#Peter is getting conscripted

[nobeltobee]

Holy crap Lois, it’s Colonel Hsu!

Alt version because I like to give him hair and that beret breaks my heart..

[villainintern]

... is an upcoming Choicescript interactive fiction game! You can follow development updates on the dev blog here, view the forum page here, and play the demo here.

Villain Intern is currently right at the end of Chapter One: Onboarding as of 5/18/25, sitting at just over 58,000 words.

[FAQ Here and character introductions here, for the newer villains!]

Play as an aspiring supervillain interning at UnderHand, a legacy criminal corporation. Start from the bottom and navigate a world where everyone has it out for you, leveraging your strange superhuman abilities and your knack for manipulation. Make a name for yourself as an executive villain (with your own swanky corner office!), or turn against your higher-ups and usurp the company,…or throw away your promising career for the greater good, I guess...

Powers and Customization:

Choose from two different ability trees. Play as either a homemade cyborg with (painful looking) mechanical augmentations of your own design, or a genetically mutated freak with mysterious, bizarre abilities derived from animal genes. Choose 3 of the 9 unique abilities available for each power type, which update (or mutate) to scale as you get stronger. Climb walls, perfectly mimic any voice, rotate your head 360 degrees, talk to the AI assistant in your brain, etc etc! As a rule, you start out villainous, but whether you’re charming or sinister, sniveling or demanding, and backstabbing or frontstabbing is up to you.

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Key Characters and Relationships

Relationship progression tracks two major stats- your connection with a character, and your rivalry, which are not mutually exclusive. So you can romance your greatest nemesis, backstab your closest friend, that kind of thing. Or both at once, with the same person, even..

Fellow Interns:

👾 Peter Hyde is your cubicle neighbor, a geeky slackoff who’s fond of novelty ties. Unlike you, Peter doesn’t really want to be here, but he seems for some reason unable to quit. Laid-back, conflict avoidant, and generally easy to manipulate, he’s easy minion material for the MC- but his attitude belies a volatile, monstrous secret. Which can be a great asset or a major risk, depending on if you can maintain your control over him.

🤖 T9-670 is a seven-foot tall ex-war machine. Once a military member conscripted to UnderHand’s private security decal, its contract didn’t end when it died- the soldier’s brain was transplanted into a humanoid steel frame with a dark glass plate for a face. T9 is doing some soul searching- it’s not totally sure if it even has one left, but it would like to have a purpose beyond fixing printers and mowing down UnderHand’s enemies with its plasma gun.

🔬 Dr. Dr. Elaine Foster is an up-and-coming mad scientist, assistant to the esteemed Dr. Shrink. Don’t bring up the fact that she has two doctorates and is still an intern. She’s a genius prodigy, but otherwise has no superhuman abilities, which causes her to be overlooked by your superiors. Passionate and inscrutable, she’s obsessed with making it to the top her own way, and will remain one step ahead of you if you aren’t careful.

🧪 Reid/Reney Sullivan (gender selectable, nb included) is your nemesis, or at least they think so. They’re employed by OverSight, the subsidized hero-corporation that works in tandem with the government. An interning hero with impressive telekinetic powers, they are nonetheless as much of an amateur as you, and so you find yourself on even footing with one of the most promising superheroes in the business. Earnest and witty, they genuinely just want to help people. Eventually, they become fixated on “figuring you out”, which can lead to them getting sucked into your schemes. That, or their meddling could be your downfall. Worst of all, they might even succeed in reforming you.

There’s also 👁️ Blink, a rogue superhuman- some say vigilante, others say independent villain. Completely anonymous, they wear a unique suit of tactical gear that allows them to turn completely invisible, the first of its kind. Quippy, chipper, and sauntering, they tend to use their powers for ridiculous, showy things like popping up behind newscasters on TV. An invisible superhuman that loves the spotlight, Blink is full of contradictions. And secrets, big ones, that pertain to you.

… plus a cast of older, more established villains and heroes- including The Man, UnderHand’s enigmatic CEO. A faceless, hollow man in an empty suit. Actually, nobody’s ever seen anything but the suit, so he might just be the suit.

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FURTHER READING: 🌃THE PINTEREST BOARD 🎧THE PLAYLIST

TAG ORGANIZATION: VI Updates - The big stuff, new demo content VI Info - The info posts, development news VI Asks - Anything coming through the inbox VI Characters - Character related info/bonus content VI Sketches - Doodles and concept art Lore - What it says on the tin. Anything worldbuildy The Fridge - The place of honor for fan art! Pinned to my imaginary fridge with a digital magnet

[1americanconservative]

Peter Goodgame

ptrsoSedno9708ff6u g9a50gge la 6it2a1Mtsya312i7YfA3er:14dig0  · 

For three years, Volodymyr Zelensky has been America’s darling, a khaki clad symbol of defiance, pleading for billions in aid and NATO’s embrace amid Ukraine’s self inflicted war.

To many well-meaning Americans, he’s a hero battling overwhelming odds. But behind the curated image lies a far uglier truth, a stooge comedian turned president, propped up by a criminal oligarch, surrounded by cronies, and presiding over a regime of corruption, repression, and broken promises.

This is the real Zelensky, an actor playing a role he’s woefully unfit for, that was proven yesterday in the oval office.

As Ukraine spirals deeper into chaos and its brutally harvested conscript army collapses in retreat, it's important that decent Americans understand who and what this man really represents.

Let's start with Kvartal 95, The Oligarch’s Launchpad, Zelensky’s story starts not in politics but comedy. Born in 1978 in Kryvyi Rih, he co-founded Studio Kvartal 95 in the 1990s with a group of friends that had hit it big by the 2000s, ironically their big breaks were made in Russia, performing in Russian and focusing on Russian and Ukrainian political and cultural life. The key to all this success? Ihor Kolomoisky, a billionaire ukrainian oligarch with a laundry list of crimes, including fraud, money laundering, and brutal violence. Kolomoisky then owned 1+1, the TV network that handed Zelenskys Kvartal 95 a national platform starting in 2012. He didn’t just offer airtime. He bankrolled Zelensky with cash, security, and legal and criminal muscle. This wasn’t mentorship. It was a transaction. Kolomoisky, later sanctioned by the U.S. for “significant corruption,” saw Zelensky as a pawn in his game. By 2019, when Zelensky ran for president, Kolomoisky’s DNA was all over the campaign providing vehicles, lawyers, bodyguards, and a media blitz. Zelensky was never an outsider; he was a "made man"

This is where it gets almost unbelievably bizzare. In 2015, Zelensky starred in "Servant of the People," a hit satire aired on Kolomoisky’s 1+1 channel, where he played a teacher turned president railing against corruption.

Ukrainians, tired of the endemic corruption in the post Soviet state, lapped it up. Then, in 2018, his Kvartal 95 crew decided to turn fiction into reality, registering a political party called, you guessed it, "Servant of the People." It had absolutely no manifesto, no policies, and no plan of action, just a TV title and Zelensky’s face.

Running in 2019, Zelensky promised to end corruption and the Donbas civil war, which had erupted after the CIA backed Maidan Coup, winning in a landslide thanks to Kolomoisky’s media machine. An actor who played a president on TV was now remarkably in the real job.

Zelensky didn’t waste any time handing power to his showbiz pals. Ivan Bakanov, a Kvartal 95 co-founder, became head of the SBU security service with no experience. Serhiy Shefir, another comedy crony, took a top aide role, no experience. And then there’s Andriy Yermak, a film producer turned Zelensky’s right-hand man, now head of the Presidential Office, dubbed Ukraine’s “shadow president.” Yermak, physically and intellectualy towering over Zelensky, controls policy and access, a fixer running the show while the president flounders. These weren’t appointments based on merit. They were loyalty hires, a Kvartal 95 clique utterly unfit for a grossly dysfunctional war-torn nation.

