Shifti - User contributions [en]

The Thing With the Fins

2009-08-07T08:11:23Z

Finnyfiona:

My eyes fluttered open.

I was in a brightly lit room with stainless steel walls, and I could not move. There was an antiseptic aroma in the air with a tinge of chlorine, or slightly briny...it stung the inside of my nostrils. The inability to move did not frighten me so much as I would have expected, but the oddly familiar scent of this unfamiliar room gave me a small feeling of dread. Something was wrong.

Upon realizing this I convulsed slightly on the platform on which I rested. In my mental haze I attempted to survey my surroundings but I could not figure out whether I was on an operating table or a bed. All my thoughts seemed to meet a wall at the end of their fruition, such that the true nature of my ("captivity" was the word that sprung to mind, clearer than the other thoughts, but just as soon washed away on a wave of comfortable apathy)... situation. From somewhere deep within my mind came an alert that my convulsion had engaged unnatural muscles, but I could no sooner think about the ramifications of that signal than could I hop on a unicorn that would take me to the end of the rainbow.

Back pain seared unexpectedly. I gasped "Gabriel" and returned to blissful unconsciousness.

(Several months earlier)

"Look at this poor guy, Gabe. He doesn't deserve to be held like this." I turned to my boyfriend, who was intently watching the graceful movements of the orca whale, popularly known as Nakaki.

Nakaki had become somewhat of a celebrity in recent years, being the star of the aquarium-slash-amusement park known as Poseidonia. People travelled from across the country to see Nakaki perform simple tricks in which he was fed fish in exchange for jumping through hoops. I, personally, found it degrading and wrong to see a fellow mammal treated in such a manner. Nakaki belonged out in the sea, not the putrid confines of a small pool, commanded to "ask" "how high" when the trainers said "jump". It had come to light that Poseidonia was being investigated on charges of animal abuse when its star was not in the public eye.

"We must do something."

Gabe turned and looked at me. There was a mischevious glint in his normally calm green eyes. He leaned in, his breath hot on my shoulder as he said, "I have just the plan."

(000)

I awoke again, my breathing strenuous. This time, someone else was in the room with me.

"How are you, Daisy?" The voice echoed against the stainless steel confines of this strange room.

I attempted to answer, but my own voice was weak. My breathing became increasingly belabored. It felt like a huge weight was being pressed down on my chest. Feeling desperate, I tried shifting, but my body felt all wrong. It was something akin to partial paralysis, and yet...

A hand rested gently on my shoulder. "That wasn't the smartest thing you've ever done, you know." It was a female voice, not particularly chastising, but harsh nonetheless, despite its dulcet tones.

My eyes rolled around in my head. From the sound of it the woman was checking machines and read outs. Five minutes passed before I was able to muster the strength to speak.

"Where is Gabe?" My voice warbled. It sounded alien to me, slightly lower than I'd spoken previously, and possessed a new chordal quality, as if every word were echoing in some other octave at the same time.

The woman continued her work without interruption for a minute more, then came over into my line of vision. Dazed as I was, I saw an attractive woman in a white lab coat. She wore red lipstick and grinned at me, not entirely maliciously, but as if I were - how to put it - an object of contempt, ridicule, or pity. That grin was even more unnerving to me than the strange new quality of my voice, or the unfamiliar room with the familiar smell.

"Don't worry about him, hon. He's next door. You'll be reunited soon." I started to ask what she meant by that but she briskly walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her with a clean metallic clang.

((((((((()))))))))))

The next few days I drifted in and out of consciousness, aware at the edge of my brain that something major was happening, something that I should be frightened of, but I was too drugged to care.

One day the nurse came back. "You may see Gabriel today" she commanded. "But first." Out of nowhere, it appeared, several large men arrived and quickly attended to me. As I was still quite under the influence, my wonder at the fact that such a group would come to attend to me evaporated as they picked me up. Surprisingly, one of them grunted under my weight. Had I been in a clearer state of mind, I might have taken offense, as I had always been quite slender. But now, the weight of consciousness oppressed me more and, nestling my face into the arm of one of the thugs, I slept.

