Adaptational Wimps in Fan Works.
Crossovers
- An accidental example with Exterminators/Exorcists in A Lamb In Hell due to Chapter 11, which involves a massive fight between The Lamb and an army of angels, being written before the Amazon release of Hazbin Hotel. In canon, Exorcists have no fear of dying due to their immunity to anything besides their own weapons and will gleefully dive into any fight without care. In the fanfic, Angel Dust and Husk are able to make an Exterminator flinch and shield herself from their attacks, something they would never consider doing normally.
- Most of the BlazBlue and Guilty Gear characters in Aura of the Azure are barely a scratch on there canon counterparts. While Ragna and Jin do have the potential to wield immense power, neither is an outright One-Man Army. Sol Badguy goes from being the most powerful Gear in his series to an incredibly strong human and a Beacon instructor. One of the more notable examples is Amane Nikishi, who gets downgraded to an above average Beacon student rather than an Overseer who surpasses even Rachel Alucard at her strongest. This is justified due to the power-scaling between BlazBlue and RWBY as well as the Age Lift of most characters. If they were as strong as they were in the games, then they would curb-stomp anyone who wasn't also from either BlazBlue or Guilty Gear.
- Ragna in BlazBlue Alternative: Remnant, while still powerful, notably lacks some of his strongest attacks from the games (Dead Spike and Devoured by Darkness), with him needing to be in what's basically his Unlimited Mode to even use them, where as canonically he could use them in his base form.
- Code Prime:
- In Code Geass canon, Gino's personal Knightmare Frame, the Tristan Divider, was one of the few Knightmare Frames that could transform. Word of God is that since the Tristan Divider in this fic wasn't made from a Cybertronian Protoform, it isn't capable of transforming.
- In Armada, the Skyboom Shield's power could be used by any cybertronian. In Code Prime, the Skyboom Shield is reimagined as a Relic of the Primes, and thus only a Prime can unleash its full power, while for anyone else, it can only act as a simple shield.
- A Different Childhood: Hal is still the annoying loser with an unrelenting, non-reciprocated crush on Roxanne, but this time he doesn't become a supervillain over it (partially because Megamind never meets Metro Man here and thus never gets to a position where he can give his powers to someone else). Once he quits the Channel 6 news in hopes that it'll get Roxanne's attention, he's never seen again.
- Fairy May Cry: Sabertooth is hit with this hard during the Grand Magic Games. Despite having Vergil as their top member, his direct lack of participation, as well as those from the other guilds, notably Fairy Tail and Mermaid Heel, benefitting from Adaptational Badass treatment, leads to them doing worse than in canon. The end of the third day has them in third place between Fairy Tail's two teams, compared to canon where they only lost the lead by Day 4. Then on the Naval Battle of Day 4, Minerva being a Sore Loser and attacking Lucy for making the event end in a draw causes her points to be halved, costing the guild the chance to get first place. Then the battle portion has Sting, Rogue, and Vergil losing to Dante, Natsu and Gajeel, putting Sabertooth firmly in third place behind Fairy Tail and Mermaid Heel. Then Vergil replaces Jiemma as guildmaster, taking him out of the Battle Royale, which ends in defeat for Sabertooth, who end up in third place overall with Fairy Tail in first and Mermaid Heel second.
- The Paradooms in Flashpoint 2: Advent Solaris. In the film they originate from they were capable of killing most of the DC Heroes' roster. In Advent Solaris such a notion is laughable as the Paradooms spend more time crying in pain than they do causing pain.
- Justified for two characters in Heroes of the New World due to them having just started their careers in their respective agencies; Koala has only just completed her Fishman Karate training and is tagging along with Sabo on one of her first missions, while Doll is an Ensign Newbie on her first assignment in the Marines. Both are a far cry from where they are in One Piece canon, where Koala is skilled enough to train others and is a high ranking officer in the Revolutionary Army, and Doll is a Vice-Admiral with her own G-Base and enough strength to destroy Pacifistas on her own.
