History Main / YouAreWhoYouEat

* The main character of ''Manga/ThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsASlime'' Rimuru Tempest gains in the form of an ability called Predator which lets him mimic the form of and steal the "skills" of any creature he absorbs. He uses this ability to gain a human form since being [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a slime]] he doesn't originally have one. The human form he has [[spoiler:mildly resembles the form of Shizu, who he had absorbed upon her request as her LastRequest when she was on her deathbed]], the form also appears to age up as he gets stronger.

* The main character of ''Manga/ThatTimeIGotReincarnatedAsASlime'' Rimuru Tempest gains in the form of an ability called Predator which lets him mimic the form of and steal the "skills" of any creature he absorbs. He uses this ability to gain a human form since being [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a slime]] he doesn't originally have one.

* Everyman from ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'' actually only needs to eat a tiny bit of whoever he wants to turn into. But it turns out he really ''likes'' the taste of [[ImAHumanitarian human flesh]].
* ''ComicBook/ExcaliburMarvelComics'': The Warwolves leave their victims' skins and wear them, in a manner similar to the Bug in ''Film/MenInBlack''. "We wear who we kill!"
* In ''ComicBook/LoveAndRockets'', the monster BEM disguises itself by killing action hero detective Castle Radium and stealing his body. However, due to the brain damage it suffered while breaking out of prison, BEM gradually begins to believe it is Radium, and becomes obsessed with tracking down and capturing itself.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Lucifer}}'', predatory Jin En Mok demons Cestis and Saul take on the forms of humans they have eaten. It turns to horror for Cestis when she find herself [[ShapeshifterModeLock trapped]] in the body of [[spoiler: Elaine's father]] with his thoughts gradually [[TheMindIsAPlaythingOfTheBody taking over]].

* {{Inverted|Trope}} for ''ComicBook/{{Revival}}'', where ordinary humans try eating reviver flesh in order to become revivers themselves. In at least one case it works.
* The Saurians in ''ComicBook/{{Sigil}}'' (and the one who appears in ''ComicBook/{{Negation}}'') take on beneficial attributes of whatever creatures they eat, including physical and mental traits and even information. Having long ago become the apex predators of their homeworlds, this power was forgotten and rediscovered when they went to war with humans and decided not to waste the corpses of their fallen foes.
* The Chitauri of ''ComicBook/TheUltimates2002'' can only shape-shift into the body of somebody by eating that person. Herr Kleiser threatens to do this to the Wasp, but is interrupted before he gets an opportunity.
* The ''ComicBook/XMen'' villain Dirt Nap gains the appearance and powers of people he swallows. The victims can survive if he coughs them up within a certain time frame. For some reason, he can't do anything about the smiley face symbol that always appears. He also winds up stuck in the form of a rat for much of his history. Eventually, he becomes an ally to ''ComicBook/GenerationX.'' He is even able to separate M-Plate back into the twins and Emplate by sucking them up and separating them, though [[spoiler:this ends up killing him]].

* When the Wolf [[TrueStoryInMyUniverse from the fairy tale]] swallows the protagonists' grandma whole in ''Series/Charmed1998'', he automatically shapeshifts into her appearance, as a distillation of the original story.

* ''Ollie! The Boy Who Became What He Ate'' is a Canadian cartoon about a boy who turns into whatever healthy food he eats.

* Buu of ''Manga/DragonballZ'' can absorb his enemies whole, which grants him their powers, intelligence, and appearance (though usually just clothing). The heroes assumed he grew stronger with each absorption and so freed their comrades from Buu to revert him to a less powerful state. Unfortunately, they went too far and freed Fat Buu (who Evil Buu had absorbed), causing him to revert to his original state, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero which was even more psychotic than the others]].

* In ''Anime/PonyoOnTheCliffByTheSea'', also by Creator/HayaoMiyazaki, Ponyo starts out as a goldfish-like creature but is able to become human after tasting human blood.
* ''Literature/RebuildWorld'': Non-sapient example. OrganicTechnology-based monsters left behind by the NeglectfulPrecursors called the Old World, originally designed to serve as security for facilities, evolve and change their capabilities based on what monsters they eat, creating wildly different subspecies based on the assimilated capabilities. They do this via {{Nanomachines}} that also infect their brains allowing them to be controlled (however due to an obvious lack of maintenance from their creators, this programming is usually corrupted.)
* No-Face from ''Anime/SpiritedAway'' gains the personality and physical features of those he swallows (gaining frogs legs, for instance, when eating a frog-man). It's possibly one of the reasons he wants to eat kindly protagonist Chihiro.

* This is how ''Film/TheThing1982'' works. Specifically it's a shapeshifting alien that eats animals (dogs and humans in the movie) and then mimics their appearance and memories to become an exact replica.

* This is [[spoiler:one of the secrets of the Inhumi]] in ''Literature/BookOfTheShortSun''; [[spoiler:feeding off humans is the only thing that makes them intelligent and capable of having personalities.]]