Zelensky’s laughable anti-corruption pledge met reality in 2021 with the Pandora Papers. The leak revealed he and his inner circle,including Bakanov, were funnelling cash to Kolomoisky with Zelensky stashing millions offshore.

Zelensky swore to end corruption and the Donbas war. Instead, he’s delivered more of both, a million lie Dead, the free Media crushed, billions stolen, languages and religion banned. This criminal is no hero. No Churchill. And no friend of America. He should be treated accordingly.

Thanks for reading.

https://x.com/BowesChay/status/1895887898106323076...

[dillemmah]

TL;DR: if you care about trans people, you should boycott harry potter and other rowling stuff. Also, you should read discworld because I need to see more fanart of it. K? Thanks. Luv u.

If you know trans and gnc people are real, have always existed and will always exist and deserve basic respect and rights as human beings and you are also looking for something to fill the harry-potter-shaped void in your heart (please for the love of god just boycott harry potter stuff its not hard) then might I happily reccommend you get into Discworld!? What the hell is discworld I hear you ask. Well, the world of Disc is a flat planet being carried through the stars on the backs of four elephants which in turn are all standing on the back of a massive turtle. But none of that is really important to most of the plots and honestly it doesn't even come up much. The discworld series is a sprawling tale that follows, not one 'chosen' boy, but dozens of characters from different backgrounds within the world, characters of all sorts of gender expressions and sexualities (though romance takes a backseat, adventure is driving and friendship's called permanent shotgun). You can follow specific groups of characters if you like, you can find lists online for the different thru-lines within discworld. But, you can truly just pick up any random book and start reading if you want. You won't be any more lost than if you started with the first book he published and went chronologically or the beginning of any one characters journey. One of the best things about discworld is getting to know it slowly and through the lens of vastly different but relatable people living all over it.

One of my favorite 'series' is The Watch, which centers on a middle-aged night watchman named Sam Vimes and his struggles with alcoholism, corruption in the force, corruption in politics, racism, multi-culturalism, colonization, class desparities, addiction, war and bigotry. It does NOT glorify cops, and we see Vimes grow as a man and a person of authority in his community and eventually the city and country at large. Also, he falls in love with a big middle-aged woman from a higher class who's been kind of shunned by her family for being 'unmarriable' and who keeps dragons as a hobby and they eventually have a child together and it's all very endearing to see Sam become this endlessly devoted husband and father. He's gruff, he's not perfect, but goddamn if he doesn't friggin love his wife and kid.

Another series centers on Tiffany Aching, a very clever young witch from a family of sheperds and her adventures with The Wee Free Men in the sheep-filled countryside. Tiffany's books cover topics like sexism, inclusive feminism, nature, pastoral life and disrupting the patriarchy.

The series centered on 'ex' con-man, Moist vonLipwig (real name), starts with Going Postal wherin the main character is hung as a thief in the first chapter but goes on to be conscripted by the patrician of the city to resurrect the dead and rotting postal service (or else be hung more successfully next time he's caught in a grift). In following books Moist turns his con-man skills of smooth-talking, keen observation and ability to make connections to kick off the production of paper money and the steam-powered locamotive.

These books offer insightful and witty commentary on topics like labor rights, equality, entrepeneurship, corrupt governments, corrupt businesses, corrupt systems in general, industrialization, and morality in business (or lack thereof).

There's also several standalone books that exist outside of these multi-book storylines, but often include familiar characters and settings in the background. I just finished listening to Monstrous Regiment (the version I listened to was narrated by Katherine Parkinson (with footnotes read by Bill Nighy and Peter Serafinowicz) good, but not perfect. She does all the voices which is wonderful but sometimes carries the wrong voice thru a line during dialougues which can be a bit confusing, but in her defense it can sometimes take a couple read-thrus for me to understand who's saying what in a back-and-forth in some of Pratchetts books. Not often, but often enough that I'm not surprised Katherine had the same problem here and there) which is a great standalone book (Vimes and a couple other recurring characters play minor rolls, but mostly it's new people and settings). This book centers on Polly Perks who cuts off her hair, dresses as a boy, and joins the army hoping to track down her brother Paul (an autistic-coded young man with a special interest in birds) and bring him home (Polly's love, compassion and worry for her older brother are evident in the way she thinks and talks about him throughout). Polly as Oliver, joins a rag-tag group of new recruits and as they get to know each other better, Polly finds she's not the only one there with a secret that could get her killed (the country they fight for has a lot of strict and esoteric rules regarding gender roles). This book has themes like censorship, religious zealotry, blind nationalism, the horrors of war, the horrors of being born a woman, questioning gender identity, sexism, patriarchy, bigotry, abuse, trauma, cross-dressing. This book has real lesbians, at least one for sure transman, and the main character offers many critical observations on gender throughout the book. To be fair, it was written by a cis man over a decade ago so words like lesbian, trans, non-binary are not used, but for those of us who know, Polly's experiences and thought processes are relatable. And it's all written with so much heart and human empathy that it's honestly incredible. I have to assume that Terry was someone who listened to others well and endeavored to represent real people with real experiences within his fantastical world. It is a world of fantasy with a solid anchor in humanity (though that 'humanity' is often displayed by people like dwarves, trolls, werewolves, vampires, golems, etc.).

And if you really just can't get enough of young male wizards then Rincewind is your guy. He's not very good at magic, but that's okay because in discworld most of being a wizard is knowing that you absolutely shouldn't use magic if you can help it. The first book he's in is The Color of Magic, which is also the first published discworld book and the first one that I ever read. I had no idea what was going on for most of it, but it was a good time. Later I reread it and, having gotten more familiar with discworld, it was easier to follow. That may be a slight barrier to entry for the discworld series, kind of no matter where you start you're going to be at least a bit confused and it will probably take time to get your bearings, but once you get going you'll just want to keep exploring this weird, impossible world. Its silly and serious at the same time and very reflective of our own world in all the ways that really matter while being far enough removed from reality to offer a reprieve from it.

Having said all this I recognize that Discworld is really nothing like HP, its much more deep and multifaceted. Also, I think they are slightly more challenging to read, theyre just at a higher reading level, which I know is tough for some but a lot of them are available as audiobooks and it's good to challenge yourself to a book with some new vocab words sometimes! But anyway, I need more people to read some Discworld books because I personally need to see a lot more fanart of it. I need that. Ok. Thanks. Love you all. Take care of yourselves and each other.

[nitewrighter]

If you had to write a Spider-Man x DC crossover fic, how would you do it? Plop Peter in the middle of one of the iconic DC cities because of multiversal shenanigans, or would you blend things together so that Spidey would feel like a natural part of the DC setting?

Would Spidey remain a NYC-bound hero, or would he be slinging webs elsewhere?

Well to preface my answer, I need to reiterate that the primary advantage Marvel has had over DC from the start is being able to position itself as a response/deconstruction to whatever DC's putting out. DC started back in the 1930's and Marvel really only emerged as something recognizably similar to the Marvel we know today in the 1960's when Stan Lee joined the team. DC was shaped by WW2 and Baby Boom/Cold War Era patriotism, while Marvel emerged at the beginning of multiple massive counterculture movements and a superhero genre on the decline. Basically compare the Justice Society of America being conscripted to fight a domestic fascist threat during WW2, happily hooking arms and shaking hands and congratulating each other all the while, with the Fantastic Four, a loving but squabbling family who get their powers by pure cosmic accident and are now juggling their newfound powers with their still-flawed relationships and now supervillain threats.

This is also why Spider-Man, who in my eyes is very much the heart and soul of the Marvel universe is, in himself, a deconstruction of Superman. He's vulnerable where Superman is invulnerable, he can swing a web but he's very much subject to gravity, he's lean and scrappy rather than musclebound, he has to continually contort himself in the air and to his environment to get around rather than just smashing through it, and his characterization is very much based in the inherent instability of adolescence whereas Superman is positioned as this very stable, moral presence. Right off the bat Spider-Man is defined by a mistake, by his selfishness resulting in the death of his Uncle Ben, and he's later further defined by the death of Gwen Stacy, which is also Marvel saying to DC, "Hey it's not just monster of the week over here, our characters can grow and change and DIE." So like... even though I definitely put myself in the DC camp more than the Marvel camp, I can absolutely see Marvel's appeal.