- Maria Nitzchmann, aka Miho Nishizumi, in the Heimatfront series. In canon, Miho, while often meek and timid, is a capable strategist and quite knowledgeable about tanks, and leads her school to victory over many opponents, including her talented older sister. In this fic, an AU taking place in Germany during the war's last days, Maria, as a civilian, doesn't have the same experience that her Panzer ace brother does (only enough knowledge about tankery to get her in trouble if she's found out), and is generally lucky to even survive her battles.
- In canon, Darjeeling is a skilled tank commander who defeated Miho in both of their battles and got all the way to the semifinals of the tournament before losing to Kuromorimine. In the fic, Darjeeling of Orange is a civilian and a noncombatant.
- The Last Son: Rudy Jones is usually better known for being the Superman villain Parasite, who's able to drain the Man of Steel's powers (albeit temporarily) and use them for himself. In this crossover, his powers are limited to just copying abilities and work only on mutants and metahumans, but not on Kryptonians.
- In Legacy (Sekiro/Kimetsu no Yaiba), Wolf's skills have degraded after centuries without a worthy opponent to hone his skills against. While he's still a deadly warrior, he's not nearly as unstoppable as he once was and struggles against a single apparition. In addition, he has bequeathed the Shinobi Fang to Kiyoshi, leaving Wolf without an arm and the various Lazulite-enhanced tools he acquired throughout his journey. This is only relative to his original however; in the fic he's still one of the strongest beings in the story.
- Loud Ed Drama Edd exaggerates this. In his home series, although one of the scrawny kids, he could still do stuff that didn't require him using his strength, and even got into a fight with Eddy without too much injury
. In this fic, his weakness has been exaggerated to the point that he couldn't even lift a dodgeball. - In Neither a Bird nor a Plane, it's Deku!, this gets Zig Zagging with Izuku. On one hand, he's Kryptonian, with all of the Flying Brick powers that entails, making him easily among the strongest students in his year. On the other, he refused One For All, believing it to be wasted on him given that one of his powers is Super-Strength. So while he's packing more raw power than many Pro Heroes, he's still much slower and less powerful than the likes of All Might, compared to his canon counterpart's ability to use an All Might-level blow at the cost of breaking a limb.
- Because the setting of Nothing is Impossible is more grounded than the various series it crosses over, the outright superhuman characters are fairly downplayed.
- Shego's origin as a Super-Soldier sees her original origin of gaining powers from a meteor as Adapted Out. While she still has her Charles Atlas Superpower and armed/unarmed combat skills, she completely lacks her Hand Blast powers and instead relies on conventional firearms and weaponry.
- Jenny/XJ-9 may still be a powerful robot, but she's designed to be an infiltration and execution unit in this story while her canon version was a One-Woman Army and a "Robotic Global Response Unit" with New Powers as the Plot Demands.
- Of Gemstones and Watches sees Team JNPR as normal college students as compared to RWBY, who's at Beacon.
- The Saiyans and Z Fighters in the There Was Once an Avenger From Krypton series, while powerful in their own right, are not the planet-busters they were in their home series nor do they have the potential to gain such power.
- Zig-zagged with Nero in The Silver Raven. On the one hand, his witch side gives him access to magic that his canon counterpart lacks, giving him a greater arsenal of abilities. On the other, his sword skills are less refined due to being self-taught and not growing up trained by the Order of the Sword. As far as weaponry goes, he also lacks Blue Rose altogether. This is best displayed during the confrontation with Echidna, where he required help from his aunt, the Blights, and Luz to defeat her, while his game counterpart was able to send her retreating single-handed and with relative ease at that.
- What if the Yeerks Were the Good Guys?: Thanks to a quantum virus from the Andalites, Yeerks have lost the ability to control hosts against their will.
- Blackbird: Thanks to her mother trading Laurel to the League in exchange for Sara's freedom, Sara is an Action Survivor at best, and has no desire to learn how to fight thanks to being so broken by her experiences the two years she was away from home.
- Vigilantes' Dawn: While Sara is still a badass as a rising detective, she is nowhere close to the uber-badass assassin her canon self is.
- In The Stalking Zuko Series, this happens with Ozai. As a leader, he isn't just someone who's made several irredeemably evil decisions, but he's also portrayed as essentially incompetent and mentally unsound, and he isn't that much more popular among his own subjects than he is among his enemies. As a bender, he's also portrayed as Unskilled, but Strong, with a noticeable imbalance in his bending.
