Bitter Karella's Hot Fresh Slurry 55
Hey this is Bitter Karella, Internet bon vivant, and this is Bitter Karella’s Fresh Hot Slurry with all the news that’s fit to be extruded. Check it out! Instead of actually improving the content of my newsletter, I decided that what I really needed to do was to make it flashier. Now it’s got SUBHEADINGS! This probably increases scrolling time, which probably looks good on metric or something. The important thing is that I finally got some use out of this picture of me standing in front of a crypt with slime effects which I originally made for a Halloween mood music compilation that Youtube nixed for using too much copyrightable bits of Vincent Price reciting a course on demonology.
Anyway, what dumbass things have I been up to this week? Check it out!
It’s an exciting week at the ol’ goblin burrow! My first novel -- an extremely horny horror tale of psychedelic mushrooms, eldritch forest gods, terf cults, cop inbreeding, fat girl sex, and raccoons - is on submission to editors! Exciting, nail-biting times for this goblin! 😅 So if you’re an editor who for some reason is reading this newsletter and that sounds like your jam and you haven’t gotten the submission… heeeey why not drop me line about it why don’t ya? You wouldn’t want to miss out on the next big thing certifiable number one smash, right?
It’s Episode 216: Garfield the Movie (2004) (cont’d)!
Meanwhile on A Special Presentation or Alf Will Not be Seen Tonight, Ethan and I continue our look at Garfield: The Movie (2004). The fat orange cat finally got his big screen debut in 2004 with Garfield: the Movie, the culmination of Jim Davis' long-time dream to see Garfield in theaters. Was it everything that it was cracked up to be? Why on earth did they CG Garfield but not Odie? We answer the big questions as we try to wrap our heads around the dumbest studio decision in film history. Seriously, what stuffed suit thought that it would be acceptable to have a real dog play Odie, a dog that literally EVERY PERSON IN AMERICA recognizes?
It’s Episode 4: The Tale of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Midnight Society!
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stumbles upon the Midnight Pals' storytelling circle and reluctantly agrees to bring beloved supersleuth Sherlock Holmes back for one last, final, final case. A locked-room murder mystery turns to metafictional highjinks as the Pals are embroiled in the world of Holmes's adventures, sort of like when the holodeck malfunctions on Star Trek.
***
Here’s this week’s Midnight Pals!
[mysterious circle of robed figures]
Helen Joyce: ok listen when the dark lord gets here
Joyce: nobody mention that hogwarts legacy didn't get a single award nomination
Joyce: she's going go through a lot
Joyce: you know with all those duct problems in her castle
Allison Bailey: i have an idea
Joyce: yeah?
Bailey: you know how i lost that court case but i just told everyone online that i won?
Bailey: what if we just did that?
Bailey: i mean that's kind of our thing in general
Joyce: delightfully devilish allison
JK Rowling: hello children
Helen Joyce: dark lord! congratulations on hogwarts legacy sweeping the game awards!
Rowling: what?
Joyce: oh yeah absolutely, it won, like, every category
Joyce: just massive numbers of awards
Joyce: lots of them
Rowling: iss that ssso? weird, they didn't tell me
Rowling: usssually when i win ssomething, they ssend me a trophy
Joyce: oh no no no
Joyce: they didn't want to clutter up your scottish castle with more shabby old awards
Rowling: that'sss true
Rowling: i do have a lot of awardss
Rowling: what awardsss did i win?
Joyce: oh you know umm
Joyce: like the number one top video game award
Joyce: for
Joyce: uhhhh
Joyce: most pixels
Rowling: oh yeah hogwartsss legacy did have a lot of pixelsss
Rowling: what other awardsss did i win?
Joyce: oh you won the
Joyce: the golden mousepad
Joyce: for
Joyce: excellence in
Joyce: uh
Joyce: pushing
Joyce: buttons?
Rowling: i can't believe hogwartsss legacccy didn't get a ssingle nomination!
Rowling: how iss that possssible?!
Rowling: itsss got blood libel
Rowling: i wass under the impresssssion that wass really big right now!
***
Robert Heinlein: now i usually tell stories over at space coven
Heinlein: but i thought I'd come over and tell you a story
Heinlein: about alien puppet masters
Heinlein: i call it the puppet masters
Barker: are they alien?
Heinlein:
Heinlein: oh you've heard it?
Clive Barker: ugh space coven?