((((((((()))))))))))

"Daisy!" This time I awoke immediately, as Gabe's voice drew me out of the miasma of unconsciousness.

"Gabe!" I exclaimed, twisted around to see where the voice was coming from, and promptly fell off a bed.

That's when I really and truly realized that something was wrong, and was conscious enough to appreciate the magnitude.

My legs were no longer. Amazed, I surveyed the area from my belly button down, tentatively feeling this foreign appendage. From below my navel, my shapely legs had been replaced by a long, familiar tail, about a meter long, that appeared as if it had been grafted to my hips. But, no... grafted is not the right word, for the unmistakable organicness of my... my tail, was irrefutable. Jaw dropped in awe, I bent over to examine it more closely. Almost embarrasingly, I examined where my genitalia had been. There was no longer any space between my legs - no legs to differentiate it from - so both my vagina and anus had been pushed forward to form a - I guess it would be called a cloaca - on the front of my tail. Pressing my palm against it, hairless and rubbery, I felt a strong sensation of pleasure that would have forced me to my knees, had I any knees left.

Protruding from between my toned buttocks was a familiar fin. When I clenched my cheeks, the fin would tug on some muscle attached to my cloaca, contracting it with a pleasurable tug. It sprouted almost elegantly from my butt and complemented the arc of my back. However, it did make it hard to sit as I was accustomed to sitting, had I still been fully human.

Fins were everywhere. I had two dorsal fins, the aforementioned buttock fin and one higher and larger on my back. Two ventral fins protruded from my hips. I had two on my arms. And, of course, I had the magnificent splayed tail, in a marbelized black and white pattern where my feet had once been.

It clicked and I realized where I had seen that pattern before. I had seen it on Nakaki.

For some reason my breasts had become enormous. They were nicely sculpted before, but now they were cartoonish and baloonish, interrupting the streamlined form of my new body with their obviousness. I did not know what they were for, but I did notice several gills underneath them, flapping silently.

At first, I cried. I cried for hours, sitting on the cold stainless steel floor, my tail curled up beneath me, yet still flapping against the steel; my caudal fin protruding like an accusatory finger from my rear and poking into the floor; my ridiculous breasts heaving and defying gravity. I was a freak, and I did not know how or why this happened.

Until a reassurring arm placed itself around my sobbing chest. I looked up, eyes filled with tears, and saw Gabe's grin.

He hugged me. I lifted my head towards his and we kissed, passionately; I was grateful that he still desired me, despite my grotesque new form.

I then felt one of his tentacles inch softly and gently toward my cloaca, and I arched up to meet his touch, unconcerned for the moment about our new forms...

(to be continued)

The Thing With the Fins

2009-08-07T08:10:25Z

Finnyfiona:

My eyes fluttered open.

I was in a brightly lit room with stainless steel walls, and I could not move. There was an antiseptic aroma in the air with a tinge of chlorine, or slightly briny...it stung the inside of my nostrils. The inability to move did not frighten me so much as I would have expected, but the oddly familiar scent of this unfamiliar room gave me a small feeling of dread. Something was wrong.

Upon realizing this I convulsed slightly on the platform on which I rested. In my mental haze I attempted to survey my surroundings but I could not figure out whether I was on an operating table or a bed. All my thoughts seemed to meet a wall at the end of their fruition, such that the true nature of my ("captivity" was the word that sprung to mind, clearer than the other thoughts, but just as soon washed away on a wave of comfortable apathy)... situation. From somewhere deep within my mind came an alert that my convulsion had engaged unnatural muscles, but I could no sooner think about the ramifications of that signal than could I hop on a unicorn that would take me to the end of the rainbow.

Back pain seared unexpectedly. I gasped "Gabriel" and returned to blissful unconsciousness.