As far as putting Spider-Man into the DC universe goes, honestly that would depend on what my overall goals for the fic would be. If it's just a silly "ooh what if Spidey met ________?" then Pete's probably getting isekai'd, but--and okay this might be cheating because it's Jack Kirby, haha--I'd be interested in seeing NYC-based Spidey basically getting hit with the Fourth World saga. He's just a Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man and he did not ask for a fucking SPACE THEOMACHY dropped into his lap! So it would be less of dropping Spider-Man into the DC universe and more of taking a massive chunk of the DC universe and making it Spidey's problem. And then he and Mister Miracle can be fwiends and Orion can pick him by the neck so he makes a squeaky toy noise and Barda can hold him in her big strong arms and he can dangle behind Lightray by a web going "Wheeeeee." Also I think him interacting with the Forever People would be hilarious as well. Spider-Man is not equipped to deal with invading Apokoliptian forces but then a bunch of Space Hippies show up and just fucking Voltron together into a Huge Guy and Spidey's just like, "I've met some polycules in my life, but this is ridiculous!" but probably something more clever and Spidey-ish.

Mostly I'd be interested in seeing this because of the aforementioned argument of Spider-Man as a deconstruction of Superman. While Kirby initially wrote the Fourth World saga as its own almost standalone/spin-offy thing within the DC universe, Darkseid quickly became recognized as a part of Superman's Rogue's gallery in the greater pop culture eye--largely thanks to Superman: TAS. Like, yeah, a lot of the time Darkseid is positioned as the big cosmic threat to the Justice League as a whole, but it's Superman who usually ends up in the solo rounds with the guy.

I feel like this way Spider-Man would basically be positioned as the guy who ultimately has to help the New Gods acclimate to earth and this way the whole massive Apokolips/New Genesis cast Kirby set up in the Fourth World saga wouldn't end up scooted off to the side in favor of the Justice League, which is basically what happened to them in the overall popular reception of DC. Spider-Man would need Mister Miracle, Big Barda, Lightray, Orion, and the Forever People's help in defending New York from Darkseid and his goons, and they, in turn, would need Spider-Man's help in understanding life on Earth.

Spider-Man: Behold! The Bacon Egg and Cheese!

The Forever People: *awed* Ooooohhhh

I feel like it also works because The Fourth World Saga was Jack Kirby's way of incorporating a shit-ton of counter-culture into mainline DC really really quickly, so you already kind of have this meshing of DC and Marvel vibes.

[cazzyf1]

Peter Collins Lore ✨️

Thought Peter's dad ran a garage that allowed Peter access into motorsports, and supported him with him, Peter would not get along with his dad often. Peter's dad was known to be quite rude and did not approve of Peter's marriage to Louise Collins.

Peter and Louise met once at a gathering but didn't think much of it. A few years later Stirling Moss invited Peter to a party where Louise Collins was going to be and when they saw each other it was love at first sight. A week later they were married.

Louise felt like she had to be at every one of Peter's races because she worried if she was not at one he could get hurt.

Peter loved the sea and swimming, and him and Louise brought a boat called "Mipooka" which they would travel to different GP's on, other drivers like Mike Hawthorn would join them on their travels.

Peter Collins became very close to Enzo Ferrari's dying son, Dino Ferrari, and he works often visit Dino in hospital. Dino woule get Peter to go to the cinema and watch films so he could come back and recount the film to Dino.

When Dino passed away, the next race in France Peter wore a black arm band in honour of Dino. He won that race.

After Dino's death Enzo Ferrari saw Peter Collins like a son, because he appreciated Peter's friendship with Dino. He insisted Peter move into an apartment near Enzo's house and Peter would wake up at times to find Enzo in the apartment folding his clothes and making him breakfast.

It's believed that Enzo did not like it when Peter married Louise as he felt that Louise was a distraction and that Peter spent more time away from the apartment. Louise insisted this was never the case though and Enzo and his wife were always very nice.

One time Enzo got very mad at Peter when during a race he felt that Peter purposely crashed a car to not race and get home early with Mike Hawthorn. So next race Enzo took away his f1 seat and demoted him to f2. Mike Hawthorn said he would not drive if Peter couldn't drive and when Peter did extremely well in f2 to prove a point he was given his seat back again.

In 1956 Peters teammate was Fangio. Peter was in the running to become world champion that year, Brittan's first, however when he came into the pit and found that Fangio's car was broken he jumped out and gave his car to Fangio, insisting that he had more years to win the championship and it was only right for Fangio to have the car.

In 1957 when Fangio left Ferrari, Peter Collins would have been #1 driver for the team but instead he went and told Mike Hawthorn who needed a drive to contact Ferrari as there was going to be a free seat, and because Mike was more experienced he became #1 driver (though Enzo always said that there was never rankings)

In the Ferrari film, Peter Collins is featured a lot and they even recreate a famous photo of Enzo and Peter within the film.

Peter loved solving puzzles and Mike wrote in his book the day he died Peter was really happy to have solved a metal puzzle he was working on.

A woman claimed that Peter had promised to marry her when he suddenly married Louise Collins but he insisted that was not the case.

He lived in France for a while to avoid the conscription for the British army. Though Mike Hawthorn was critisied heavily for not doing it (though he had a valid reason) people seemed to forget about Peter Collins.

Peter knew about Mike Hawthorn's kidney issue and knew that Mike would not be able to race another season in F1 as he was becoming too ill, so he was likely determined to try and help Mike win the world championship even though he could have won in 1958 as well.

Peter and Louise brought a house right before he passed away, it was likely he was thinking of retiring from F1 soon.

While racing Mike and Peter would have fun constantly letting the other one pass, it was like a game to them.

He was the governor of a local school and very involved with it. Even though he didn't like school himself he felt it important to encourage children to do well.

Enzo Ferrari said he would go with Louise to the next GP race, breaking his rule of never going to the actual races. However while she went, he never turned up.

Post on lore about Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins friendship coming soon

[andromeddog]

I only recently discovered you art but you're honestly such an inspiration !! also I love your ocs they seem so interesting, so I just wanted to ask what happened to connor's (I think that's his name) knee? I saw in one of your art pieces there was a scar and I'm kinda curious now lol

eheheh oh what a fun ask thank youuu anon! yes that’s beloved boy connor and yes he has a scar on his left knee! lore dump under cut bc i can never shut up

(i’ve only drawn him full body twice lol so i didn’t have the scar design down on the first pass but u can see i did at least hint at it)

the thing about connor is that he is one overly amped up middle child who craves attention in any form that comes in. he views every person he meets as a rival of some kind and that means he can always “win” in any situation he finds himself in. my beloved scottish infantrymen are all on a rugby team together before they are conscripted and so they get into a lot of physical contact with others and collect various nicks and bruises. connor usually takes this a bit further and occasionally gets into full on altercations because he can’t stand the concept of losing in any capacity to someone lol

before he was on his current team with all of the boys he got into a nasty fight with a teammate on a previous team and that’s how he gets the scar on his knee! a bunch of the team went out for drinks and some playful banter thrown connor’s way got taken poorly (of course it did) and things escalated into a full on bar fight. bottles were thrown, fists were thrown, connor ended up scrapping on the ground with some guy and scraped the absolute shit out of his knee on pavement (force of impact with ground + glass on ground + the ground on the ground) in the midst of everything. he tore up his trousers and his kneecap and his mom was really pissed at him and he got kicked off the team right then and there (in case you are wondering he did technically win the fight) (he only manages to keep playing rugby bc he and peter (another oc) are longtime family friends and peter felt enough pity for connor to offer him a spot on his team) (connor is a really good rugby player despite having the personality of a cactus that is also on fire)

but that’s the gist of it :) connor my beloved you make so many problems for yourself!!! thank you so much for asking i love any excuse to talk about my boyssssssss and connor is such a fun package of self imposed rules of masculinity and a desperate need to be seen

[jules-has-notes]

collaboration spotlight — Epic Christmas Movie Medley by Peter Hollens

Music is a big part of Christmas season festivities, and holiday movies are no exception. Some existing songs have inspired the creation of films. Others have been written specifically for the movies they're in. Either way, a catchy tune has the power to bring a smile to your face and maybe even sing along. For this feel-good medley, Peter got his family and a couple new friends in on the act.

Details:

title: Epic Christmas Movie Medley (feat. Brian Hull & Geoff Castellucci)

performers: Peter Hollens, Evynne Hollens, Ashland Hollens, Brian Hull, & Geoff Castellucci

original songs / performers: "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by Burl Ives in Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964); [0:33] "White Christmas" by Bing Crosby & Marjorie Reynolds in Holiday Inn (1942); [1:08] "Frosty the Snowman" by Jimmy Durante in Frosty the Snowman (1969); [1:48] "Baby It's Cold Outside" by Esther Williams, Ricardo Montalbán, Betty Garrett, & Red Skelton in Neptune's Daughter (1949); [2:20] "Christmas Time Is Here" by the cast of A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965); [2:45] "The Snow Miser Song" by Dick Shawn & [3:13] "The Heat Miser Song" by George S. Irving in The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974); [3:36] "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" by Thurl Ravenscroft in How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966); [4:29] "Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town" by Fred Astaire in Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town (1970)

written by: "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" by John David Marks; "White Christmas" by Irving Berlin; "Frosty the Snowman" by Walter "Jack" Rollins and Steve Nelson; "Baby It's Cold Outside" by Frank Loesser; "Christmas Time Is Here" by Vince Guaraldi & Lee Mendelson; "The Snow Miser Song" & "The Heat Miser Song" by Maury Laws & Jules Bass; "You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch" by Theodor "Dr. Seuss" Geisel & Albert Hague; "Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town" by J. Fred Coots & Haven Gillespie

arranged by: Peter Hollens

release date: 18 December 2020

My favorite bits:

introducing all the characters they're playing so folks can identify the movies, even the ones without songs in the medley

Ashland's sweet, clear tone in "Frosty" ⛄

Evynne's lovely crooning on "Baby It's Cold Outside" and her reactions as Peter shoves more and more food into his mouth

Snow Miser Peter and Heat Miser Brian messing with the characters in other sections of the screen ❄🔥

Geoff's luscious bass and Peter's semi-operatic tone in "Grinch"

their bouncy, syncopated take on "Santa Claus"

following ♫ "You better not pout" ♫ with "You'll shoot your eye out!" from A Christmas Story 🤭

reprising all the songs in the build-up to the ending

Peter's adorable fatherly pride in the outro

Trivia:

Because the video title is fairly long, many first-time viewers were surprised by Brian and Geoff's cameos since their names got cut off on the main YouTube page.

Geoff pops up in costume as Max the dog, who the Grinch conscripts into being his reindeer. VoicePlay's jazzier version of "You're A Mean One, Mister Grinch" (in which Layne briefly wore the antler headband) was released a few weeks earlier.

Brian first collaborated with Peter for his "Epic Disney Sidekicks Medley" the year before, and they have made occasional appearances in each other's projects over the years since.

Geoff and Brian both returned the following year to get spooky in Peter's cover of "This Is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

This video was the opening segment in a 25-minute compilation of Peter's holiday songs four years later.

Although they didn't include the song — because it's not from a movie, and also Ashland didn't want to — a commenter did note that it was fortuitous timing that the kiddo had lost his two front teeth before they filmed this.

[philcoulsonismyhero]

tell me about ocs 27, 33, and 49!!

27 - Kid Werewolf

Okay so this is kind of a twofer, because it's pretty much impossible to talk about Kid Werewolf without also talking about Dr Werewolf, otherwise known as one version of Tarrick Shar (who's a side character in the Sam comic but actually originated in this context and got reused there).

Kid Werewolf, as the placeholder name might suggest, is a young werewolf girl, somewhere in the 8-10 years old range. Both of her parents were werewolves, so she was born a werewolf rather than becoming one. It's her natural state, but the way lycanthropy works in her world is that it's also something that can be passed along by bite so you get born werewolves and infected werewolves.

Something bad happened to her parents, that she won't talk about, and one full moon she got herself stuck in a wolf trap near a major road. Tarrick, a travelling doctor, was passing by and, recognising her as a werewolf and also just a kid, he gets her out of the trap. But she's frightened and in pain, and she bites him in the process. And there's nothing you can do about a werewolf bite sustained at the full moon.

She legs it into the woods, but feeling guilty for biting the person that helped her, she shadows him along the road, and she's not so sneaky that he doesn't notice. Eventually, he's able to persuade her to join him at the campfire, and Tarrick realises that oh shit, this is an abandoned kid. And obviously he's freaking out a bit about the fact that he's been infected, but he's not going to take that out on some scared kid. So he's like 'well, guess I have a daughter now'.

They get caught up in a larger mystery story, of course, but their personal arc involves Tarrick initially trying to find a cure for his own lycanthropy, but realising what it's doing to this kid he's now looking after to see him trying to cure himself of being something that she naturally is. And eventually of course he ends up accepting his new situation and they become a tiny little werewolf family. They're cute, and I need to spend some more time fleshing them out as personalities but I am very fond of them.

33 - Arthur Fenn

I've already talked about Arthur [here], so here's some bonus extra art.

Initial design doodles, although some of this is now non-canon to the the current version:

And the first drawing I did to figure out his face, which admittedly is largely stolen from one particular actor (Peter Wingfield, who I know as Watson from Sanctuary):

49 - Orc Doctor

This one is another side character in No Place For A Doctor, otherwise known as the Sam comic, in which Sam Harnendil gets conscripted as a military surgeon in a fantasy war. I needed to populate Sam's hospital camp, and one of the fun concepts for another doctor that I settled on was a large orcish individual whose gender is muscles, but who's also an expert surgeon and something of a warrior poet type. In the actual comic proper, they're just a background character, but I've been thinking about the hypothetical medical drama set in the hospital camp that these folks would all be characters in for a while now.

Orc Doctor (name pending) is one of the doctors who wasn't conscripted and was already serving with the army, probably because they had trouble finding acceptance in civilian medical spheres due to orcish stereotypes and assumptions based on their size and stature. Which makes them an interesting foil to Sam, who's decidedly a civilian doctor and does not want to be here but doesn't see himself as having a choice. (There isn't a huge orc population in this country, most orcs are from colder, northern countries across the sea, but there's a lot of half orcs and orcish influences due to centuries of cultural exchange with those countries.)

Personality-wise, they're a big personality, loud and boisterous but also sharp and thoughtful, and very community-oriented. They're the one who takes the less experienced doctors under their wing and checks in on them emotionally, and is probably one of the more well-adjusted and emotionally healthy doctors in the camp, with some interesting philosophical views on war and violence and the medic's role in all that. And they're also the one most likely to take up a weapon in defense of their patients, because some problems you can solve with a scalpel, but some require an axe.

[secretaryofdarkness]

Huge chapter excerpt (like 3k words) of Saints in the Desert. This one has lesbians in it.

Damian had lost the road. The grasslands had thinned miles ago, but now the bare dirt was giving way to sand. It was strange to return to the desert now, but there were few other places he could go. Damian’s own home was west, but he dared not risk taking the high road back past the castle to reach his home town. Eastward was the only direction left to him, so he might as well keep walking. He had food enough for now, but one can only carry so much; it was mostly bread and dried meat, and a couple of apples shoved in a burlap bag. Damian didn’t even know what kind of meat it was, but it smelled edible so that would be good enough. Hopefully there would be food somewhere in the desert.

Damian wondered how far he was from the castle. It had only been two days since he fled. Did anyone out this far even know yet? Surely not. They would soon. He couldn’t imagine the king’s murder would be anything short of a riot-starter. The small outlying hamlets didn’t exactly get news of city affairs in any form beyond taxation, but they would know the king was murdered on his own throne before too long. Would there be anyone coming after him? Only the scribe left the scene of his crime alive, and he couldn’t exactly inform an entire military force of Damian’s exact description, could he? Still, his men were fearless and unrelenting in all pursuits. The king saw to that, as did Damian.

Damian’s thoughts twisted once more, remembering his men. Remembering Leander. They deserved so much better than this. Sharp pangs of sorrow drove into his heart like fence nails. He remembered the thoughtlessness behind his axe, how blinded he was by his zeal. The memory made him sick, its weight turning over in the pit in his stomach.

He would remember them all. All of their names. Forever.

Logan. Elias. Bertholdt. Reiner. Gabriel. Michael. Alexander. Titus. Lucas. Aidan. Peter. Leander. Damian hoped no more of his former comrades would need to die for this nightmare.

Damian was suddenly torn away from his thoughts by the cries of what sounded to be dozens of coyotes. He hadn’t even noticed evening setting in before now. The wind was high tonight so he couldn’t tell what direction the barks and yips were coming from, but he needn’t worry too strongly about them. They were only scavenger animals, hardly ones to attack a human without being motivated by serious threat of starvation. People are often scared of predator animals, but Damian knew better; an animal that hunts to live must save its energy rather than wasting it on something that might be too strong or fast to reliably kill. He remembered how many of his comrades had feared the coyote calls during the war. They weren’t frequently sighted back home, so many men conscripted from the larger cities had never heard their calls or seen the beasts before, so they let their paranoia paint horrible monsters hiding in the desert shadows, rather than the skinny dogs who ate rabbits that they actually were.

He stood in the sand for a moment, drinking in the sights and sounds. It was oddly peaceful, given the circumstances. The sand was warm from a day of sun, but the air was chilled at a shocking speed after sunset. Listening closely through the wind, Damian could hear people shouting from somewhere far off in the desert. He couldn’t understand any of the words, but he could tell it was multiple voices. Looking around, he spotted the faintest hint of smoke from a campfire out in the distance. It was nearly impossible to see against the darkening sky, save for the wavering of the dim fire light in the thin smoke which whipped in the wind. Considering how far he was from the edge of town already, Damian wondered if these were exiled desert-dwellers. There was no scent of tannery out here, and he could think of little other reason to live so far away from town. If they too were exiles, perhaps they would be amenable to the company of new pariah?

“So you think you can run from your sins, you pitiful shit?”

Damian whipped around at the familiar voice, stricken now with a fiendish terror. There sat the king, silvery and translucent, a menace in ephemeral flesh. The baleful ghost sat upon his silver chair, pinned as he was by the ceremonial sword Damian had pierced through his throat in front of God and the kingdom. A wicked smile twisted its way across the king’s undead face.

Damian’s mouth hung open in shock. He shut his eyes tight and rubbed them with his fingers before opening them again, only to see the king’s horrid presence had not been imagined. The weight that had been hanging on Damian’s brow since that fateful moment in the throne room felt heavier than ever, threatening to make him collapse. What hideous sorcery was this that beckoned the king back to haunt him now?

The king laughed perniciously. “Do you believe the faithful tongue of God to be of such ill constitution that a mere mortal death amounts to more than a trifle? You have much to learn, dear boy. I think you and I shall be spending a lot of time together from now on, learning this lesson.”

Before Damian could even form a reply there came a light from the darkness, a burning torch.

“Aye, who goes there?” The woman with the torch approached cautiously but with a confidence that said this was her territory. She held a sword in her left hand, and it looked well used.

“Ah, uh, a wanderer. I’m no threat to you,” Damian called, barely suppressing the panic in his throat. He darted his eyes between her and the king, not sure which was the more imminent threat to his life.

“Aye. Shifty fucker. Eyes on me little lamb.”

The king bellowed a laugh, the heartiest Damian had ever heard. “I like the sound of this! The little lamb. I shall call you this too, methinks. Fitting for your quivering hide.”

Damian kept his eyes on the woman as she had told him. She didn’t react at all to the king. Could she not see him? Was he going mad?

“That’s a good boy. Got some friends you’re gonna come meet with me, alright? Now walk,” she said, pointing her sword at him and gesturing in the direction of the campfire with a nod.

“Oh now this is a new low my dear boy! A traitor, a coward, and now a whipping boy who takes the orders of a clucking hen? Shall she make you dance as well?”

Damian kept his face stone still lest he draw the woman’s suspicion. The king’s presence was unnoticed, at least for now. He wondered if it would stay that way. Was the king doing this somehow? Could his faith truly have been powerful enough to command magic beyond the grave? He wished he had kept a sword. Damn it all twice over. He had little choice now but to walk.

Damian followed the woman’s gesture and began walking. Her sword flicked up to stay pointed at his back. The situation was almost funny; treated as a prisoner by a rogue exile when he himself was once a herald of justice. Damian wondered who this woman was, and who she might’ve been before. He had no doubt he did not resemble a saint, or even a lieutenant anymore. He must’ve seemed closer to a beggar. Or a shifty fucker.

“Nice and easy. Got a name?”

“Damian. Yourself?”

The woman was silent for a moment, then answered, “Daphnae. Coyotes’ll be itchin’ to meet you. You take orders well. Soldier?”

Damian was surprised by her easy sociability, given the situation. “Used to be, I suppose,” he said, realizing now for the first time how true that really was.

“Aye, deserter then? You’ll be in good company. Lots of us Coyotes were soldierin’ types back in the day.”

So they were exiles as he had suspected. And this one seemed amiable, if a little rough around the edges. Probably from the proximity to soldiers. He wondered if the sword was just a precaution then. Perhaps they weren’t a violent sort. He would know soon enough.

“So, ‘Coyotes’ is what? The name of a gang of yours?”

“You catch quick. I think Roland is gonna like you.”

“Little on the nose, eh?” Damian gestured toward the yips and barks out in the darkness.

Damian noticed the king was gliding along the sand in his silver chair, keeping pace with the pair as they walked. He was grinning wickedly, as if the expression was carved into his face. This display was clearly entertaining. The prospect of having a spiteful ghost following his every move was a grim one; God was not one to mete forgiveness freely, and Damian’s sins were grave. Damian and Daphnae walked for what must’ve been a quarter mile, the campfire’s light growing ever clearer, and Damian’s hope of lasting the night with his sanity growing dimmer.

A fight had erupted in camp. Two of the men traded fists and dirt, shouting before their audience of fellow exiles. A drunken fight, but a sporting one, hopefully. Most of the people here were without shirts or shoes, probably warming themselves with drink. Daphnae dropped her sword point and picked up a bottle from a shabby table. There were no chairs, but what looked to be legs matching the table’s strewn in the fire. This rabble must’ve been desperate; there weren’t really any trees for miles, and this wood was definitely not local by the looks of it. The smell of alcohol and smoke was overpowering. Some kind of roast was spitted over the fire, probably lamb if Damian was forced to guess. A woman approached Daphnae, disheveled and half naked. She eyed Damian suspiciously before looking back to Daphnae.

“Where’d you dig this up?”

Daphnae laughed. “Found him out in the desert, little lamb wandered too far off the road. He’s a soldier boy. Nothing on him, but he can probably still swing a sword.”

The woman eyed him up once more, this time with more derision. “Great. More soldiers. Tuck your tail and grab a drink but don’t start any shit, or I’ll feed you to the yappers out there,” she said, gesturing toward the sound of coyotes crying in the desert.

