Permanent Midnight Pals
August Derleth: Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, I call this the tale
Derleth: of the world’s greatest detective
King: yeah! Right on!
Derleth: solar pons
King: i
King: wait, who?
Derleth: you know
Derleth: solar pons
Derleth: the world’s greatest detective
Derleth: this is a story about the world’s greatest detective solar pons
Dean Koontz: I thought batman was the world’s greatest detective
King: no dean
King: no batman is a scientist
Koontz: a scientist is a kind of detective
King: hold on, that’s a good point there
Derleth:
Derleth: stop it! The important thing is solar pons
Derleth: he’s the detective who hangs out with his sidekick Dr. Parker
Derleth: who smokes a pipe and has incredible powers of observation and deduction
Barker: dude, you’re basically describing sherlock holmes
Derleth: NO
Derleth: solar pons is his own original character
Derleth: I asked Arthur conan doyle if I could take over sherlock holmes stories
Derleth: when he said no
Derleth: I spent years devising my own detective
Derleth: close enough to be the new holmes but distinct enough to escape
Barker: hey you know you can just write sherlock holmes now
Derleth: what
Barker: yeah he’s public domain
Barker: anyone can just write sherlock holmes
Derleth: what
Barker: for example
Barker: I could write a story where sherlock and dr Watson fuck in gimp suits
Derleth: WHAT
Barker: yeah that’s right, try to stop me haha
Barker: heyyy maybe I’ll write a story where hell demons eat sherlock holmes’ dick
Derleth: no! stop it! You’re ruining sherlock holmes!
Koontz: can I write a sherlock holmes story too?
Derleth: no! stop it!
Barker: why of course you can dean
Barker: ANYONE can now
Barker: and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop you haha
Derleth: noooo
Koontz: what if sherlock holmes had a dog
Derleth: noooooo
Koontz: I bet it would be a bloodhound
Derleth: nooooooo
Lovecraft: s-so I could also write a sherlock holmes story?
Derleth: hey howard
Derleth: you know that solar pons meets Cthulhu in the Adventure of the Six Silver Spiders
Derleth: thought you might want to know
HP Lovecraft: [sweats]
Derleth: maybe you’d like to read it?
Lovecraft:
Derleth: I mean just if you want to
Derleth: if you don’t want to it’s no big deal or anything
Derleth: that’s fine
Derleth: I guess
August Derleth: mr doyle please
Derleth: they’re ruining sherlock holmes!
Derleth: please make them stop
Arthur Conan Doyle: good!
Doyle: I hate sherlock holmes!
Doyle: he’s so stupid!
Doyle: I hate him!
Doyle: I hope he dies!
Derleth:
***
[mysterious circle of robed figures]
JK Rowling: hello children
Rowling: I am dissssappointed
Rowling: pottermore profitssss have fallen 40% thissss year
Rowling: I want ansssswerssss
Rowling: whossss resssponsssible for thisss
Rowling: Julie, wasss it you?
Julie Bindel: mmm
Rowling: Julie, take off that tape
Rowling: I know you just put it on yourssself
Bindel: [shrugging helplessly] mmm
Rowling: Julie I know you’re jusssst doing this to avoid answering me
Rowling: how about you, wormtail?
Jesse Singal: dark lord
Singal: perhaps you could check your enemies list?
Rowling: excellent sssuggestion, wormtail
Rowling: [unfurls comically long scroll]
Rowling: [reading list] jesssssie gender…
Rowling: diane duane…
Rowling: the guy who invented Ortho Snake B Gon Snake Repellent…
Rowling: graham Norton…
Rowling: how can it be that profitsss are down?
Rowling: I’m the mosssst beloved author in the world
Rowling: people love me for my whimsssical fantassssy sssstories
Rowling: and my transssphobia
Rowling:
Rowling: the people DO love me for that don’t they?
Singal: oh most definitely dark lord!
Singal: everyone loves you!
Nina Paley: you’re universally beloved
Bindel: mmmm
Rowling: yesss
Rowling: yesss of courssse you’re right
Rowling: I wassss sssssilly to doubt it
Rowling: wait a minute
Rowling: are you all jusssst telling me what I want to hear?
Singal: no dark lord!
Paley: we would never
Bindel: mmm
Rowling: ah ok
Rowling: well GOOD
Rowling: that ssssettlessss that then!
Graham Linehan: HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT
Linehan: I’M BACK
Rowling: oh shit thissss guy
Rowling: I thought we changed locationsss
Singal: we did, dark lord! He just keeps finding us!