************Several months earlier

"Look at this poor guy, Gabe. He doesn't deserve to be held like this." I turned to my boyfriend, who was intently watching the graceful movements of the orca whale, popularly known as Nakaki.

Nakaki had become somewhat of a celebrity in recent years, being the star of the aquarium-slash-amusement park known as Poseidonia. People travelled from across the country to see Nakaki perform simple tricks in which he was fed fish in exchange for jumping through hoops. I, personally, found it degrading and wrong to see a fellow mammal treated in such a manner. Nakaki belonged out in the sea, not the putrid confines of a small pool, commanded to "ask" "how high" when the trainers said "jump". It had come to light that Poseidonia was being investigated on charges of animal abuse when its star was not in the public eye.

"We must do something."

Gabe turned and looked at me. There was a mischevious glint in his normally calm green eyes. He leaned in, his breath hot on my shoulder as he said, "I have just the plan."

***********************************************

I awoke again, my breathing strenuous. This time, someone else was in the room with me.

"How are you, Daisy?" The voice echoed against the stainless steel confines of this strange room.

I attempted to answer, but my own voice was weak. My breathing became increasingly belabored. It felt like a huge weight was being pressed down on my chest. Feeling desperate, I tried shifting, but my body felt all wrong. It was something akin to partial paralysis, and yet...

A hand rested gently on my shoulder. "That wasn't the smartest thing you've ever done, you know." It was a female voice, not particularly chastising, but harsh nonetheless, despite its dulcet tones.

My eyes rolled around in my head. From the sound of it the woman was checking machines and read outs. Five minutes passed before I was able to muster the strength to speak.

"Where is Gabe?" My voice warbled. It sounded alien to me, slightly lower than I'd spoken previously, and possessed a new chordal quality, as if every word were echoing in some other octave at the same time.

The woman continued her work without interruption for a minute more, then came over into my line of vision. Dazed as I was, I saw an attractive woman in a white lab coat. She wore red lipstick and grinned at me, not entirely maliciously, but as if I were - how to put it - an object of contempt, ridicule, or pity. That grin was even more unnerving to me than the strange new quality of my voice, or the unfamiliar room with the familiar smell.

"Don't worry about him, hon. He's next door. You'll be reunited soon." I started to ask what she meant by that but she briskly walked out of the room, slamming the door behind her with a clean metallic clang.

**************************

The next few days I drifted in and out of consciousness, aware at the edge of my brain that something major was happening, something that I should be frightened of, but I was too drugged to care.

One day the nurse came back. "You may see Gabriel today" she commanded. "But first." Out of nowhere, it appeared, several large men arrived and quickly attended to me. As I was still quite under the influence, my wonder at the fact that such a group would come to attend to me evaporated as they picked me up. Surprisingly, one of them grunted under my weight. Had I been in a clearer state of mind, I might have taken offense, as I had always been quite slender. But now, the weight of consciousness oppressed me more and, nestling my face into the arm of one of the thugs, I slept.

*************************

"Daisy!" This time I awoke immediately, as Gabe's voice drew me out of the miasma of unconsciousness.

"Gabe!" I exclaimed, twisted around to see where the voice was coming from, and promptly fell off a bed.

That's when I really and truly realized that something was wrong, and was conscious enough to appreciate the magnitude.

My legs were no longer. Amazed, I surveyed the area from my belly button down, tentatively feeling this foreign appendage. From below my navel, my shapely legs had been replaced by a long, familiar tail, about a meter long, that appeared as if it had been grafted to my hips. But, no... grafted is not the right word, for the unmistakable organicness of my... my tail, was irrefutable. Jaw dropped in awe, I bent over to examine it more closely. Almost embarrasingly, I examined where my genitalia had been. There was no longer any space between my legs - no legs to differentiate it from - so both my vagina and anus had been pushed forward to form a - I guess it would be called a cloaca - on the front of my tail. Pressing my palm against it, hairless and rubbery, I felt a strong sensation of pleasure that would have forced me to my knees, had I any knees left.

