency in 1975 and then finally dissolving DMK’s govt in 1976. Indeed, MGR floated ADMK after he was threatened with IT (Income Tax) raids by Indira Gandhi, and changed the name to All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) when she threatened to dissolve all local parties in 1975.

SIPCOT stands for State Industries Promotion Corporation of Tamil Nadu, founded in 1972 by the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu, Dr. Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi.

SIDCO was also started by DMK during the same period of time (1969 to 1976) to aid small industries. This was an attempt to move Tamil Nadu’s largely agrarian society to industrialization with as little friction as possible. Farming back then was a decent venture, unlike today, where they’re literally begging for survival.

After DMK was dissolved in 1976, MGR came to power and remained for the next 11 years. That was a point of time TN had absolutely no industrial development nor progress.

When DMK returned to power in 1989, it had to face the trouble of Eelam organizations and their problems. LTTE with whom Vaiko had a secret meeting in 1989 plotted to kill Kalaignar and replace him with Vaiko. More on that episode here: https://moonchronicles.tumblr.com/post/162077082669/the-eelam-story?is_related_post=1

Even as the Eelam problem was out of control, thanks primarily to MGR, Subramanian Swamy and Chandra Swami. http://expressindia.indianexpress.com/news/fullstory.php?newsid=27903 http://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/the-deadly-duo/204614 https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/chandraswami-was-sivarasans-godfather/204696

DMK in 1989 tried its level best to put TN back on track after 11 dark years of MGR’s cult of personality. But it was dissolved by early 1991. Rajiv Gandhi’s murder added further trouble for DMK which was accused for a long time of the crime (and still is in a few parts by treacherous elements) before acquittal by Jain Commission (which found no evidence) despite protests by worthless parasites like Cho Ramaswamy and Subramanian Swamy (the real criminal). 

Compared to the previous decades, the 1990s was a different decade that would change India for a different course. The liberalization in 1991 forced in by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the Information Technology (IT) Revolution changed India’s focus from agriculture and cottage industries to computer science. DMK from 1996-2001 and again from 2006-2011 promptly responded by setting up Tidel Park in Thiruvanmiyur, Chennai and other IT parks across the states. They also helped the automobile industry by allowing foreign brands to invest and open up factories.

The liberalization in 1991 forced in by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and the Information Technology (IT) Revolution changed India’s focus from agriculture and cottage industries to computer science.

In my opinion, this could’ve been achieved with much ease had it not been for Congress and ADMK coming in the way. Today, BJP and Modi stand as a solid rock in the way of DMK ascending to power in Tamil Nadu despite the ADMK roaming around like a headless chicken. For obvious reasons, if DMK comes to power, BJP’s rotten schemes for Tamil Nadu like NEET, GST, Uday, etc, will fail. So DMK must be stopped at all costs for Modi/BJP. This once again stalls not only the industrialization and subsequent development of Tamil Nadu, but also sinking the state into further debt. As is, TN already has a debt load of INR 3.16 trillion (government debt) and INR 2.75 trillion (public debt) with no functioning industries nor economy.

Today, BJP and Modi stand as a solid rock in the way of DMK ascending to power in Tamil Nadu despite the ADMK roaming around like a headless chicken.

I also include Congress, because DMK could fend off Congress as an enemy, but Congress as an “ally” is backstabbing/undermining DMK. 1 Congress turned a blind eye when DMK was facing the 2G case. Of course, DMK has come out of it unscathed, only to have Modi using his puppet CBI to delay the judgment again from July to August. I’m sure Modi will delay it till 2019. 2 Congress MPs/MLAs did NOTHING in TN but asked for more and more seats from DMK. 3 Congress lost in most constituencies in TN, not solely due to the unpopularity of the party in TN, but also because its workers jostled with DMK workers instead of cooperating, especially in places like Coimbatore. 4 Once again, DMK is working round the clock with Congress sitting around doing NOTHING.

