Hypocrite's Haunt

On Wednesday, the tenth of November, the constitutional court of Thailand ruled that the three major figures of a pro-democracy protest from last year were guilty of trying to overthrow the monarchy. One judge claimed that any attempt to “weaken or undermine” the monarchy was tantamount to an attempt to destroy the institution – and therefore, it is an act of treason, an attempt to destroy the country’s system of government. In Thailand, treason is punishable by death.   Milan Kundera said in his book The Unbearable Lightness of Being that metaphors were dangerous. Let’s see how dangerous they are then, shall we?   Protesters in Thailand fight so that our country can return to the rightful and legitimate form of governance – a fair democracy with a monarch as the figurehead. The court accuses them of trying to overthrow the “constitutional democracy.”   A general overthrows a democratically elected government and rewrites the constitution to remain in power t...

            In The Unbearable Lightness of Being , the main character, Tomas, noted that it was only because of a string of coincidences that he ended up meeting, and falling in love, with his partner, Tereza, and that if anything was even slightly different, she could have been spending the rest of her life with a different man. My meeting with this book itself was a similar, if much less dramatic, collision of chance. I had read another of Kundera’s book in a class on Czech literature – it was The Joke – and therefore was familiar with his biography and the themes he played with in his works. Nevertheless, I never got around to reading his most popular book, The Unbearable Lightness of Being . Years of mandatory readings have left me burnt out on literature, and it wasn’t until I went through a year of business school that I regained a hunger for stories. Near the end of my time at that university, I was moving out and had dumped a bunch of my stuf...

                 I wanted to love Sing Yesterday for Me , I really did. The premise was solid – a seinen show focused on the post-graduate ennui as reality crashes into and destroys the idealistic hopes of youth. The main character, Rikuo Uozumi, languishes in his angst after graduating from university, unable to bear the tedium and frustration of job hunting and thus preferring to simply work a dead-end job at a convenience store. Watching as his friends get jobs, get married, and get on with their lives while he wallows in his self-pity, Uozumi is similar to other characters like Hyouka ’s Oreki or Oregairu ’s Hachiman in their apathy. Because of this, I had hopes of an interesting social drama developing along with the main theme of moving from the past. Instead, what I found was a terrible soap opera that plays fast and loose with character development, wrapping up with a slipshod and unsatisfying ending.     ...

          This week for Parallel Play , I’ll be cheating a little bit; I didn’t play Hades and Children of Morta simultaneously. I had in fact finished Hades a good while back after it came out of early access. But since I just finished Morta and Hades has just arrived on Gamepass, there is probably no better time to write about these games.   As always: spoilers below for both these games, so beware!             Most people won’t need an introduction to Hades since it’s been massively successful to the point of being nominated (and winning) tons of awards for Game of the Year. But in case you’ve been living under a rock (or not as much of a nerd as I am), Hades is the newest game to come from the acclaimed halls of Supergiant, a superstar indie studio I absolutely adore. It’s a rogue-like based on Greek mythology, with the conceit being that you are Zagreus, son of underworld-god Hades, and are trying ...

                      A few weeks ago, I made a post about the fascinating and impressive Hearts of Iron 4 mod, Red Flood . What made that mod great was the refreshing new take on world history, a new perspective that changed up the old rules of alternative history. This week, however, I’ll be talking about another HOI4 mod – but this time it’s one that is even further from reality than the last. I’m of course talking about Old World Blues , the total overhaul mod based on the Fallout universe. The current state of the mod focuses on the western half of the continental United States, although it is slowly moving eastward (it now includes some parts of the Midwest, like Colorado and Oklahoma). I’m honestly impressed with the progress the developers had made; they’ve not only introduced new regions with interesting and unique countries and focus trees, but they’ve also added cool new mechanics that didn’t exist in the base...

Last week, I first dove into the treasure trove that is the Xbox Game Pass on PC, taking advantage of the dirt cheap first month deal. A single quid for AAAs to indies, retro to next-gen, even Xbox exclusives! It’s a good thing I didn’t discover this gem until after I finished my degree, or I would’ve been spending all those Zoom classes with my eyes on another monitor, mashing away at the keyboard. Anyway, by taking advantage of the Game Pass’ massive catalogue of games, I’ve managed to download a hefty number – these include games that I forgot, were too expensive, or simply weren’t on my radar. Having so many games at my disposal meant I could switch between them if I got tired or bored, giving me the interesting opportunity to compare them in real time. For today, I’ve chosen two JRPGs – Yakuza: Like a Dragon and Octopath Traveler .   Yakuza: Like a Dragon is one of the newer entries to the distinguished Yakuza series, which had previously followed the adventures of one h...

I hear the soft strains of an organ blending with the wistful, melancholic Russian lyrics being sung, staring at surreal collages of modernist art, historical figures, and flyers promoting fictional regimes, as the small loading bar inches across the screen. I’m playing Hearts of Iron 4, a WWII strategy game, and I feel myself become slightly deranged, tearing my hair out over the terrible loading times on my PC as I listen to the eerie Russian song for the millionth time. But my madness seems fitting, as I am playing the mod Red Flood , a total conversion mod that seems to have taken Percy Shelley’s words that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” and replaced “unacknowledged legislators” with “authoritarian leaders.”   Entering the ersatz world of Red Flood , we can observe a few commonalities with other alternate history worlds – Russia and Spain are competing to see who can have the most confusing and destructive civil war, Africa is in ...