- But Doctor, I Am Pagliacci:
- Since Harleen never became Harley Quinn, she doesn't have the combat skills or fighting experience her mainstream version had and is still a shrink.
- In this story, Superman killed Darkseid and took the Omega Effect for himself. While Darkseid is heavily subject to Depending on the Writer, this would be impossible in DC canon as the Darkseid Superman interacts with is actually an avatar of the true Darkseid, who can't be killed nor even leave his home reality without destroying the entire multiverse. Word of God confirms that this was a deliberate writing choice for the sake of the story.
- A downplayed example, but prior to getting his memories of the previous timeline restored, the Joker was less of a threat than he normally is, being considered a low-tier villain. Characters low threats like Punch and Jewelee think they could take him and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service once foiled one of his plots. Of course, then he gets his memories of the previous timeline restored...
- Barbara Gordon in Eight Count is merely Dr. Pamela Isley's secretary and personal assistant, having none of her canon fighting or detective abilities.
- Vow of the King:
- Candice and Bambietta are both somewhere between lieutenant and captain level, as opposed to canon where they easily thrashed captains.
- Vollständig in canon was stated to be stronger than Letzt Stil with none of the drawbacks. Vow changed it so that Vollständig is weaker than Letzt Stil, though it still doesn't have the drawback of burning out the Quincy who uses it.
- According to Unohana, Zaraki was a challenging opponent and might have defeated her in another century or two if he trained harder instead of stagnating. In the manga, Zaraki was explicitly much stronger than she was when they first fought and unconsciously sealed away most of his power in fear of never facing a strong opponent again.
- ''King's Ransom, Queen Sacrifice: The Regent is a significantly less dangerous threat than in canon. Once Kastor's attempt to usurp the Akielon throne is foiled and Akielos invades Vere in support of Laurent's claims, almost all his attempts to stop them prove ineffectual at best. The Veretian military is vastly inferior to the Akielon army, suppressing and persecuting the population only increases Laurent's popularity, and his last-ditch scheme of holding Ancel hostage is easily thwarted. It's implied that not having to work to cement his claim on the throne like he had to in canon caused his skills at manipulation and political acumen to deteriorate.
- Tales of the Monkey Queen: Starting with the Saiyan Saga, most of the fighters have much lower power levels than canon due to the author disliking how quickly the numbers got out of hand, though how much weaker each character is varies. Vegeta and Goku have half their canon power * when they fight whereas Frieza's power level in his first form is only one tenth as strong as canon and his full power is only one-thirtieth of canon*.
- In Dagger, nascent Evil Sorceress Raven is, inexplicably, unable to protect herself from physical bullying. The girl who has frozen time and polymorphed people into chickens by accident- to say nothing of her habitual use of pyro-and-telekinesis- is reduced to a sobbing mess when someone shoves her in the hallway.
- Seventh Endmost Vision: Cloud and Yuffie are both hit with this. Cloud was not only never a SOLDIER in this fic, he also wasn't experimented on, meaning he both lacks mako eyes and isn't that much more powerful than a standard grunt. Most of his deadliness comes from the fact he has the broken Masamune. Yuffie, meanwhile, is not a Ninja, but merely a random Wutai teenager living in the slums. Actually Inverted for Yuffie; she's much more dangerous than she was in canon.
- Somnus Ultima is a Sleeping Beauty AU take on Final Fantasy XV where Noctis is raised by Cid as a normal boy instead of being trained as a Warrior Prince as he did in Canon. Because of this, he lacks any significant combat abilities, even though his friends remark that he is quite talented at it.
- Corrin in Peril
- Corrin. In the game, Corrin is a strong fighter who becomes more powerful over the course of the game. In the fic, Corrin is helpless and completely dependent on others. She can't even run during her escape, presumably due to being underfed and physically abused in captivity.
- Charlotte. In the game, she's much stronger than she lets on, having cultivated a façade as a delicate girl. In the fic, Takumi effortlessly throws her down the stairs, killing her.
