Basic Trope: A set of human footprints that gradually turn into animal footprints (or vice versa), used as an indication that they were made by some sort of animal-human shapeshifter such as a werecreature.
- Straight: After tracking Luna the werewolf, the heroes see a track of footprints that change from human to wolf, as well as Luna's damaged shoes.
- Exaggerated: The group discovers a whole lot of tracks of footprints that change from human to animal or vice versa, indicating that a lot of werecreatures had transformed there.
- Downplayed: There's only one place where Luna's footprints clearly indented, but there's a strong disturbance in where she transformed.
- Justified: Luna was simply going for a walk before forgetting it was the full moon, and ended up transforming in the middle of it.
- Inverted: The heroes manage to find wolf footprints that turn into a human's.
- Subverted: The two sets of footprints came from unrelated animals — Luna released the dog she was carrying before climbing a tree, causing the human footprints to stop abruptly just before the canine ones started.
- Double Subverted: The heroes walk away, happy to have debunked the werewolf rumors. Little do they know that the rumors were true, and a huge hairy figure is lurking behind them.
- Parodied: The odd placement of the footprints indicates Luna was somehow doing a Silly Walk mid-transformation.
- Zig-Zagged: ???
- Averted:
- There are no werecreatures.
- Luna never leaves tracks that switch from human to animal or vice versa.
- Enforced: In a children's show where Detectives Follow Footprints is a Once per Episode staple, there's no other way to show that the perpetrator is a werewolf and not a mundane canine or human troublemaker without spoiling the werewolf's identity too early.
- Lampshaded: "How can anyone still be walking during such a Painful Transformation?"
- Invoked:
- Luna tries to make these footprints so that her friends can find her more easily.
- Luna faked the footprints in order to prank her friends into thinking that there is a werewolf about.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Luna plans to clean her feet and go to surfaces that don't hold footprints easily before transforming, and tries to not move around during transformation. In cases where she doesn't quite succeed, her bestial side retains enough cunning and knowledge of tracking to search for her own footprints and scuff them out before doing anything else.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: The heroes spot a trail starting with muddy canine paw prints. Instead of showing the entire trail, the camera jump cuts to Luna's human feet covered in the same type of mud, then pans up to show the heroes raising their eyebrows at Luna as she says "I Can Explain"
Back to Human-to-Werewolf Footprints
