After eight (8!) years of not having been active, an old project that was previously attempted by what is now Peace and Love Scooters as far back as January of 2017 is finally seeing the light of day again – albeit in a totally new location, and with a totally new cast.
The storyline of Fighting Spiders had been written by us as far back as 2009. The 13-episode series tells the story of three young British men – James Lawrence “Flea” Levine, Charlie Webster, and Peter Livingstone – who live in a semi-rural area of the UK during the reign of former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who want to find the “King of the Fighting Spiders” believed to be located somewhere in North Wales, in order to take part in a spider fighting contest to win the grand prize of 500 quid.
Spider fighting has long been a popular sport among British youth, especially boys, since the 1960s, but was especially common in the 1980s and 1990s. The species of spider normally used in these fights is the Thiania Bhamoensis spider; only the males are used. In the game, two male spiders fight each other on top of a flat surface, such as a leaf or a lunchbox. The losing spider is the one who runs away off of the edge. Back in the day, some spider fighting enthusiasts had contests that could fetch the winners as much as 500 quid or even more. There is an entire blog that talks about the spider-fighting sport, which you can view here.
The original Fighting Spiders production of 2017 was the first time we used real human actors in a production. It starred my then-boyfriend Javier as the original Flea Levine, of which some of the footage for the first episode had been shot. Casting calls were still on for the other two leading roles at the time.
After only a month or two though, the MUIS wrote us a cease-and-desist letter to demand that I end the production on allegations that I had been “breaching Allah’s prohibitions”. For the next four years, the project had no choice but to be put to rest – however, in November of 2024, after four more years had passed, it was decided that the project could, should, and would be revived again, now that we had come out about our sexuality and could no longer face prosecution just for being what we were.
The script for the first episode underwent some editing and modification to expand it to its present length and develop the characters further. A lot of the editing advice came from American YouTuber Amos “BrainAndButter” Yee, who is currently a senior member of Peace and Love Scooters’ advisory panel. Some new characters not originally present in the original script, such as Pumbaa, Edward the Blue Engine, and the Hyena Brothers, were introduced. Others, like Big McIntosh, Braeburn, Dr Whooves, and Flash Sentry, underwent character upgrading in order to give them a better placement in the series. The only character from the original script that retains her original posture and character, is the main antagonist, Trixie Lulamoon – who is now reinvented as Charlie’s family majordomo.
As with the original production, the all-new Fighting Spiders will be filmed on-location in several areas, especially in Bath. There are plans in the coming episodes’ scripts to have some scenes filmed in Portsmouth, Bristol, Bangor, and London. Casting calls are presently under way and will be confirmed in due course.
Fighting Spiders will begin production on March 1st 2025, and is expected to finally hit the screens later that same month. It will also be uploaded on the ABC-ZNN YouTube channel.
Trixie Lulamoon promises to surprise viewers in Fighting Spiders
Trixie Lulamoon, the unicorn that everypony loves to hate, was chosen as the main antagonist of the original Fighting Spiders production – largely because as a unicorn with magical powers, all her “attacks” would be “magical”, for the sake of the safety of the real human actors.
The same thing applies to the present revived production, which further develops Trixie’s character. This time, she is no longer a “traveling quack” as she had been made out to be in the original script, but now has a much bigger role – she also happens to be the family major-domo of Charlie Webster, one of the three real-human protagonists.
Her backstory in this production also is much bigger. “We wanted Trixie to not be your typical anti-hero,” says Amos Yee, who helped a lot with the character development in the pre-production. “She wouldn’t just be the typical Law & Order villain that you could just arrest, charge in court, and deliver a verdict. We wanted her to be the toughest anti-hero to date. So for that we had to give her a side which our congregation could sympathize with – hence, we made her the family major-domo of orphan Charlie Webster, who lives with his grandmother and with Trixie all under the same roof.”
The backstory for Trixie, Amos says, gives her a seemingly sympathetic side in a very similar sense to such anti-heroes as Endora from Bewitched. “Endora was a very strong inspiration for Trixie’s character,” Yee says. “Like Endora, Trixie happens to be a so-called ‘family member’. Because she saved Emma’s (Charlie’s grandmother) life when she was a little girl, Emma felt indebted and made Trixie the major-domo of the family. And when Emma grew too old to take care of Charlie, she made sure Trixie was always there for the grandson. Yet, Trixie is innately just plain evil, period; although Emma fails to realize that. And that’s how it has been by the start of the show – it will become clearer as the episodes progress, and viewers will sort of have some inkling at some point as to what really happened to George and Maria Webster (Charlie’s parents), who were supposedly killed during the Gulf War – at least according to Trixie’s account.”
When asked about her role as the main antagonist in Fighting Spiders, Trixie refused to answer anything except with three words: “Friendship is magic.”