Open Wide, America! It's Hot Fresh Slurry!
Hello children! This is another week of Twitter still spiraling the drain as the richest man in the world solicits business advice from regular salt of the earth Twitter users like HitlerFan1488 and AnimeJewGasser_69. In preparation, I’m cross-posting Midnight Pals to Tumblr and Mastodon (and weekly sending them out here via substack!), since those seem the most amendable to what I’m trying to do. Still a weird period!
As always, you can also find me at:
Tiktok: bitterkarella
Tumblr: bitterkarella
Youtube: bitterkarella
Patreon: bitterkarella
instagram: bitterkarella
mastadon: @bitterkarella@sfba.social
Furaffinity: agouti-rex
actual website: www.bitterkarella.com
hmm one of these things is not like the others 🤔?
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Midnight Pals Indiegogo Success!
In more exciting news, I’m pleased to announce that the Indiegogo campaign for the third Midnight Pals was a huge success, making 316% of goal!! This really blew me away, especially considering that Twitter’s slow demise forced me to push forward with this project a little sooner than I would have liked. Since the indiegogo did so well, I’ll be able to make this book bigger than I expected — so it’s gonna have ALL the good tweets in it! And more extras too.
The third Midnight Pals book will have a cover by my good friend & excellent artist Gentlemonster and interior illustrations by the incomparable Jennifer Alright. Go check out their work!
Other Story news!
Also, in NON-MIDNIGHT PALS related news, my story Low Tide Jenny has been selected as a finalist for Tenebrous Press’ Brave New Weird award & anthology! Very exciting to be in the company of so many esteemed horror and weird writers! I wrote this story when I was at a particularly dark time in my life, so I’m glad that it seems to have resonated so well with people. Also glad to be somewhat out of those dark times lol. It’s available to read in Seize the Press magazine for free if depressing stories about bad decisions made at the end of the world are your bag.
ALSO! I have another story, A Brief History of the Santa Carcossa Archipelago, debuting in Ghoulish Books’ Bound in Flesh anthology this spring. Really thrilled to share a TOC with such weird horror greats as Hailey Piper, Joe Koch, LC von Hessen, and more! A Brief History of the Santa Carcossa Achipelago is a gonzo erotica about fish lesbians which I was pretty sure was going to get me blacklisted, so I’m very excited to not be a persona non grata! :)
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Entering the Videodrome
With the death of Twitter, I am now desperately flailing to create content for other platforms now too. So enjoy this video where I ate a marijuana edible and attempted to explain why JK Rowling’s latest Cormorant Strike book was bad. Making videos is hard work, I dunno if I wanna keep doing that! But here it is.
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And, finally, here’s the Midnight Pals threads for the week:
Stephen King: hey neil did you hear that tumblr made up a fake scorcese movie?
King: Joe told me about it
Gaiman: haha! how delightfully whimsical! how droll!
Gaiman: will the limitless vista of the human imagination ever fail to delight?
Poe: neil did you hear about goronovich?
Gaiman: haha! the fake movie! how droll!
Lovecraft: hey neil did you hear about gorbochov?
Gaiman: haha! the fake movie! how droll!
Koontz: hey neil did you hear about goobooboo?
Gaiman: haha. the fake movie. how droll.
Barker: hey neil
King: neil everyone wants to hear your opinion on goaijiruchev
Gaiman: please steve stop
Gaiman: for days, i have been buffeted upon the tides of whimsy
Gaiman: until i must scream, like odysseus tied to the mast, NO MORE
Gaiman: NO MORE
King:
King: so what's your opinion
Gaiman: confound that infernal fiction!
Gaiman: only in this late hour do i realize my folly
Gaiman: recognizing that the unbounded human imagination can be twisted for evil
Gaiman: sweet merciful gilgamesh, let us banish this wretched tulpa back to the distant caves of memory!
Koontz: hey neil what do you think about girugamesh
Gaiman: i think that cursed palimpsest should sink into the darkest depths of the river lethe!!
Gaiman: oh no dean
Gaiman: please no
Gaiman: dry your tears, good dean
Gaiman: my anger was not for you
King: Gorbavaich! Gogoogamoo!
Gaiman:
Koontz: haha this is fun! Gabagoo! Gargamel!
Gaiman:
Gaiman: i must amend my long-stated position on imagination
Gaiman: i now believe that it's bad
Koontz: Gantagocho!
Gaiman: please stop
Gaiman: i hate whimsy now
Gaiman: gods it hurts
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Stephen King: wow the way elon musk is running this place, pretty soon the only advertiser left will be My Pillow
King: anyway
King: Submitted for the approval
Elon Musk: [popping out of bushes] ey stepheno king! I hear you a talka shit about me
King: of the Midnight society I call this
Musk: I say, I hear you a talka shit about me
Musk: you maka fun ova me, elon musk?
