The National Parks: America's Best Idea FanFic

"I felt their youth pulsate through the trees. I never will shoot a wolf in clear conscience whether in field or valley." - George Morgil
"For all the virtue that George Morgil wrote about, there was little known about the man who many considered the 'great grandfather' of the National Parks." - Harriet Beacher, Chief Groundsperson of Yosemite National Park.
George Morgil was found hung over a cavern three days after the park opened to the public. His body, devoured by the wolves he so often wrote about, was discovered by Teddy Roosevelt's personal secretary and friend, Rodger Helmsmith.
"It was a cool evening, I had just commenced a stroll with my son when we saw his body."
-Rodger Helmsmith.
"Dad, there's a ghost in that cave!" - Rodger Helmsmith Jr.
"That is no hovering apparition, but a human no longer tethered to this mortal coil but instead to a redwood tree over a wolf cavern. Stop crying. That man is George Morgil." - Rodger Helmsmith.
With his son's hysterics put to bed by means of a chloroformed handkerchief, Rodger Helmsmith extracted what were perhaps the final thoughts of George Morgil by means of a note deeply wedged in his throat.
"There is nothing more democratic than the magnificent beauty unmarred by man in his foolish pleasures. The wolf pack knows not of any sculpture or poetry, yet they add more to the landscape than any farmer or patriot. If by chance they eat of my flesh, let me run in them. If they by chance eat of my True self, let me impregnate them so that I may run with their cubs and their grandcubs alike and in stride. Let the children of this great land come to visit these grounds and look upon my children with a sense of equality. And if they hunger, let my wolf pack feed on them and make love to their bodies. Let the howling of the coyote seem dim in the light of the moans of my wolves. Let no great bald eagle fly where my wolves do not den. This is what is possible for I want of nothing less." - George Morgil.
The nation was reborn and in the wake of Morgilian thought and preservation, caravans of station-wagons reconnected with the country's past and ever-present future.

Coco B.C. fanfic

Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel ran quickly down the cobbled steps of her lover's apartment house and slipped on the rain-slicked street.
"Merde!" she said.
A foreigner passerby believed that she said "murder" and ran up the steps and into her Italian lover's hallway. The lover explained the misunderstanding and it was settled. That foreigner felt embarrassed and left a small drawing, signing it: "Pablo, Pablo Picasso." The lover showed it to Gabrielle and she was transfixed by the Spaniard's strange use of form.
Gabrielle picked herself up and continued running down the street as if her accident was a tenured teacher in nihilism. She had to get to the garment district before the boutique opened for the Monday morning rush. They were having a great sale.
She opened shop and stood behind the counter as people came throughout the day to try on wares of the current fashions and highest thread counts. Egyptian cotton was on everyone's must have lists. All around France, things from the middle-east were flying off the hangers - "even the planes" as the joke goes. She stared blankly at a German foreigner who kept responding to her sales pitch with "nein yards." Gabrielle realized what was happening after the third time and politely smiled at the German and moved on to another customer. The German, embarrassed for speaking a combination of German and English in France left the store but not before leaving a note for Gabrielle that read: "Dear Lady, sorry for the inconvenience. Here are 15 francs for the translator of this letter. Sincerely, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe."
Upon reading the letter, Gabrielle looked up to see her lover being taken away by interpol. His hands in interlocking cuffs looked like two letter "c's." She blurred her eyes and put on her "Piscasso filter" -as she came to call it- and saw that not only did they look like two "c's" but it looked like "Coco." Giacomo Casanova was then extradited to the Doge's Palace in Venice and lived out his days with a pet pig.
Coco, as her nametag now read, asked her boss if she could do some work for the boutique and she went on to make two popular quilted bags and five wonderful perfumes. When the boutique owner, Louis-Françious Cartier, moved on to watches and jewelry - not to mention spend time with his son Alfred and grandsons Louis, Pierre, and Jacques - he left the store to Coco. She named it Chanel. Then word came that things were now Anno Domini.