In short, Congress’ behavior towards DMK is more like “all profits are ours, all losses are yours”. This is becoming more prominent with each passing day. Congress on its own won’t even get the votes that the likes of Naam Tamilar and MDMK, both racist xenophobic far right parties, would garner on their own. Casteist PMK would rout Congress straight in all constituencies, even where there are little to no Vanniyars or other communities usually against Dalits. Such is Congress’ popularity in TN. But their arrogance is unprecedented.

In short, Congress’ behavior towards DMK is more like “all profits are ours, all losses are yours”.

Back to the topic of discussion. DMK would’ve industrialized TN way back in the 1970s and 1980s itself had it not been for MGR’s cult of personality and Indira Gandhi’s greed. But that was not to be. Instead of following DMK’s lead and industrializing India, Indira Gandhi was busy reducing India to the status of the “Sick Man of Asia”, just like early 10th century Ottoman Turkey was the “Sick Man of Europe”.

In the meantime, China was led by Deng Xiaoping who laid the founding stones that took Chinese economy to new heights in the coming decades while India was and still is reeling behind. Not only was India reeling behind China, it made sure Tamil Nadu (which was far less educated back then) also came down along with it.

Not only was India reeling behind China, it made sure Tamil Nadu (which was far less educated back then) also came down along with it.

Little did India realize back then that China would become the mighty dragon economy that it is today. India under Congress was butt-hurt that the party that gained India its independence was kicked out of power by a regional party founded after independence! Horror of horrors! But whats ironic is that the losers still bear a grudge towards DMK for it! Democracy in India is a sham.

Little did India realize back then that China would become the mighty dragon economy that it is today.

But NITI Aayog under Modi proposes moving India from an agrarian to an industrial economy. Sounds similar to Mao’s Great Leap Forward in China. Move over to the Mao Tse-tung section in this post of mine: https://moonchronicles.tumblr.com/post/162161581189/prabhakarans-eelam?is_related_post=1

What is the difference between DMK’s transition and BJP’s transition? DMK revived agriculture to a healthy status before converting wastelands and some of the farmlands into industrial zones, whereas BJP is crushing farmers through demonetization, GST, etc, and forcibly trying to industrialize, but in vain. 

So BJP also fails at that front. Not just any failure, but an epic failure. Make in India, Startup India, Skill India, and pretty much everything launched/renamed from the previous government by the present government has failed. Unemployment is a bludgeoning problem. 

But Modi doesn’t see it essential to bring everybody on board despite his claims of “cooperative federalism” before assuming power. BJP/Modi are doing their level best to keep DMK out of power for fear of the fake Gujarat Model being exposed outright. The colossal damage this does to India’s economic prospects, and the growing economic clout of China and its increasing strategical threat (also primarily due to Modi’s massive mismanagement and stupidity as I’ve outlined here) doesn’t matter to him as much as keeping DMK out of power, or even going to the extent of partitioning Tamil Nadu into smaller states, just to gain power. This is why India is stupid. So stupid, I don’t know where to begin and where to end. Be it Congress or BJP, even Pakistan isn’t looked upon with as much hostility as DMK.

The colossal damage this does to India’s economic prospects, and the growing economic clout of China and its increasing strategical threat (also primarily due to Modi’s massive mismanagement and stupidity as I’ve outlined here) doesn’t matter to him as much as keeping DMK out of power, or even going to the extent of partitioning Tamil Nadu into smaller states, just to gain power.

To read about DMK’s developments, see this thread: https://twitter.com/HardFastAndFree/status/860768477417619456

Also read these posts to know more: http://thenewsexpress.co/short-sight-india/ http://thenewsexpress.co/short-sight-india-part-2/

Now on to Tamil Nadu. 1 Okay, your ancestors can be forgiven for lack of education and awareness. Let bygones be bygones. MGR’s era and JJ’s first government should’ve taught you all a hard lesson. But still, why did you vote for them, despite seeing how much DMK has developed Tamil Nadu? Is it because of TASMAC alcohol which JJ endorses? Because, every time DMK tried to do away with TASMAC, they lost the elections. 2 Why did you vote against DMK in 2001, 2011, 2014 and again in 2016? DMK was the party that brought all forms of development to Tamil Nadu. What compelled an educated people like you to vote against the party that has worked (and still works) round the clock to take Tamil Nadu to the future? Does your education, again made possible by DMK, make you think of DMK as an evil party? Is it because you feel DMK is too low in some way and below dignity for “educated people” like you to support? 3 Just touch your hearts and tell me, if other parties you elected or currently support, be they ADMK, PMK, BJP, Naam Tamilar, etc, are pure white entities with no corruption cases? How did PMK, Naam Tamilar, MDMK, even BJP leaders, get all the money, land, bungalows, cars, etc, without even retaining their deposits in 2016? This when they’re nowhere near power. Can you imagine what will happen if they come to power?