Musk: I showa you, I buya alla da my pillows!
Musk: I builda my whola house ova my pillows!
Musk: I ama notta owned!
Musk: ohhh that Stephano king, he maka me so mad!
Musk: you thinka you so smart, Stephano king?
Musk: I ban you lika you wassa antifascist!
Musk: so you betta watcha you mouth!
Musk: I banna da antifascists
Musk: I banna da communistsa
Musk: I banna da socialista
Musk: I banna da trade unionista
Musk: I banna da jews
Musk: I lova da free speech!
Musk: mama mia I maka alla da hate speech go away
Musk: it’sa no hate speech to say killa da trans
Musk: itsa no hate speech to say killa da gays
Musk: itsa no hate speech to say killa da jews
Lovecraft: w-what about
Lovecraft: Italians?
Musk: you shutta you mouth paisano!!!!
Musk: Stephano king, you no ignora me! You responda ta me righta now!
Musk: I demanda you addressa me! I amma da elon musk!
Musk: you watcha you mouth stepheno king!
Musk:
Musk: I say
Musk: you watcha you mouth!
Musk: [brandishing shot gun] I getta you now Stephen king
Stephen King: [sticks finger in barrel, gun explodes in musk’s face]
Musk: [with soot blackened face] oooo! Dat stepheno king!
King: [to camera] ain’t I a stinker
Musk: ooooo stepheno king, you tricka me for the last time!
[Stephen King enters dressed as a valkyerie, riding an extremely fat horse]
Musk: [instantly smitten] Gwimes!
Musk: Gwimes you comma back to me!!
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Zach Cregger: Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, I call this the tale of the barbarian
Stephen King: Zach Cregger from the Whitest Kids U Know!
King: this is great, i could do with a laugh!
Cregger:
Cregger: so this woman finds a sinister secret room in the basement of her air bnb
King: I'm laughing already!
Cregger: and there's monsters in it
King: haha! great!
Cregger:
Jordan Peele: yeah he's just like that
Peele: keep going
Cregger: anyway the guy who owns the airbnb shows up to investigate
Cregger: and the important thing is he's wearing a Grillos Pickles hat
King: oh those are good pickles
Cregger: RIGHT?????
King: those are really good pickles
Poe: yeah they're good, very tangy
Koontz: i don't know how to open the plastic tubs
King: oh it's easy, you just have to push that little tab under the lid
Poe: use a butter knife, that makes it easier
Koontz: i'm not supposed to handle knives
Cregger: so there's all these winding tunnels down there where you can get lost and
King: hey whats this rikki tikki tavi song
Poe: yeah that's a bop
Cregger: i
King: is that donovan? i think that's donovan
Cregger: i
King: [singing] rikki tikki tavi is gone my love
Cregger: i
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AM Shine: submitted for the approval of the midnight society, I call this the tale of the guys who barricade themselves in at night
Barker: didn’t you do this before
Shine: what, you don’t think it’s scary?
Shine: you don’t think it’s literally the essence of horror?
Barker:
Shine: these people are trapped in a bunker in the woods by raging monsters
Shine: and these monsters
Shine: are fairies
Arthur Machen: Fairies?!
Machen: did you say fairies?!?
Barker: oh here we go
Machen: fairies are scary
Machen: and very queer, you know
Barker: yes Arthur we KNOW
Barker: we go over this every time
Barker: every time you tell us about how the fairies are queer
Barker: and it’s never the good kind of queer
Barker: always the boring kind
AM Shine: now they’re trapped in this bunker, four people and a parrot
Koontz: is the
Koontz: is the parrot ok
King: aw that's cute, dean's worried about the parrot!
Koontz: parrots are the dogs of birds
Shine: a touching concern for the yellow one
Koontz: the yellow what
Shine: the yellow one
Koontz:
Poe:
Barker:
King:
Lovecraft:
Shine: you know, the yellow one
Barker: you mean the parrot?
Shine: yeah, the yellow one
Barker: why are you saying it like that
Shine: like what?
Barker: like how howard talks about the old ones
Barker: oh shit
Barker: is this parrot all fucked up
Shine: no it’s just a perfectly ordinary yellow one
Shine: Fairies were attacking their bunker
Shine: they’re very feral and primordial and don’t operate by human laws
Arthur Conan Doyle: that’s not what fairies are like
Arthur Machen: no no he’s right, that’s exactly what fairies are like
Doyle: [indignant] excuse me
Doyle: I think I know fairies
Doyle: [brandishing fairy EVP detector] I’m an expert fairy hunter
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Current horror reading: The Watchers, by AM SHINE… a weird gothic horror about four random people (and a parrot) trapped in an abandoned bunker in the dark of the forest primeval… by slavering, drooling, shrieking monsters will fill up the woods at night. Claustrophobic and tense despite the ancient and unknowable enormity of the forest… What my dad would call a good spook-’em book!