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Our Werebeasts Are Different
(aka: Were Rabbit)

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Our Werebeasts Are Different (trope)

"I'm looking forward to two fantastic monthly events now. One of which turns me into a vicious monster and the other one into a were-cat."
Katie McBride, The Wotch

Werebeasts are creatures that can transform between a human (or at least humanoid) form and an animal or animal-like form. They are also known as "therianthropes", "werecreatures" or "were-animals". The prefix "were" comes from the Old English word "wer", meaning "man".note  The classy term for this is therianthropy, from the Greek words for "beast" ("therion") and "human" ("anthropos"). Such creatures can be found in the mythology of many cultures, and the myths have inspired the frequent use of werebeasts in modern Speculative Fiction, particularly Fantasy and Horror.

By far the most common form of werebeast depicted in fiction inspired by European folklore is the werewolf, but many stories use other animals as the basis of their werebeasts. Some of these are inspired by pre-existing mythologies and others are purely the invention of the authors. Other than wolves, potentially dangerous predatory mammals such as big cats, hyenas and bears are the most frequently depicted werebeasts, but many other types of creature have been used as the basis of a werebeast — wereboars and wererats, for instance, are far from unheard of. Sometimes authors use normally harmless creatures as the basis of a werecreature for the sake of Rule of Cute or Rule of Funny. Some works will even use extremely unconventional ideas such as werecars. It should also be noted that while werebeasts normally have humanoid shapes as their default form, sometimes a work will reverse the order and make a werebeast an animal that transforms into a human. The wolf version of this is sometimes called a "wolfwere". Taking this to it's logical conclusion and featuring something like, say, an ant that turns into a spider or a mushroom that turns into a mold is however, unheard of.

Werebeasts often have variations and characteristics similar to those listed on the Werewolf Analysis Page. For more information see The Other Wiki Therianthropy page.

This is a Sub-Trope to Our Monsters Are Different and Animorphism.

Super-Trope for therianthrope tropes, like Our Werewolves Are Different, Selkies and Wereseals and Weredragon. The preference for examples on this trope is for creatures explicitly called "were", however very similar cases of human-animal transformation can also be listed, if the nature of the character or creature is strongly linked to a specific animal species. Creatures that can turn into any sort of creature or multiple types of creatures should not be listed here, but on the pages for Voluntary Shapeshifting or Animorphism.

Related Tropes:

  • Skin Walker is a Native American multi-animal shape-shifter capable of taking other human forms.
  • Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism is for information on other tropes related to the combination of human and animal features and Shapeshifting for other tropes related to changing form.
  • Werebeast Tropes lists tropes related to werebeasts, including werewolves.
  • Yōkai are Japanese supernatural creatures that are sometimes depicted as having features similar to werebeasts. Examples of these should be listed under that trope.


Example subpages


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    Art 
  • Beast Fables: The lands of Urvara are inhabited by werebeasts (also known as werefolk, beastfolk, or werepeople), who have a human form and a beast (anthropomorphic land animal) form. They usually transform into their beast forms involuntarily when triggered by certain "catalysts", such as strong emotions, the taste of raw meat, or entering a certain environment. However, it's possible for werebeasts to learn how to shapeshift at will.

