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Maran-Zelde

I need a second to even
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Sudden Activity

2 min read
Over the past few days, I received a lot of favorites on my Avatar: The Last Airbender fanart. I'm not sure why the sudden interest, but I appreciate it. To tell you the truth my interest in this fandom has waned. I still love ATLA and like the last two seasons of Korra, but it's hard to stay really invested now that there are just comics. And the LoK comics suck. I've thought about writing a journal entry about how much they suck, but it's hard to know where to begin. Let's just say they make "The Promise" look like a masterpiece. Anyway, I don't really do opinion pieces like I used to. Hell, I barely draw anymore. It's really difficult to find time now that I'm working two jobs totaling 52 hours a week on average. And most of my creative energies have been devoted to painting a couple of private commissions and writing a My Little Pony fanfic about the Pillars of Ancient Equestria finding their place in modern life.

I mean, it's great that I'm no longer living paycheck to paycheck and I'm actually saving money, but all this work is cutting into my social life and sleep and creative activity.

But getting back to Korra, I've seen a few recent videos on youtube that critique the first two seasons in particular. I think that Korra coasted on the good will that ATLA had built up for it, and it's only after some time has passed that some viewers are analyzing it with a more critical eye.

This is probably the best one. I think he makes some good points about the first season having inconsistent world-building, and pro-bending being pointless, and I totally agree with him about the series finale of ATLA.

But my next fanart here will most likely be more pony. I might throw in a drawing of Varrick if the mood strikes me.

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Update 2017

3 min read
I was recently scrolling down my profile page and noticed that it's been over a year since my last journal entry. So I thought I'd better post an update. I'm not as active as I used to be two years ago, but I still check this site twice a week – typically Mondays and Fridays.

I reached my two-year milestone at my job, which was a huge deal for me since I had gone through several temp jobs before finally finding a long-term position. But in two weeks I'm starting a new, better job. Unlike my previous job, this one will offer benefits, paid time off and paid federal holidays. So I'm excited about this opportunity.

Also, I have two nephews now, both adorable.

So those are all the big changes in my life.

Besides My Little Pony, I've been watching Dragons: Race to the Edge, Trollhunters, and Star Trek: TOS (I already watched TNG and DS9). I also like The Flash, although I'm not sure if I'll watch any of the other CW series. And the reboot of MST3K is ok, but I haven't really gotten into it. I saw Stranger Things and I'm planning on rewatching it for Halloween. Milo Murphy's Law is pretty good, but I've only watched about 8 episodes.

Oh! And I read the Invader Zim comics up through about issue #16. I highly recommend them for IZ fans. Except for the Gaz videogame issue - you can skip that one.

But I rage-quit Once Upon a Time. It was during the King Arthur arc. Arthur was an uninteresting, one-dimensional villain, but what made me stop watching was the way the writers handled Emma as the Dark One. The concept had so much potential, and yet it seemed like the writers didn't know what to do with her or the other characters effected by her becoming the Dark One. They did this hokey trick of bringing in a vision of Rumpelstiltskin as a devil on her shoulder and had Emma transfer some of her dark magic into Captain Hook, somehow without him finding out until much later. Ugh, it was just a mess. And I hated how Hook suddenly acted like Emma wasn't good enough for him when she became the Dark One. This despite the fact that Hook didn't make much of an effort to reform other than following Emma around like a puppy and bonding with Henry.

Maybe someday I'll binge-watch the entire series after it's canceled. Or at least leave it on as background noise.

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Now that I've watched about 8 episodes of The Lion Guard, I see that it has more flaws that I thought. The humor hasn't gotten any better, and most of the characters remain underdeveloped. Kiara, in the episode “Can't Wait To Be Queen,” is more bratty and conceited than she was in Simba's Pride. Also, I wanted to like Bunga simply because he's a honey badger, but he gets a little grating after awhile – mostly because of his annoying catch phrases. It seems like the writers were trying to make him into the next-gen Timon – small and overconfident with a “Hakuna Matata” type of motto – but the problem is that Timon is funny and Bunga isn't (although this show's writers don't seem to know how to write Timon humorously either). If I were to reinvent Bunga, I'd make him a deadpan snarker. For example, he would question why they shouldn't let the leopard eat the okapi – after all, it's just part of the Circle of Life.

When it comes to the premise and execution, the biggest misstep is Kion's “Roar.” The Roar is a convenient magical ability that can do anything from scaring animals, tearing the leaves off the trees, knocking down walls, to even changing the direction of a flood! This power is never explained. I was hoping that the pilot episode shed some light on it, but unfortunately I couldn't find it on Youtube (in case you're wondering, I'm not even bothering with Dailymotion because it always freezes on me). So if you're a newcomer jumping into the middle of the season, it comes across like a deus ex machina and just plain lazy writing. And on a side rant, I hate when people excuse poor writing by saying, “It's just a kids' show.” I basically agree with the Nostalgia Critic that this attitude implies that kids don't deserve quality entertainment with actual effort put into it simply because they don't know any better. But My Little Pony proves that it is possible write age-appropriate stories that are often smart and respect their audience.

Another thing that bothers me about the Roar is that it doesn't fit the movies. Yes, they had mysticism, but they were limited to visions and voices. This show treats it like a super power, like it wasn't enough for Kion to have sharp retractable claws and excellent night vision (another thing I noticed is that none of the episodes have any night/twilight scenes even though that's when lions are most active).

For a show that's supposed to teach kids about animals, this show drops the ball sometimes. Beshti and his pod perpetuate the myth that hippopotami are docile, gentle giants. Hippos are actually very territorial and temperamental. They have large lower tusks that are exposed when their mouths are open (which weren't incorporated into Beshti's character design, I noticed). Their only predator is humankind, and hippos kill an average of 2900 humans in Africa each year.