Bright Star FanFic

"Just press the fucking gas button!" John exclaimed as the space cruiser was hit by a meteor. He knew that with this crew the Hyperion was never going to make it to her destination. Commissioned by the Queen of New Spain, the Hyperion was a vessel on a very clear-cut and far-from-secret mission. Ship manifests documented their journey from the start and this is in part the reason the writing-robot was out of ink. It really didn't have to log every single interaction of the crew, especially the last ditch effort of team building/bonding - the talent show. John knew that there would be no record of his words, hence the swearing in his commands. Percy Bysshe Shelley, John's crewman and contemporary, pressed the button and the Hyperion jetted away from the meteors and resumed a course toward their destination. There it was, glowing red in front of them, the Moorgate. 85 Moorgate to be exact.
"This is where I'm born," John said aloud to himself as if he couldn't control his voice from making those sounds. Percy Bysshe Shelley respectfully withheld any question about what this outburst meant. John steered the Hyperion directly to the center of the Moorgate and they were blasted at warp speed toward the nearest dying star. Percy Bysshe Shelly sat back with a confident comfort.
"It's time for the payload."
"Yes," John said, in both affirmation and command.
With a pull of a lever, the Fanny Brawne was released from the Hyperion's sub-torpedo chamber. It launched directly into the near-dead star and reignited the thing.
The writing-robot's sensors fried in the outburst of sunlight. Its head fell to the side and said only one thing:
" Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death"
It was something difficult to ignore but the crew did their best.
"Should we procede... Captain Keats, should we go home?" asked Percy Bysshe Shelly.
"Yes," was John's response, "And let us not talk of this again."
They jettisoned the writing-robot and headed back to New Spain where aged wine and cheese would greet their new sun.

(500) Days of Summer FanFic

Tom Hansen legally changed his surname to Handsome this morning. It's (510). He just met Autumn for lunch. They shared a chutney-cucumber salad sandwich that he picked up on the way. She got the job at the architecture firm. He made her a card that read, "congratulations, I guess I should stick to card writing." She was annoyed that he passively blamed her for his failure and this led to them not speaking from (504 -509). He realized that she was right and he wasn't happy for her success and also that he's lousy at making cards. This one, like all his others was a pale purple with white letters.
On (504 1/2) also known as his "clever play on numbers day" he decided to speak with McKenzie, his friend and on again/off again coworker. McKenzie has changed and instead of only talking about Tom Hansen's problems, he now talks about his own.
"I've been on a lot of first dates, but not a lot of seconds," he starts, "I think that makes me more of a loser."
Tom Hansen doesn't know how to talk about anyone’s relationships other than his own and is actually a little put-off by this change in McKenzie. Later that night he will write, "I need new friends" on his bedroom chalkboard. The same bedroom chalk board that nearly killed him on (503) when he woke up with his lungs filled with dust after he drunkenly wrote and erased both a break-up letter to Autumn and a Last Will and Testament. He now dreadfully refers to this day as (Self-Judgment Day).
"I'm going to go listen to New Order and wonder why no one has ever heard of The Magnetic Fields," Tom Hansen said before leaving his own apartment. This confused McKenzie. One, he was now stuck in Tom Hansen's apartment, and, two, everyone he has ever met has heard of The Magnetic Fields. The realization that Tom Hansen was full of himself was too much. He decided to leave the apartment knowing that there would be no way for him to lock the door. But first he took every one of Tom Hansen's Beatles albums and left a note that read "I never heard of The Beatles, thanks for sharing, sincerely, A. Thief." McKenzie felt better about himself than he ever had in his entire life.
(509). Autumn, in a moment of brilliance, thought that all she would have to do to get Tom Hansen to legally change his last name to "Handsome" would be to merely suggest it. (511). Rachel Hansen, Tom Hansen's little - but wise for her age - sister, thinks that Autumn is hilarious and they talk about how it's actually not Rachel who is so bright but Tom who is so dim. Rachel knows that Autumn is going to dump Tom. She doesn't tell him as she could use any excuse to have to ride to downtown LA and not be in bed by 10pm. This affords her the ability to watch "SouthLAnd" at Tom's place.
(537). It's been weeks since Autumn broke up with Tom Handsome and this is the part where he finds a time machine. (-1).
"Holy Shit," says Tom aloud in his bathroom.
(503). Tom goes up to Summer and asks her about a book she's reading. Tom secretly crushes his own foot for still not having read "The Picture of Dorian Gray." He had so much time to do this. Why did he let spite get in the way? It's still a classic and it might tell him something about Summer. Anyway, now he has nothing to really ask her about. He stares blankly at her as he realizes that with his time machine he can still read it and come back to this point in time. (520). "Oh, I should tell the world about this Oscar Wilde, I wonder why no one has heard of him. Summer is so on top of things for knowing who he is. I love Summer. I LOVE Summer!" (503). Tom goes up to Summer, reading "The Picture of Dorian Gray."
"I think that book is really cool," he says. They make-out. That night he asks her to marry him. She agrees. They watch "The Science of Sleep" together and when the guy yells at the girl for not finishing anything, and she's like 'actually I finished this thing' Summer and Tom look at each other and are so glad that they'll never have an argument like that. (500). They're in Paris talking about architecture. (503). Tom cannot cough up the dust. It hits him that it's all been a life-flashing-before-his-eyes hallucination, a crash of reality and expectation. There is no time machine, and there never will be. Summer didn't like him. Autumn didn't like him. And now he will fall.

For Tax Reasons: Wash and Resize

So someone in For Tax Reasons has been looking at my site and actually PERSONALLY delivered one of the new TSHIRTS. I feel like Asuka being given the production line Evas before anyone else!