Does your education, again made possible by DMK, make you think of DMK as an evil party? Is it because you feel DMK is too low in some way and below dignity for “educated people” like you to support?

Today BJP blocked your medical dreams by forcing NEET via OPS and Ma Fa Pandiarajan. Tomorrow, they will even force Manu Apartheid with EPS bending over. You can go back to the feudal era before the 1930s, where only an elite minority had all the rights to education, jobs, etc, while others stood on the roads with NOTHING! Maybe this is what you truly want for yourselves? I don’t know, but I certainly do NOT want it for myself and my future generations!

You can go back to the feudal era before the 1930s, where only an elite minority had all the rights to education, jobs, etc, while others stood on the roads with NOTHING!

Don’t give me excuses like “my friends from other states will look down on me”, “my NRI friends told me something bad about DMK”, “my SL Tamil friends were betrayed by DMK”, etc, as it will only infuriate anybody with common sense and an IQ of 70, and not just me. First of all, NONE of the aforementioned people even live in your state. They don’t care if you’re unemployed, in poverty, suffering, or in desperation. They WILL attempt to poison your minds, maybe out of jealousy, maybe out of concealed hatred, maybe out of anything, but it’s ultimately up to you to decide whether the same people who sit outside TN and spew venom against DMK will actually bother to help you if you’re unemployed, in poverty, in desperation, or in any form of trouble, before you fall for them. If they spew poison against DMK, you must ask them what they will do for you if you’re in trouble.

They WILL attempt to poison your minds, maybe out of jealousy, maybe out of concealed hatred, maybe out of anything, but it’s ultimately up to you to decide whether the same people who sit outside TN and spew venom against DMK will actually bother to help you if you’re unemployed, in poverty, in desperation, or in any form of trouble, before you fall for them. 

After writing this, I don’t intend to say all educated/uneducated people of TN are to blame, but the vast majority of them are. Otherwise TN wouldn’t be in dire straits that it is in today. Remember freedom isn’t cheap. Freedom is not a joke. For almost all people, it’s only through blood, sweat and tears that freedom comes to them. Even after attaining freedom, they have to maintain constant vigil in order to maintain that freedom.

Value what you have in hand. Count your blessings before it’s too late....

End of my post. Hope better sense prevails.

Thank you all for reading. Have a good day.

#politics #india politics #DMK #tamilnadu #tamilnadu politics

[movietvtechgeeks]

Latest story from https://movietvtechgeeks.com/donald-trump-supporters-watching-next-four-years-closely/

Donald Trump supporters watching next four years closely

One thing we learned from Donald Trump becoming the 45th president of the United States was that many people who had voted for Barack Obama voted against Hillary Clinton. They wanted change, and they haven’t forgotten all the promises that Trump made to them.

There are actually many who take him at his word even though he has trained his press secretary Sean Spicer to create many versions of what he did say. These voters aren’t stupid, and as their stories show, they’re watching, and if Trump doesn’t deliver in his four years, they’re open to another change.

She tugged 13 envelopes from a cabinet above the stove, each one labeled with a different debt: the house payment, the student loans, the vacuum cleaner she bought on credit.

Lydia Holt and her husband tuck money into these envelopes with each paycheck to whittle away at what they owe. They both earn about $10 an hour and, with two kids, there are usually some they can’t fill. She did the math; at this rate, they’ll be paying these same bills for 87 years.

In 2012, Holt voted for Barack Obama because he promised her change, but she feels that change hasn’t reached her here. So last year she chose a presidential candidate unlike any she’d ever seen, the billionaire businessman who promised to help America, and people like her, win again.