Also, the vultures are allied with the hyenas because . . . I don't know. Vultures are really the good guys. They don't hunt – they're nature's clean up crew. Why are vultures almost always the bad guys in cartoons?

Speaking of hyenas, they are uninspired villains. They behave way too similarly to Shenzi, Bonzai and Ed, except all of them are male. Hyenas are truly one of the very few species of mammals in which the females are bigger and more aggressive than the males, and Shenzi seemed to be the leader of the hyenas in the original movie. So it's a little dissatisfying that the show appears to dodge this. Also, the hyenas just want to hunt, which is part of the Circle of Life. Apparently the idea in this series is that the hyenas want to kill more than their fair share, but they didn't explain this very well in any of the episodes I watched. So it sort of looks like the lions (and cheetah) are hording all the meat sources. Not cool.

The episode(s) with the good hyena character are not on Youtube, which is a shame, because maybe they explain or mitigate some of the issues I brought up.

I haven't talked about the songs yet. This show has a song in every episode, and they're hit-or-miss. I think that Fuli's song in the first episode I saw was probably the catchiest out of all of them. She seems to have the nicest singing voice, too. Fuli is best cat.

I feel like I gave The Lion Guard a fair chance. Not only do I love the original movie, I also feel that TLK2 had a lot of charm in spite of its plot holes, and I even enjoyed TLK 1.5 as an MST3K-style parody of the first movie. Even the short-lived Timon and Pumbaa spin-off from the 90s had a goofy appeal, and at least it didn't pretend to try to fit the continuity of the movies. This newest series falls short of all of the other sequels and spin-offs. It could have been like MLP:FiM by appealing both to little kids and their nostalgic parents. Instead it's strictly for kids in the age range of about 3 to 7. It's a disappointment mostly because of the wasted potential.

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Yesterday I saw an ad for The Lion Guard toys and was immediately intrigued. If you've been following me for a long time, you know that The Lion King is my all-time favorite Disney movie. So I finished watching the only episode that's available on the official website just a few minutes ago, and here are my very first impressions.

The animation is decent. You can tell it's CG, especially in the opening, but the animators do a good job imitating the style of the movies. The story had slice-of-life A and B plots with an exciting climax that felt perhaps a little tacked on, but it did serve to bring home the lesson that one of the characters had to learn.

The characters are cute. I know it's early, but so far I like Fuli the cheetah and Bunga the honey badger. Yeah, it's kind of awesome that one of the main characters is a honey badger. I'm waiting for the G-rated version of "Honey badger don't give a shit," but that didn't happen in this episode. The other characters didn't leave much of an impression, but to be fair, the episode focused more on the two characters I mentioned, so they were given a lot more development.

Fuli sings a song. It's fine, kind of catchy, really, and Fuli has a nice singing voice. I'm probably not going to find myself singing it like I've done with the best songs from My Little Pony or Phineas and Ferb, though.

There are also some familiar characters from the movies. Ernie Sabella reprises his role as Pumbaa, but I'm fairly certain all of the other VAs are different. The voices of Timon and Nala sound close enough to the originals, but unfortunately Rafiki sounds totally different.

To sum it up, this show is fine for kids, but unlike the other two kids' shows I mentioned, there aren't many references or jokes for adults to enjoy. I do like that it's educational, however. Bunga discovers that he is immune to snake venom, as anyone who has watched the Youtube videos already knows, which leads to him thinking he is invincible to everything in nature. Sadly, he finds out that even the mighty honey badger is not impervious to lava. The episode also shows how Ono the egret hunts for food. You see, he's a cattle egret, so unlike the egrets I'm used to seeing along the Mississippi River, he and his flock follow large herds (elephants in this episode) and eat the insects that the bigger animals stir up.

Honestly, the only thing that bothers me about this show is that it retcons Simba's Pride. Simba and Nala have a male cub named Kion...which would be fine, except that Kiara is still a young cub in this series. They state that Kiara is older than Kion, but the cubs look like they were probably from the same litter in this episode. So where the hell was Kion all through Simba's Pride? You can't say that he died as a cub because that still wouldn't account for where he was during the first half of the movie.

Then there's another minor retcon/inconsistency: Bunga and the other new characters go to what looks like the Elephant Graveyard, but they call it the Outlands. But in Simba's Pride, the Outlands was the place with the termite mounds.

In spite of the annoying retcons, I'd like to keep watching a bit more of this show. Not enough to pay for it, but maybe I'll try watching one of the episodes on Youtube that's pitched up to avoid getting flagged.
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You know how I said the Invader Zim comics were show quality? I forgot that the show technically includes "Gaz, Taster of Pork." Yeeeah, Issue #5 is like that. If you're a Dib fan like me, you should skip it, unless maybe you're really into video games. The only thing mildly amusing about it were the game references. I might have enjoyed it more if I were a gamer, but I get most of my game knowledge from internet memes, Honest Game Trailers and other Youtube channels, so I could identify maybe two thirds of the games being parodied.

At least Dib didn't beg to be punished in this comic. That's something, I guess. But maybe I'm just trying to convince myself it didn't totally suck because I paid $1.99 for it on my Kindle app.

I really want to write a Fix Fic, but I have enough on my plate. Maybe some day.

In other news, I'm about 4400 words into the final chapter of Earth Ponies are Overpowered, and I'm guessing it'll take about as many words again to complete.

There hasn't been much progress on the fanart, though.
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Sudden Activity by Maran-Zelde, journal

Update 2017 by Maran-Zelde, journal

The Lion Guard: It's Worse Than I Thought by Maran-Zelde, journal

I just found out this show exists by Maran-Zelde, journal

Random gripes and updates by Maran-Zelde, journal