I don't want to post a picture of it because it's still a secret but I can tell you that it has 2 holes for either arm, a hole for my waist, a hole for my head, and a whole lot of fun.

If you want to see it, I'll be writing in my apartment today and I might get a coffee on Steinway Street. I'll be wearing glasses.

G.I. Joe FanFic :: They Can't All Be Good

"This is it," shouted Snow Job under the helicopter blades of a helicopter. Snow Job lifted up his goggles, wiped the inside of them with his gloved finger and put them back on his face.
"No, no," he corrected, "take me back up, this is wrong."
Snow Job leans back in his seat as Shipwreck starts up the bird again.
"Why the heck did Hawk send us out on this mission?" Shipwreck threw out. In fact, he was channeling his frustration with Snow Job who clearly wasn't cut out for copter flights. Shipwreck would never challenge the orders of General Hawk, not after last summer when he airlifted Shipwreck out of a shipwreck. Ever since, Shipwreck's been afraid to go back into the water. He didn't like what he became out there and took up piloting. Some people can't transition that fast and fully into a new position, but Shipwreck wasn't just "some people" he was G.I. Joe.
"Okay, now," Snow Job spit as he tapped Shipwreck unnecessarily on the shoulder. "I'm sure this is it." Shipwreck rather land in the wrong spot again than argue with Snow Job. The man has a history of going completely looney tunes if he's not in his element, and here in Peru, snow is touch and go. The copter goes down and crunches on the icy soil. Over a sharp cliff Snow Job spots some snow.
"Perfect," he thinks to himself. "I'm going to go be me," he says to Shipwreck and before anything could be argued he was gone.
"Well, I guess it's just you and me, Polly," Shipwreck says to the green bird flying about the helicopter cabin, "you can come out now, he's gone."
Polly flies out and lands on Shipwreck's shoulder.
"Did you see me fly, Polly?" Shipwreck asks as he pets his beak, "I was like you out there."
Pttoo! Pitoo! Two shots ring out from a distance, rock springs up from the dirt at Shipwreck's feet. Polly takes off and heads toward the amazon. Ptoo! Another shot but this time its met with a wet thump. Again, another call and responce of "ptoo! and wet thump."
Shipwreck feels his chest, he's alright. He turns around and sees nothing, then back to the direction of the shots. He sees a white rock moving towards him. It's Snow Job.
Shipwreck doesn't even have time to ask why he was being shot at because as soon as he opens his mouth, it's met with the shusshing of Snow Job's gloved finger. Snow Job turns Shipwreck around to see a black lump of ninja dead in the dirt.
"You shot Snake-Eyes."
"How'd I do that? Where'd he come from?"
"He must've been riding under the copter. He does that sometimes."
"How are we going to cover this up?"
"We?"
"I was saving your life!"
The two decide to just carry out their mission and they'll say that Cobra attacked them and took out Snake-Eyes with Snow Job's gun. They used a similar tactic back when Scarlett cut off her own hand when she was too drunk to prove a point about loading a crossbow one handed. Cobra itself has been out of the game for some twenty years with not one attack on either US or international soil. Most of the reports are conceived in moments such as this. Even the reason they're in Peru now is a scam of sorts. Shipwreck heard that Duke got into some trouble with the locals and set a cart of guinea pigs on fire. One report to Hawk about how it was Fire Fly causing the trouble was enough to send out two of their best to the mountains.
Snow Job and Shipwreck bury Snake-Eyes.
"Man says about as much now as when he was alive," Snow Job says in an attempt of cutting the tension.
Shipwreck just nods and asks, "What are we going to do about Duke?"
Snow Job stiffens. "There's something Hawk didn't tell you. Those guinea pigs he murdered were part of a top secret intelligence operation known only as G-Force. Duke cost us over 3 thousand dollars. We were sent to take care of him. Maybe Snake-Eyes was here to follow us, make sure we did our job."
Shipwreck asks why he wasn't told about this until now and Snow Job can only offer that Hawk still thinks that last year's shipwreck is still weighing on the old sailor. Snow Job throws in, "you're fragile." That doesn't help things.
"Maybe Hawk's right," offers Shipwreck, "maybe I am too soft for this stuff."
"That's okay," consoles Snow Job, "I killed Duke while you were playing with that bird."
"That was fast."
"I know, right," says Snow Job as he slaps Shipwreck on the back and steps into the helicopter.
"What'd you do with his body?"
Snow Job only smiles.
The copter flies over the mountain-scape and Polly flies aboard. It's quite beautiful. Shipwreck switches the copter to autopilot and tries to catch some shut-eye. Just as he's about to doze off, he notices something happening on the mountain top below. It looks like a man being eaten by guinea pigs. It looks like.. Duke! The blood soaks into the snow. It's like a cherry slushie.
"Snow Job, promise me one thing," starts Shipwreck as he fights his urge to sleep.
"Anything," says Snow Job.
"When you're sent to kill me, don't have me eaten alive by tiny animals."
"You got it, soldier, you got it," Snow Job says with a kindness Shipwreck never saw before. Polly senses something unnatural in Snow Job's smile.
"SQUAK!" says Polly.
Shipwreck falls asleep and Polly starts flapping around the cabin. He makes a dive and pecks at Snow Job's goggles. Snow Job grabs Shipwreck's knife and cuts off the bird's beak with one strike. He cuts off Shipwreck's seatbelt and kicks him out the opening in the copter. Despite his wounds, Polly tries to grab Shipwreck in the air, but the weight is too much. They fall together. None of them would say this out loud because it would seem too obvious, but they both knew that "together" is how they wanted to die.
Snow Job flicks on the video-phone and calls General Hawk.
"Man over-board, General Hawk."
"Good," says Hawk, "Very Good."
"So is it true?" asks Snow Job, "Are you really Destro in disguise?"
"No," says Hawk, "I'm ZARTAN!"
"No," counters Snow Job, "You're a dead man!"
Six hours later the helicopter arrives at the P.I.T. helipad. There's quite a mad scene as Snow Job runs around trying to unmask Zartan. Eventually Snow Job shoots him, reveals what's going on, and further proves to everyone that he should lead even though he thought he was doing infiltration work for Cobra during the better part of 14 years.
"At least I'm dedicated to something.." was his main selling point. People appreciate his honesty and his impressive skill set so they go along with this. Some people, Roadblock specifically and aptly enough given his callname, were initially more hesitant and asked questions about why Snow Job was fine taking orders from Destro but freaked out when he learned it was Zartan, given that Zartan was probably just working for Destro anyway. These queries were usually met with a funny stare from Snow Job and that usually ended the debate. Years later, in 1996, Snow Job will introduce a super-suit technology to G.I. Joe and people will be okay with it.