    Comic Books 
  • 2000 AD published a bizarre story called I Was a Teenage Tax Consultant to parody I Was a Teenage Werewolf. A teenager is bitten by a rabid tax consultant and transforms into a red tape-obsessed bureaucrat at night.
  • The DCU:
    • Batman: Man-Bat (Kirk Langstrom) is a Mad Scientist who experimented on himself with a serum that causes him to randomly transform into a monstrous were-bat. Sometimes his wife Francine is also infected with the serum. From the 2000s on, the League of Assassins has managed to get hold of the formula and is manufacturing and using it on an industrial scale.
    • The Batman Vampire novel Bloodstorm features Selina Kyle as a were-cat after she is bitten by a vampire, with Batman's occult expert Ariane speculating that were-creatures turn into their totem animals, with wolves just being the most common.
    • Tangent Comics has Wildcat, a teenage girl who transforms into a feral werecat when her handler says the word "Shazam".
    • Wonder Woman: The original version of the Cheetah was a normal woman who wore a cheetah costume, but Wonder Woman (1987) revamps her as an evil archaelogist named Barbara Minerva whose greed leads to her seeking out an African tribe whose guardian has the powers of a cheetah. She partakes in a ritual that grants her this guardian's powers, transforming her into a cheetah-human hybrid. Unfortunately, the ritual requires the host of the powers to be a virgin, which Barbara is not — as a result, she experiences severe pain and physical disability while in her human form and bloodthirsty euphoria while in her cat form.
  • Gold Digger (Antarctic Press): One of the main characters is one of the last were-cheetahs. Other weres include lions, tigers, rats, and (of course) wolves. Each subspecies is able to shift between human, animal, and a Wolf Man-style hybrid form. All of the weres retain their rationality in each of their forms, although they need to learn to control their instincts during childhood. Although the weres are separate species, they are capable of spreading thirianthropy to humans as a disease; they were originally created by a wizard as Super Soldiers before said wizard was betrayed. They have a Healing Factor for everything except attacks by another were, silver, magic, and Dwarven Steel.
  • iZombie: Thropes are created when the soul of an animal becomes tangled into the body of a human, creating a being who retains their minds and memories but tangled with the emotional urges of the animal, and who shifts into a hybrid form during the full moon. Gwen's nerd friend, Scott, touched a dying terrier, and transforms on a full moon, but has no significant personality change or bloodlust during the transformation. Ubasti, Amon's leopard, is a thrope so ancient that, after millennia of sharing a leopard's soul, she can only take human form once a year.
  • Marvel Universe:
    • "The Cat" was once just a costumed heroine, but a ritual was performed on her, transforming her into the werecat Tigra, who would go on to appear in The Avengers. Her costume was later inherited by Hellcat of The Defenders. There's a tug-of-war between her human and feline instincts and which has the upper hand varies based on a number of factors — repressing herself strengthens her cat side until it overwhelms her human behavior in one story, while in another, pregnancy seems to make her act more human (i.e., craving the same foods her mother did when she was pregnant). One day, she's able to fly interstellar spacecraft; the next, she's chasing and eating mice and unable to speak (except in cat noises).
    • Ursa Major is a Russian superhero (real name: Major Mikhail Ursus) able to turn into a humanoid bear.
    • Mighty Avengers has Ninja Were-Snakes, followed shortly by Were-Slugs, Were-Bugs, Were-Rhinos, Were-Octopi, Were-Honey-Badgers, Were-Roosters and Were-Lamprey. Lampshaded by a caption:
      Yes. Ninja Were-Snakes. Don't say we never give you anything.
    • New Mutants: Catseye is a member of the Hellions and was meant as an Evil Counterpart to Wolfsbane. This eventually evolved into a Friendly Rivalry instead. She acts more animal-like than Wolfsbane (or really, any similar Marvel character except, again, Tigra when her powers are really misbehaving) and has been speculated to be a catlike creature who can transform into a human instead of the other way around, but it's not made explicit.
    • Spider-Man: Curt Connors, the Lizard, was a scientist whose experiments with harnessing reptilian regeneration for human use transformed him into a monstrous were-lizard. He is left oscillating between his original human self and the atavistic predator of the Lizard persona, which rises up to take control of his body when he experiences strong emotions, physical danger, or simply a lapse in self-control. His transitions into the Lizard proper are also accompanied by a physical shift from his human body into a hulking reptilian form, a process that is agonizing for him. Most of his storylines involve him trying to purge himself of the beast, which typically fails; trying to suppress, merge with, or control it, which has better if not always permanent results; or fully succumbing to the reptile and becoming a feral monster stalking the New York sewers, which usually leads to an "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight against Spider-Man.
    • The Thing: Gator Grant can shift between a regular human form and the form of a humanoid alligator. At least once, his transformation was allowed to continue, and he turned into regular alligator. It did not last.
    • X-Men: Karl Lykos a.k.a. Sauron is a were-pterosaur, being formerly a human who was bitten by a Savage Land pterosaur and got mutated into a humanoid pterosaur. His shapeshifting works based on his energy drain power; in human form, he needs to drain people to survive (it's not fatal), but if he drains a mutant's power, he turns into his pterosaur form until it's used up.
  • In the Furry Comic Red Shetland, Eon is one of these (technically) of the Animal-Into-Man variety. Or... normal horse into bi-pedal walking/talking horse. It's a curse thing.
  • Tarot: Witch of the Black Rose has a were-cat named Boo Cat, who's in sexual relationships with a Vampire named Liquorice Dust as well as the title witch. At least 3 of the vampire's friends don't mind, and have joined in. However, her introduction had a werewolf who had very different ideas on inter-species romances. It also featured an Anvilicious speech, a Vapor Wear Little Red Riding Hood costume, and an example of why you shouldn't try to force your tongue down the throat of an angry were-creature. Also, compared to the werewolf, the only male werebeast in the series, all of the female were-cats are more human-like.
  • Thrud the Barbarian features a werehamster. As expected, he's quite monstrous.
  • Vampirella: One of Vampirella's allies is Pantha/Sekhmet, an ancient Egyptian woman who can transform into a panther. There's some degree of Morphic Resonance as well, with her stripperiffic outfit (it's not clear if they're actually clothes or formed directly from her skin) containing cat patterns.

    Fan Works 
  • Codex Equus: There are a great many werebeast strains, which all vary considerably in function and animal. However, a common feature seems to be their transformed state's morality is dependent on morality of the first creature to have it, or at least the morality their curse forced on them.
  • Equestria: Across the Multiverse: The group comes across a universe were an evil wizard attempted to turn the mane six into his werebeast minions but the Elements of Harmony caused it to backfire and let them keep their morality and mind. It also changed their strain of the werebeast virus to change to reflect their morality in the infected's transformed states. Twilight is a Wereowl, Applejack is a Weredog, Rarity is a Werefox, Rainbow Dash is a Werecheetah, Pinkie Pie is a Weremonkey, and Fluttershy is a Wereskunk. They can transform whenever they please, but have to change at night, are only weak against specially enchanted silver bullets, and very powerful allies of the Alliance. Pinkie Pie infects their universe's Chrysalis while Fluttershy infects Ponyland's Kabuto, and all six infect mortally wounded soldiers during the Winter Wedding battle with their consent.
  • The Fluffy Folio: The Rolywere is a pillbug in its base form and a pillbug-like humanoid in its were-form. According to its flavortext, it is born from secrets and seeks to imbue them into objects.
  • Goonya Monster: Monstrous Hearts makes the game's Monsters into werebeasts that can transform whenever they want, but are stuck in their transformed states during a full moon. Being turned can result from a bite and a Monster potion, two bites from the same Monster, just the potion, or being born with special genes to have the form and awakening at a certain age (eighteen), with a few cases of individuas first transforming at a younger or older age than expected.
  • Harry Potter the First Nemea Leonthrope: Harry attains the ability to transform into a Nemean Lion, either a full animal or a lion-man hybrid. These type of mage-magical animal hybrids are known as Theonthropes, with several types of them already existing in universe, such as a Raven-themed subspecies in Germany.
  • A Hedgehog of Many Colors: WereMobians are their own species separate from the usual Mobian race. There are two different classifications, the Demi-WereMobian (Only transforms at night, like the typical lycanthrope) and True WereMobian (Can transform at any time of day, yet have to be transformed at night), which share the trait of stretchy arms, with other traits depending on the species of Mobian they are. Tomoya the Volt is half True WereMobian (Referred to in-story as a "True Were"). They turn others into Weres by biting them, by which the affected will permanently become a Demi-Were. They also once worked alongside Dark Gaia.
  • Hero Time: In "Cat Girl," Nyancy undergoes a Painful Transformation into a werecat, which the Plumbers later tell her is a direct result of her Unstable Genetic Code. Her eyes are large and slitted like a cat's. Her body is covered in black-and-purple fur, which includes purple whiskers. She has razor-sharp claws and fangs. Her ears are large and pointed. Finally, she has a long, bushy tail. During her friendly sparring match with Jermaine as Blitzwolfer, she displays Super-Speed and Super-Strength on par with his. After that, she's able to change back to her normal human self with a bit of extra concentration.
  • I Was a Middle-Aged Weretoon deals with the idea of weretoons, people (and animals) who can transform into cartoonish, slapstick versions of themselves.
  • The Keys Stand Alone: The Soft World: The minor character Bayr is a gigantic werebear and proudly shows off his bear form to George. George, who hasn't bothered to tell the guy that he's an unlimited shapeshifter who can easily turn into a dragon, is not at all impressed, though he pretends to be.
  • The Land of Dragons and Dungeons: The Lunar Lord Regulus, mistress of the hunt and wild places, is associated with lycanthropes and the origin of many of their kind. In the story, the characters come across an area of the Greenweald Forest that serves as the hunting ground of a pack of werelynxes, who rampage through it when their patron's moon is full and devour anything that they can catch.
  • Principal Celestia Hunts the Undead:
    • Werewolves are vulnerable to silver, are between three and five hundred pounds of berserk muscle when transformed, and are apparently enough of a problem for full-time werewolf hunters to exist.
    • Fluttershy turns out to be a were-manatee, who was turned as a child in order to save her from drowning. She can transform of her own free will most of the time, but if she's in water during the full moon, the transformation automatically kicks in and her manatee side takes over. Meaning that she's suddenly an enormous sea creature that can only think about gorging itself on sea-grass. Sunset is rather dumbfounded by the whole thing, but accepting of her friend's secret.
  • In Rise of the Galeforces, a The Incredibles crossover fanfiction, the Author Avatar Adam Squall is a were-Pteranodon.
  • The Shiloh Series combines cat shifters and Emergency!. The shifters are usually born with the ability, but humans can be infected by a bite or sexual intercourse, as Chet and Johnny are. The transformation process is something that only some humans can survive into the final stage, which involves the skin becoming transparent and then breaking to reveal the new feline form. Those who live long enough to become "brought-ins" are stuck for 72 hours, then can shift freely. Most of this shifters live in a communal compound for their own safety, but some are "lost", living outside and not knowing they can shift. They are telepathic when shifted, and some humans, like Roy, can hear and speak to them. They have a group of elite warriors called Haunters who battle rogues, and there is a group of rogue shifters called Maneaters. Parents or older siblings can choose a bride for a young shifter if they don't approve of the young one's choice. Fights over this are settled by the Right of Combat, a sort of Combat by Champion. They don't take kindly to rogues and a woman who kills humans and nearly kills Chet is executed when she is caught. Brought-ins are encouraged to pair up quickly, as a shifter's sex drive is more intense than a human's.
  • Vow of Nudity: Ukhetsep is cursed to turn into a werecobra whenever he ends combat, usually resulting in him assaulting his teammates if there aren't any enemies left to attack.
  • Voyages of the Wild Sea Horse: Chapter 6 asks the question of "what happens if you try to mix the distinctly different magics of Jusenkyo Curses and Zoan Devil Fruits?" Chapter 7 answers it: the fused magics compromise, causing the individual to have four forms (pure human, "demibeast", hybrid and animal) but only being able to access their demibeast, hybrid and animal forms after having been splashed with cold water; hot water restores them to their fully human form, but prevents them from using their Voluntary Shapeshifting abilities until a splash of cold water reverts them to demibeast form. Additionally, seaprism stone not only has its standard debilitating effects, but also forces them into their beast form until they get away from the stone. They also retain the standard Super Drowning Skills of any Devil Fruit user, with the addendum that any water deep enough to make them helpless will also force them into their full beast form, which makes them more vulnerable to drowning. Finally, the non-human forms of such an individual are a fusion of their Devil Fruit's associated creature, and the creature of their Jusenkyo form. The individual who proves all this? The Spring of Drowned Cat-cursed Shampoo, who eats the Rabbit-Rabbit Zoan and so becomes a cabbit.
  • Why and were: The dynamic balance of the city of Ankh-Morpork is upset by new arrivals, diplomatic staff accredited to an Howondalandian Embassy. For a long time, Angua von Uberwald has considered her own kind to be the only were-creatures still living on the Disc. But new arrivals from Darkest Howondaland prove her to be utterly wrong. The axiom about two kinds of creatures fighting like cat and dog is proven to be literally correct when Werewolf meets Wereleopard for the first time. Ankh-Morpork is suddenly a far more interesting — and dangerous — place to live in. Also, werewolves are born shapeshifters, whilst wereleopards use magical rituals that involve binding an animal's spirit to a human host to create an enchanted skin, which they don in order to assume beast-shape and remove to resume human-shape. Except that the ritual & enchanted pelt is actually how all shapeshifters do it or originally did it; way back in ancient history, werewolves managed to breed shapeshifting into an inherent ability through a selective breeding program of wolf-shifters with each other, with humans and with wolves; they then used this ability to drive off or slay the other shapeshifter tribes, then told themselves they are and were the only shifting species. The fic ends revealing the birth of the first natural-shifter wereleopard in Howondalaand.
  • A Wing and a Were reimagines Zootopia, already a World of Funny Animals, with supernatural creatures such as vampires and "Weres", essentially that animal but larger and more ferocious. Weres have a separate mind known as the "Beast", which take control while transformed.

    Music 
  • Flippy T. Fishead had a song about becoming a Werecow. There is another werecow which he is engaged to (who is female when human, and whom he "turned"). The how-and-why of the male-to-female transformation is not addressed.
  • The music video "Thriller" by Michael Jackson has Michael turn into a werecat. He also changed to and from a panther in the hyperextended "Black or White" video.
  • Similarly enough, the Bjork music video Hunter had her changing back and forth into a bear and back into herself. Although she seemed to be holding back her bear transformation.
  • Roky Erickson's "It's a cold night for alligators" mentions that people turn into alligators in the fog.
  • Radioactive Chicken Heads' "Cluck at the Moon" is a 50's-60's-style horror punk tune that involves a werechicken.

    Myths and Religion 
  • In French-Canadian mythology, the therianthrope is usually a man who has failed to perform his religious duties for several years straight, often seven. They were then either cursed to take an animal form (either always or only at night) until freed. In most case, the curse can be broken by a neighbor pricking the were's skin with a needle. Legends have been recorded involving people turning into wolves (either full wolves, or a being with the normal form of a wolf but walking on two legs), dogs, hellhounds, cats, imps, trees and at least one pig.
  • The "Animal Wife" motif which has an animal shed its clothes and become a beautiful woman and often be taken as (or become) the wife of an ordinary human. This includes beings with specific names (selkies in Iceland, Scotland and Ireland, swan-maidens in Germany, Russia and other areas outside of Europe), but most are just known by their animal form. Examples include doves (Italy), wolves (Croatia), buffalo (Africa) and Cranes (Japan). It also has crossed over to other beings such as (in Japan) divine ones (Tennin, literally "Heavenly Being").
  • Stikini from Native American Mythology are witches who turn into owls by vomiting out their organs and leaving them on a tree and eat hearts. They can be killed by burning the organs or being shot by a blessed arrow.

    Radio 

    Toys 
  • Monster High features no fewer than five named werecats: Toralei (a tiger-like calico), her girl posse Meowlody and Purrsephone (house cats), the pop star Catty Noir (black cat), and the Scarisian artist Catrine DeMew (who has a white coat).
    • Batsy Claro is the daughter of the white vampire bat; emphasis on bat. She's not a vampire, she's a werebat, with acute hearing, echolocation powers, and a preference for blood...oranges.
    • Mouscedes King, daughter of the Rat King, is a wererat, with the ears, tail, teeth, claws, fur, and eyes to go with the theme.
    • G3 introduces several more esoteric werebeasts, including a wereskunk, werefox, werebear, weretiger, and wererabbit. Apparently they tend to get less recognition compared to werewolves and werecats.

    Web Originals 
  • Brazilian YouTube channel AspieKoRnWolf17 has several videos on his channel of characters (mostly ones from Object Shows such as Battle for Dream Island, Inanimate Insanity and Object Terror) turning into werewolves, but he also has videos of transformations into were-animals such as the were-dog, were-fox, were-cat and even the were-rabbit.
  • DSBT InsaniT: The Monster forms of Andy, Bill, and Martha.
  • Canadian YouTube channel GTW could very well be considered the Spiritual Successor to the aforementioned AspieKoRnWolf17. He has a similar, if not the same art/video style as him (especially in his pre-2022 videos), and has also made videos of mostly characters from BFDI turning into random were-animals (even more so than the classic werewolf). Other than werewolves, other were-animal transformations he has made include were-chickens, were-monsters, were-bees, were-robots, were-spiders, were-rabbits, were-dogs, were-butterflies, were-foxes, were-sharks, and so on.
  • How to Hero has an entire entry on were-animals here
  • Nathan, the Author Avatar in the Monster World series by monstermaster13, is a weregrinch.
  • While Uzi's Absolute Solver transformation in the Murder Drones episode "Cabin Fever" can be connected to the vampiric Disassembly Drones, it's also eerily reminiscent of a werecreature, with a Painful Transformation, uncontrolled instinct, and overall feral behavior compared to the Disassembly Drones, complete with the transformation and rampage occurring under the equivalent to a full moon (albeit not directly connected). There's also V's aborted plan to kill her when she realizes this, which easily mirrors the Fur Against Fang trope.
  • In New Vindicators, there are several Neo-Sapiens who have powers that turn them into a humanoid animal. This ranges from Otso, who turns into a man-bear (and in an alternate universe, turns into a man-narwhal), to Doug Droll, who turns into a man-quail, and many more.
  • The Protectors of the Plot Continuum have had a number of were-somethings, in include Werewolves, werepenguins, weretigers, werehawks, and even a were-sea-anemone.
  • SCP Foundation:
    • SCP-2537 (Werebricks) is about, well, werebricks. They turn people by bludgeoning them instead of biting them, and can change whenever they want but will forcibly transform on a full moon. On a new moon, they all get together and try to build a bridge to... somewhere.
    • SCP-6090 (Therianthropy Virus) is a virus that infects both humans and animals. Infected animals attack humans under the full moon, but are otherwise unchanged. Infected humans are turned into werebeasts based on what animal infected them, freely able to switch between a "base form", which is human but with the head and tail of the relevant animal, and "feral form", which is basically just an animal form. With practice, some humans can manage intermediate forms as well. Infected humans are compelled to spread the infection under the full moon, but the strength of this compulsion varies from person to person, and can often be easily resisted. The virus was made by the fey, and an early account of their experiments with it can be found in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Therianthrope, Therianthropy, Werebeast, Werebeasts, Werecreatures, Therianthropes, Were Cat, Were Rabbit, Our Werecreatures Are Different, Werebeast Works

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The Were Rabbit

After his failed experiment, Wallace turns into a giant were rabbit on the night of the full moon, something that Victor, his dog and Gromit witness for themselves.

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