Many of her neighbors did, too – so many that for the first time in more than 30 years, Crawford County, Wisconsin, a sturdy brick in the once-mighty Big Blue Wall, abandoned the Democratic Party and that wall crumbled. The rural county lent Donald Trump 3,844 votes toward his win. More came from formerly blue counties to the north and to the south, and on and on. Some 50 counties stretching 300 miles down the Mississippi River – through Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Illinois – transformed in one election season into Trump Country.

They voted for Trump for an array of reasons, and the list of grievances they hope he now corrects is long and exacting: stagnant wages, the cost of health care, a hard-to-define feeling that things are not getting better, at least not for people like them.

Here in Crawford County, residents often recite two facts about their hometown, the first one proudly: It is the second-oldest community in the state. The next is that it’s also one of the poorest.

There are no rusted-out factories to embody this discontent. The main street of Prairie du Chien butts up to the Mississippi River and bustles with tourists come summer. Pickup trucks crowd parking lots at the 3M plant and Cabela’s distribution center where hundreds work. Just a few vacant storefronts hint at the seething resentment that life still seems harder here than it should.

In this place that astonished America when it helped hand Trump the White House, many of those who chose him greeted the frenetic opening acts of his presidency with a shrug. Immigration is not their top concern, and so they watched with some trepidation as Trump signed orders to build a wall on the Mexican border and bar immigrants from seven Muslim countries, sowing chaos around the world.

Among them is a woman who works for $10.50 an hour in a sewing factory, who still admires Obama, bristles at Trump’s bluster, but can’t afford health insurance. And the dairy farmer who thinks Trump is a jerk – “somebody needs to get some Gorilla Glue and glue his lips shut” – but has watched his profits plummet and was willing to take the risk.

There’s a man who owns an engine repair shop and struggles to keep the lights on, and a bartender who cringes when he sees “Made in China” printed on American goods.

There’s also Holt, who makes $400 a week as a lawyer’s assistant and whose husband doesn’t do much better at a car parts store. She is enthusiastic that Trump started quickly doing the things he said he would, because she worries that by the time their sons grow up there will be nothing left for them here.

In this corner of middle America, in this one, small slice of the nation that sent Trump to Washington, they are watching and they are waiting, their hopes pinned on his promised economic renaissance. And if four years from now the change he pledged hasn’t found them here, the people of Crawford County said they might change again to someone else.

—

Katherine Cramer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, coined a name for what’s happened in her state’s rural pockets: the politics of resentment.

She spent years traveling to small towns and talking to people at diners and gas stations. And when she asked which political party best represented them, their answers almost always sounded something like, “Are you crazy lady? Neither party is representing people around here.”

“People have been looking for a politician who is going to change that, going to listen to them, do it differently,” she said. “People a lot of times don’t have specifics about what that means. They just know that however government is operating currently is not working for them.”

In Crawford County, with just 16,000 residents, that dissatisfaction stems from feeling left behind as other places prospered.

There are plenty of jobs in retail or on factory floors, but it’s hard to find one that pays more than $12 an hour. Ambitious young people leave and don’t come back. Rural schools are dwindling and with them a sense of pride and purpose.

Still, much of the economic anxiety is based not on measurable decay, but rather a perception that life is decaying, said Jim Bowman, director of the county’s Economic Development Corporation.

There are higher-paying jobs – in welding, for example – but companies can’t find enough workers with the right training, Bowman said. The county’s $44,000-a-year median household income is $9,000 less than the state’s, but the cost of living is lower, too.

Just 15 percent of adults have college degrees, half the national average, and yet the ratio of people living in poverty is below the country as a whole.

Crawford County and all the other places in the county cluster along the Mississippi River that switched from Obama to Trump rank roughly in the middle on a scale of American comfort in one economic think tank’s county-by-county appraisal of community distress.

Yet for many here, it doesn’t feel that way.

“If you ask anybody here, we’ll all tell you the same thing: We’re tired of living like this. We’ve been railroaded, run over by the politicians and run over by laws,” said Mark Berns, leaning through the service window in the small-engine repair shop downtown that he can barely keep open anymore. He drives a 14-year-old truck with 207,000 miles on it because he doesn’t make enough profit to buy a new one.

