The Lion Dictator

[90sTudeDude]

And here I am, after ten years of nothing. Back in 2012 I spent days and nights writing tiresome walls of text talking about brainstorming, and planning an "epic fantasy" fic that would carry the same spirit as FE. Hoo boy, I wish I was that zealous about writing now. I guess years of trial and error, and coming across a variety different opinions have taught me one thing: make it simple.

Something a good friend told me years ago when stuck in my "where do I start?" phase was "First: try writing a modern version of a classic fairytale". It suffices to say that it worked wonders to let my imagination run wild and ditch the idea of feverishly planning drafts and outlines to make something perfect. It saves energy... and sanity.

Wit that out of the way, I wanted to make a twist to my friend's suggestion and try to write an "80s/90s action-style sequel" to a story that I love that had disappointing follow-ups. In my case: "The Lion King".

I'm tired of postponing things, and want to improve my writing. If I don't do so now, life will pass and this chance will go away. This is just a start, so I kindly ask of all those who read this to not pull your punches with your critique. Consider this story a "writer's punching bag" of sorts: both author and reader get to throw their best punches with improvement in mind, and no fear of getting hit back.

Without further ado, here it is:

 

The Lion Dictator - Road to the Final Vengeance

 

Chapter 1 - And his name is Shujaa

 

  The rising sun blesses the land once more with its orange blaze of life and power. The giraffes raise their long necks, the rhinoceros look upwards after yawning, the gazelles twitch their ears as they set their position to start their morning stride, and the meerkats pop out of the ground to greet the bright red titan in yet another day of life. And yet, the grass is yellow and dry, most of the ponds have been sucked into the coarse soil, and the preys remain in small clusters to limit the Pride’s hunts. The kingdom is merely a hollow shell of the glorious homeostasis from the years of the great Mufasa, now faded into the clouds of myth. Even amidst the difficulties purported after the fall of their past tyrant, Scar, the subjects of the Pride remain diligent with the roles assigned to them from birth. 

  

The brief spell of silence breaks as orange clouds of dust and earth rumble from the distance; a cluster of silhouettes of pale, four legged animals could be barely spotted within the groundy mess. As the dusty screen cleared, the figures could be finally seen: their black-and-white striped skins were riddled with blotches of blood, in desperation of the escape their hairs were split and bent into different angles, and their long faces had their mouths open in both panic and short-breathedness. The Zebras were trying to run away from something fast enough to catch up to their stride, and powerful enough to make them bleed and flee in fear. With the dust now tailing behind the herd, the cause of their pains could be spotted right at the level of their knees: a pack of Wild Dogs were running parallel to the terrified equines, launching vicious bites in an effort to clasp some meat for nourishment. The Zebras were galloping ahead, hopeful that the starving hounds would eventually lose breath and slow down. Those hopes were crushed as soon as the herd noticed a vast pond - the only one found within miles from the Pride Rock - along their tracks. The Zebras were astonished, as they knew who that pool of fresh water belonged to. In a millisecond, the helpless group decided that it is safer to avoid the water, lest they incur the wrath of its master.  With no choice other than to take a detour, the herd made a sharp turn to the right to shake off their assailants. The herd swerved away, making a fast angle to the right, barely skating the edge in which the soil meets the water. Nevertheless, not every member could handle the sudden change of direction, as a sole juvenile - unable to redirect himself at the precise time - made a beeline towards the pond and splashed through, unnoticed by his brethren. 

  

  Seeing the Zebra barely able to stay afloat and panting for his life, the Wild Dogs took this perfect opportunity to charge towards their young prey. “We got a ‘im Mhuni!”, barked one of the smaller framed mutts as a burlier dog sped past him in an instant. This bigger fellow had a very distinctive image: dirt-brown skin riddled in scars, ears chipped, and blazing red eyes reflecting an insatiable thirst for blood. The hulking canine snarled and then let out profound wheezes to savor his lust for fresh meat. Mhuni finished his prospecting by savoring the blood smeared in his muzzle with his tongue. “I get dibs on the tripes!”, growled the leader of the mutts. Mhuni then immediately lunged himself into the pond, and instantly bounced back into the surface to start swimming towards his helpless target. The rest of his pack - without a second thought - joined their leader in his watery raid. The zebra kept swimming and struggling as he was closer to losing his breath. His leg strength was ebbing, and his panting getting heavier and more painful, the juvenile was sure he was done for as the thuggish mutt and his horde were but an inch closer to get a clean bite out of his flesh. 