- Odin and Laslow. In canon, the two are veterans from Fire Emblem: Awakening, having survived both the main game and the Bad Future. Here, they're a pair of Dirty Coward abusers who tend to panic and run for help when things don't go their way.
- Sakura. While she's rather timid and is more of a healer than a fighter, she insists on going with Corrin in Birthright, learns how to use a bow to defend Fort Jinya in Conquest, and is among the first to join Corrin in Revelation. Here, she declines to participate in the mission to rescue Corrin, apparently agreeing with Takumi's claim that she's "too weak."
Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire
- Purple Days deconstructs the logistics of Renly's rebellion. Sure, he starts with a massive army of 100,000, but he immediately seizes as much as the Stormlands' resources to stock it, most of his soldiers are barely trained levies who are at most prepared to march to King's Landing rather than any actual fighting, and Renly himself is a pretty stupid commander. Joff rips it apart by targeting the commanding chivalry, destroying its supplies with slow-burning wicks, and fleeing into the dark with a tiny but extremely-well drilled force of raiders; the loss of the Rainbow Guard, all of whom would eventually die to Joff, was a particularly devastating morale blow, and led Renly to send Margaery away. His army quickly implodes when the surviving commanders get into a brutal fight that ends with several deaths and the Stormlords and the Reachlords at each other's throats and Renly pathetically begging them to stop.
- Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): Monster X, the protagonists of the story. Whereas the original version in Godzilla: Final Wars was one of the toughest foes Godzilla had ever smacked down with, the version in this fic's continuity is implicitly more of an average or upper-average class Titan in terms of power that would lose with near-certainty if it ever fought Godzilla seriously. Monster X also lacks the original incarnation's One-Winged Angel due to Decomposite Character, and it doesn't have telekinesis.
- Godzilla Neo: Jet Jaguar no longer has the ability to grow into his giant form, but he's able to curb-stomp several squads of Nebulan Soldiers.
- Kaiju Revolution: The Watchuka were originally a Kaiju who was able to go toe-to-toe against Godzilla in the Hanna Barbara series. Here, they are only an intelligent species of hominid living in the Himalayas. Although they are more intelligent than their predecessor, they would almost certainly not be able to stand against the king of the monsters.
Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed
- In Love Song in Reverse, Mo Xuanyu cannot remember he's actually the Yiling Patriarch and as such won't use advanced necromantic techniques.
- In Begrudging Assistance Requests, Ellie is unable to escape the Wall on her own and has to reluctantly ask for Dmitri's help to go after Henry. This is in contrast to the canon, where she's able to escape offscreen on her own. This change in her character is what causes the Inciting Incident of the whole story.
- This novelization of Injustice 2 combines this with Surprisingly Realistic Outcome for Damian Wayne. In the story mode, he is fought three times: against Batman, against Firestorm or Blue Beetle, and against Supergirl. Problem is, he is a Badass Normal and the latter three are powerful enough to clobber him with ease.... and this is what happens in the fanfic version. His fight with Batman is cut entirely, Firestorm is pretty quick to finish him off, and his fight against Supergirl is not even a fight - all she does is punch him once, hard enough to send him flying against a wall, where he breaks an arm and a leg each (this also explains why he isn't present afterwards, whereas in the game proper he simply disappears).
- I Ain't a Doll, This Ain't a Dollhouse: While in Jojos Bizarre Adventure Eyes Of Heaven Jonathan Joestar already has Hamon by the time Jotaro, Speedwagon, and the others arrive to Victorian England, Johanna Joestar hasn't learned hamon yet in between their arrival and when Dio turned into a vampire, having to rely on her normal strength to fight against him and the zombies. This is because her mentor Baron Zeppeli has been brainwashed by DIO Over Heaven before he could teach her. Jotaro suggests that her future grandson Joseph could help activate her Hamon as a fellow user, and internally he considers using the Stand Arrow to make Johanna into a Stand User if need be.
- The Twilight Man: While Wamuu is still a Strong and Skilled warrior, that's only to the comparison to his fellow normal Nightmen. As he was never raised by Kars and Esidisi and thus never empowered by the Stone Mask, he is much weaker to his Archenemies, the Pillar Men. Case in point, in Blood Obligation, he is killed holding off Santana, who in Battle Tendency was said to be the weakest of the Pillar Men by Kars.