OTAKON 2009: NAME THAT GATCHAMAN!!!

The reason a For Tax Reasons fan site exists:

This weekend was Otakon 2009, Baltimore's own super anime convention. So naturally, Ben, Matt, Darrell, Mao, and myself made it our business to be there. For Tax Reasons had a panel called: Let's Talk Animation and it was awesome. I'm not sure if they're going to upload parts of it but I did video-tape it so it does exist. Also, to make it more cinema verté I made sure that I knocked the camera a few times, fought to find focus, and futzed with the audio levels a bit. I took some pictures to document the trip. Again, some of the pictures are blurry. This is meant to create the illusion of "being there." So come on Internet, grab your Naruto head bands, hop aboard the proverbial Chinatown Bus and let's go to Otakon!

"Oops, this isn't right." Initially we got on the Boston bus by accident and ended up at the boat show. Pictured are the two halves of For Tax Reasons LLC: Forta and Xreasons (l to r).

For Tax Reasons wants to learn SURF but Boston's gym leader is lost in the mines. If only there was some other way to get to Baltimore in time!!!!!This will do, but it's going to co$t. Away to Baltimore!!!

"Ah, that's more like it.."

Sweet! It's Misty!!!

OH NO! James from Team Rocket is here! Jesse can't be far behind. Unless she didn't preregister, then she'll probably be here in three and a half hours.

Squirtle! Charmander! Cubone! Ninetails!

Looks like we're not the only trainers here from out of town.. Xavier must want his hands on some dangerous pokémons. Well, Xavier and that Scott Pilgrim dude with the stick.

Ahhhh! It's Gastly!!!! What type pokémon is good againsts ghosts again?!

When Hiker challenges German Hiker to a Pokémon, you mustn't run away.


This guy definitely knows what I'm talking about.

I scored an exclusive lunch with Xreasons. He showed me some of the pokémon he snapped.

Quick! It's Mewtwo!

Who the heck gave their Arcanine a guitar?!

Where's Charizard? Hint: he's dressed like Spider-man with a black chest.

Foreground: Ash realizes what happens when you go to a fight without any pokéballs.
Background: Black Spy Trainer gives Rorshach Trainer a bomb painted to look like a giant bean.
Click for bigger!

Finally, someone not dressed as a pokémon. Here lies Tjaden from All Quiet on the Western Front. I did not know that was originally a manga.

Xreasons visits fans Mao and Darrell.

Watchout Swimmer! Bulbasaur is right behind you and he's armed!!!!

This year, signs were banned at Otakon, but not Meowith tossing.

Xreasons! Put your shirt back on!

Forta and Xreasons taking a some final pictures.

Cheer up Misty! All your pokémon may have fainted from too much anime, but it's not over yet!

It's over. Goodbye Otakon.