Berns watched Trump’s first days in office half-hopeful, half-frightened.

“He jumps on every bandwagon there is. It’s a mess,” he said, bemoaning what he described as a quantity-over-quality, “sign, sign, sign” approach to governing. “I just hope we get the jobs back and the economy on its feet, so everybody can get a decent job and make a decent living, and have that chance at the American dream that’s gone away over the past eight or 10 years.

“I’m still optimistic,” he said, sighing. “I hope I’m not wrong.”

—

Marlene Kramer gets to work before the sun comes up and spends her days sitting at a sewing machine, stitching sports uniforms for $10.50 an hour.

Kramer, who voted twice for Obama, used to watch Trump on “Celebrity Apprentice.” ”I said to myself, ‘Ugh, I can’t stand him.'” When he announced his candidacy, she thought it was a joke. “Then my husband said to me, ‘Just think, everything he touches seems to turn to money.'” And she changed her mind.

She’s 54, and she’s worked since she was 14, all hard jobs: feeding cows, pulling weeds, standing all day on factory floors. Now it’s the sewing shop, where she’s happy and gets to sit. But there’s no health insurance.

Her bosses, brothers Todd and Scott Yeomans, opened the factory 12 years ago. They said they’re trying to do the right thing by making sportswear with American-made fabrics and American labor. But they compete against factories overseas.

They’d like to offer insurance. The other day, a trusted worker quit for a job with benefits. But they’ve run the numbers, and it would cost $200,000 a year – far more than they can spend.

Kramer said she’s glad the Affordable Care Act has helped millions get insurance. But it hasn’t helped her.

She and her husband were stunned to find premiums over $1,000 a month. Her daughter recently moved into their house with her five children, so there’s no money to spare. They opted to pay the penalty of $2,000, and pray they don’t get sick until Trump, she hopes, keeps his promise to replace the law with something better.

Kramer thinks Obama did as good a job as he could in the time he had. She admires him, still, but went with Trump. That doesn’t seem incongruous to her, just a simple calculation of results.

“His things aren’t going the way we want them here,” she said, “so we needed to go in another direction.”

Across town, Robbo Coleman leaned over the bar he tends and described a similar political about-face. He held up an ink pen, wrapped in plastic stamped “Made in China.”

“I don’t see why we can’t make pens in Prairie du Chien or in Louisville, Kentucky, or in Alabama or wherever,” said Coleman. “Trump brought something to the table that I haven’t heard or seen before. And if it doesn’t turn out, then, hey, at least we tried.”

Coleman doesn’t love Trump’s moves to build a wall or ban certain immigrants – all Americans descended from immigrants, he said, including his own relatives, who migrated from Germany too many generations ago to count. But he’s frustrated that other politicians stopped listening to working people like him.

“We’ve got to give him some time,” he said of Trump. “He’s not Houdini.”

Even some rural Wisconsin Democrats agreed with Coleman’s assessment, and think their party’s leaders are among those who stopped paying attention to those just trying to get by. On the same day that Trump took the oath of office, a group of them huddled in the back room of a tavern, still trying to grasp how the election went awry.

Bob Welsh met Hillary Clinton at a rope line in Iowa and asked her to visit Wisconsin. But she didn’t come a single time during her campaign against Trump, and Welsh thinks that confirmed in the minds of many that Democrats are disinterested in white working people.

Welsh wears flannel shirts and suspenders. He grew up on a farm, worked as a herdsman, and drove a school bus until he was 76 years old. He’s 78 now, and knows his neighbors as kind, hard-working people, and could barely believe they voted for a man he finds reprehensible. But the left-right, blue-red vitriol that has cleaved apart the country has not left the same scars here, where wives reported not knowing how their own husbands voted and husbands said they never asked their wives.

Welsh said he hopes Trump finds a way to keep his promise to build his friends better lives.

“If he does that then he’ll change my mind,” he said. “And I’ll be the first to admit it.”