* In ''Literature/HarryPotter'', Polyjuice potion requires a bit of the person being impersonated as an ingredient. The good news is that this only takes something small, like a hair, to work. The bad news is that the person has to still be alive when the bits are taken. So anyone attempting long-term impersonation has to keep the original alive and captive, which happens to [[spoiler:Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody when Barty Crouch Jr. impersonates him]].
** Something less creepy: "If the saying 'You are what you eat' is really true, then Lord Voldemort is a unicorn."
* A nightmarish version occurs in one of the novels in Andrey Livadny's ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' books, where a human ship arrives on a habitable world that does not appear to have any animal life. Then the humans get picked off one by one by strange [[VoluntaryShapeshifting shapeshifting]] creatures. In the end, all humans have been consumed, but the shapeshifters also absorb their memories along with their [=DNA=] and begin to think of themselves as human, not understanding why they are suddenly amorphous blobs able to form into anything they wish. Another novel has a scout ship re-discovering the planet only to realize the shapeshifters are intelligent. The captain of the scout ship doesn't care and wants to exterminate them in order to claim the planet and retire on the fortune (habitable worlds are extremely valuable). The protagonist manages to get rid of the captain and leave, wiping the location of the world from the navigation computer, so the creatures can live in peace.

* In ''[[Recap/DoctorWhoNewAdventuresHumanNature Human Nature]]'', one of the members of the Family is a [[VoluntaryShapeshifting shape-shifter]] who can imitate any animal he's eaten part of, including humans. If he does it while they're alive, he can also gain their memories.

* In ''Literature/{{Mistborn}}'', the kandra are creatures who can take on the appearance of a person after consuming their bones. They do this for humans as a service for a [[AppliedPhlebotinum very specific kind of payment]]. They are literally contractually obligated not to kill humans, though. Their employers provide the corpse.
** Particularly skilled kandra can assume someone's form without having eaten them. They still need ''a'' skeleton, though, since they're basically {{Blob Monster}}s in their true forms and don't have any rigid bones of their own.
* Parodied in Creator/GKChesterton's ''Literature/TheNapoleonOfNottingHill'', where an extreme British nationalist who preaches [[Literature/AModestProposal cannibalism of non-British people]] discovers, to his horror, that this trope is true, and therefore he is now slowly turning into an Italian organ-grinder -- which is apparently the only type of edible foreigner he could find in London.

* Jasmine, on ''Series/{{Angel}}'', who had to eat people in order to heal herself and maintain her human appearance.
* The demon group "Brotherhood of Seven" in season 1 of ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' had to eat the heart and brain of a human/s every seven years in order to maintain their disguise.
* When the Wolf [[TrueStoryInMyUniverse from the fairy tale]] swallows the protagonists' grandma whole in ''[[{{Series/Charmed1998}} Charmed]]'', he automatically shapeshifts into her appearance, as a distillation of the original story.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E1SmithAndJones "Smith and Jones"]], the plasmavore already looks human, but has to drink human blood in order to scan as human.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In "The Voyage Home", there's a shapeshifting alien which assumes the form of the people it eats.
* A two-part episode on ''Series/{{Sliders}}'' involved the logistics behind moving a select portion of the population before their Earth is destroyed. It turns out that the man in charge has to ingest brain tissue from compatible donors due to treat a fungal brain infection. Injecting the tissue causes him to temporarily morph into the person while the donor goes into a coma. The list of people he handpicks to move on to the new world are all compatible; he intends to use them all to stay alive.

** There's a type of monster called ghouls - scavenging monsters that eat corpses and take on the memories and appearance of the last person it ate.

[[folder:Music]]
* German Band ''Knorkator'' has the song "Ick wer zun Schwein" (I turn into a pig). It's about a man who ate a really large steak all by himself, [[ArtisticLicenseBiology which causes his DNA to be rewritten and turn him into a pig]].

[[folder:Music Videos]]
* In the music video for "Music/{{Best Friend|2014}}" by Music/FosterThePeople, a supermodel devours other supermodels whole and alive and so she can take on desired aspects of their appearance and further her career. Over the course of the video she eats a woman for her beauty mark, another so she can have her [[LegFocus legs]] among others. However over time with all the clashing body proportions she starts to look less like a beautiful woman and more like a [[BodyHorror spindly, freakishly tall, disproportioned alien.]] By the video's end she winds up barfing up the dress of a woman she had eaten, chokes on it, loses her newly acquired features, and dies on the catwalk.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Puppet Shows]]
* In one ''Series/SesameStreet'' sketch, Cookie Monster goes on a cookie binge and falls asleep. In his dream, he is confronted with a former monster who loved cookies so much that he literally became a Monster Cookie.
[[/folder]]

* ''TabletopGame/CallOfCthulhu''. The Consume Likeness spell allows a sorcerer to take the form of a dead person by eating their body.

-->'''The Emperor''':[[AC:Wow [[spoiler:Rogal]]. Way to bring down the fucking hammer.]]

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'', [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-974 SCP-974 ("Treehouse Predator")]]. While in its standard form, after SCP-974 kills and eats a child of age 6-12 it will change to that child's form over a period of 10-12 days. In its enhanced form it can kill and devour adult human beings and take their form in a short period of time.

* PlayedForLaughs in Creator/FranciscoIbanez's ''Pepe Gotera y Otilio, chapuzas a domicilio''. Otilio is known to be a BigEater, and on an occasion when he eats a tortoise, he starts walking really slowly on all fours much like an actual tortoise would do. Pepe then hurts his foot by kicking him out of frustration, which prompts Otilio to reveal that he also ate the tortoise's shell, which hardened his body.