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6%% This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please add your example in the proper place. Thanks!
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13->''"Seen as unsavory, the hunters were never allowed in town -- until one night they vanished."\
14"The boot prints became paw prints, and they led right back into town."''
15-->-- ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=222124 Grizzled Outcasts/Krallenhorde Wantons]] flavor text
16
17Whenever there's a werewolf, or werepanther, or [[WesternAnimation/TheCurseOfTheWereRabbit were-rabbit]], or [[OurWerebeastsAreDifferent were]]-''[[OurWerebeastsAreDifferent whatever]]'', and this has not been made clear to the characters yet, there has to be at least one scene in which one of the human characters discovers a set of animal footprints which change into human footprints (or vice versa) as the characters follow them along. A great way to set up tension.
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19If the human footprints started as clearly done by shoed feet, they might find his shoes discarded or torn apart nearby, when not his entire outfit [[ClothingDamage turned into shreds]].
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21Of course, there's a small amount of FridgeLogic involved in this trope, as werewolves are rarely if ever depicted as walking during their transformation. Either they're standing in place or hunched on all fours.
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23See also WolfMan, OurWerewolvesAreDifferent and OurWerebeastsAreDifferent.
24
25May overlap with FootprintsOfMuck.
26
27----
28!!Examples:
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30[[foldercontrol]]
31
32[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
33* Wolves in ''Anime/WolfsRain'' are a variant that [[HolographicDisguise project]] {{Human Disguise}}s without actually transforming. So instead of the footprints changing along the trail, they always leave wolf footprints that don't match their apparent source.
34[[/folder]]
35
36[[folder:Comic Books]]
37* ''ComicBook/ShamansTears'': Not a werewolf but another form of transformation. When Jon Sable is tracking Joshua Brand through the sewers, he is confused when Joshua's footprints change from boots to moccasins. This is because Joshua has magically transformed into his costumed identity.
38[[/folder]]
39
40[[folder:Films -- Animation]]
41* Sent up (along with many other HorrorTropes) in ''WesternAnimation/WallaceAndGromit: WesternAnimation/TheCurseOfTheWereRabbit''; albeit {{inverted|Trope}}. [[spoiler:Gromit sees the were-rabbit prints revert to ''human'' ones...and how they lead right into Wallace's room.]]
42[[/folder]]
43
44[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
45* Done in ''Film/CatPeople'' to show werepanther-to-human footprints. The FootprintsOfMuck change from pawprints to tracks left by what are apparently [[MagicPants magic high-heeled shoes]].
46* ''Film/CryOfTheWerewolf'' shows the pivotal event in the backstory, Marie LaTour murdering her husband, as a result of this. The husband found suspicious wolf prints entering their house and followed them right up to her, upon which she promptly turned back into a Werewolf and then mauled him to death before fleeing. Her descendant [[DarkActionGirl Celeste]] returns to the crime scene years later to prevent a book about the incident from being published.
47* Done in the movie ''Film/DeadBirds'', as evidence of the children turning into ''Franchise/SilentHill''-style abominations.
48* In ''Film/HarryPotterAndThePrisonerOfAzkaban'', the camera follows a set of dog footprints up to the spot where the now-human Sirius Black is standing.
49* In ''Film/MyFavoriteMartian'', while a group of officials are investigating the site where Uncle Martin crashed, they see the footprints he left following taking his nerplex, which go from quadruped to biped and realize he's taking a human form.
50* Featured in the film ''Film/{{Skinwalkers}}'', where a Navajo serial-killer uses it as a psychological aspect in his attacks on shamans.
51* First done in ''Film/{{The Wolf Man|1941}}'' during one of Lawrence's transformations.
52[[/folder]]
53
54[[folder:Folklore]]
55* Folklore about witches who turn into hares sometimes involve a hunter following rabbit tracks that turn into human footprints.
56[[/folder]]
57
58[[folder:Literature]]
59* ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'': When the Animorphs are on a beach and realize that Controllers are closing in on them, everyone's first instinct is to morph to seagulls and escape -- except Marco, who reminds the others that if they did that, they'd leave human to bird footprints in the sand. Instead, they run into the water and morph to fish.
60* In a campfire story of unknown authorship, generally known as "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf," the titular boy tries and fails to fake these. The person he shows them to notices that not only do the prints switch immediately from human to werewolf, they switch from left foot to right foot.
61* Used in one Franchise/CthulhuMythos story, where Nyarlathotep takes the form of a colleague of the protagonist. The protagonist realises something is amiss when he finds his friend's clothes stewn around outside the house and footprints that gradually change from human prints to something left by an enormous creature clearly not from this world.
62* Played as a TearJerker moment in Creator/GuyGavrielKay's ''Literature/TheFionavarTapestry'', when one character enters the long-abandoned tower in which the LoveInterest of a [[LoveMakesYouEvil now-evil]] [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent werewolf]] character once lived. He finds her bed piled high with flowers, and sees footprints in the dust - and the tracks of the giant wolf who walked away.
63* In ''Literature/TheUnderneath'', Hawk Man discovers Night Song's footprints change when she transforms back from a human into a snake. Given that [[ShapeshifterModeLock she can only turn into a human]] [[OhCrap once in her life...]]
64* Done very well in Creator/AlgernonBlackwood's ''The Wendigo'', where the prints of a man being dragged off by the monster become a copy of the monster's footprints -- and grow ''further apart'', until eventually they disappear.
65[[/folder]]
66
67[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
68* The very low-budget ''Series/{{Animorphs}}'' TV series featured this at least once to show how Ax got through a locked door. Human sneakerprints yielded to Andalite hoofprints to lizard tracks that went under the door, then hoofprints again, then sneakers and [[CoconutSuperpowers Ax in human form]]. All in such clear black prints that it looked like he'd paused every couple of steps to dip the relevant appendages in tar.
69* The [[FootprintsOfMuck muddy wolf paws to human footprints]] scenario was also featured in the ''Series/FearItself'' story "Something With Bite."
70* In ''Series/OnceUponATime'', when Snow White and Red Riding Hood are tracking the wolf, the wolfprints eventually turn into bootprints...leading right to the window where Red's boyfriend always shows up.
71* Used in ''Series/TeenWolf'', except as photographs of a beast-like figure in one, an then a human-like figure in another.
72* ''Series/TheXFiles'':
73** The discovery of Tooms' stretched-out fingerprint in "[[Recap/TheXFilesS01E03Squeeze Squeeze]]" is a variant.
74** In "[[Recap/TheXFilesS01E19Shapes Shapes]]", despite normally suffering from a horrible transformation into a beast, the tracks clearly change.
75* ''Series/LostTapes'': A typical example occurs in "Skinwalker", but not in "Werewolf" or other episodes involving shapeshifters, interestingly enough. A pair of men at Skinwalker Ranch in New Mexico are investigating a coyote problem and finds pawprints in the dirt which turn into human footprints. There's even a transitional footprint where it looks human but still has clawmarks at the end of the toes.
76[[/folder]]
77
78[[folder:Music]]
79* The song "Became" by Music/{{Atmosphere}} is a rare musical example. The narrator is camping with an unspecified close friend. He wakes up in the snowy morning to find that his friend is missing. He follows his friend's tracks...when he notices several wolf tracks following his friend's tracks. The narrator panics, thinking that this meant his friend was stalked and chased by wolves. Then he comes to a clearing in the woods where his friend's footprints disappear, replaced by a wolf's footprints (implying the friend was running ''with'' the wolves and transformed).
80* The 'folksong' "The Grisly Bride" doesn't specify that a werewolf specifically is at issue, but the lines run "his angry mind was gone, for where a two footed track gave out, a four footed track led on. Her night dress lay on the snow as it would on a bed sheet, and the track that led from where it lay was ne'er of human feet". The song ends with "an empty bedstead still waits for him, as he lies in a crimson tide. Beware beware all trapper men; beware of the grisly bride". Song possibly by Cynthia [=McQuillin=] but appears in regional variants.
81[[/folder]]
82
83[[folder:Video Games]]
84* When Beffica and Gramble witness a mysterious creature breaking into town in ''VideoGame/{{Bugsnax}}'', one of the pieces of evidence you can discover is pawprints (in this case, the "human" equivalent as everyone is a muppet-like creature) leading to the outhouse and nondescript circles leading out (which the flavor text helpfully identifies for you as bugsnax tracks).
85[[/folder]]
86
87[[folder:Web Animation]]
88* ''WebAnimation/RWBYFairyTales: Episode 3 about the two Faunus origin stories, and opens with ''The Shallow Sea''. The first scene follows a line of footprints in the sand from the water's edge, showing the transformation from human footprints into paw prints. This is a visual summary of how the Shallow Sea transformed humans into the first [[LittleBitBeastly Faunus]].
89[[/folder]]
90
91[[folder:Web Comics]]
92* In ''Webcomic/ParadigmShift'', the construction site has human footprints going into the corner where the vagrant was seen sleeping, but animal prints coming out.
93[[/folder]]
94
95[[folder:Western Animation]]
96* In the ''WesternAnimation/AceVentura'' cartoon series episode "Howl Of The Weremoose" there's a scene where Ace follows a trail of moose hoofprints that turn into human footprints.
97* In the "Moonlight Madness" episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'', Aladdin and Iago come across a young lady's footprints which gradually change into those of a jackal. This leads the two of them to think that the strange woman who's been trying to scare them away [[MistakenForOwnMurderer has just been]] ''[[MistakenForOwnMurderer eaten]]'' [[MistakenForOwnMurderer by a jackal, instead of realizing that she]] ''[[MistakenForOwnMurderer is]]'' [[MistakenForOwnMurderer said jackal]].
98* In the ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode "Finances With Wolves" an encounter with a wolf convinces Steve that he's becoming a werewolf. This fear is reinforced when he wakes up to find bloodstained wolf prints in his bedroom. But actually the prints were left by the ''real'' wolf, which Roger is attempting to keep as a pet.
99* ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerb'':
100** One of the Halloween episodes, "That's the Spirit", has a scene where Doofenshmirtz looks back at a muddy trail of hoof prints that shift into human foot prints.
101** PlayedWith: In ''Night Of the Living Pharmacist", the opening shows ordinary foot prints turn into Doof's foot prints. And then showing Perry's foot prints turning into Doof's foot prints.
102* There was a scene from the 1960s ''WesternAnimation/{{Popeye}}'' TV episode "The Whiffle Bird's Revenge" where the sailor follows a trail of wolf prints that are immediately replaced with [[MagicPants shoe prints]].
103%%* One of the {{Animated Adaptation}}s of ''Franchise/{{Zorro}}'' has an episode where a MagicalNativeAmerican child turned into a were-bull, with matching footprints at some point.
104* ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'': Discussed: in the episode "Gem Hunt", Steven and Connie are chasing after a [[WasOnceAMan Corrupted Gem]] and come across a destroyed field with sets of both humanoid boot prints and the monster's foot prints, seemingly switching between them. While setting up camp, Steven and Connie talk about the possibility that the Corrupted Gem is somehow trying to return to her original form, and maybe isn't as corrupted as they originally thought. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, this isn't the case: those boot prints belonged to ''[[BloodKnight Jasper]]'', who was also chasing after the Corrupted Gem to capture her.]]
105* ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfVoxMachina'': In "The Terror of Tal'Dorei, Part 1," Vox Machina discover a set of this kind of footprints while trying to hunt the beast that's been terrorizing the land. They shortly after find out that the beast is a blue dragon, which hands them a CurbStompBattle. [[spoiler: In Part 2, they find out that the blue dragon is a member of the Tal'Dorei Council, General Krieg.]]
106[[/folder]]

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