—

Bernard Moravits hosed the mud and cow dung off the boots pulled up over his jeans and headed for his truck, to drive to town to talk to a banker about keeping his farm afloat.

Moravits – everyone calls him Tinker – works on his farm outside of town at least 12 hours every day, and usually a lot longer. He diversified to minimize risk and has dairy and beef cows, and acre after acre of corn, beans, alfalfa.

“You don’t hit a home run that way, but you don’t get your ass kicked either,” he said. “But this year could be the ass-kicking year.”

The price of milk and agricultural goods has plummeted, and it’s hard to keep things running.

Change is what he looked to Obama for and now expects from Trump. He wants the president to reduce red tape and renegotiate trade deals to benefit American farmers. And he hopes people make more money and spend more money, which eventually trickles down to him.

“I think he’s a shrewd businessman,” he said. “He’s been broke several times. He keeps bouncing back, and he knows how big business works.”

He has several choice words for Trump’s move to build “his stupid wall.” Moravits employs Hispanic workers who have been with him 15 years. He built them apartments. He trusts them to do a dirty, difficult job that he says white people aren’t willing to do.

“A lot of people don’t treat them like people,” he grumbled.

Unlike many transfixed by Trump’s presidency, Moravits doesn’t stay up-to-the-minute on the news. In the morning, he checks the agriculture prices and the weather. As protests over Trump’s immigration ban raged for days, Moravits wasn’t paying attention.

“The play-by-play don’t mean bullshit,” he said. “It’s like watching the Super Bowl. What counts is how it ends.”

He took over this farm at 18 years old, when his father died of an aneurysm while milking cows. He said he plans to die here, too. He’ll retire when “they close the casket lid.”

But if nothing changes and changes soon he might have to borrow against his equity.

Moravits isn’t sure Trump is going to “Make America Great Again” for farmers. But he feels he had to take the gamble.

“He might have us in a war in two weeks,” he said. “We’ll come back here in six months, drink a 30-pack of Busch Light and talk, because no one knows now what’s gonna happen.”

He laughed, then shrugged and pantomimed rolling the dice.

var VUUKLE_EMOTE_SIZE = "90px"; VUUKLE_EMOTE_IFRAME = "180px" var EMOTE_TEXT = ["HAPPY","INDIFFERENT","AMUSED","EXCITED","ANGRY"]

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[topicprinter]