Linehan: I’M BACK TO HELP FIGHT [immediately trips and falls into overflowing toilet]
Linehan: [drowning in toilet]
Rowling:
Rowling: there’ssss, like, 2 inchesss of water in there
Rowling: how issss it possssible that he’ssss drowning?
Singal: I don’t know dark lord, he’s just too committed
Rowling: wow
Rowling: what a lossser
Rowling: glad that’s never gonna happen to the resssst of ussss
***
Stephen King: hey what’s going on? It looks like there’s some commotion happening over at the romance writers campfire
Poe: hmm
King: you think we should go check it out?
Poe: no I don’t think that would be a good idea
Poe: things can be a little, uh, volatile over there
King: what?
Barker: they’re all deranged
Poe: now clive, that’s a little unfair
Barker: I guarantee anything that happens over there is 100% lunacy
Poe: now clive
VC Andrews: oh it's not so bad there actually Barker: Poe: King:
[at Circle of Love]
Nora Roberts: today we gather to pay our respects to susan meachen
Roberts: a fellow romance writer who left us too soon
[susan meachen walks in]
Roberts: who
Roberts:
Roberts:
Roberts:
Susan Meachen: hey guys whats going on in here
Roberts:
Meachen:
Roberts:
Meachen:
Roberts: I don’t know susan
Roberts: what IS going on in here
Meachen: you guys doing a funeral? Cool
Roberts: yeah
Roberts: it’s
Roberts: it’s um
Roberts: it’s your funeral
Roberts: we
Roberts: we thought you were dead
Meachen: oh yeah
Meachen: well, I got better
Roberts:
Roberts: your family said you were dead
Meachen: oh yeah about that
Meachen: they just made that up
Meachen: they thought it was for the best
Meachen: I can’t fault them for that
Roberts:
Roberts: we all thought you were dead
Meachen: yeah, and this funeral you’re doing? Great stuff!
Roberts: there was a memorial anthology dedicated to you
Meachen: oh yeah, I read that
Meachen: pretty hot stuff!
Roberts:
Sandra Hill: hey can I still give my eulogy?
Sandra Hill: can i still read my eulogy?
Hill: or like
Hill: is it gonna be weird now?
Meachen: no no you should still do it
Meachen: I want to hear it
Roberts:
Sandra Hill: ok so uh
Hill: “now we can just hope that susan meachen is in a better place”
Hill: “a place filled with oiled-up Vikings and sexy army rangers”
Jude Deveraux: oh yeah Vikings
Deveraux: that’s the good shit
VC Andrews: I like to imagine heaven as a locked attic
Andrews: filled with all the sexy blood relatives you can imagine
***
[mysterious circle of robed figures]
JK Rowling: hello children
Rowling: I have big newssss
Rowling: hogwartsssss legacy hassss received its biggesssst celebrity endorsement
Rowling: allow me to introduce
Rowling: the man who made it cool to be racissst
Rowling: William F buckley
Timothy Buckley: that’s not me
Buckley: it’s timothy
Buckley: timothy buckley
Rowling: what? Then what do you do?
Buckley: I make a web comic
Buckley: a little thing called Control Alt Delete
Buckley: you might have heard of it
Buckley: it’s kind of a big thing
Rowling: ooo! Finally an endorsement from a famousssss cartoonissssst!
Nina Paley:
Tatsuya Ishida:
Buckley: I invented the idea of making webcomics about video games
Buckley: well I didn’t actually invent gaming webcomics
Buckley: I just automated production
Buckley: see, I was the first person who thought
Buckley: what if instead of drawing a comic
Buckley: I just assembled it from a collection of computer generated mouths and eyes
Buckley: observe!
Buckley: :U
Rowling: wow! Now THAT’S art!
Buckley: now I don’t know anything about “politics”
Buckley: or “issues”
Buckley: or “the world”
Buckley: I’m just a simple man
Buckley: a simple gaming man
Buckley: the media keeps talking about transphobia
Buckley: I just wanna grill for god’s sake!
Buckley: have you guys heard of video games?
Buckley: now I don’t know much about things that aren’t video games
Buckley: but I DO know about video games
Buckley: I like things that let me play video games
Buckley: and I dislike things that prevent me from playing video games
Buckley: after thoroughly researching all the issues around hogworts legacy
Buckley: I have determined that I have nothing to say about it
Buckley: I better make a cartoon so everyone knows that
Buckley: in conclusion, gaming is a land of contrasts
Rowling: this really wassssn’t the full throated endorsssement I wassss hoping for
Rowling: hey, remember that time threatened to beat up gore vidal on air?
Buckley: again, that was William f buckley