Barker: those guys are the biggest nerds
King: i thought you said unicorn fuck club were the biggest nerds
Barker: no i said they were the biggest dorks
Barker: there's a difference
Barker: nerds and dorks are totally different
King: what do you mean, what's the difference?
Barker: let me explain it this way
Barker: you stephen are a dork
Barker: but edgar is a nerd
Poe: now hold on there
Mary Shelley: no he's right
Heinlein: I call this story
Heinlein: In the Realm of the Electric Medusas, What Measure the Measure of a Man?
Heinlein: it's about a space guy who shoots aliens
Heinlein: with a laser
King: what kind of aliens?
Heinlein: what?
King: what kind of aliens?
Heinlein: oh like i dunno
Heinlein: big green bug-eyed slug monsters
Heinlein: you know like just your standard alien
Heinlein: the one everyone's writing
Heinlein: the important thing is they get shot
Heinlein: you know what i love about aliens?
Heinlein: you can just beat 'em up! Pow Zap! Bang!
Heinlein: shoot them with a big gun!!!
Heinlein: and no pinko commie's gonna tell you to stop! ha ha! yeah!
Heinlein: hey do you guys play warhammer?
Heinlein: so do you guys play warhammer?
Barker: no
King: not really
Poe: nope
Koontz: uh uh
Lovecraft: no
Heinlein:
Heinlein: oh
Heinlein: do you WANT to play warhammer?
Heinlein: see what's cool is, it's both a game and a collection
Heinlein: look at these cool space marines
Heinlein: pretty bad ass don't you think?
Heinlein: i wish they gave them more guns tho
Heinlein: so i was reading about these new rare miniatures in stormbringer magazine
Barker: oh my god i'm dying
Heinlein: so anyway everyone knows the chaos space marines are the best faction cuz you can access specific Stratagems using the chaos emeralds
Barker: i can't take this nerd shit
Barker: [weakly] mary please
Barker: [weakly] save us from these nerds
Barker: [weakly] bring your shiv
Barker: hey did you see starship troopers?
Heinlein: hell yeah brother!!! i love that shit!
Heinlein: love when they shoot the bugs! Yeah!
Heinlein: i love that shit
Heinlein: UNIRONICALLY!
Heinlein: starship troopers movie is so cool
Heinlein: i love it!
Heinlein: it's totally what i saw in my head when i wrote the book!
Heinlein: they captured my ideas perfectly!
Heinlein: what
Heinlein: what's so funny
Barker: haha you dingus, it was a satire! they were making fun of you haha
Heinlein: what? shut up!
Heinlein: stop mocking me!
Heinlein: I'm a serious hard science fiction writer!
Heinlein: I predicted the water bed!
Heinlein: bang! pow! i love killing aliens!
Heinlein: oh, you're different than me huh alien? huh? is that it?!
Heinlein: where the fuck do you get off?!
Heinlein: [miming gun] bang! bang!
Heinlein: and that's why i'm a member of the SFWA
***
Neil Gaiman: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the kitsune in love
Kij Johnson: oh this sounds great
Lafcadio Hearn: AHEM
Hearn: i'll be the judge of that
Hearn: you baka gaijin
Gaiman: this is a tale of that ineffable madness that seizes the young and emboldens the old, cruel in its kindness and kind in its cruelty
Gaiman: beautiful in its ugliness and ugly in its beauty
Gaiman: i speak, my friends
Gaiman: of love
Gaiman: simply love
Gaiman: i speak of love as a singular force spiraling through the cosmos, unemcumbered by modular time
Gaiman: love which speaks in gentle tones but will not be denied
Gaiman: so powerful as to make a pauper of a king and a king of a pauper
Gaiman: to understand my story, you must remember the feelings of love
Gaiman: to feel in the depths of that frenzy, unable to breathe for feelings too big to contain
Gaiman: do you understand? can you feel it?
King:
Poe:
Barker:
Lovecraft:
Koontz:
Gaiman: then i'll begin
Gaiman: so it came to pass in the mysterious cloudlands of the distant east that a kitsune and a badger made a bet-
Hearn: IT'S NOT A BADGER YOU BAKA GAIJIN
Hearn: IT'S CALLED A TANUKI
Hearn: GET IT RIGHT!
Hearn: GET IT RIGHT!!!
Yoshitaka Amano: hey i illustrated your story, what do you think?
Gaiman: huh, good but
Gaiman: could you make the figures more wan?
Amano: which ones?
Gaiman: oh you know
Gaiman: all of them
Amano: ok how's this
Gaiman: no no
Gaiman: more wan