I had been at my cushy corporate job for almost 12 years. During that time, I've pretty much been in the same role. Sure, I've had various title changes, and pay increases here and there, but for the most part, the day-to-day has been the same since the beginning.I wanted to move up the ladder, believe me, I tried, but for one reason or another, it just never seemed to work out. There was always an insurmountable obstacle in my way. The biggest one was the company itself, it was just too damn small, and there was nowhere to go unless the company grew. But, despite constantly maintaining the same headcount, give or take a few here and there, the company never grew as anyone had hoped.It's not that I hated my job, I was actually quite good at what I did. But I started having that feeling a few years ago that I could be doing so much more with my time and effort. I hated having to ask if it was OK to take my kids to the doctor, having to feel bad, feel like I am not being a "team player", or feel like someone is disappointed in me because I decided to take a vacation. I didn't like not having a voice. Despite working for my current company for over 12 years, I still feel like I had no voice. There are a few people that make the decisions, and that's that. Obviously, it is their right to do so, but I feel like I should have had some input after 12 years. My boss and I are separated by almost 30 years in age, so that may have something to do with it. But still, I was sick and tired of the company making dumb decisions without my knowledge or input.So, I did what most people would do. I buffed up my resume & Linkedin profile and started looking for something else, hopefully, something better. I had several interviews, but nothing panned out. I had only been interviewing for a couple of months, but I felt as though it was going really well, considering how picky I was being (benefit of not "needing" a job). But then my boss offered me a very generous raise (I had been due for a raise for almost 3 years) so I eased up on the job search and temporarily went back to being content.I felt great for a couple of weeks, then the feeling of dread returned. It wasn't going away. The extra money was nice, but it didn't fix the problem. At some point it hit me, it was kinda strange, it was like a switch being flipped. I realized that I was completely unfulfilled with what I was doing. No satisfaction, just boring, joyless work. I was doing good work, I was really good at my job, and the job was easy to boot (easy to me anyway). But there was this massive void, something that I couldn't quite describe. I'll admit it, I was completely lost. I didn't know what to do. If I left this job for something else, I will likely work in the same type of environment, doing something similar for someone else that I may or may not like. I had some decent business ideas, but I didn't think I had the courage, nor the capital to start a business, so I kinda wrote that idea off.Miserable, and completely broken, I persisted, because I had to (family to support). I guess I'll just put myself into that statistic of Americans that hate going to work every day. I never thought my day-to-day job could make me so miserable, unfortunately, I brought some of it home with me as well. I was just always pissed off and short-tempered. Not at all who I wanted to be. Something had to give.In desperation mode, I started contacting career coaches. They were all expensive, and I was worried the investment wasn't going to be worth it. My resume and LinkedIn weren't the problems (they offered to "fix" them for me), it was my career that was broken. I needed a new career. But, how does one just go out and get a new career?"Why don't I strap on my job helmet and squeeze down into a job cannon and fire off into job land, where jobs grow on jobbies?That's the kinda frustration I felt. Then, something completely unexpected happened. I was contacted by an "alternative career coach". He charged no direct fees for his services, but he was offering perspectives that I never thought about. So I figured it was worth a shot. I am naturally a very skeptical person, so I figured there had to be a catch. Nobody does anything for free. So we meet, and we get to talking about my goals and situation, and he thinks that he can probably help. So he asks me to complete a DISC personality test to determine my skills, abilities, and personality type. So I do, and I fit the profile for what he is looking for, and his services fit for what I never knew I was looking for.Turns out, this guy is an alternative career coach/franchise business broker (they get a percentage of your franchise fee if you buy the franchise). They find folks like me and help us find a franchise that might be of interest. I know that many people scoff at the notion of buying into a franchise, I was one of them. "It's basically buying yourself a job/career" I have seen many times. Franchise ownership was never even a remote possibility when I started this process. I didn't want to own a Subway, or a Wendys (for some reason fast food is always the first thing that comes to mind when I think franchise). I want to have my own idea, and build my business from the ground up, blah blah blah. The entrepreneur's dream. The word franchise felt dirty (to my stupid uninformed mind) and offputting, I had zero hope of this actually meaning anything. But I shrugged off that feeling and decided to give it a real chance before I jumped to any conclusions. Again, it's not costing me anything, so it's worth a shot.He sets me up with calls from multiple franchisors that fit my interests. They all go well, but one really resonates with me. It checks off all of my boxes. Great income potential, expandability, low (ish) start-up capital requirements, no B&M overhead, great territory, flexible schedule/work from home, and an industry that I am familiar with and believe in. The icing on the cake was the franchisor. The people are fantastic, their support system is world-class, and they invest a lot of time, money, and effort into getting the business running smoothly and profitable. They aren't in it for the initial franchise fees, they want to make a successful product that earns them royalties and intern makes me money, makes sense. Their people are truly the ones that sealed the deal, I believe in them and they believe in me.Together, the franchisor and I went through a mutual vetting process. We needed to make sure we are right for each other. Just because you want a franchise, doesn't mean you get it. It has to be "awarded", there are a lot of boxes that needed to be checked off before you can be awarded a franchise. You need to fit their profile, you need access to capital, and some have net worth requirements. After talking with numerous franchisees, I decided that it was time to move forward. Luckily, I met all their requirements, so I drove out to their HQ and we both decided to move forward. We decided on a training date (December) and sealed the deal shortly thereafter.It also took a lot of convincing of my wife to let me leave my cushy, predictable, steady paying corporate job to pursue this opportunity. Luckily she believes in me and is willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make the most out of this opportunity. There will certainly be an adjustment period for both of us.Several things attracted me to buying a franchise as my first foray into the world of business ownership. When compared to starting my own business from the ground up, there is a lot less risk in buying a proven franchise system, especially one with such great people behind it. A lot of the heavy lifting has already been done for you. I don't need to come up with my own processes and hope something works. I don't need to make a bunch of mistakes trying to market a new brand/product in my local area. I don't need to figure out a good CRM that does everything I need it to. I don't need to build a new website from the ground up. Yes, I will need to learn about all these things in great detail, and determine how to best use them, but I don't need to waste any of my startup capital figuring these things out either. In a few years. if all goes well with this endeavor, I figure that's when I can build something of my own.Funding a business was a very lengthy and complicated ordeal, if you don't already have the startup capital, get ready to do A TON of work to get funding. Buying a proven franchise and using a broker helps, but it is still a whole bunch of work. I'd compare it to getting 2 or 3 new mortgages, there is so much paperwork and so many documents to sign. It's all-consuming, but such a relief when it is over. Let me know if you want to know more.Ever since I signed my franchise agreement, it's been hard to focus on anything else. I've been in hardcore learning mode for the past few months. But it hasn't seemed like work yet, it's been really fun. Also during this time, I've had to work for my current job. Which is kinda like every day being the last day at school, you can't wait till it's over, but you gotta keep going back. It's excruciating having to switch focus on a daily basis.One of the best days I've had in a long time is when I handed in my resignation. I was nervous, but I had fantasized about that day for years. It went very well, and my boss (company owner) understood. He was happy I was taking the leap. He shook my hand and wished me well.I leave for training right after Thanksgiving (3 straight weeks, on top of everything I've already done), and I couldn't be more excited. I finally feel like I am in a good place with good people, and in the right place at the right time. I am finally in the driver's seat, and in full control of my future. I think it's going to be the ultimate test, it's all on me to make this work. I envision that the next few years are going to be pretty rough. Long hours, lots of mistakes, and fluctuating pay. But I also think that it's going to be incredibly rewarding to watch my business grow and reap the rewards of my hard work. Luckily I have an incredible support system to fall back on if things start to get shaky. But I'll never have to say "what if" ever again. Cause I'm doing it.

