2024-11-15 (Updated 2026-04-15)

"... I think the whole idea of like, a beautiful apocalypse is really evocative to me. I love that. Y'know, this isn't a zombie death thing here, this is, this is like pretty, y'know? This is... a beautiful world kind of disappearing in a clean way. That's sort of how I see it.""

- Porter Robinson, on "Goodbye To A World"

Shelter, a YouTube video released on October 18, 2016, has continued to be one of my favorite pieces of short media for over seven years. Six-minutes of animation from A-1 Pictures alongside an original track by Porter Robinson and Madeon, it has amassed over 83 million views.

The YouTube description undersells the emotive inspiration that this video conveys. In a way few other pieces of media have been able to evoke since, this video captures three themes which I find to be particularly beautiful: idle desolation, virtual expanses, and poetic apocalypse.

Sometimes at night, I go out to walk on the car lane and sit on the sidewalk, imagining that I'm the only one left in the world. I feel as though I can finally spend time to really look at things, to see what I usually ignore. I look at the same buildings I pass by every day, but hold my gaze for minutes at a time, trying to look past the symbols I typically abstract these sights into. I try and switch between perspectives - starting from a purely direct view, with no interpretation, climing up the ladder of abstraction until I end up thinking of where I really am, compared to the Universe itself.

This habit of mine is special for me because it instills a comfort, an acceptance of the existance of everything else that isn't myself. I can confirm to myself that I exist among others, part of a large environment, influenced by countless other actors. Counterintuively, to me, it is the lack of other people that allows me to let my guard down and truly feel the presence of others, without having to unconsciously justify and defend my concept of self.

Within Shelter, Rin's entire life revolves around interfacing with this idle desolation, where she is literally the only person left to exist. Every day, she uses her imagination to create new worlds to explore, from earthy forests to jagged mountains, flat plains to towering glaciers. Her tiny, singular presence contrasted with her connection with the entire world captures the ideal, to be so deeply connected with the world while keeping the security of a self.

I tend to feel the freest when it's late at night, and I'm working single-mindedly on a creative project, or being on a call with friends, talking about nothing in particular. Amplified from the comfort of my own room, I treasure this feeling which mixes escapism and creativity. Being on Discord servers during COVID talking to pseudonymous strangers about their closest life secrets, or drawing on aggie.io while VC-ing with friends, the internet feels like an endless collection of possibilities, where it's possible to start anything you want.

I think it also helps that these projects, despite being so free in nature, are very much individual; I feel in control and fully responsible for everything I make, which is rare in a medium which is so vast and exansive, like software or digital art. Compared to organizational projects, which come with the whole suite of HR and time management necessary, in these late-night projects, it's only me and my imagination which I have to interact with. Contrasted with daily work, everything feels like a dream, and I'm truly free to make anything I want.

Shelter captures this feeling of creativity and escapism through the use of Rin's room as a grounding point for her life; even though she can decide to create whatever kind of world for herself to live in, she always starts from her own bedroom, interfacing with her tablet. The parallel between her ability to create and the endless sea of digital creation encapsulates what it feels like for me to spend 5 hours creating a website, or spending two weeks creating a Live2D model. The possibilites of what you can make are truly endless, and with enough time (perceptually infinite in Rin's case), it feels like I can create entire virtual worlds.

My favourite works have always tended to be the ones which end alongside their worlds. Examples are plentiful: Saya no Uta, Saishuu Heiki Kanojo, Girls' Last Tour, LOTGH, and so on. Even if their fictional worlds don't apocalyptically end, the conclusion of these works tends to come with a monumental change in the worlds that they have built, an irreversible end of their era. The conclusion is beautiful if it satisifes the audience, so what's more satisfying than the end of the entire world?

I especially like the Sekai-kei genre of these apocalypses being intertwined with the fate of one or (often) two characters, and their relationship. Like Reinhart Von Lowengramm and Yang Wen-Li, Saya and Fuminori, Chise and Shuji, Lelouch and Suzaku, Liang and Mansui, the beauty which arises from the depth of human relationships and the conflict between their True End and the fate of the world really brings to light how important people are to each other, even when weighed against the entire world. The importance of human connection and love in such a passionate retelling hits me deeply, and speaks to how I idealize human bonds and relationships.

In this regard, Rin's relationship with her father is a shining example of the lengths to which people will go for their loved ones, even at their own sacrifice. To build a spaceship to save your daughter from the end of the planet, sacrificing your own future - what could be a more passionate form of love? The fact that he hides this memory from Rin as well, only revealing it when she herself finds it, is also hauntingly beautiful; his existence only exists as a part of her memory, to be cherished, but only as an object firmly in the past. His resolve not to preserve himself as an interactable entity, but rather to only preserve his daughter's memories with him shows the total lack of self-preservation, all in the name of his love for Rin.