| Term |
Definition |
A
|
|
| Aatxe |
"Young Bull". An evil spirit from the folklore of southwest France and Northwest Spain, who can change form, usually turning into a bull or a man. The creature inhabits mountain caves and appears on stormy nights to cause destruction. |
| Abductions |
Abductions have been a source of transformation lore for centuries, as mystical creatures (such as goblins) abduct a newborn or young child to raise and turn into their own kind. Often, a "replacement" is left behind which is flawed in some way. A modern take along these lines is UFO Abductions, where aliens take humans on board their ships to conduct experiments on them- and sometimes (in fiction) transform them. |
| Abgal |
An ancient Sumerian spiritthat is portrayed in carvings as part man and part fish, much like a mermaid. |
| Absorbing Man |
A Marvel Comics villain who could absorb the properties of whatever he touched - and often transformed into a living moving statue made of that material. |
| Absorption |
A transformation type where the subject is absorbed into another entity or thing and either assimilated or changed as the absorber desires. |
| Act of God |
See Divine Acts. |
| Adaptoid |
A Marvel Comics villain, the Adaptoid was a robot that could duplicate its foes powers, and to some extent their forms. Later renamed the "Super-Adaptoid". See also "Amazo". |
| ADDventure |
An online writing game where aspiring writers can read and add to a story, and offer several options for the next writer to write about. While the original is down, the idea for the game is used elsewhere on the web for special interest topics. |
| AI |
Shorthand for Artificial Intelligence in Science Fiction. Sadly natural intelligence is sometimes lacking as well. |
| Air |
One of the four classical elements (see Elements) Air has more of a spiritual or ethereal transformative quality to it. Sometimes associated with invisibility as well. |
| Albino |
A person, plant or animal without any pigmentation on their hair or skin; their coloration is white, with pink eyes. |
| Alchemy / Alchemist |
In broad terms, a mixture of chemistry and magic. Alchemists are usually portrayed as seeking to transmute materials into gold, or gaining immortality. A third, less known pursuit was seeking a perfect state of being - physically and mentally. This is portrayed sometimes as a person seeking to become an androgyne (see Androgyne, hermaphrodite) with the best qualities of male and female. On some funeral memorials, it is portrayed as a human figure where front side has the frontal image of a man, and the back side has the frontal image of a woman, symbolizing a sort of "human perfection". See also Elements. |
| Aliens |
Life forms that are not of this world. There are two lines of thought for transformational use: The first of course, is that aliens themselves are shapeshifters, and may alter themselves as they see fit, a theme that has appeared in numerous science fiction stories (See Founders, Skrulls, Thing, The). The second line of thought is that any alien life form that is advanced enough to cross the distances between the stars is also advanced enough to transform lifeforms as they see fit. A small faction in the "scientific" community believe that such experiments were performed in antiquity, notably in Egypt where the half human half animal hybrids were revered as gods. The purpose for this is not made clear, although it is used to illustrate a "connection" of some sort between the pyramid builders and aliens. |
| Amalthea |
In Greek mythology, a nymph with goat like features, rather like a female satyr, who sucked the infant god Zeus on the island of Crete. By some accounts, Zeus broke off one of her horns in thanks and turning it into the Conocopia - a "Horn of Plenty" that produced a never anding supply of food and drink. |
| Amazo |
A DC Comics villain, Amazo was a robot that could duplicate the abilities of heroes it fought against. Later incarnations of it had shape-shifting abilities. See also Adaptoid. |
| Amulet |
A piece of jewelry usually worn to protect against evil. However, such items are sometimes the source of a curse, sometimes of a transformative nature, or gives the wearer magical abilities including that of transformation. See also, Jewelry, Trigger. |
| Anansi |
A colorful trickster-character in African folklore, Anansi is usually represented as a spider, although like many tricksters, he was sometime attributed with shapeshifting abilities. See Tricksters. |
| Androgyne |
An older and less used term for hermaphrodite (see Hermaphrodite) it refers to an entity with both male and female characteristics - opposites that are perfectly balanced, both mentally and physically. It is portrayed in a variety of ways, such as female saints with beards, a conjoined entity that is half male and half female with two heads, and so on. |
