Monthly library update: October

Date published: 2024.10.30

(Posting this today because we’re going to be too busy to do it tomorrow!)

We love sharing links and resources almost as much as we love hoarding them. Our library tab continues to grow, but… realistically, no one is going to keep refreshing it on their own and checking what kinds of new links have been added there recently. It’s a place you head to once or twice, and then don’t, because why would you?

That’s obviously a problem with a stupidly easy solution.

So now we’re going to be notifying you about new additions here! Our updates are going to be sent at the end of each month and they’re going to contain everything we’ve found in that time that we consider worthy of sharing. (That also means new music, books, movies, games, etc. we’ve discovered, which might not be included in the library tab at all!) Just a long, big compilation of everything for you to browse through, delivered to your RSS reader of choice (or posted here, if you prefer checking the website on your own for some reason?) once a month.

Hope you enjoy it! <3

Articles and essays 📰

AI and the American Smile

About Americentrism in AI’s portrayal of other cultures. Also about smiling for photos.

( ) A może problemem młodych mężczyzn nie jest konserwatyzm?

A może problemem mężczyzn nie jest konserwatyzm, tylko nadmierny indywidualizm?

( ) OFF Radio Kraków kończy "eksperyment" ze sztuczną inteligencją

LOL.

( ) Czy polska szkoła musi być uzależniona od Big Techów?

Wychodzi na to, że w sumie to niestety chyba tak.

Video essays 🎥

The Narcissist Scare

A commentary on the harmful and deeply ableist trend of demonizing “narcissists” commonly encountered in self-help spaces.

why are Polish people so obsessed with Marie Curie being Polish?

About the erasure of certain famous people’s national identity. And why it matters, actually.

Why Queer TV is Getting Worse

What makes queer representation “good” and why is it so hard to find good queer media?

"nobody takes anything seriously anymore"

A short (20 minutes long) video essay about the widespread lack of sincerity (“irony epidemic”).

Orientalism: Desert Level Music vs Actual Middle-Eastern Music

A video essay about how western media misrepresents Middle-Eastern music.

the chronically online state of asexual discourse

The state of the asexual discourse & the war between the LGBT and the A was something truly vile to witness back when we were young teens and identified as asexual (we don’t anymore, but it doesn’t matter; what matters is that we got to experience what it was like back then). At the very least, we are glad the issue is talked about more nowadays… and hopefully slowly being fixed.

I traveled to Jerusalem to face my fear of hell.

A short explanation of how the view of Christian Hell came to be, and why (ex-)Christians don’t have to keep feeling scared. Good video for healing religious trauma if you have it.

What Actually Happens in Fear & Hunger? - Story Analysis & Review & What Happens in Fear & Hunger 2: Termina - Full Story Analysis

We’ve finally decided to find out what the Fear & Hunger games are all about, since we realized we’re most likely not going to play them anytime soon. (After learning more about them, we now know we most likely won’t play them at all. But they’re so interesting to listen to other people talk about!)

Art 🎨

During our (still ongoing1, a bit chaotic) research on Slavic mythology, we have encountered the paintings of Andrey Shishkin. While many of them are beautiful and you should definitely do some browsing of your own, THE one that caught our eye was Хорс (or Khors in international spelling, Chors in Polish).

a painting portraying a young, feminine man on a white horse. he's holding out a hand towards the sky. in the background there is a big, orange orb of the rising (or setting) sun.
Just look at him.

Music 🎵

This month’s new music finds:

When You See Me, Run by World, Interrupted

Bzdet – Nieład by Bzdet

^ two Polish post-punk albums released in 2024.

サ​バ​イ​バ​ル​ホ​ラ​ー Survival Horror by ShymNoiz

An ambient album inspired by the sound of old survival horror games.

RAT WARS ULTRA EDITION by HEALTH

A longer edition of the 2023 album. Check it out if you like metal.

Books 📘

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller.

It’s one of the few self-help books we’ve read in our life that we found actually helpful, alongside gems like Pete Walker’s Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving.

fragment of the book 'drama of the gifted child'. it says: 'Both the depressive and the grandiose person completely deny their childhood reality by living as though the availability of the parents could still be salvaged: the grandiose person through the illusion of achievement, and the depressive through his constant fear of losing 'love'. Neither can accept the truth that this loss or absence of love has already happened in the past, and that no effort whatsoever can change this fact.'
An example fragment of the book that we saved to remember in the future.

Movies & TV shows 🎞️

Kowloon – The Walled City (1988).

A short, 30 minutes long documentary. It is by no means perfect, some parts of it are pretty frustrating, but definitely worth checking out for the footage of the city itself.

Games 🎮

On October 8th Kingdom Two Crowns released their newest DLC, Call of Olympus, which we’d been waiting so long for. We haven’t fully beaten it yet, mainly because the main interested headmate has been taking a small(-ish) break from fronting and we don’t want them to miss out on the fun, but we’re about halfway through and for now we’re enjoying it. The DLC adds new interesting mechanics and makes the gameplay different enough from the main game to not feel boring. It’s also absolutely visually gorgeous, as always (although the Norse Lands DLC still remains the prettiest, imo).

screenshot of Kingdom Two Crowns: Call of Olympus. it's a pixel art game. our character is riding a cerberus mount, standing near the opening of a forest.
I could take a way prettier screenshot, but that would require me to progress with the game, and I don’t want to do it without Len present. Sorry!

On October 9th there was a major Spirit City: Lofi Sessions update, which added many new cosmetics and a new spirit, making the program (technically not a game) even more aligned with our aesthetic taste. We are slightly disappointed that there’s still no option to save & switch between character and room presets2, but we understand it’s probably not that easy to implement.

screenshot of our Spirit City Lofi Sessions character. they're sitting on the windowsill reading a book.

We also ended up buying Timberborn this month after we heard the news about its upcoming price increase, and we couldn’t be happier with the game – we’d been needing some sort of city builder for a very long time now, and Timberborn scratches that itch perfectly. The game is still in beta, but it doesn’t feel like you’re playing beta, it feels like a finished, well-polished product. Also: it’s cute. I mean, it’s got beavers.

screenshot of our Timberborn map, filled with buildings and farmlands
(This is the small waterfalls map.)

Other things we’d like to share

Started reading the webcomic I Was Born To Work Retail. It’s good and you should check it out. (Content warning though: it gets pretty surreal and dark. Be careful.)

We also got bored of using our previous Obsidian theme (AnuPpuccin) and decided to give Border a try. Very happy with the result! It has way more customization options and allows us to hide basically every part of the program if needed. That helps us focus and feel less overwhelmed, which we had struggled with before (we’re very sensitive to cluttered designs for some reason; the more things on the screen, the more claustrophobic it feels).

screenshot of this very update, written in Obsidian

Brought to you with love by: Sela ⛓️, mostly️

1 Since we’re not yet done with our research, it’s likely that next month’s library update will be flooded with resources about Slavic culture and mythology. We’re not sharing them just yet because we want to be confident that they’re the best quality resources we could find, so we’ll only properly organize them when we decide we’ve learned enough. (At some point we’ll also definitely be posting some longer piece about our own thoughts on the topic, because we have many.)

2 Granted, we set up our Spirit City character to look like one of our favourite OCs and decorated the room accordingly to the OC’s tastes, but… some of us have different favourite OCs you knowww…