HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

quistie and I got you a box of chocolates.



(hint: click the chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get)

My Entire List of Yuletide Recommendations

Need something to read? Well, Yuletide was unleashed upon Archive of Our Own, which is where I hang out more than fanfiction.net these days, which means that a bunch of smaller and non-existent fandoms (Taylor Swift's You Belong With Me has a fandom now, guys) get the blessing of loads of fic. The authors will be revealed soon, but I've been going through and reading some of the best, and I've culled them here for you to read. I'll match them up by fandom and everything. You might surprise yourself.

Happy Birthday, mxpw!!!!

So it’s mxpw’s birthday once again.  Usually this means that I post some rambling fic where Sarah gets hurt or hit in the face in some way or other.  But this year...I switched things up.

That’s right. This year: I had a tumblr. And on that tumblr, I did a meme.  The challenge: Pick a pair.  Pick an AU. And I get three sentences to write a fic.

It was a lot of fun.  I know not everybody’ nuts about Tumblr, so I thought I’d archive all 30 (yes, there are 30) snippets over here on the blog to let mxpw know how much we all love and appreciate him.  You’re the BEST, Max!

So without further ado, here’s the story of 30 times Frea created an AU on Max’s birthday.

2011 Resolutions — How’d I Do?

Last year I posted a bunch of resolutions for 2011. None of them included watching Santa Suit and pounding my head into the wall until there was copious bloodshed.  Shame.  If I had, I'd have accomplished at least one more resolution.  Check the break for a trip to the past and some musing about my life in 2011.

Happy birthday, Frea!

I have no fun text, cool graphics, or radical new blog design. I am not Frea. Good thing, that, as I'm pretty sure the world only has room for one Frea. But we are blessed to have that one Frea.

Today we celebrate her birthday. So please use this space to wish Frea happy birthday, discuss why she's so awesome, pay homage to the MBO, etc. etc. You get the idea. Let her know you care, I'm sure she'll appreciate it!

Happy birthday, Frea.

Get Your Vote On!

Less than 24 hours to vote and try to get your choice to win!  Tomorrow, we'll reveal the winners and vault the four other stories (no, we're not going to write them; please stop asking), and mxpw and I will tell you our plans on how to make this summer serial happen.

Here's the poll!  Last day!




Happy voting!

Frea (and Maximus)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, WEP!!!!!!

So, funny story:

I had it in my head that April Fool's Day was Wepdiggy's birthday, which I thought was appropriately apt and fitting.  But the thing is, I don't celebrate April Fool's Day, as I prefer people not to know when I'm pranking them, so I didn't do this design yesterday, as I didn't want people to think it was a prank.  However, the joke was on me, because it is actually today that is Wepdiggy's birthday.

Whoops.

What can I say about the fantastic Wepdiggy that his mug shot from his birthday party last night can't?  Not much, but I've now officially known him for around a year, and I'm glad to have met him!!  His friendship, his witty contributions, his awesome way of looking at life, his writing, and just the fact that he is everything you think he would be and more...all of that?  Makes him pretty great.  So here's to you, you fantastic fish.  I've decorated the blog just the way I feel it should be decorated on your big day (aka, I've 'cocked it all up for you!), and I'm sorry that I didn't have time to write you that epic Adorable Psycho story, The 405 Gets Plowed Again.

Happy Birthday, Wep, from all of us here at Castle Inanity!  You've never looked so good for 58!

:)

Frea

Announcement!

So I'm on my way to bed to prepare for the annual O'Scanlin St. Patty's Day tradition of watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and drinking either Diet Coke or Dr. Pepper while we eat our corned beef (hey, we're at least a little Irish) and pinch each other, even if we're wearing green or not, but I wanted to say this:

Happy Valentine's Day!

So bad news: I was supposed to deck out the blog for Valentine's Day.  I even got the fabulous crystal.elements to make me a fabulous banner and everything, and this morning when I woke up, I thought, "Hmm, I was supposed to do something today," and then promptly forgot about it.

Which means no V-Day layout.  HOWEVER, Crystal did such a fantastic job with the banner, I want to share it here:

Is that not the most awesome thing you've seen all day?  (Hint: the correct answer to that question is yes)

And to apologize for not dazzling your world with Morgasey, I've made you a gift: I converted the old story Chuck vs. the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Really Bad Day (Okay, this bugs me since that book was my favorite when I was, like, six. IT SHOULD BE VERY, NOT REALLY) into an ebook, and it's available on our ebooks page, right there up at the top!

Have a great Valentine's Day, everybody! Sorry it's not chocolates, but I love each and every one of you.

Except for you.  You know who I'm talking about.

Frea

mxpw's Goals for 2011

Since I missed Festivus and my chance to do the Airing of Grievances, I am instead forced to list my goals for the new year. In truth, I don't really know what I want to accomplish this year, but I decided to aspire for great heights with this list in the hope that if I actually achieve one or more of them, I will have done something cool.

So here are mxpw's goals for 2011:

Frea's Goals for 2011

So when I wasn't working on other projects last night, I compiled a list of some of my resolutions, which I've decided to share here.  Some of 'em are serious, some of 'em are...less serious.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CRYSTAL!!!!

