Morphic Resonance/Playing With

Basic Trope: When someone shapeshifts, the appearance of their new form has some traits in common with their normal one.

• Straight: A brown haired person, Alice, changes form into a dog that has brown fur.
• Exaggerated: Alice shapeshifts into a dog, but still has a human head.
  • Alice's dog form has brown hair, except for the dog's torso, which is the same color and pattern as Alice's clothes, and also has an ear piercing and a tattoo just like Alice.
• Downplayed: Alice's dog form has a small scar under her jaw just like Alice's human form.
• Justified: The rule of the Functional Magic are that something has to remain the same for them to be able to return to their original form.
• Inverted: The Applied Phlebotinum is only supposed to change certain aspects like age, size, gender, but the new form has different unrelated features like eye or hair color anyway.
• Subverted: A black dog is shown which the audience or a character is lead to believe is a black-haired shapeshifter in disguise, but it was really a different blond shapeshifter.
• Double Subverted: The blond shapeshifter isn't a natural blond...
• Parodied: A shapeshifter's resemblance to his old form leads people to instantly figuring out that he's in disguise and telling him how bad his skills at shapeshifting are.
• Deconstructed: The shapeshifter's enemies pick up on the fact that his hair color always remains the same. Since the shapeshifter has green hair, he sticks out like a sore thumb, no matter what form he takes. The shapeshifter is tragically gunned down.
• Reconstructed: The shapeshifter catches on that his opponents have caught on and begins sending in miscellaneous animals in his stead, all dyed green to make them look like his shifted forms. Confusion ensues.
  • Alternatively, Amazing Technicolor Wildlife is common in this world, so the revelation isn't particularly helpful.
• Zig Zagged: The apparent identity of a werewolf is repeatedly shifted between someone with the same hair color and a different hair color.
  • The shapeshifter's opponents seize upon an animal that resembles him, but that's just a coincidence. The real shapeshifter goes unnoticed.
• Averted: A red haired person is turned into a dog with black fur.
• Enforced: "You need to visually indicate to the audience that this is someone taking a different form. Give both forms the same scar."
• Lampshaded: After one person changes into an animal in front of another, the other person question why he is still wearing his hat (answer: because it's awesome).
• Invoked: Someone needs a black dog, so they find someone with black hair and turn them into a dog.
  • Alice intentionally retains some traits of herself when shapeshifting so that her friends can recognize her.
• Defied: Someone turns into an animal but deliberately makes sure every feature of it is completely different, so no one can tell it's them.
  • Alternatively, they dye their hair before turning into a dog.
• Discussed: Two shapeshifters are talking to each other and mention how hard it is to avoid having no resemblance to their regular form.
• Conversed: One person asks another why people on TV that change shape always look slightly similar to their real form even if it's supposed to be a disguise.

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Oddly enough, the Morphic Resonance page looks like an ordinary TV Tropes page even when transformed.