#/r/smallbusiness #reddit

[topicprinter]

I'm not looking to make this happen tomorrow, but I want to start planning today.I am 33 years old. I worked in restaurants from the time I was 14 until I was 28. I was a high school dropout. I went back to school in 2013 and got an associates degree. I am currently working as an administrative/legal assistant in a law firm and working part time in retail.I went back to school because I felt I was at a point where I needed to have a degree to advance my career. There also was no love lost between me and the corporate quick service restaurant industry. I was a GM making OK money, but I was breaking my back and working far beyond 50 hours per week with no overtime. Also, I felt stupid and unsuccessful. Not that I was stupid, but I really felt that I needed to challenge myself and do something that required more use of my brain than my body. I also wanted to do something that made me feel like I was contributing more to society, and not just obesity.I am OK with my job in the legal field and it the firm I work for does really great things for the community, but I know myself. I don't feel any passion with it. There's no spark and I can't/don't want to see my future in an office job. I probably knew (or should have known) that before I switched career paths, but I really was focused on doing something different for a lot of reasons.Also, there were a lot of things I learned while getting my associates degree that changed my world view and view of myself. I'm actually invested in my own health for once and I've lost 85 pounds this year. I have more energy. I have a better (still not good) understanding of long-term financial investments and personal finance.As scary as it is to do something where I am solely responsible, I know that I am capable and I know that spending the rest of my life working for other peoples dreams will kill me long before I actually die.I've thought a lot about what I'm good at. I'm not really an expert in anything. I'm not very artistic. I'm a pretty capable person, and with the existence of the internet and Youtube I could probably teach myself to do a lot of things (I don't want to go back to school), but I'm just not that excited about a lot of my ideas. However, I do get excited about the idea of starting a food truck/cart. I'm from the southwest and I now live in the midwest and I have always had a love for food and cooking. I think I have some good ideas which, while not wholly original, would be unique to this area. I'm in a college town, and there is a decent food cart market already. I also have 14 years of experience in food service.I don't know if this will ultimately be what I end up doing, but I'd love any advice or to know any of your successes or failures as entrepreneurs. What was it like starting out? Were you able to become profitable? Do you have any regrets?Anything would be helpful. Thanks!

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit