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Origins of the medallion of zulo and other memes and tropes
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Fictional Worlds and Universes in TF and TG media
This entry will be a list and archive of often explored worlds and universes found in transformation and gender-bending independent fiction. It can include origins, rules, and permission details / contacts.
From: guest (KYM) , 105 months, post #1
Hey everyone! I'm a long time lurker here and have been into this community for some time now. Just for curiosity's sake I've begun to wonder when and where certain tropes and memes that are common in the community originated from. The one that really hit me was The Medallion of Zulo, I've seen it on nearly every caption blog I've been on but I have no idea where it began I did some googling and the best I could find is some obscure author by the name of Jennifer Adams.

A link brought me back to Metamorphose and I found this thread: http://www.metamorphose.org/thread/show.htp?threadid=15704&page=1&se0=thread&se1=show, which confirms that Jennifer Adams did in fact create the premise in her Altered Fates series published around 1998 - 2001.

I think it would be cool if we could start a Know Your Meme like thread but within our community for memes and tropes liked The Great Shift, or Role Exchanger, we all take for granted!



From: guest , 105 months, post #2
Both the Great Shift and Role Exchanger were created by Morpheus, one of the best authors in the genre. He's not as active now as he used to be, though.

From: cj , 105 months, post #3
If enough are interested in such a list, I'll create an entry / page for it.

From: guest , 105 months, post #4
Many of the most popular TG universes, including Altered Fates/Medallion of Zulo, The Great Shift, and Role Exchanger, originated on Fictionmania. If you do a category search or super search on Fictionmania, you can often find the original story that spawned a particular universe. Here, for example, is Morpheus's original Role Exchanger story:

http://www.fictionmania.tv/stories/readtextstory.html?storyID=324701035012623207

From: guest , 105 months, post #5
The Costume Gun came from stories on FictionMania too, but the original ones are gone; a few written with the permission of its "inventor" by another writer are there. Works a bit differently from the versions on the captions, but I don't think that official rules were published anywhere.

From: guest (Jennifer Adams) , 105 months, post #6
Okay, I admit I haven't turned anything new out in a while, but obscure, really? I am still around and I still comment here from time to time. The origins of the Medallion of Zulo are supposed to be shrouded in mystery. I created it that way on purpose. The only thing is that it is very old but looks like some cheap costume jewelery. Bill Hart has come the closest to giving it an origin, but it actually older than that.

Jenny


From: guest (Jennifer Adams) , 105 months, post #7
As far as the actual origins of the Altered Fates Universe is concerned. I Had written the first six stories I was going to have published by reluctant press, but had a change of heart after what happened to my first book published by them.

I entered Spare the Rod in a story contest on one of the two TG email lists we were all on before Mindy Rich started Fictionmania. I won a copy of Rex Nebular and the Cosmic Genderbender, BTW. I then released the rest of the stories I had and opened the universe.

Mindy gave me space on the Mania Pages server, where Fictionmania began. When it all became too much for her to run Fictionmania was taken over by others. After trying to find another server for a few months, I submitted all my stories to Fictionmania and closed my site.

The Altered Fates Universe inspired writers like Pyrite and others. This was my intention to give TG writers a medium that was fairly easy to use to create a story.

Jenny

Now you know the rest of the story.

From: guest (Zeal) , 105 months, post #8
In response to the 2nd post, Morpheus still writes quite a few things, he's doing a lot of Whately Universe stuff atm as far as I've seen.

From: guest (TF Central) , 105 months, post #9
Plus, a rule list might be nice (what happens during an "event". what an artifact can/can't do, etc.)

From: Mr. Ram , 105 months, post #10
Here are the medallion of Zulo rules, as copied from Jennifer's old site.


The "Rules"
by Jennifer Adams
(Altered Fates universe Creator)

The rules... Hmmm... Well, They are not really rules. Rules sound so stuck in school or something.

Guidelines... yeah... that's the ticket.

The guidelines are mainly on the how the medallion works, as defined in AF: Juvenile Delinquent and AF: Disguised For Life. I actually wrote them into the universe.

I will start with non-medallion-related guidelines. (there are only two).

1. The medallion looks like cheap costume jewelry. No matter how well it is cleaned up it still looks cheap. That leads us to #2.

2. No one ever pays much, if anything, for the medallion. Refer to #1.

3. It has a picture of an angel or a fairy holding a wand, it has also been discribed as possibly something demonic, since the origin is unknown I suppose that is possible. There is also strange writing around the outer edge, on the front and the back of it is blank, it looks as though there may have been writing on it at
one time or may have just been scratched up.

Part of the goal of this universe is for the reader to think in the back of their mind,
"Could this really happen?" Or," Could this happen to me?"

By making the medallion readily available it makes these questions possible.

Now for how the medallion works.

1. The medallion transforms the wearer, meaning that if the wearer removes the medallion the TF stops right there.
If a character takes the medallion off during an equine TF(into a horse) and removes the
medallion while he only has a tail. He will be a man with a horses tail for twelve hours. (Refer to #2).

2. A person's body can only handle one TF by the medallion in twelve hours. It takes time for the body to recuperate.

3. If one wears the medallion and another touches the medallion it will produce a form swap, or they will look like the other used to. As long as the wearer hasn't TF'ed with it in the last twelve hours, in which case, nothing will happen.(refer to #2)

4. If a woman is menstruating or pregnant, the medallion will not completely TF her and then will auto-reverse the TF immediately. This works for someone starting as female to begin with or a TG'ed woman.
Before the medallion will work on a pregnant/menstruating woman. She must complete the
pregnancy/menstruating and her body chemistry must return to it's pre-pregnancy/menstruating state.

5. The medallion only does slight mental changes. Very minor ones can and are sometimes done by the medallion.
Stronger mental changes can be made but there has to be a prompt from an outside force.
As in the wearer donning a wedding band, then they might automatically believe they are married, how to please their hubby/wife. That sort of thing. I'm not a big fan of mind alterations, but they can be "made" to occur. Be creative.

I think that about covers it. If you are not sure if something fits and you don't find any reference in one of my AF stories (since there are some errors in AF stories written by other authors) feel free to e-mail me
and ask. My address is: jadams113@yahoo.com (link sends e-mail)

Oh...
I almost forgot... Rule Number 6!

6. HAVE FUN WITH IT!!!

Jenny

From: guest , 105 months, post #11
Interestingly, the most important details seem to have been left out of that list of rules: what the medallion actually does, lol. Perhaps it's because the rules were provided in the context of the story and not in isolation like this.

When someone wears the medallion and touches an item of clothing to it, the wearer transforms into the person (or animal or whatever) who last wore that item of clothing at the time they last wore it. If it's a new item of clothing that has never been worn, it changes the wearer to suit the item of clothing (so, for example, an 6'4" obese man touching the medallion to a brand-new size-two dress would become a slender, petite woman). And, as the rules mention, if someone's wearing the medallion and another person touches it, the two transform into each other. Someone who's been transformed by the medallion can't be transformed by it again for another 12 hours, and transformations are indefinite until the medallion is used again.

I like Altered Fates stories, but I wish people used the medallion more creatively. Too often it's just used as an easy way for characters to switch bodies/forms, but there are any number of items and story devices that allow people to switch bodies, so just doing a body swap seems like a waste of a story device. I prefer it when people take advantage of the medallion's more unique aspects: the ability to become a duplicate of someone, the ability to become someone when they were younger, the ability to experiment with a bunch of different forms, the ability to become a female version of oneself, the 12-hour time limit, the rule that people who are pregnant can't be transformed, the fact that the medallion is so easily lost. If you just use the medallion to have two people switch bodies, why are you writing an Altered Fates story? Why not use Reversal Rings or a spellbook or something?

I feel the same way about Role Exchanger captions where people just switch bodies. The Role Exchanger is capable of telling much more unique stories than that.

From: guest (KYM) , 105 months, post #12
@Jennifer Adams

Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I guess obscure is a subjective term and I made an ass out of myself by assuming that since I've been reading TG fiction for a while that I've never heard of you then very few probably have either.

Thank you Jennifer for contributing one of my favorite topes to the community, I just had no idea it was you until last night. lol

From: guest (Jennifer Adams) , 105 months, post #13
@ KYM

It has been a long time since I posted anything new. Real Life sort of got in my way for a long time and I tried my hand at more mainstream fiction. My time seem to be freeing up so hopefully I can put out some new work. I think my writing has matured a little bit from the early days of online TG fiction and hope I can test it out in the near future. I have 36 stories still on Fictionmania including the beginning of the Altered Fates Universe.

Jenny


From: guest , 105 months, post #14
" In response to the 2nd post, Morpheus still writes quite a few things, he's doing a lot of Whately Universe stuff atm as far as I've seen."

Yes, I know. I just said he's not as active as he used to be. He's still around, but he isn't currently posting as many stories.

From: Dale Ribbons , 105 months, post #15
I saw Jennifer Adams mentioned 'Spare The Rod'. That particular story was the first TG fiction I read online 15 years ago (gasp!). I have a nostalgic fondness for that story, and want to thank Jennifer for writing it

From: Eric , 105 months, post #16
I for one think the Medallion of Zulo is cursed. Things have a real tendency to go wrong. As in one of my all time favorite stories The things We do for love, by Jennifer Adams : a loving couple start using the medallion & eventually becomne each other, though the girl does change back from time to time, when she plans to manipulate her BF he takes her at her professed word & throws Zulo away, which is not want she really wanted & so they are stuck as each other.
One of favorite aspects of Zulo, which say reversed rings ioes NOT have is that there can be 2 of someone running around at the same time, which can lead to interesting compications s to who is who when.
I & Zapper & Pyrite a few others have taken liberties with Zulo's powers & made more mental changes, so far Jennifer hasn't cursed too much. LOL!

From: cj , 105 months, post #17
Would anyone / everyone like me to create a formal page(s) here that address origins / rules of these fictional universes? I see lots of interest in the subject.

Just would like opinions on whether we should add something here for it.

From: guest , 105 months, post #18
I vote YES for that list, cj. Would be great to gather them, and also useful for authors.

From: cj , 105 months, post #19
I will try to start working on something for it this weekend. Thanks.

From: cj , 105 months, post #20
Okay, I created a page... but I don't like the look. Feel free to "Edit This Page" and submit additional info - or here in this thread.

I think I may adjust the formatting a little and perhaps just list the universes / worlds on that main page with a link to each world/universe, and each having it's own page / entry.

Let me know what you think. I've been awake for nearly 53 hours, so I'm going to sleep for awhile... but wanted to get this started for everyone before I passed out.

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