Protruding from between my toned buttocks was a familiar fin. When I clenched my cheeks, the fin would tug on some muscle attached to my cloaca, contracting it with a pleasurable tug. It sprouted almost elegantly from my butt and complemented the arc of my back. However, it did make it hard to sit as I was accustomed to sitting, had I still been fully human.

Fins were everywhere. I had two dorsal fins, the aforementioned buttock fin and one higher and larger on my back. Two ventral fins protruded from my hips. I had two on my arms. And, of course, I had the magnificent splayed tail, in a marbelized black and white pattern where my feet had once been.

It clicked and I realized where I had seen that pattern before. I had seen it on Nakaki.

For some reason my breasts had become enormous. They were nicely sculpted before, but now they were cartoonish and baloonish, interrupting the streamlined form of my new body with their obviousness. I did not know what they were for, but I did notice several gills underneath them, flapping silently.

At first, I cried. I cried for hours, sitting on the cold stainless steel floor, my tail curled up beneath me, yet still flapping against the steel; my caudal fin protruding like an accusatory finger from my rear and poking into the floor; my ridiculous breasts heaving and defying gravity. I was a freak, and I did not know how or why this happened.

Until a reassurring arm placed itself around my sobbing chest. I looked up, eyes filled with tears, and saw Gabe's grin.

He hugged me. I lifted my head towards his and we kissed, passionately; I was grateful that he still desired me, despite my grotesque new form.

I then felt one of his tentacles inch softly and gently toward my cloaca, and I arched up to meet his touch, unconcerned for the moment about our new forms...

(to be continued)

The Thing With the Fins

2009-08-07T07:36:59Z

Finnyfiona: Created page with 'My eyes fluttered open. I was in a brightly lit room with stainless steel walls, and I could not move. There was an antiseptic aroma in the air with a tinge of chlorine, or slig...'

Help:Posting stories

2009-08-07T07:05:06Z

Finnyfiona:

Shifti's primary purpose is as an archive for works of fiction, specifically stories containing physical transformations of various sorts. The posting of stories of this genre is welcomed and encouraged. To make it easier to keep everything properly organized, the following guidelines are provided:{{help}}

==Create a user account==

Every edit to Shifti is labeled with the username of the person who performed it. This is important for keeping track of who wrote what; if you want to post a story you should create an account and make sure you're logged in before doing so. You won't need to provide any personal information unless you choose to, all that's required is that you come up with a unique user name for yourself and provide a password. To create an account:

#Click the "[[Special:Userlogin|log in/create account]]" link in the upper right corner of the page
#Click the "create account" link on the login page
#Fill in the mandatory username and password fields. Your username can include spaces, there's no need to make it all one word.
#Fill in an email address you can be reached at. This is optional, but highly recommended since if you lose your password Shifti can send a new one to you here. It will not be given out to other users or publicly displayed.
#The "real name" field is also optional, but is recommended for authors who would like to ensure that their work is properly attributed.

Every user gets his or her own user page and user talk page; the user page is a free-form "homepage" that you can design any way you like, for example providing a list of your stories or links to other web sites. Your user talk page is intended as a public bulletin board where other users of Shifti can post comments for you to read and respond to. You can reach your userpage by clicking on your own nickname at the very top of any Shifti page, along with your preferences, your watch list, and so forth.

==Create a new page==

Posting new stories to a wiki requires creating a new page first. Doing this can be nonintuitive. There are two methods:

*Enter the title of your story directly into your browser's address bar.
*Create a new link with the title of your story on a pre-existing page (such as your userpage). This is the preferred method as it ensures the story isn't orphaned and ensures that the page's URL is properly formatted.

We discourage using the first method, since it creates what are called "Orphan Pages" that are not linked to from anywhere on the site. The second method will be described in detail.

'''Do not''' upload your story via the "Upload File" link on the lower left. File upload is intended for use with images.

===Creating New Pages by Making Links===

You can experiment at [[Shifti:Sandbox]] if you wish to see how this process works before trying it on your user page. Editing and page formatting conventions are located on the [[Help:Editing]] page, but the basics will be described here.

#Every page on Shifti has several tabs along the top. One of these is the '''Edit''' tab. We suggest starting on your own user page, as described above. Click on that, and...
#The next screen will be the basic Edit box where you can add and delete text.
#'''Create a new link''' by putting the title of your story in brackets: <nowiki>[[The Thing With the Cheese]]</nowiki>. Use '''Show Preview''' to see what it looks like before you save it.
#Once the page has been saved, the link you have created will be red: [[The Thing With the Cheese]]. Red means there is '''no content''' on that linked page, but the blank will have the title of your story. A link with content will be blue.
#Click on the red link, you will find a page empty of content, but it will have the title of your story. This defaults to the Edit Page screen. Before you paste in your story, there are a couple of simple wiki formatting commands you should know:
#*Italics are indicated with two single quote marks in front and behind the text. <nowiki>''Like this''</nowiki>. ''Like this.'' Boldface are three single quotes:<nowiki>'''</nowiki>. <nowiki>'''And shows up like this'''.</nowiki> '''And shows up like this.''' For a combination of both boldface and italics, use five single quotes on each side. A Find and Replace in you word processor should take care of it. Alternately, HTML italics tags will also work; if your story is already formatted in HTML you can just paste the body directly in.
#* Paragraphs are separated by a blank line. Hit enter twice to create a paragraph break.
#* A line that starts with a space is rendered as "preformatted" text, which will be in a fixed-width font with a dotted border around it. This is a common unintentional glitch made even by experienced editors when copying and pasting large amounts of text.
#Make sure you '''Preview''' your story to see how it looks. When you first start out, the [[Shifti:Administrators|Shifti Administrators]] will help you out with formatting. You can also use the Find and Replace function in your word processor if you're using _underscores_ for ''italics'' and *astrixes* for '''boldface'''.
#At this point you story has basically been posted. For formatting tweaks, see the [[Help:Templates]] and [[Help:Editing]] pages for more detail.

'''Other Advice:'''

Page titles can include spaces. Generally speaking, it is easiest when the page title for a story is the same as the title of the story itself. This is not strictly required, however. If your story is set in a shared story universe, for example, you may wish to put the name of the story universe at the beginning.

There are just a few significant restrictions on page titles:
*Page titles are case sensitive, except for the first letter which is always capitalized. This means that links to "Magic cheese" and "magic cheese" will both lead to the same page, but that a link to "Magic Cheese" would not.
*Certain special characters such as # and | are not permitted.
*Certain prefixes such as "Talk:" and "Shifti:" are used to designate namespaces within Shifti and the pages they lead to will have special properties that make them unsuitable for posting stories to.
*If you are used to using 'curly quotes' remember to not use them in page titles. They make it difficult to link to the page and may cause problems with older browsers. In fact, it'd be best to not use them anywhere, as they can cause problems for those same browsers. If you are copying the text out of an MS Word, OpenOffice or other fancy word processor it might be best for you to first paste it into a plain-text editor (like Windows Notepad) and manually replace the characters.

If someone else has already used the same title that you would like to use, a common means of distinguishing is to add "disambiguation" text to the end of the title in a set of parenthesis. The term "disambiguation" refers to a page that clarifies two pages with the same name. See [[Xanadu]] for an example.

Another example, if you wanted to post a story titled "Be Careful What You Wish For" but someone else has already posted one with this name, you could instead use the page title "Be Careful What You Wish For (Joe Author)". You may also want to contact the author of the existing story and request that he move his story to another page name, leaving the original page as a disambiguation page containing links to both stories. If you're posting your stories as subpages of your user page this won't be necessary as disambiguation is built into the page title already.

