Helder Arts

Childhood can be scary.

Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon - From Software

I have a soft spot for games where “you” start so low: a corpse, an addict cop fell from grace, a drained bounty hunter sent to a planet alone to get her soul eaten by somehow gentle parasites. 

Armored Core 6 puts you in a body bag and promises to give you a meaning.

The game makes you feel in pain, both physically and mentally, yet you dance the fastest legs exquisitely, while the voices in your brain implants seem to notice you, to worry about you, to tell you you're an artist that can crave for even more.

You choose a how to see if you’re still here. And so, you fly high the miserable sky.

The Boy and the Heron - Studio Ghibli

I’ve read a lot of words about The Boy and the Heron by this point, looking to praise the film by finding hidden sources, mysterious meanings and cultural roots behind its attributed “unorthodox” narrative. But I doubt this given depth was THAT intentional.

To me, this might be the peak of Hayao Miyazaki’s philosophy for process and creation which is well known that doesn’t allow a glimpse of restraint. First and foremost, dealing with a canonical script.

A choice that brings freedom and obsession. A way to live, instead a way to create, to be the stories we tell ourselves. I strongly believe this is what the film exhales. Depth and meaning by making brilliant collaborators profoundly invested with the carefully nurtured concepts in his brain. Depth and meaning by making us fall for the intense personality of such a hard work overall.

To grasp a gap in the system you have to be so bold. And I can't wait for what comes next.

A Guest in the House - Emily Carroll

As dear homie Sloane Leong says in her quote, a Guest in the House is a very sophisticated character study coded as a horror tale, with exquisite art, prose and pacing. 100% Emily’s trademark.

Personally, I still can't stop smiling at how it philosophically reads as an essay about evasion. On how skipping reality can be empowering and healing, and more than anything, romantic; even if, you know, it takes you to the grou… Please don't mind me.

Hide from hideous, grasp a glimpse of justice, make the self you want to be, legit. Toxic. The knight or the ghost. In Emily’s safe HUB, the guts spill into refined erotic scenarios that make the average the most dreadful place to be.

Anyway. You don't do a book on this scale alone, to save the day. The accurate craft still feels like a scream. It's the kind of work that saves the medium by making creators unsafe. Please consider reading it and support it. Emily’s writing truly is precious.