  

  The water then moved and made the shape of a turquoise blue mound, sending a series of large waves that pushed Mhuni flipping backwards, while some other less fortunate mutts were swallowed into the turquoise-green watery mass. From the depths of the pond rose a hulking round figure that cast a shadow over the recovering Mhuni who, upon gaining a better composure in the water, gasped as an imposing blob of gray skin pushed him even further away with a second, stronger wave. Mhuni’s astonished visage was reflected on the beast’s pitch black eyes protruding from googly sockets, darting the dog with a forthright stare and slowly frowning their ominous brow, almost as if they could see into the savage brute’s corrupt soul; paralyzed, Mhuni could not react even when the gray giant slowly exhausted their steamy breath from their nostrils right to his face. Two other dogs who survived the giant’s first splash shared their boss’s awe, eventually sending out dissonant ripples from their nervous shivering, letting out a series of whimpers more fitting to a human’s pet pup than that of seasoned killers of the savanna.

 

  -“It’s Shujaa!” stuttered one of the lackeys. Shujaa rose further above the surface to give a better glimpse of his appearance: his gray skin was covered with scratches of different dimensions; one of his ears was chipped, and if it weren’t for his head, his body resembled a worn-out stone slab when seen from a distance. Breaking free from his brief spell of surprise, Mhuni proceeded to engage by pulling his followers with his jaw and harshly unleashing them onto Shujaa. “Don’t just float there, you idiots!” barked the wild dog, “Sic him!”. The astonished underlings’ rattling worsened as they swam forward to attempt to clasp onto Shujaa’s flesh, only for one of them to find their way into a reddish pink maw that let out a steamy emission from the giant’s bowels. In a matter of seconds, all that could be taken from that instant was the echo left behind by the unlucky wild dog’s desperate gurgling, for Shujaa had gone underwater once more - and this time with an unwanted visitor inside of his gut. The other mutt - bewildered and unable to process his next action- straddled and looked around the pond in low hopes that his comrade survived. The hapless canine leered downwards to find a dark-red miasma slowly spreading past his reflection in the water. The lackey’s eyes widened, then the miasma released a series of ripples with water bubbling in the middle. In a matter of seconds, a paw plopped outwards completely straightened. The mutt rushed forward, relieved that his partner might have somehow survived after all. The wild dog bit onto the meatier part past his ally’s paw and put all of his strength in his neck and head to pull his fellow thug towards him, just to let out three big spins backwards: his friend was lighter than he thought. The survivor rattled his head around to see where his friend was, lest he pulled hard hard enough to send the dog flying, but it was to no avail. The thug did a quick glance downwards to realize the truth behind his comrade’s instant loss of weight: there was no longer a body connected to that paw! The henchman’s pupils shrunk while releasing a terrified whine at the exact same time, letting go of his deceased partner’s limb in astonishment. The mutt’s shock lingered, for all he could see at the next instant was the cylindrical bottom of his target’s front foot on its way to plunge him underwater.

 

  Mhuni used his cohorts’ incompetence to his benefit and swam towards the land, peeking for a small moment at how the red miasma in the spot where the first of his dogs died was getting redder with the following one’s demise. The hippopotamus rose from the depths of his waterbed to give an even more detailed look of his appearance. His skin was a gray slab of stone, riddled with scars of age, wear and tear from countless conflicts; the hooves in the four toes of each of his front feet were stained with fresh blood; his pitch-black eyeballs would reflect Mhuni’s visage, if only they were unhampered by the flames of the hippo’s rage. Mhuni gulped and bowed his head, while slightly raising his eyes to make contact with the angered guardian. The gray giant walked into standing straight, casting a shadow that engulfed the intruder. The hippopotamus then set his entire body to a complete stop after a single burp. He slowly opened his maw to regurgitate something that he had crushed with his tusks; from Mhuni’s point of view, they were orange fragments that looked like a combination between stone and wood. Mhuni, leered at the strange leftovers and leaned his muzzle closer to identify them through smell. The head thug’s eyes widened, and his face started sweating bullets from the realization of his henchmen’s unceremonious and powerless doom.  Perhaps at that moment Mhuni discovered true fear was: While Simba and his pride may rule the savanna, this pond's ownership has been long taken by one other king, and his name is Shujaa.  