=== User subpages ===

Instead of posting one's story on a generic page, one may wish to instead post it on a "subpage" of one's own user page. For example, [[User:Joe Bloggs]] would post the story at [[User:Joe Bloggs/Magic Cheese]].

This has a number of benefits:
*There will never be a need to disambiguate if someone else uses the same title for their story
*Only you will be able to edit the story. Other editors will be prevented from editing it.

The latter benefit could be a mixed blessing if one wants to allow other users to help with proofreading or if one's writing a collaborative story with someone else.

For more information on how to protect one's story against unwanted editing, see [[Help:Page protection]].

== Format your story ==

The basic formatting of text on Shifti is very simple. Paragraphs are separated by a blank line, the beginning and end of italics are marked with two single quote marks (<nowiki>''</nowiki>), bold text us marked with three single quote marks (<nowiki>'''</nowiki>), and links to other pages within Shifti are enclosed in double square brackets (like this: <nowiki>[[page name]]</nowiki>). Preformatted text is marked with a space at the beginning of the line; if you post your story and find that certain lines don't automatically word-wrap and are in a monospaced font it's likely that you've accidentally left a space at the beginning of that line.

More advanced formatting is possible. Shifti is a MediaWiki wiki and uses the default wikitext formatting; see [[Help:Editing]] for more details.

You may also wish to categorize your story by adding "<nowiki>[[Category:Story]]</nowiki>" at the end. This puts your story's page into the list of all stories on the wiki (see [[:Category:Story]]), making it easier to discover by other readers and editors. For more detail on how categorization works, including how to change the way pages are sorted within the category list, see [[Help:Categorization]]. If you plan on adding more than one story you might also want to add <nowiki>[[Category:Your Name of Choice]] (eg: [[Category:ShadowWolf]])</nowiki> to the page. This will create a new category to hold all your work.

If you want other editors to help you with your story's formatting, or with any other issues, list it at the [[editor's corner]].

=== Categories ===

Categories are not that difficult to work with and proper use will keep Shifti easy to use. For a general overview of how categories work, see [[Help:Categorization]]. If you're not comfortable with categories there's no need to learn how to use them right away, they can be added later. The administrators of Shifti also do some category maintenance and may add the correct tags for you.

A category is automatically created if you use a category name that doesn't already exist inside a <nowiki>[[Category:]]</nowiki> tag. New users posting stories should tag them with <nowiki>[[Category:(insert author name here)]]</nowiki> - this will create a category based on their name. After that go to that category page (eg: [[:Category:ShadowWolf]] is the the category for ShadowWolf's stories) and add the tag <nowiki>[[Category:Stories by author]]</nowiki> to it. This makes the category a member of the [[:Category:Stories by author|Stories by author]] category so it can be found on the [[:Category:Stories by author|Stories by author Category]] aggregator page. All stories should contain the <nowiki>[[Category:Story]]</nowiki> tag, unless they are in, for example, the Xandu universe or are of an adult nature. Xanadu stories should contain <nowiki>[[Category:Xanadu]]</nowiki> and adult material should contain <nowiki>[[Category:Adult]] as well as {{XXX}}</nowiki>. (One places it in the [[:Category:Adult|Adult Material]] category and the other is a template that should be at the start of the document and adds an image that provides visual notice that the content is of a mature nature).

== Preview and save ==

To check whether your story's formatting will look correct, click the "preview" button. This will load a page that has both the text editing area and a preview of how the final page will look like. Note that your text has ''not'' been saved yet, and that if you make further changes you'll have to click "preview" again to refresh the displayed text.

Once the story appears formatted to your satisfaction, click "save". This will save the text and allow others to view it. You can always come back and edit the text again later if you discover flaws or otherwise want to make changes, so don't fret too much about this stage.

[[The Thing With the Fins]].