Damian followed Daphnae and the other woman closer to the fire. A man offered Damian a bottle, but this was not a night for drinking; Damian’s head was already spinning. The two men fighting had slowed, one holding the other in a headlock with his hair firmly wrapped in his knuckles. The other man wailed his arms uselessly against his captor’s stomach and back until he had lost the nerve to keep it up, weakly tapping his hand on the man’s thigh in defeat. The victor released his grip, and with it came a sharp gasp from his opponent. Damian had been in enough soldier camps to know this routine. The two men shook hands and pulled one another into an embrace. Brothers tried and true if there ever were any. The winner looked around, locking eyes with Damian and grinning with delight.

“Ah, I didn’t know I had an extra audience member! A pleasure. I am Roland, and these are my Coyotes! I take it you met Daphnae? Go on then, tell us your name.”

A true showman. A braggart, but one with heart. He was definitely a soldier. Damian smiled to him, his first genuine smile in days. “Damian. I used to be a soldier,” he said, looking around, “like a lot of us here, I’ve been told.”

“Wait. Damian? Oh now hang me for my poor eyes, I know you! You’re from Redmarch, yeah?”

Damian was stabbed with a sharp memory. He did know this man. It felt like a lifetime ago. Redmarch, a small town on the west edge of the river, so named for the blankets of red clover that popped up every spring. The place where Damian grew up, and the place where he joined the army. He was twenty-five, the son of a fisherman, an outcast with no hope of starting a family. Roland was much the same, a woodcutter’s son who shirked his father’s trade. The two had spent time together in the woods during late summer afternoons. They were not the closest of friends, but one didn’t need to be friends to share in blackberry hunting.

Actually, looking back he might’ve been the closest friend Damian had. It was odd to realize now how little he remembered of friends back then, at least after childhood. He suddenly felt guilty for not remembering Roland immediately. It clearly meant more to him than it ever meant to Damian.

“You would be friends with a den of degenerate criminals. A snake through and through,” mocked the king, flatly and coldly.

Damian tried his best to ignore the king’s goading. He clearly didn’t know the first thing about his own military if he thought this camp was full of degenerates; drinking and fighting were hallmarks of army camaraderie.

“It’s been a long time, but by God it is you, Roland! How the hell did you end up here? I thought you would’ve stayed back in Redmarch?”

Roland smiled more deeply than he had before. “Ah but you forget my adventurous spirit! You left for the army and my father fell ill that winter. I was conscripted, nothing fancy like yourself. But I think I fell in love here in this desert. I never made it back home after the war.”

“So,” Damian started, memories still swirling in his head, “you lost your father as well? I guess we’re closer now than I realized.”

“Aye, no getting teary-eyed now. This is no night for weepy soldier boys,” called the half naked woman, curled up around Daphnae’s shoulders on the other side of the fire.

“At ease, Rebekah,” Roland said, before turning back to Damian, “Still though, she’s right. Tonight is for revelry, and evidently reunion.”

“May God smite this indignity,” spat the king, looking at Daphnae and Rebekah now drunkenly kissing while the men around the fire turned away in mock disgust. It was interesting to see how dismissive these exiles were about something so shocking. Damian had seen women punished with public humiliation for exposing their breasts to men whose children they did not bear, but here they were in flagrant disrespect for ladyship. Damian supposed he was not one to judge from his seat as a murderer surrounded by the same company. It certainly was an indignity as the king had said, but then so was fighting while drunk and covered in dirt.

Roland came over to sit next to Damian. “You and I must catch up, old friend. But first, how about we introduce ourselves more thoroughly? I suspect you’ve not seen many faces, buried as they are in bottles.”

Damian had seen roughly six so far, if nobody else was off scouting like he guessed Daphnae must’ve been. The man who had been wrestling with Roland, a shorter man than Roland but stout and thick with black curly hair, had already found himself a bottle and sat near Rebekah and Daphnae. Two men who looked to be brothers sat next to one another a bit farther from the fire with a single blanket over both their laps. Damian couldn’t see their faces well through the flitting shadows but they looked young, probably teenagers.

The stout man nodded his head, before speaking up, “Nicholas, or Nico, or Caroja. At your service.”

Damian chuckled to himself. Caroja was a word from Enuran that he had picked up during the war. It roughly translated to ‘fucker’.

The two young men looked up to meet Damian’s eyes. The boy on the left cleared his throat. “I’m Dmitri, this is Philip. He doesn’t talk. And I don’t much like to either.” Philip waved to Damian and smiled warmly, but Dmitri didn’t share the enthusiasm.

Daphnae pushed Rebekah off of her mouth for a moment to speak. “This is my girl. Don’t touch her, she’s a witch. And you already know me, little lamb. I’m not a witch but I’m magical with a sword and I use my hands for all the wrong reasons,” she said, cupping Rebekah’s breast with a playful smirk.

“Others have come and gone, but these lovely souls here have been in the pack since Spring. My loyal Coyotes, rough and rub, shit and shine.”

Roland always was a poet.

[tlaquetzqui]

So far as I can tell, it’s a misnomer to call premodern Japanese farmers “peasants”. Peasants are landowners. Japanese commoners don’t really seem to have had any title to their land at all. Nor did they particularly have legal rights, possession of which makes the serf only partly unfree (not sure if the commoners had any security of the land, but they were definitely subject to conscription, which serfs couldn’t be).

Honestly the closest English word for what they had in Japan is “thrall”—pre-Norman English slavery was not chattel slavery, but their labor-force was very far from even serf status. (The most obvious example being the serf never wore a brass collar.) Of course, in Europe, even in pagan times, as in the New World, you didn’t usually slave-raid people who speak the same language as you—something a lot of East Asian and African cultures, Japan among them, didn’t get the memo on. (Nobunaga’s first measures for protecting his farmers were in response to raids by neighboring domains, IIRC.)

(Incidentally Russian “serfs” were also closer to thralldom, especially after gradual erosion of their liberties beginning I think under Peter the Great.)

[villainintern]

🕱🕱 At UNDERHAND INCORPORATED, the world's leading supervillain corporate conglomerate, networking opportunities are many. Recruit henchmen, make enemies, forge tenuous friendships, and always be sure to collect blackmail. Just in case. ____________________________________________________

YOUR FELLOW INTERNS:

PETER HYDE interns for human resources, although he might not be totally human. Your cubicle neighbor is a geeky slack-off who (unlike you) doesn't really want to work here, but for some reason he's unable to quit. Laid-back, conflict avoidant, and generally easy to manipulate, he’s easy minion material- but his attitude belies a volatile, monstrous secret. Which can be a great asset or a major risk, depending on if you can maintain your control over him.

Appearance: Pale skin, black hair that always escapes his gel, earnest brown eyes rimmed with the harrowed look of someone who stares at screens all day. 6'5" but embarrassed about being tall, so he leans on stuff and slouches in chairs. Usually wearing cheap office attire and a novelty tie.

🫀Likes: Cozy furnished basements. Free flash computer games. Taking on a whole rotisserie chicken solo. 🚫Dislikes: Working overtime. Falling behind on payments. The bottomless, gnawing hunger.

"Tropes": Codependent coworkers, boss-henchman. Genuine friends somehow? More?

REID/RENEY SULLIVAN (gender selectable) is your nemesis, or at least they think so. An interning hero (at the rival hero company) with impressive telekinetic powers, they are nonetheless as much of an amateur as you, and so you find yourself on even footing with one of the most promising superheroes in the business. Earnest and witty, they genuinely just want to help people. Eventually, they become fixated on “figuring you out”, which can lead to them getting sucked into your schemes. That, or their meddling could be your downfall. Worst of all, they might even succeed in reforming you.

Appearance: Black skin and hair, styled into many twists that fall at different lengths around their face. Lithe, stringy runner's build. Expressive brown eyes, a wide, endearingly uneven smile.

🫀Likes: Doing good in the world. Veggie pizza. Playing smash bros with siblings. Maybe you, despite all their better instincts. 🚫Dislikes: You. The level of control their employer exerts over them. Skinny jeans.

