FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Some things are inherently dangerous. A snake, coiled and hissing, is not something one should anger further. A knife may be a common household tool, but it’s also a weapon when the blade is pointed in the wrong direction. Cars are wrapped up in safety measures and require training before its permissible for somebody to drive, and though they are treated as a necessity for life, they are at best an acceptable risk that many agree to take.

But nothing is quite as dangerous as a bored fox. And Zev was bored.

He did his best to avoid this state through any number of distractions that he could find in life. Video games were a regular favorite way of passing the time, as they could provide weeks of entertainment and the catalog of titles was near endless. Exercise could help pass several hours between travel, lifting, swimming, and climbing, depending on what he felt like doing on any particular day. Baking worked as great means of drawing attention to a singular task to ensure that no errors went into the preparation of a recipe. Should all those choices fail, he always had friends he could chat up and enjoy their company.

And yet, none of that interested him currently. He’d just finished getting a 100% completion of a game and didn’t have anything else in his backlog that caught his attention. He’d already gone to the gym the past four days and his body demanded he take a rest. There wasn’t any company coming over any time soon, so he didn’t want to bake anything, lest he end up eating entirely too much treat all by himself. None of his friends were available, either. They’d all gone back to work after the holiday break, leaving him with unread chat messages and single word responses.

The fox paced back and forth in his studio apartment, walking the same eight feet in a loop, claws clicking on the hardwood and driving him deeper into insanity. His brush tail bristled. He snarled, turned himself toward his couch, and flopped down on the worn area of cushion that wasn’t covered in three days worth of discarded clothing that didn’t make it to the laundry hamper. The ceiling was painfully dull off-white, yet he kept staring at it, beyond it, into the void of nothingness that failed to occupy his time.

You’ve done it all, the nothingness seemed to say to him. There’s nothing else, no more distractions, no more ways of keeping yourself entertained. This is it. Welcome to the dullest days of your life. You will not enjoy your stay.

Zev snapped at the air.

There was nothing worse than being bored. Boredom was the domain of people who couldn’t find excitement in the little things, as far he was concerned. Those who claimed kinship with boredom were people Zev tried his best to avoid. How could such a vast, complicated, and intricately connected world ever be a boring place?

He needed something new to do.

"Think, thunk, thoonk," he mumbled as he put his head in his hands, closed his eyes, and dug into the deepest parts of himself to find something interesting to do. Something creative, different, and uniquely his own.

Little voices of friends and colleagues whispered into his ears, their imagined murmurs telling him that he should do something big and grand. Most of them probably meant physically, that he should grow his way to gigantic proportions and have a gay old time being larger than life. It wasn’t interesting enough of an idea for Zev. He dug in deeper, honing in on the buzzing of the fainter fake voices, only to find that the message was the same, just more intensely suggestive.

Zev concluded that he wasn’t going to escape the tedium without delving into the sexual if that’s where his brain was deciding everybody else wanted him to go. It needed a twist, though. He’d done the usual things so many times that, though they were still enjoyable, they lacked the spice of excitement he wished to taste.

Considering the numerous methodologies of growth and change available to him, he wanted to go with something a little bit more involved. His tail twitched, his foot tapped, he drummed his fingers on his muzzle: fragments coalesced into a singular idea.

"I’m going to need some help for this one," he stated as he jumped to standing. He pulled his cellphone out of his pocket and sent a message to a friend. Within a minute, there was a puff of purple smoke and some coughing. Zev rushed to open a window to help clear the air. As the density of the smoke dissipated, he could finally make out the figure of another fox.

"I got here as quick as I could," a purple furred friend stated, brushing off some soot from the shoulder of the cloak he wore. "What’s the emergency?"

"I’m bored."

The newly arrived fox stood up as straight as the gnarled staff in his off hand. "Oh dear, that’s definitely an emergency. A bored fox is such a dangerous thing. I should know. I’ve caused quite a bit of chaos because of my boredom."

Zev crossed his arms over his chest. "Yes, I’m well aware. Several of those times I was directly involved in curing your boredom. Usually without you asking me first."

