Munraito Densetsu

Rough sketches of Gelu and Gem from Heroes of Might and Magic

It might be hard to say that I meant it that way, but I drew it as if Gem arrived at the last moment, literally during the fateful battle, and managed to stop Gelu and break him out of his possession by the Armageddon's Blade. Because, well, she loves him enough to reach out to him, and he loves her enough to break free and return to himself. Very Sailor Moon-esque, yes. And a couple more cute sketches to hint that everything will be fine for them.

Actually, I absolutely fell in love with Gelu almost two years ago (though I knew the game and liked the character even as a five-year-old, but as a child, I didn't know the details of the plot or the character's backstory). Sometimes I get very attached to characters whose deaths seem completely unfair to me. Yes, I know many players blame Gelu, but I absolutely blame the Armageddon's Blade. For me, the fact that one of the developers said the sword warped his consciousness is enough. Ultimately, I don't believe that a character who was previously quite traumatized by the unwitting murder of innocents, who honestly came to tell the Council of Elders about his terrible mistake, and who also cared about the lives of civilians (all of this can be found in the text of "The Shadow of Death"), would simply destroy an entire planet, just to demonstrate his strength, pride, and so on.

I also know that some players consider this character cold and even sociopathic, and I agree that he has very few lines, and the campaign texts are extremely sparse about his emotions (and especially in "Armageddon's Blade", where the character barely has two lines of his own, but I heard "Armageddon's Blade" was plagued by production issues and the campaign was cut and edited on the fly, so who knows, maybe they just didn't have time to flesh out the character.) But for me, his text, at least in "The Shadow of Death," gave the impression that he simply locks everything inside and does what he has to, but at night he is overcome with nightmares because the trauma never truly goes away. Maybe I just perceived him in a way that resonates with me. After all, literally the very first text description in "The Shadow of Death" where Gelu shows emotion immediately tells us that the character wakes up from a nightmare, "fearful and shaken." Along with emphasizing how "young" the character is (and he will still be referred to as "young" even in "Armageddon's Blade," even though years have passed by then), this touched me even more deeply. Poor child. And his reflections and nightmares about the AvLee lords he mistakenly killed, and his worries about what will happen to the "people of AvLee or Erathia" if the necromancers are not defeated, do not make him unfeeling and cold, in my opinion.

There's even a memorable moment with a certain settlement destroyed by necromancers, when Gem cries, overcome by the memory of her own lost village, and Gelu simply describes it as "...we encountered this... this horrific scene," before immediately adding about the need to fight the necromancers before the same thing happens to all of AvLee. You could dismiss this as coldness, but to me, that slight hesitation in his line sounds like he could have said more but held it all inside. After all, if he and Gem had both given in to shock and grief right then and there, how safe would that have been under the circumstances?

I was also touched by his first line in "The Shadow of Death," with these words: "I look forward to my service faithfully protecting this beautiful land I love so much." (In my country, this line was even translated as "I dedicate my life to the protection of my beautiful and beloved homeland," which is even more touching, although not an exact translation.) How could such a character destroy his own planet simply by his own will and for the sake of his pride, and not under the evil influence of a devilish artifact? I refuse to believe it.

And who knows? The character is an orphan, a half-breed, raised as a warrior from childhood. We have no text descriptions, and we can only guess at the environment in which he grew up, how those around him treated him. After all, the Armageddon's Blade campaign describes a moment where a cameo heroine retreats in fear from Gelu at the sight of his unusual appearance, and who knows if others reacted to him in the same way? And how do we know whether he chose this path and duty himself, or whether it was forced upon him as a child? How tired might he have been of these constant battles (yes, yes, he's far from the only one who struggles, but still), and whether he was seeking recognition because he didn't receive love as a child? After all, Armageddon's Blade promised him the entire continent "finally" at peace, and also a certain woman by his side, whose presence gave him "calm" and strength. Overthinking, indeed.

In short, I couldn't think of a better salvation for this character than salvation through love. By that point, I'd already seen such lovely fanart of Gem and Gelu and even read a couple of fanfics about them (sadly, both with tragic endings), and I was so moved by it all that I couldn't imagine Gelu with anyone else. Yes, I know there's a big age difference between them, but honestly, I didn't see much of a difference between them in the game's text. They're both traumatized and have nightmares, both fail to recognize the necromancers' deceptions and make fatal mistakes, both are prone to angry outbursts and the search for justice. And finally, even though Gem is older than she looks and has retained her youth thanks to some magical waters, Gelu is half-elven on his side, so who knows, maybe he was destined for a truly long life. So I figured he'd eventually be old enough for her anyway, assuming Gem saves him from the power of Armageddon's Blade, and they both survive and can one day live peacefully (and in my mind, that's exactly what happened).