"Tropes": Enemies to worse. Reluctant allies, bantering. Intimately charged hand-to-hand combat. Suddenly realizing your sworn nemesis is the most important and constant figure in your life.

T9-670 is a seven-foot tall ex-war machine, now interning with UnderHand's tech support department. Once a military member conscripted to the company's private security decal, its contract didn’t end when it died- the soldier’s brain was transplanted into a humanoid steel frame. T9 is doing some soul searching- it’s not totally sure if it even has one left, but it would like to have a purpose beyond fixing printers and mowing down UnderHand’s enemies with its plasma gun.

Appearance: T9's new mechanical body is imposing but graceful, made of smooth, interlocking steel. Its "face" is a rounded plate of dark glass. Small tubes connect to the back of its neck, carrying fluid to the brain through its artificial spine.

🫀Likes: The beautiful, almost organic curves of highway overpasses. 🚫Dislikes: Being unable to eat. It misses carbs.

"Tropes": Big huge strong shiny robot.

ELAINE FOSTER is an up-and-coming mad scientist interning as an assistant in the tech support laboratories. Although a genius prodigy, Foster otherwise has no superhuman abilities, which causes her to be overlooked by your superiors- as a result, she's become fixated on getting that elusive promotion. Exacting, calculating, and a little maniacal, Foster doesn't dole out her respect easily. But if she sees you making smart moves, you'll find her a very competent collaborator.

Appearance: Pale skin and frizzy, near-white blonde hair. Sharp, elegant, shrewd face. Grey eyes behind narrow cherry red cat-eye glasses. She usually wears her lab gear: the signature high collared white coat, black vinyl boots and gloves.

🫀Likes: A strong cup of green tea. A well-tailored pair of dress pants. Mugler, her pet lab rat. 🚫Dislikes: Temperatures above 68 degrees. Willful imbeciles. Being condescended to.

"Tropes": Icy exterior, rivals, lab partners in crime, the chemistry that comes from bonding over your obsessive shared career passions.

BLINK is technically unemployed, a rogue villain or vigilante, depending on who you ask. Completely anonymous, they wear a unique suit of tactical gear that allows them to turn completely invisible, the first of its kind. Quippy, chipper, and sauntering, Blink is an invisible superhuman that loves the spotlight- a walking contradiction. Their motives are as obscure as their identity, but they sure seem to interfere with your missions a lot. Are they sabotaging your goals, or do theirs align? Do they just like following you around? ...are they following you right now? You're pretty sure you're alone. The hallway is dead silent. And yet...

Appearance: There's no way to know. Even when they're visible, Blink is covered head to toe in tactical gear, and they seem very cautious about keeping their face concealed. It's almost like they have something to hide from you, personally.

🫀Likes: Assassinating crooked politicians. Steel-toe boots. Invisibly entering people's houses just to see what it's like in there. 🚫Dislikes: Motion sensing doors.

"Tropes": Secret identity, watching you through their sniper scope and kicking their feet around like a schoolgirl.

[24worldnewsnet]

(Credit: Alamy)Darren Aronofsky's radical drug-addiction drama was highly acclaimed and angrily slated when it came out in 2000. Today, this Hubert Selby Jr adaptation is no less contentious.When Requiem for a Dream debuted 25 years ago in May 2000, it drew both rave reviews and a firestorm of controversy. The midnight screening at the Cannes Film Festival culminated in a rapturous standing ovation from the auditorium's 3,000 spectators. When the lights came up on author Hubert Selby Jr – who had written the 1978 novel on which the film was based – tears were streaming down his face. Critical admiration followed, with the Guardian's Peter Bradshaw rhapsodising that director Darren Aronofsky had reached the legendary heights of Orson Welles in "energy, consistency, and utter mastery of technique". The reception played out very differently, however, at the Toronto Film Festival, where some audience members vomited in disgust. Saddled with a restrictive NC-17 rating, the film went on to gross a lean $7.5m (£5.5m) on a $4.5m (£3.3m) budget, and was lambasted by some detractors for, as Jay Carr put it in the Boston Globe, "slumming in a vision of hell hatched from bourgeois comfort".What divided critical reaction was how Requiem for a Dream depicted drug addicts – which is to say, in up-close, harrowing detail. The film follows a widow, Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn), as she becomes hooked on diet pills in an effort to become a contestant on a television game show. Meanwhile, her son Harry (Jared Leto) and his best friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) hatch a scheme to get rich selling heroin. When things go south, they pressure Harry's girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) to trade sex for drugs. The plot swirls like a whirlpool that draws them toward their gruesome fates: torturous treatments of electroconvulsive shock therapy, amputation of a gangrenous arm, conscription into a prison work gang overseen by a racist guard, and exploitation in humiliating sex work.The film-makers set out to deliver a sensory bombardment that would mimic the experience of addiction. But they ended up doing much more, touching off serious debates about the free will of the addict, the line between compassionate observation and exploitative voyeurism, and the toxic siren call of the American Dream itself. Twenty-five years later, these debates are still smouldering.The idea for the film came when producer Eric Watson noticed a copy of Selby's novel sitting on Aronofsky's bookshelf in 1998. "Darren told me he'd had to stop reading halfway through – it was just too dark and unrelenting – and that intrigued me," Watson tells the BBC. "I asked him if I could borrow it for something to read on a ski trip with my parents. It completely ruined my holiday. I told Darren when I got back, 'This is the one – we've got to make this movie'. So we optioned the novel for a thousand bucks, and rather than wait for Selby to find the screenplay that was lost in his attic, Darren wrote one himself."Jared Leto and Jennifer Connelly starred in Requiem for a Dream, a film other actors rejected as a "career risk" (Credit: Alamy)Aronofsky and Watson sent the script to all the major studios. The response? "Crickets," Watson recalls. "No one even bothered to call us back to turn it down." Undeterred, they secured half the funding they needed from Artisan Entertainment, and brought aboard an independent producer, Palmer West, to help gather the rest of a shoestring budget. The casting process proved challenging, too. "Tobey Maguire, Adrien Brody, Joaquin Phoenix, Giovanni Ribisi – they all explored the project or showed up to audition to be Harry, but turned down the part," Watson recalls. "It was just too much of a career risk."Once Leto, Connelly, Wayans and Burstyn were cast, the actors strove for authenticity. Leto shed 25lb (11kg) and hung out with homeless heroin addicts in New York's East Village. Wayans roamed the freezing streets of Brooklyn's Brighton Beach shirtless in February. When shooting commenc

[artpassion3]

A heroic hedonist, John Craxton lived for the pleasure he painted. This anarchic man ignored the rules, escaping into his dream world at a very young age. A nomad, as soon as he could, he fled the cold and conservative islands where he was born in 1922 to live out his sexuality without restraint on the islands of his dreams.

Beach Scene, 1949,

But the war, which curbed his ardor for freedom, made his blood boil until the spring of 1946, when, finally, at the age of 23, all his senses were immediately and permanently fascinated. An ecstatic moment, almost all the images he drew or painted extolled Aegean life.

Greek-Fisherman-1960-

Craxton in is La Canée studio

John, the fourth of five sons before his parents had the brilliant musician daughter they desired, left the approving family cocoon, wanting only to paint, draw, and bask in his own adventures.

Boy on a Blue Chair, 1946

At 17, he was picking up antiques and being picked up by antique dealers. Staying with an uncle and aunt, both painters, he scandalized them (but not his parents) by taking care of Trelawney Dayrell Reed—painter, farmer, and ousted curator of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Farnham.

Four Figures in a Mountain Landscape, 1950/51

When asked if there were pigs on the farm, this Wildean spirit replied: “No. The boys have the pigs. I have the boys.” Hence his Pitt Rivers sacking.

This allowed him to meet archaeologist Stuart Piggott and then Peter Watson, co-founder and financier of Horizon magazine, who was squandering his inherited fortune on a passion for beautiful things and brilliant young men. Watson installed John Craxton and the heterosexual Lucian Freud in adjacent studios to work on their inventive and subversive art without hindrance.