"You had said before that it was okay for me to grow you whenever I wanted. Is that something that’s changed?" Zev’s guest turned their gaze downward, slumping slightly as if even considering being barred from causing growth shenanigans with their friend was a fate worse than boredom.

"No, no, no, that’s not it, don’t worry, Greg, you’re totally fine. And I’m thinking growth is the solution to this current boredom as well, which is why I called you here."

Greg regained his composure and smile. "Look no further than. Swolecerer Supreme, at your service." He did a slight bow. "Let me just get you started then. Shall we go with the usual all rounder today? Or would you prefer to accentuate specific elements of yourself? Your request is my desire to fulfill."

"Actually, that’s where I’m thinking of throwing the twist into all of this." Zev tossed the clothing on the couch off to the floor, sat down, and tapped the cushion beside him. "Get comfortable, cause this might take a little bit of explaining. Actually, maybe you should explain the outfit to me first. Aren’t wizards and sorcerers different things?"

"Oh yes, absolutely." Greg took off the pointed cap he was wearing and placed it into his lap. "But not everybody knows that."

"So it’s just visual shorthand to let people know that you do the magics."

"Precisely."

Zev shrugged. "Well, alright. I mean I already know the difference and what you do, but I guess strangers might not." He pinched his brow. "I’m getting distracted by the wrong details. Let me get to the idea already so I’m not wasting your time here.

"Here’s what I’m thinking: you know how artists will do growth drives? Based on audience interactions, donations, and whatever other factors are involved, the character in the sequence keeps getting bigger and bigger?"

"Yes," Greg nodded. "They are rather enjoyable to see happening."

"Agreed. So let’s make it happened. I’m thinking that we can ask people to vote, donate, make suggestions, and contribute ideas. Then you’ll use your magic to help change me into whatever the results of that all ends up being."

The Swoleceror stroked his non existent beard. "I like the sound of that, though I’m noticing that you didn’t say grow there. You said change."

"Eyup." Zev flashed a grin. "See, I wanna take it one step further. Rather than just getting all around bigger, what if we took this in multiple directions at the same time? Like say, five people vote that they want me to get more muscular, but ten people say they want me to get taller. Rather than fulfilling both requests at the same time, we split the time line, so to speak. In one reality, I get bulkier. And in the other, I get taller. Then we keep following those two realities, and seeing where those end up going, and how they diverge into other realities and situations."

Greg closed his eyes. "That sounds like it could be pretty difficult to keep track of. I’m afraid that I might get lost in it and end up making some mistakes if we aren’t careful in tracking it."

"Ah, don’t worry about it. Leave the tracking to me. And if somehow things get wild enough, well, I’m sure some of the people helping to make the changes happen will love to have the opportunity to see themselves directly involved."

"I’ll give it my best try," Greg quavered.

"And that’s all I could ever ask of you, friend." Zev began pacing again. "Now, here’s what I’m thinking for possible things that folks can wish to see changed on me and how I envision some of these potential time lines breaking down.

"First off, there’s the classic of all classics, and it’s muscle growth. Obviously, there’d be general overall width and density of mass going on with that, but I’d love to see specific body parts getting disproportionately massive compared to the rest of me. It could be quick or slow acting, meaning we might start with your spell, and then I’d get to go about my day and see who I run into or what situations I get up to while I’m straining to fit inside my clothes.

"Next would be height increase. I might even be willing to let folks see what happens with making me smaller, just to play around with that situation. But knowing our friends, I’m guessing they’ll want to see me climb to higher heights. It might just start as macro, but it could branch into other directions. Hell, any of these time lines could start overlapping if that’s the way things end up sliding. It’s not really worth predicting right now, I’d say.

"Third option is hyper. Again, it could just be the overall size, but I’m also thinking that it’d be a lot more interesting if it got split into a few smaller categories. Heh, not that I’d be called small for very long if this is the way things end up going, am I right?"

Greg nodded and fidgeted with the wizard’s hat covering his lap.

"Now those seem like the obvious ones, and I’m sure the three that most people would expect me to limit it at. But I’m willing to make a few sacrifices to my physique for the sake of everyone having a good time, and so I’m throwing in for a fat growth option as well. Like with muscle, it can be general chonkiness, or it can be localized to specific body parts. Personally I’m hoping folks focus on the belly, but I’m sure a version of me can handle being a fatass and love it.