- Nonon in Natural Selection compared to how she was in Kill La Kill, as she was never a member of the Elite Four and never gained a Goku uniform in this story. She's instead a Badass Normal who relies on espionage and her Killer Yo-Yo.
- Link's one-man-army sensibilities are downplayed in Zelda's Honor. Some fans accused this aspect of Link's character to be the author dumbing down his capabilities for reasons, despite the fact the story was trying to portray a more realistic view of the Zeldaverse where such gaming mechanics would hold little sway.
- The Mandela Magazine: Cesar's Alternate shrugs off Mark's attempt to shoot him in Mandela Catalogue. Not only is one of the Alternates derived from him shot to death in The Mandela Magazine, but all the Alternates in Mark's room (including Gabriel) are intimidated when Mark holds them at gunpoint and get the hell out of dodge as soon as possible.
- Chinaman is presumably this in The Last Days of FOXHOUND, while he was cut from the final version of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, he was supposed to have many of Vamp's water-based abilities and could summon a magical dragon via a tattoo under his wetsuit. However, when he appears in the comic, he's in the middle of a desert, negating the usefulness of many of his powers and making him Dead Cell's resident Butt-Monkey.
- Scarlet Lady is based on the premise of Chloe becoming the Ladybug Heroine instead of Marinette, and does this to both characters as a result.
- While Marinette swiftly proves to be a Badass Bystander who becomes an Action Survivor, not having a Miraculous still puts her at a major disadvantage, and she gets victimized by akumas far more often. Eventually, Master Fu entrusts her with the Bee Comb, enabling her to become Marigold.
- Chloe, meanwhile, proves to be much less competent than Marinette. She also lacks the canonical motivations of Queen Bee; since she's not vying to prove herself, she actively avoids getting involved with fights as much as possible, preferring to leave all the hard work to "lackies" like Chat Noir before swooping in and Stealing the Credit with her Lucky Charm and Miraculous Cure. Since she never bothers to train, taking the adulation of the public completely for granted, she repeatedly proves to be nothing more than The Millstone.
- Same Fic is based on the premise that All For One (the Quirk) doesn't grant its user access to the Quirks it steals. As such, each All For One has to carefully duplicate the Quirks they want to use and have them surgically implanted, leaving them only able to access a few powers rather than canon where the only All For One (the villain) has all the powers.
My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- The Ending of the End - Love and Tolerance Edition ziggzags this in regards to the Terrible Trio of Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow during the first third of the the story. As the trio chooses to hold off on betraying Grogar and using his bell to power themselves up till after they take Equestria. Meaning they have to fight more tactically in this version, instead of relying on brute force. Especially Cozy Glow, who without her stolen magic granted alicorn form, has to rely pretty much entirely on her cunning, misdirection, and mind games to meaningfully contribute to fights. Despite this, they still prove to be a dangerous team and are almost able to take Canterlot and defeat the heroes completely on their own. With only the arrival of Discord himself requiring Grogar to step in personally. Tirek and Chrysalis do get their power ups after their truce with the heroes, though Cozy Glow still doesn't get to become an alicorn. So instead, she opts on using the bell's power to cast an enchantment on her ribbons, that gives her some useful, non-combat related abilities (projecting copies of herself over long distances) that complement her role in the team.
- Fall of the Crystal Empire depicts a fan version of Celestia and Luna versus King Sombra. Or actually, Luna versus King Sombra. Celestia gets knocked out of the fight early on and wingds up stuck in one of Sombra's nightmares for the remainder.
- Grogar in Highschool Dragon. In the G1 series, he was a powerful overlord and a No-Nonsense Nemesis. Here however, while he's still powerful necromancer, he's an ass kisser to Tirek (Though it's later revealed that he's a Starscream), has no problem running away if things don't go his way and dies in rather anti-climatic fashion.
- Played With a bit with Queen Chrysalis in Loved and Lost, an extended retelling of "A Canterlot Wedding". While objectively no less dangerous than canonically, her canon Big Bad role is taken over by Prince Jewelius who surpasses her in manipulation skills and evil actions, rendering her a Big Bad Wannabe. The 11th chapter reveals that she was given the idea to conquer Equestria through Princess Cadance's wedding when Jewelius approached her to forge an alliance with her. He also told her about the abandoned caves under Canterlot and lured Cadance into an ambush, allowing Chrysalis to steal her identity. Nothing in canon indicates that Chrysalis needed any quisling to directly provide her with all her information or help her in capturing Cadance. When she duels Twilight Sparkle in the 13th chapter, she's outmatched by the unicorn, but by that time, she no longer has the power-up which she needed to defeat Princess Celestia a week earlier.
- The Story of Twilight Glow: Zig Zagging with Twilight. In canon, she was one of the most powerful magic users. Here, she was born an Earth Pony, and lacks the magical power of her canon self. However, she is still a brave pony, willing to disobey and stand up to Nightmare Moon.
- Triptych Continuum: In the show's, changelings are master shapechangers, able to assume the form of any race, monsters, animals, and even inanimate objects. In this fan-verse, changelings can't actually shapeshift at all; instead they project an illusion of a pony's form, and can be given away by environmental factors, such as the odd pattern created by splashing water against their legs.
- Androgyninja's A Drop of Poison offers a Downplayed example with Naruto: while he still learns the Kage Bunshin technique, he can't create nearly as many shadow clones as his canonical counterpart.
- The Echo Remains, But The Song Is Not The Same: Shikamaru's situation plays with this; thanks to his connection with the shadows being too strong, he suffers from Power Incontinence that hampers his ability to channel chakra effectively. His condition is something that's typically discovered in the Academy, but went unnoticed until Kakashi attempted to teach Team Seven tree-walking and he couldn't muster enough power to make it up the trunk no matter how many times he tried.
- Sasuke struggles with his fire-based techniques to a much greater degree than his canon counterpart, something he secretly attributes to growing up seeing how many of his fellow Uchiha had burn scars from practicing their techniques.
- Kitsune no Ken: Fist of the Fox, a Naruto High School AU fanfic with none of the series' trademark ninja jutsu, has this befall a number of characters who were absolute badasses in canon, combined with Demoted to Extra in some cases. Just for a few examples:
- Tsunade, Konoha Town's mayor, is easily held captive by Konan and used as bait to trap Naruto. In canon, Tsunade is capable of making craters in solid stone with just her fingertip, and that's before she becomes the fifth Hokage.
- Haku, a student of Konoha High School, is easily bullied and manipulated because of his rather feminine appearance. His canon counterpart was able to totally overpower Naruto and Sasuke during their second confrontation in the Land of Waves arc, and was skilled enough with needles to put Zabuza in a death-like state that briefly fooled even Kakashi.
- Terumi Mei, Konoha High School's resident English teacher, is held hostage by gang members on two separate occasions, making it necessary for others to rescue her. In canon, she's the fifth Mizukage, possessing two bloodline abilities, and quite easily fended off an assault from Sasuke.
- Gengetsu is a washed-up drunk who offers no resistance to being physically pushed or beaten. In canon, he was the second Mizukage and was considered one of the strongest shinobi of his generation.
- In The Somewhat Cracked Mind Of Uchiha Itachi, Itachi is healthier than his canon counterpart, but has yet to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan. This puts him at a severe disadvantage when he's double-teamed by Sasori and Kakuzu, and he loses a genjutsu battle against Tobi, who Tsukuyomis him into a three-day coma.
- While Son of the Sannin has its fair share of Adaptational Badasses, there are some mild examples:
- Deidara, since he was never recruited into Akatsuki by Itachi never trained his eye to counter genjutsu.
- Toneri Otsutsuki appears earlier in the story, and while he develops the Tenseigan, he's notably weaker than he was in The Last: Naruto the Movie, coupled with being just as inexperienced in actual combat as he was in canon.
- According to Word of God in chapter 90, Sasuke will not be getting the Rinnegan.
- EVA Sessions: Someplace Vast and Dry:
- SEELE is merely a rival anti-Other agency left over from the GEHIRN-NERV split, rather than an all-powerful Ancient Conspiracy doubling as a Government Conspiracy manipulating the United Nations from behind the scenes.