Pastoral for Peter Watson

Of Craxton, Freud said: “You couldn’t go out in the blackout without getting the clap” – was to make two drunken passes at his brother in the arts. Both were rebuffed.

Spared from wartime military service due to undiagnosed tuberculosis, he would flourish in the Cretan sun.

In the port of Chania, he bought a Venetian-style house.

John Craxton in his home in Chania,1983

Chania, near the deep harbor of Souda Bay, sees waves of sailors strolling by every evening, and every night it was one of the great gay cruising grounds in the Mediterranean.

Sleeping fisherman

He had many famous friends, but his portraits are populated by fishermen, ranchers, sailors, and young conscripted soldiers who, at the slightest gesture, transformed into tavern dancers.

Two Greek Dancers, 1951

It was this passionate and reckless company that he preferred, especially since he had learned their vulgar and bawdy language.

John Craxton (left) and Patrick Leigh Fermor (right), Serifos, Greece, 1951

Still Life Sailors (1980-85)

First meeting in 1973, a civil partnership was formed in 2006 with Richard Riley, his friend and lover, who finally became his full-time carer in London.

John Craxton in Hydra, Greece, 1960

Shepherd and Rocks 1943

Craxton's party ended abruptly at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead early one November morning in 2009.

From: John Craxton - A Rebel Artist of the 20th Century, by Ian Collins, friend and biographer of John Craxton

John Craxton, 24yo, "Self-Portrait", 1946/47

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Humane

In the near future, over-population and environmental crises have led the world’s nations to set up a program to reward people for electing to die. That’s the premise of Caitlin Cronenberg’s debut feature, HUMANE (2024, Shudder, AMC+), a darkly comic film equating family dysfunction with societal ills.

Charles York (Peter Gallagher), a respected news anchor, and his second wife (Uni Park), an acclaimed chef put out of business by anti-Asian bigotry, inform their four children that they’ve elected euthanasia. When Park changes her mind and runs off, the smiling government death rep (Enrico Colantoni) informs the children that one of them will have to die in her place.  That sets off a series of darkly comic confrontations leading to physical violence as the less than admirable quartet go at each other. The eldest (Jay Baruchal), is an anthropologist advising the government on their euthanasia program with no intention of taking part in it himself. Daughter Emily Hampshire is a crooked pharmaceutical exec under investigation for leaving ineffective drugs on the market. Pianist Sebastian Chacon is a recovering addict who’s killed someone in an auto accident.  And the youngest, Alanna Bale, is a failed actress whose only hope of getting cast is having the other actresses in her type volunteer to die.

A lot of this is wicked fun. Colantino is particularly good at jovially defending his job, and Hampshire pulls off some great comic slaloms. When things get violent, Cronenberg (daughter of David) does a good job staging slapstick mayhem. There are also interesting reflections on the story’s social implications The politicians who formerly denied climate change now use it to demand global euthanasia. Baruchal objects to his father’s volunteering because with the family’s money and connections they’re in no danger should the state resort to conscripting victims. He also brags that the program has been a boon to illegal aliens, whose children get a fast track to citizenship if their parents choose to die, and defends describing the situation as “The Asian Crisis.” When he later says, “I’m not a racist,” it’s a surefire laugh. There are, however, some illogical character choices used to keep the action going, and the ending reaches for a feel-good moment the film and characters haven’t earned. But the rest is well worth a look.

[ulkaralakbarova]

When brilliant video game maker Flynn hacks the mainframe of his ex-employer, he is beamed inside an astonishing digital world…and becomes part of the very game he is designing. In his mission through cyberspace, Flynn matches wits with a maniacal Master Control Program and teams up with Tron, a security measure created to bring balance to the digital environment. Credits: TheMovieDb. Film Cast: Kevin Flynn / Clu: Jeff Bridges Alan Bradley / Tron: Bruce Boxleitner Ed Dillinger / Sark / Voice of Master Control Program: David Warner Lora / Yori: Cindy Morgan Dr. Walter Gibbs / Dumont: Barnard Hughes Ram/Popcorn Co-Worker: Dan Shor Crom: Peter Jurasik Peter / Sark’s Lieutenant: Tony Stephano Warrior #1: Craig Chudy Warrior #2: Vince Deadrick Jr. Expert Disc Warrior: Sam Schatz Conscript #2: Michael Dudikoff Head Guard: Jackson Bostwick Film Crew: Original Music Composer: Wendy Carlos Visual Effects Design Consultant: Steven Lisberger Producer: Harrison Ellenshaw Producer: Donald Kushner Executive Producer: Ron Miller Director of Photography: Bruce Logan Editor: Jeff Gourson Casting: Pam Polifroni Production Design: Syd Mead Production Design: Dean Mitzner Art Direction: John B. Mansbridge Art Direction: Al Roelofs Set Decoration: Roger M. Shook Costume Design: Rosanna Norton Conceptual Design: Jean Giraud Stunts: Ross Reynolds Story: Bonnie MacBird Costume Design: Elois Jenssen Stunts: Glenn R. Wilder Stunts: Larry Holt Stunts: Charlie Picerni Stunts: Gary Epper Stunts: Walter Scott Stunt Coordinator: Richard E. Butler Production Sound Mixer: James LaRue Sound Re-Recording Mixer: Lee Minkler Costumer: Lorry Richter Costumer: Nedra Rosemond-Watt Visual Effects: Chris Wedge Visual Effects: John Beach Visual Effects: Tom Bisogno Visual Effects: Nancy Hunter Campi Visual Development: Larry Elin Digital Compositor: Liza Moon Visual Effects Camera: John Aardal Systems Administrators & Support: Richard ‘Dr.’ Baily Visual Effects Camera: Don Baker Visual Effects: William Dungan Jr. Digital Compositor: Art Durinski Visual Effects Camera: Kris Gregg Visual Effects Camera: Patric Kenly Digital Supervisor: Jeffrey Kleiser Systems Administrators & Support: Bill Kovacs Animation: Donald Leich Visual Effects: Larry Malone Systems Administrators & Support: Tim McGovern Visual Effects: Malcolm McMillan Animation: Gene Miller Visual Effects Supervisor: Kenny Mirman Visual Effects: Craig Reynolds Systems Administrators & Support: Frank Vitz Production Coordinator: Lynn Wilkinson Camera Supervisor: Christopher Dusendschon Technical Supervisor: John Hughes Visual Effects Camera: Peg Hunter Animation: Barry Cook Storyboard Artist: Bill Kroyer Storyboard Designer: Jerry Rees Animation: Darrell Rooney Animation: John T. Van Vliet Pre-Visualization Supervisor: Roger Allers Storyboard Artist: Andrew Gaskill Conceptual Design: Chris Lane Conceptual Design: Peter Mueller Concept Artist: John Norton Art Designer: John Alvin Concept Artist: Michael Peraza Jr. Art Designer: Drew Struzan Movie Reviews: r96sk: An acquired taste. For me, someone who has no knowledge of computer programming and the sort, it’s a very slow, tedious and boring watch. ‘Tron’, unfortunately, didn’t take my interest whatsoever. Not helped by the poor special effects (they get a pass due to it being an 1982 release; though I’m not convinced it’s good either way) and forgettable cast performances, it’s not a premise that’s easy to get into if you have no prior understanding of coding etc. There is some intrigue in there, but not nearly enough to satisfy my viewing pleasure – it felt like a much longer run time than 96 minutes, that’s for sure. All cool if you love this, but I very much didn’t. Hopefully the 2010 sequel gives the concept a major boost. CinemaSerf: I saw this again yesterday – it’s 40 years old! I didn’t see it at the time, I was one of those kids who hadn’t the slightest interest in “Space Invaders” nor did I ever have an Atari, but I do recall the fuss that was being made about Disney’s first foray into the wor...