"Up next, I’d like to suggest something more niche, but a deep passion of mine: the multiple limbs option. On this path, I’d end up quite the mutant, be it with extra heads, extra arms, or even just becoming a full on foxtaur and trotting my way around the city. This one could get pretty freaky, and I’m all for any of these hitting as extreme a situation as they possibly can.

"Which might make this next one seem like a step back, but I’m sure you’ll disagree, since it involves one of your favorite things: superheroes in tight spandex."

The purple fox shifted in his seat and avoided making eye contact with Zev.

"We’d make an outfit for myself, grant me a starting super power, and see where the adventure takes us from there. Anything could happen when heroics are endless and villains are everywhere. I’m hoping that there ends up being some mind control, but that’s probably just me.

"And finally, there’s the transformation category. I rather like being a fox, but I’ve also been a lot of other species over the years. If things travel down this way, I’m sure I’d end up turning into a bunch of things that I’ve never been before, and that does seem like it could be a pretty wonderful time. Other animals, objects, body parts - there’s a whole host of fun things to explore when it comes to TF that I never get to do.

"That all make sense so far?"

The intensity of Zev’s wagging filled the silence following his monologuing. Eyes ablaze, he stared at Greg, until the purple fox gave a thumbs up. Zev whooped as he jumped.

"It makes sense," Greg slowly said, "though it’s more complicated than I expected it to be. I’m not entirely sure my magic can work through all of that."

"Ah, don’t worry about it," Zev replied with a wave of his hand. "I’m sure that there’ll be plenty of other methods of making sure future changes happen down the road that don’t even require you to so much as utter an incantation. I’m just asking for your help on getting the process started. From there, we’ll see where the winds of change take me."

Greg sighed. "You can’t resist making jokes like that, can you?"

"Nope! And I’m not going to try. Now, how about we get things started, shall we?"

"How are we going to do that exactly? Send out a newsletter?"

"Not a bad idea, I wonder if I could get people on a mailing list. Hmmm, nah, seems invasive, I don’t like it. No, I think we should start by taking my stats so we have a baseline of where I’m starting. It should help people get a pretty good sense of what they can tweak. Plus I’m sure it’ll be helpful for you so you know just how much to add on to me after we start getting some results."

"That’s a good point." Greg stood up and walked his way around Zev multiple times. "Should I describe you, or do you want to do it yourself?"

"Nah, I’ve got it. You just get a sense for it by listening to me and I’m sure that’ll be enough.

"Well, starting off then: I’m 5’8 and about 185 lbs, and I’ve been told that I’ve got a soft looking build that’s shockingly firm when folks get to feel it for themselves. I guess that makes me muscular, but not really close to shredded or ripped, which makes sense. I work out regularly but don’t dedicate my life to it, and I love eating too much to really restrict myself properly for the bodybuilding diet."

"I’m so used to seeing you all buffed up that I forgot that you’re actually pretty average," Greg remarked.

"It’s a fact a lot of people forget, but yup, I’m kind of just pretty plain, to be honest. Speaking of, I’ll avoid getting into too many graphic details on anything below the belt, but average is a fair description there as well.

"Otherwise, I’m just a fairly standard fox guy. My most distinguishing physical traits are the black stripe that goes from my muzzle over my head, down my back, and crosses the top of my tail until it reaches the white tip. And I’ve got a pretty nice beard, if I get to have an opinion of myself, that’s got two grey streaks going through it. I keep my hair braided and that’s about it for me!"

"I think you forgot something," Greg tutted.

"Eh? What’s that?"

"You’re currently wearing a pair of blue jeans, a gray t-shirt, and a red and blue flannel over that. And the material hugs your arms very nicely."

"Oh, clothing, ya, I guess I didn’t consider that. Thanks for the catch there."

"My pleasure to help." They stood there, letting the awkwardness in the room become too much to bear, until Greg finally shattered the discomfort. "Um, when should I start growing you?"

"After people start sending in their interest, I suppose. Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to find out!"