Bitter Karella
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Midnight Pals: Magic and Disaster
🕑 Added 2025-10-23 16:00:19 +0000 UTCCharlie Jane Anders: Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the lessons in magic and disaster
Anders: sometimes having a relationship with your parents is difficult
Joe Hill: don't i know it!
Stephen King: what's that, joe?
Hill: nothing
Anders: sometimes a relationship w your parents is like being on the conveyer belt in the classic movie Toy Story 3
Anders: but what if you could connect to your parents with magic?
Hill: you mean magically make them less annoying?
Anders:
Anders: no i mean like as a mutual interest
Hill:
Hill: oh
King: why would you need parents to be less annoying, joe?
Hill: uhhh
King: you shouldn't talk about your mother that way, joe
Hill:
Anders: of course you all know how to do magic
Aleister Crowley: you bet i do
Anders: you leave offerings at a liminal space and set your intentions
Crowley:
Victor Neuburg: that's not how you had us do it, aleister
Crowley: shut up NERDburg
Anders: you don't do liminal space offerings? how do you do magic then?
Crowley: i eat a big block of hashish and fuck
Manly Wade Wellman: i put a mercury head dime inside a chicken
Grant Morrison: i definitely do NOT use the AI
Morrison: not anymore
Alan Moore: [appearing in a clap of thunder] FOOLISH MORTALS!
Anders: the grand magus!
Anders: grand magus, how do you do magic?
Moore: i have constructed a subterranean ritual space below the floor
Anders: what do you do there?
Moore: get high, mostly
Fitz James O'Brien: YEAH
O'Brien: YEAAAAH!
Anders: Mary Star Trek is studying 17th century English literature
Anders: and she's in a real pickle because she believes, contrary to popular academic consensus, that "Diary of a Continental Fop, As Told by a Native of Hispaniola" was not actually written by legendary sugar baron Sir Reginald Tablelamp-Sinclair but was in fact penned by the daughter of his sister's maid's mistress's governess, Madam Bogwollop-pepperpie-Smith-Smythe-Smithe
Anders: in a queering of narrative expectations
King: wow!
King: that is a pickle!
Anders: luckily she discovers an archival letter from Baron Jeremiah hemmingwedge-on-the-fritz IV to the Duchess Lady Esmerelda Incubator-Jones titled "Ie Regarding the Matter of the Discussion of the Situation to be Determined, ie. What is to be done re: the matter of Young Master Eustace Clarence Dipswitch XIII"
Anders: now she knows that Baron Bartholemew von Blatherscott was actually the Lady Tuppence McWashingmachine writing under a pseudonym
King: of course!
King: it all makes sense!
Anders: and see, that decolonizes the academy by recontextualizing the metanarrative
King: right, right
King: see, this
King: this all makes sense to me
King: i totally understand it
Barker: oh really? do you?
Barker: good news, everyone
Barker: the discourse understander has logged on
Barker: you wanna explain it to us, steve?
King:
King:
King:
King: joe
Joe Hill: it's a discourse, dad
Anders: mary star trek is super excited to discover some new evidence that 17th century lady author Cassandra Uppington might actually have had a correspondence with sir lionel bathsoap
Anders: "wow!" she says
Anders: "this is like discovering a stable wormhole in the delta quadrant!"
Anders: to celebrate, they go to that trendy new Ethiopian-German fusion restaurant
Anders: where they savor the spicy, savory tang of bratwurst lentils
Anders: remember, don't fear the vertical lift of a salad
Anders: all these 17th century romantic poets, huh?
Anders: some of them might have run in your circles, eh, mary?
Mary Shelley: oh yeah i knew them all
Anders: really?
Shelley: yeah
Anders:
Anders: what were they like?
Shelley: they were all twats
Bitter Karella: ha ha, what if, right? You're welcome for blowing your mind.
Karella: but wait! did you know that I, Bitter Karella, will be in conversation with Charlie Jane Anders at A Seat at the Table Books in Elk Grove on Saturday, October 25?
Karella: come and join us to talk about her new book Lessons in Magic and Disaster
Karella: i'm reasonably sure that the conversation will be the above dialogue verbatim
Karella: yup yup yup i'm just THAT good
Comments
Claire Hiria Ahuriri-Dunning
I cackled so much throughout XD thank you Delta quadrant shout out!
Bitter Karella
XD
Seth Alcorn
I had a D&D character with the last name of Smith-Smythe-Smith once. Though he wasn’t an upper-class twit.