| Android |
1. A robot or cyborg with male attributes or parts. The feminine use of the term is gynoid (see Gynoid) 2. A generic term used for any lifelike robot. |
| Animal Man |
A DC Comics hero from the 1960's who could duplicate the abilities of any animal, although he rarely transformed to take on their physical characteristics. |
| Anime |
Japanese animation. |
| Animorphs |
A series of Scholastic books (and TV show) released in the mid/late 1990's. The Animorphs were some kids given the power to change into animals by an alien to defeat some Earth-invading aliens. Their powers were limited though - they could only turn into an animal they had touched (and thus aquire the genetic information needed) and they could remain an animal for only two hours, or they would be stuck as an animal for good- as one did, when he became stuck in the form of a hawk (obviously as a lesson to the others). They were also capable of gender change, as they turned into the same gender of the animal they used as a genetic template. |
| Anthro |
Short for Anthromorphic |
| Anthromorph / Anthromorphic |
1. Common use is an animal possessing human human characteristics and features. 2. something possessing human like qualities, but is an animal, mineral or vegetable. |
| AP |
Shorthand for Age Progression - People rapidly getting older. |
| AR |
Shorthand for Age Regression - People rapidly turning younger. |
| Arachne |
A weaver from a Greek myth who claimed she could weave better than the gods. Of course they took her up on that challenge, and while the results vary from tale to tale by the end, Arachne is transformed into a spider. Her name has been adapted as a label for Arachnids, a class of eight-legged arthopods which includes spiders, scorpions and ticks. |
| Ascendancy |
1. In some religious, fantasy and science fiction writing, a person is transformed and goes 'up' to the next level of being - although the concept of this next level varies widely. 2. In some cultures mortals were elevated to the level of gods. this may explain some of the pantheons of ancient gods as legendary mortals whose deeds caused them to rise to the status of gods in myth. The Egyptians Romans, Chinese, and as late as 1945 the Japanese all believed that their leader or emperor was divine in nature and would ascend to a heavenly plane upon death as a god. |
| Asexual |
1. Without sex or sexual organs. Most asexual creatures are single celled organisms or colonies, which breed by dividing to create duplicates of themselves. They are non existent in higher organisms, except in stories. 2. The condition some major figures apparently wish upon humanity to avoid sexually charged issues. See also Hermaphrodite. |
| ASFR |
(?) Apparently shorthand for Android/Statue/Frozen/Robot or a website (apparently offline) Alt.Sex.Fetish.Robots. |
| Associations |
The imposition of a characteristic upon a person or idea. A strong person might be labeled "Strong as an ox" while a racer might be called "Quick as lightening". Such associations were first used by the ancient Egyptians, who did not worship animals, but associated certain characteristics of animals upon their gods. Thus by worshipping those gods, they had some sway over the animals whose characteristics they had given to their gods. Similar associational beliefs were used elsewhere in other less developed cultural settings. Associations are still used to some extent today, by Furries who are choosing their fursona to embody some animal they like. |
| Astronomy |
Numerous astronomical events have been used as triggers to cause transformations. The most well known include the moon, nighttime, and daytime. Lesser astronomical event have also been used as well- comets, often the harbingers of doom, have been used as a transformation trigger. The alignment of planets and stars is another, as are eclipses, but due to their relative rarity, they are not used very often. Fragments of astronomical bodies - i.e. meteors, geological samples, etc have also been used to induce transformations, particularly Red Kryptonite. |
| AT |
Shorthand for Animal Transformation. |
| Audrey II / Audrey Junior |
An improbably named mutant plant featured in the equally improbable cult movie hit "Little Shop of Horrors" (1960) which is also a musical by the same name. In the original Audrey, which eats humans, turns its victims into part of the plant - their faces appearing in the center of blossoms that are on the plant. This motif is adopted in live action musicals at the ending as the bud-faces sing "Don't feed the plant"., although not in the 1986 movie version of the musical. |
