Basic Trope: Developing a resistance or immunity to something you're exposed to.
- Straight: Taylor develops features like gills when she's underwater and armored skin when she's in a fight.
- Exaggerated:
- Taylor develops fireproof skin, radiation resistance, and shockwave resistance when she's caught in a nuclear explosion.
- Taylor goes on to develop the power to breathe anything, eat anything, and counteract any power, weapon, or potential source of harm.
- Downplayed:
- Taylor can develop a resistance to diseases and poisons, but is still vulnerable to physical trauma.
- Taylor can adapt to something, but it's only temporary.
- Taylor can develop a counter to any martial arts move after seeing it in action once.
- Justified:
- Taylor is from a species that evolved in a hostile and constantly changing environment.
- Taylor is a mutant with unstable DNA.
- Taylor is a Physical God.
- Taylor was simply Born Lucky.
- Inverted:
- Taylor can change the state of her local environment whenever she's in danger her opponents whenever her attacks are stymied, (ex. the ability to Light 'em Up when fighting a Vampire.)
- Nemesis gains an adaptive attack that makes him a Man of Kryptonite to everything he comes across.
- Subverted: While her powers mean she can survive being shot, stabbed, and burned, Taylor can still die from suffocation.
- Double Subverted: Through repeated exposure training, where Taylor spends time in a low-oxygen or even vacuum environment, she eventually loses the need for breathing altogether.
- Parodied:
- Although her powers make her invincible to physical harm, Taylor dies from a peanut allergy.
- Taylor's adaptational power manifests itself in weird, comical ways. For example, while underwater, she develops a cartoony goldfish head, and when she's in the middle of a busy road, her hands become "Stop" signs.
- Zig Zagged:
- Taylor can adapt to most stimuli, but a few things will always harm her.
- Taylor ''claims'' she has an adaptive ability, but whenever she's put in any danger, the only ability demonstrated is the ability to teleport to the next state. When she's finally backed into a corner through Teleport Interdiction it turns out she can develop new abilities once pressed. It's just that her teleportation was so efficient that she didn't need to adapt to anything until this point.
- Averted: Taylor remains vulnerable to harm.
- Enforced: Because Taylor can adapt to anything, new monsters have to be made up to counter her. More monsters means more action figures to sell.
- Lampshaded: "Can't hurt me the same way twice!"
- Invoked: An outside force deliberately modifies Taylor to counter anything that's previously hurt her.
- Exploited: Taylor plans to use her ability to become the Ultimate Lifeform.
- Defied: "She can't adapt if she's in a million pieces. Get the bombs!"
- Discussed: "If she adapts to everything, how are we supposed to beat her?"
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: Attacks are shown to work less on Taylor the more they're used on her.
- Deconstructed:
- Taylor's powers cause her to lose empathy for other people, seeing them as weaklings not even worthy of her attention. She abandons her role as a superhero as a result.
- Taylor's powers gradually stack on one-another, turning her into a giant immobile blob of countless adaptations. Since she's immune to all harm, there's no way to put her out of her misery.
- Reconstructed:
- Her mind develops an adaptation against her misanthropic outlook, reigniting her desire to help people.
- She adapts by developing a new body and transfers her consciousness into it.
- Played For Laughs: Taylor goes around asking random people to stab her, shoot her, run her over, set her on fire, drown her, and push her off buildings just so she can show off her power.
- Played For Drama: Taylor begins to wonder if her power will make her immortal, leading to her actively searching for something she cannot adapt to.
Back to Adaptive Ability
