Geofam - Blog

Why Shelter holds a special place in my heart

2026-09-26

Shelter by Porter Robinson and Madeon is one of my all time favorite songs. Its melodies, chord progressions and vocals are sad, yet hopeful at the same time, which is a perfect companion to the reason I love it so much.

In April 2025, I was looking for some new games to play on my Nintendo Wii, searching the term "Best games for the Nintendo Wii". Everything I've known was there. Super Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, Super Smash Bros. Brawl... All the games I've heard of. But there was one specific game popping up that I had no recollection of. That game was Xenoblade Chronicles.

I don't even know why I tried it. After all, I was never into RPGs, let alone JRPGs, and I basically never try experiencing media I don't think I'll like. I really consider it a miracle, that I thought "Hmm, why not?" Anyways, fact of the matter is I started playing Xenoblade Chronicles. So what do you think I thought of the game? Did I like it or not? Did I love it or did I hate it?

Well... let's just say the phrase "I was hooked" is an enormous understatement. I wasn't hooked, no. I was full-on obsessed. This game was the only thing I could think about. And worse yet, I was about to graduate high school! So what did I do? That's right, I played the hell out of this game instead of studying! What a responsible human being I am... Now you might be thinking "But hey, what does this have to do with Shelter? The song you started this post with?" Don't worry, it's time to start talking about exactly that.

So as I said in the beginning of this post, Shelter is sad, yet hopeful, and this lends itself perfectly to how Xenoblade Chronicles can make you feel. It can make you feel sadness, even to the point of crying, it can make you feel happiness, but after all that, it makes you realise, that you have no choice but to look into the future, and try to be hopeful. Change is scary, it's frightening for every single one of us, but we can't let that fear overwhelm us. We can't give into that fear of the unknown. And on top of all of that, as I said, I was about to graduate high school. I was going through similar emotions as I described. I was sad, because I was about to leave some friends behind. I was scared, because I was about to enter university. But in the end, I had to be hopeful, I had to hope, that things would not be so bad.

Shelter helped me. It helped me overcome my feelings of sadness and fear of the unknown. And I will forever be grateful to Porter Robinson and Madeon for making such a beautiful song, that helped me in this way.

This is why the 2016 song Shelter holds a special place in my heart and why it'll stay there.

Thanks for reading this post. It's a personal one, but I felt like I needed to write down these feelings and by doing that, get them off my chest.
So thanks again.

- MiniStumpy