With all that in mind, I made this very rough sketches (and yes, I usually do roughs alternately with live pencil and lines in Photoshop, so it turns out especially sloppy), but I wanted to share it anyway, since due to problems with my physical and mental state, I draw incredibly slowly and I can’t predict whether this will ever turn into a full-fledged drawing.

Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper PC

One of my absolute favorite games, so calm and comfortable, the characters are kind to each other (well, except for Preminger, but even he doesn't do anything as evil and disturbing as he did in the cartoon). There are tons of coloring tasks to complete, and you can decorate the locations the characters live in, which is great. I think my favorite part has always been decorating the palace; the customizable color scheme and all those colorful ribbons, bows, and tassels are simply magical. OMG, when I first got COVID-19 and was incredibly ill, I once dreamed of those palace rooms and ribbons, which is proof of how much they impressed me as a child.

However, as fun as it was to play this game as a kid, now, as an almost thirty-year-old unsure whether I have perfectionism or OCD, I've found that meticulously completing creative tasks is quite difficult. When decorating rooms, ribbons and bouquets are out of perspective, so they don't look right everywhere. If you want to grow specific flowers, you have to spend dozens of minutes planting, watering, and digging over and over and over until the desired bouquet finally emerges randomly.

Stained glass windows and flags look great close-up while you're working on them, but when you decorate a space with them, they shrink and lose fine detail, making the embroidery on the flags, for example, completely meaningless to me. Coloring flags becomes a chore; it's great to have countless shades, but if you want to return to a previously chosen color, you'll never find it again. You don't even have an eyedropper or the ability to set color coordinates, lol.

Cake decorating is a particular frustration for me. Visual artifacts like spoon outlines constantly appear on the cake. There's no way to color a specific part of the cake without going beyond its boundaries. There's no way to even draw a straight line, and there's no way to evenly place sprinkles or decorations. I understand that, on the other hand, all this gives absolute freedom to the imagination, but what if my imagination was focused on decorating everything as neatly as possible and saving a few perfect screenshots as a souvenir of one of my favorite games?

Anyway, I still love it.

(When decorating the locations, I was slightly inspired by The Legend of Kyrandia with its yellow tulips, lavender roses, red apples, emerald forests, and rainbows.)

Barbie as Rapunzel: A Creative Adventure PC

My favorite game of all time (aside from my slightly more beloved The Legend of Kyrandia). I was so impressed as a child, resurrecting a ruined castle, accompanied by excellent music and sound effects (the rug's theme is paradise). And how refreshing and unexpected it was to be able to dress Rapunzel in completely new dresses, beyond her signature lilac gown (which is gorgeous, but familiar). And Rapunzel behaves so comfortably, constantly encouraging and thanking the player. For me, having grown up and, unfortunately, still living with narcissistic parents, receiving acceptance, even from a fictional character, is still very important to this day. Frankly, I've been looking for mother figures in fictional characters, whether consciously or unconsciously, all my life, and Barbie is perhaps the most important one for me in this regard.

The only difficulty I have in this game is the decorations for the thrones and garden flowers. They're incredibly beautifully drawn and look great when you're placing them and seeing them up close. But when you return to the room, the decorations become shrunken and distorted, and the smallest decorations, like gemstones, are reduced to a few barely discernible pixels. Worse, the decorations shift, ending up in completely different places than intended. I'm incredibly concerned about things like this; alignment, centering, even spacing, and so on are all important to me. The solution is to initially shift the decorations in the opposite direction, so that after the distortion, they'll be exactly where you want them. Oh, and I've always worried about planting flowers evenly in the garden. Well, I recently found a solution to all these difficulties by taking screenshots of the game and arranging the decorations and flowers in a photo editor until I feel sufficiently relieved, after which I just have to redo the placement of the items in the game itself, referring to my draft.

Regarding the game's plot, I sometimes found it a little odd that while Rapunzel's beloved is turned into a stone statue, essentially hovering between life and death, or worse, Rapunzel stands with a serene smile and watches the player's creativity, even working on her own painting in one of the rooms. Well, I can explain this by the fact that without restoring all the rooms, it would have been impossible to collect the gems to save Prince Stefan, and Rapunzel is probably so confident in the player's help and a successful outcome that she maintains her optimism and tenderness throughout the game.

Oh, and how important it always seemed to me that at the game's ending, you can actually see a celebration in a room decorated by the player (unlike the later Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, where Erika's coronation was shown in a room decorated by the game's creators, not in a room the player had previously worked on). And that's not even counting how Rapunzel and Stefan gratefully introduce the player to the people of the kingdom, and in the final shot, the player's name is inscribed in a poem. It's all so kind and comforting.