(fic-snippet) Two bits with Rhett the accidental catboy (snippet & discovering the fen newsgroup hierarchy)

[LilFluff]

While I'm working on what I posted earlier I had a bit pop in my head and decided to get it written down. So here's a bit around a semester later with Rhett the accidental catboy. Utterly first draft and unedited.

Rhett was busy at his cluster of monitors when Jake leaned into the room.
"Darcey and Alice are christening the pizza oven, what would you like?"
Wireframe designs flickered across the six mismatching scavenged monitors for a few seconds before Rhett's chair leaned back, "Pizza?"
"Oven's ready, dough's being spread, time to decide on toppings."
"Cheese, more cheese, and no peppers."
"Your usual, got it. What's all this?"
"My new pet project." A small object suddenly was arcing through the air to James, in the sickly green of the cheap 3D printer filament they'd found. "I'm not making the same mistake again. This time there will be blueprints and manuals and all that."
"And all that?"
Rhett gave a short laugh, "Well, last time around I got in a hurry and just grabbed what I had on hand and well... You know how that worked. Save one really good result."
"Thank you," came Ema's voice from the speakers on the desktop. "I thought I'd need to be upset for a moment."
"Yes, you're definitely the really good result. But clearly that was more luck than planning. And well, look what that did to me."
"Well the girls like the result."
"At least Darcey and Alice will stop petting when I ask. And it's not just the girls, you know what a pain Greg's been."
Jake sighed and went back to examining the model. "Yeah, well he's banned from here and Dwayne's if he starts anything at another Fantastic. What about this? Looks like a flying saucer."
Rhett made a few clicks and a slide show started up on the rightmost screen. "That's exactly what it is. A one man, all electric, flying saucer in need of a good name."
"Split back seat? Oh, right, for your tail."
"Yep, five point harness too and any other safety features I can work out. I'll get some more eyes on it before I build it but I want to do as much as I can on my own first."
"This why you've been talking about learning to weld?"
"Yep. I shouldn't have any trouble with the electronics but it's not like I can go down to the local junkyard and ask if they have any '57 flying saucer bodies sitting around."
"True... oh great, what are you purring about now?"
"I just remembered, there were some built! Whatever happened to the Avrocars? To Google!" A few clicks later the purring stopped. "Ew, no, too big and that fan is where the cockpit should be! What were they thinking!"
"That they didn't have any 'wavium?"
"Bah! Poor excuse!"

And while I'm at it, over on LJ/DW I got bit by the demifiction bug. Resulting in one post that was newsgroup posts by Rhett of undecided canonicity. 

From: NotAButler_7
To: nntp://fen.support.biomods
Time: 13:55 MST (-0700)
Date: September 12, 2015
Subject: Hello out there

Hello out there, your friendly new Earthbound feline biomod here. I had no idea that newsgroups were still a thing or that there was a whole fen hierarchy.

The good news, apparently the local authorities are tired of playing hunt the biomod. The bad news, the paperwork. Oh lord the paperwork. I thought signing up for my first semester of classes involved a lot of paperwork but replacing my drivers license was what felt like a couple dozen pages of forms, hunting down my birth certificate, not yelling at a clerk who claimed there was no such form as the one I handed him, and an hour long meeting with the head of the DMV office in which I filled out yet more paperwork.

All that and I won't even get a drivers license since I'm to small to sit in the driver's seat of any of my friends cars and comfortably work the peddles with a seatbelt on. So just a non-driver's state ID card for me. At least I'm a little taller than the limit for Arizona's booster seat law. Sure it's got an age cut-off but needing to convince people I'm really nineteen is already getting old.

So any advice for a new catboy? Other than guarding my tail from the evil called the bus door, I've learned that one the hard way.

From: NotAButler_7To: nntp://fen.support.biomodsTime: 17:31 MST (-0700)Date: September 16, 2015Subject: Q for other fur-bearing biomods

How the bleep do you keep from getting heat rash when it's hot and humid out? The last two days have been bleeping hell. Summer is always bleeping hot in Arizona but this is insane. All I have to do is step outside and it feels like I'm wearing a lead coat and hat. In an oven. I was born here it shouldn't feel like this. If it's this bad here I'm never going to the south (right, like any sensible catboy would head into the land of dueling banjos. I barely trust that I won't get jumped by crazies here).


From: NotAButler_7To: nntp://fen.support.biomodsTime: 17:44 MST (-0700)Date: September 16, 2015Subject: RE: Q for other fur-bearing biomods

So uh, the bleeps. Apparently a friend who will remain nameless decided my newsreader needed a profanity filter. Assume that by bleep I meant, "Dear lord, it rained last night so now it's humid as a shower and 115 degrees out!" I like living in the desert. Well, I liked living in the desert. If someone warned me I was about to get modded I could have at least tried to get it to be a fennec mod. Surely they don't mind it. That much.

No. Nevermind. They're sensible and live on the night shift. Wish college was that sensible.


From: NotAButler_7To: nntp://fen.soc.biomodsTime: 22:36 MST (-0700)Date: October 31, 2015Subject: Halloween, okay this isn't too bad

I've lost count of how many times I've been complimented on my 'costume'. Only downside is they keep asking J-friend and D-friend how much their 'kid's' costume cost. Or if they know about the costumer's guild they ask them how long it took to make.

I probably could have brought in a good haul of free candy if I'd snuck out trick or treating. But that would have meant missing the local gathering's party which would have been very sucky. At [mumblemumble] House we've been having a grand time. Night unlimited snacks, friends, and B-Movies. We're watching Plan 9 as I write this. Not the worst film I've ever seen but it does have the worst Day For Night scenes I've ever seen.

Anyway, how's Halloween up among the Fen? Must be a fun time for the kinder since you can get away with much more up there than down here. That said, those 'costume' compliments? I think I might let D-friend talk me into one of the cosplay sig's group events. She'd been trying to talk me into a group play of the closing credit version of the characters from Black Cat but she's being so secret about it now I think she's found something else.


From: NotAButler_7To: nntp://fen.rocketscience.amateur
Time: 09:57 MST (-0700)Date: January 10, 2016Subject: Avoiding the FAA's wrath

So, assuming someone had started doodling designs yesterday for a small single seat flying contraption, are there are good howto documents explaining how to avoid bringing down the wrath of the FAA?

So far I've kept everything to paper and 3D modeling software (the learning curve, ow). If I ever get this thing built I'd like to be able to fly it without racking up federal charges and missing any future family reunions that aren't held in Oz. Maybe my Google-Fu will be better after some sleep but all I've been turning up page after page of rants about fen and their flying cars giving air traffic controllers heart attacks. Will they even grant experimental certification to amateur build spacecraft?

So, any M's anyone wants to suggest I RTF? Even if it is probably a pipe-dream to think I can get approval to legally possess and use wavium without a boatload of money for a decent workshop and brib^H^H^H^H processing fee money. But a cat can dream, right?

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Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.