 

 

[lenticular]

I have neither the time nor inclination to go fully in depth, but a few quick points:

1. This is tonally inconsistent with the source material. Just way more gruesome than the original The Lion King. Which makes me think, who is this for? If it's for fans of the original, many wouldn't care for the tonal shift. If it's for people who want something grittier and more violent, does it really need to have any of the Lion King references, or would it be better off as its own thing? Are you doing it just for shock value? If so, then be aware that trying to be shocking usually just makes many people roll their eyes. If you're specifically trying to write for the fairly small subset of people who really want a sequel to The Lion King except with more blood and violence, then I guess that's your choice, but you should be aware that that probably isn't a very big audience.
2. Pick a tense and stick with it. You start off in the present tense but then switch part way through to the past tense. You need to be consistent. If in doubt, just stick to the past tense, since it's a lot easier to write in than the present tense.
3. Your prose is very purple. Being evocative and poetic is one thing, but at least for my tastes, you go too far and are overusing adjectives, adverbs and similes where simple descriptions would be better. It's especially jarring given that you seem to be going for more of a violent action-movie sort of aesthetic,  which seems like it would want to be more immediate and to-the-point.
4. You have a bunch of instances where you're reusing uncommon words in quick succession, which comes across as very clumsy.
5. Use more paragraph breaks, especially when you're writing speech and dialogue. Long paragraphs without line breaks are harder to read.
6. This might be a nitpick, but it was something I found especially jarring. Hunting carnivores don't try to bite off chunks of flesh to eat as they chase their target. They bite to maim, incapacitate and kill, and only start eating once they've downed their prey.

[90sTudeDude]

On 11/27/2022 at 7:50 AM, lenticular said:

This is tonally inconsistent with the source material. Just way more gruesome than the original The Lion King. Which makes me think, who is this for? If it's for fans of the original, many wouldn't care for the tonal shift. If it's for people who want something grittier and more violent, does it really need to have any of the Lion King references, or would it be better off as its own thing? Are you doing it just for shock value? If so, then be aware that trying to be shocking usually just makes many people roll their eyes. If you're specifically trying to write for the fairly small subset of people who really want a sequel to The Lion King except with more blood and violence, then I guess that's your choice, but you should be aware that that probably isn't a very big audience.

And right you are. For starters, this is a very immature doodle I came up with way back in high-school as a “screw you” to the Disney’s direct-to-video sequels fever from the late 90s and early 2000s. My idea was that, if I am to ruin a universally beloved story with a sequel, I might as well do so through mindless popcorn-fun. This story is for a very niche audience, that might expand just a bit more with the current hatred the live action remakes have garnered nowadays. I chose the OG to be a hippo, because they are actually more dangerous than lions in real life. And that gives me a great chance to come up with several action sequences. Hence, Shujaa has no reason to kneel to a lion. That, and the fact that hippos don’t mind coexisting with smaller animals, like birds.

On 11/27/2022 at 7:50 AM, lenticular said:

Pick a tense and stick with it. You start off in the present tense but then switch part way through to the past tense. You need to be consistent. If in doubt, just stick to the past tense, since it's a lot easier to write in than the present tense.

Gotcha. 

On 11/27/2022 at 7:50 AM, lenticular said:

• Your prose is very purple. Being evocative and poetic is one thing, but at least for my tastes, you go too far and are overusing adjectives, adverbs and similes where simple descriptions would be better. It's especially jarring given that you seem to be going for more of a violent action-movie sort of aesthetic,  which seems like it would want to be more immediate and to-the-point.
• You have a bunch of instances where you're reusing uncommon words in quick succession, which comes across as very clumsy.
• Use more paragraph breaks, especially when you're writing speech and dialogue. Long paragraphs without line breaks are harder to read.

Duly noted. I’m extremely rusty after years of dumping everything in one sitting without others’ critique to help guide me.Gotta fix this fast.

On 11/27/2022 at 7:50 AM, lenticular said:

This might be a nitpick, but it was something I found especially jarring. Hunting carnivores don't try to bite off chunks of flesh to eat as they chase their target. They bite to maim, incapacitate and kill, and only start eating once they've downed their prey

I couldn’t help but cracking up at this! It’s not a nitpick, you’re just stating facts. This is a mistake that stemmed naturally from me continuing the story sporadically and inconsistently. Thanks for pointing that out.

All I can say right now is “whoa”. You wrote very helpful advice in a single post without holding back. And that wasn’t even in-depth. Hope we can share more when you have the time. I’ll focus on fixing this mess along with chapter 2. Thanks!