So you may have noticed some changes over the blog lately if you had time to visit during your holiday (if not, we totally understand; I'm still sacked out from the peppermint bark and Dr. Pepper myself), and now we're all colorful and stuff.  There's not really a story involved except that Frea likes Photoshop a whole heck of a lot and thinks it may just be the niftiest thing on the planet.

But there IS a story today of the new-ish layout and that story is the tale of one crystal.elements, who is the CIA-voted cutest author on staff here at Castle Inanity.  No, really, you can ask any one of us, "Who's the cutest author on staff?" and not a single one of us will hesitate in replying, "Crystal."  And then we might offer you a glass of "Duh" to go with your "Obvious Cookies."  The only one who might reply differently is mxpw, and that's because I may or may not have told him Yvonne might post here once in awhile as a way to not have to spend money on his Christmas present this year.  The hope is enough.

Before I got sidetracked, I was talking about Crystal, so I'll get back to that.  Crystal, you are awesome.  And I don't mean that in my normal everyday use of the word "Awesome" (which is sarcastic, more often than not).  You are so awesome that Captain Awesome could take lessons from you.  I met you a looooong time ago, it feels like (I know it's been less than a year, it just feels like years because you're so awesome), and I am so glad I did.  Not many people could saturate us with the adorableness of Closet Gleek and then turn around and slam the desperation of Kill Bryce into us, but you did, and you made it look so easy.  If I didn't think you were so great, I'd probably fear you a little bit.  Your enthusiasm and outlook and freakish intelligence (seriously, just walking around the Stanford campus with you made me feel smarter...and then I couldn't work the camera on my phone) are all a huge inspiration, and I'm so glad to know you.

I hope you have a happy birthday, and that your next year is just as amazing as you are.

Also, you should probably know that there are now plans in motion for the CIA to take you to Vegas and get you drunk for your 21st birthday.  Just, you know, so you know.

:)

Frea

PS - Everybody, Crystal drew the header herself and then I stole it.  She had no idea I was going to use it.  Isn't it awesome????

Rod Serling Would Have Approved

:)

Another Holidaze Message from Castle Inanity

Love,

The CIA

A Special Thanksgiving Day Message*

Love,

The CIA

*This is assuming you're, you know, in the States. If not, have a wonderful Thursday and we'll be back on Saturday with your regularly scheduled Inanity.

Early November Necessities

Right around this time of year, my mother sends an email to all of her children, those wily O'Scanlins with hearts of gold and souls of mischief, and requests our Christmas wish lists so that she doesn't have to spend November and December remembering which of us likes anime and which of us likes good stuff.  Since Christmas is an awesome holiday--I'm so great people give me stuff on a day to day basis, but on Christmas they have to, it's the law--I decided to be benevolent and help my mother out this year.  Here is the list I emailed to her:

1) Orange Chucks, blue laces, women's, low-top, size [REDACTED]
2) Western Digital Passport Drive, 500 gb, red to match my eyes
3) Jayne hat, hand-crafted
4) Nerd Shirt from thenerdmachine.com
5) Bic mechanical pencils
6) The head of my archnemesis on a stick
7) Sharpies
8) Season 2 of Dollhouse

You'll notice that I did not include Dr. Pepper on this list, as Dr. Pepper is not a gift, it is the lifeblood from which all creativity springs and therefore I shouldn't have to wait until Christmas to receive it.

Maximus would like everybody to know that he has seen this list and can vouch for its authenticity.

Is there anything I am missing from this list, dear readers?  Best suggestion might get a sneak peek of Chapter 43 of Fates!

:)

Frea

Even though the list is real (yes, even numbers 6-8), I'm totally joking here.  I promise you, I am nowhere near as entitled as I come off, I just have fun being pompous and if I acted anywhere NEAR this entitled to the real Ma O'Scanlin, rest assured that I wouldn't be able to sit proper for a week.

CHUCKtoberfest Video

Everybody, if you could spread this video around, let's really get the ball rolling and help out our pals at Chuck This, yeah?

As the promos say, "Spread the Nerd!"*

- Frea

* Fates Sarah: I'd like to spread the nerd...

CHUCKDAY!

Is everybody excited?  After the hiatus from mxpw vs. Frea, we'll have a new one of those for you hopefully tomorrow -- the lack of a review last week is my fault as I, a) did not really have anything good to say about the episode, and b) was involved in a lot of projects that unfortunately ate up a lot of time -- and there will of course be Chris's Live Tweets tonight (seriously, go to his Twitter, you DO NOT want to miss that) and he'll post them up on the blog later with addendums that always slay me.  And I will do my best to have icons from both tonight's episode and last week's up.

But in the meantime, the people over at Chuck This are pretty awesome, and they like What Fates Impose and the Adorable Psycho and Double Agent a whole bunch, so I think we're naturally predisposed to like them.  Even if we didn't, they're doing a really neat promotional campaign right now called CHUCKtoberfest and everybody should go over, check it out, see what they can do to help.   From the rumors floating around Twitter, it looks like a back nine order is in the works, but this is our show, we've fought to keep it on the air since the dawn of time, let's continue to give our support and gratitude since it's the thing that brings all of us crazy personalities together.

Happy (Early) Birthday, Frea!

Since Frea won't be around for the weekend, we've decided to celebrate her birthday a little early. :)