- Chairman Lorenz Kihl has far fewer political, corporate and scientific allies compared to Gendo and Yui's NERV.
- Coby's Choice: Unlike canon, the Logia class of Devil Fruits cannot generate unlimited amounts of their respective elements. They either have to stockpile it, or work with whatever's available from their surrounding environment.
- In The Bald and the Esper Tatsumaki starts off weaker than canon but with far more varied skills (using her telekinesis to create bombs, laser blades, and more) then starts training under Saitama. While she still becomes an S-Class hero when she signs up, she's not to her canon level of performing a Colony Drop or throwing several skyscrapers with ease.
- Found in the Boiling Isles: Luz's Unusual Upbringing: Due to losing her job at the Emperor's Coven, Kikimora has to wear an anklet that restricts her magical abilities.
- Luz Clawthorne: In the show, Luz and the Troublemakers have to take the Greater Basilisk off-guard and work together to bring it down. Here, Eda takes it down in five seconds. However, this only applies to its first appearance; when it shows up again, it nearly kills Puck before Jerbo intervenes.
Persona Franchise
- Hours 'Verse:
- Since Minato survives the final battle with Nyx, Aigis never receives the Wild Card.
- In canon Maruki was capable of using his Persona in the real world right from the word go. Here, he only receives that ability after becoming the God of Control; Sumire was herself up to October and only genuinely thought she was Kasumi after being drawn directly into his Palace.
- Whereas the members of the Phantom Thieves of Persona 5 were all badass teenage Persona users, in the Persona 5 Adult Confidant AU, they are all normal adults.
- Unlike his canon counterpart, Raz from Razputin Vodello AU wasn't raised as an acrobat, making him less physically skilled than his canon-counterpart.
- Vernal in Ruby and Nora is nothing more than Raven’s errand girl. Justified, because Raven is viciously abusive to her, and doesn’t see her as anything more.
- Due to it being set in the real world, everyone in Vale's Underground is just a regular person. No auras, no semblances, and no weapons.
- Similar to Vale's Underground, Arcadia is set in an alternative Remnant where Salem was defeated by Huntsmen millennia before the events of the series. While Aura and Semblances still exist, a curse placed on Humanity means that only a very small fraction of people alive in the present can unlock it. As such, the vast majority of RWBY's vast ensemble of characters are normal humans with no powers at all. Only a handful of characters have anything like their canon power and Word of God is that it is not close.
- Rose Redemption AU: Far From Home has Rose gaining a new body; however, this makes her much less powerful, as she's no longer a Diamond, but simply a Rose Quartz.
- Dharkon in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is an utterly terrifying Eldritch Abomination who outright ends the world in one of the bad endings. In Incorrect Smash Bros Quotes, meanwhile...well, it's clear no one takes him seriously as an actual threat, and with good reason. Even Elise curb-stomped him.
- On Trial: In canon, Cassandra is a nigh fearless warrior who managed to fight her way out of most situations (or at least until Rapunzel's magic hair saved the day). Here, she rarely if ever shows her abilities as a fighter (except when her training kicks in so she can keep a drunken human trafficker from hurting Madeline) her abilities as a fighter are rarely if ever shown, which lets the reader know just how traumatized Cass really is.
- Cast Swap: An odd, non-direct example with Courtney, who's offhandedly mentioned to have initially been selected for All-Stars as she was in canon, only to reject it due to her heartbreak over Duncan's cheating on here with Gwen. Canon Courtney was also heartbroken, but not to the extent of giving up another chance at the million over it. This change is especially notable as being one of the few changes that does not occur as a direct result of the cast swap.
- Total Drama World Tour Deluxe: Team Amazon isn't nearly as successful here as they were in canon, being reduced to just their canon members by the second Aftermath.
- Total Shuffled Island Series: Dave is a interesting case. True, he was a bit of a Non-Action Snarker in canon, but he was still capable of competing, especially earlier in the season. He took out both Rodney and Topher in the balloon challenge, and actually knocked Jasmine off the platform in the dueling stick challenge. Here, he's completely useless from the start.
- Unbreakable Red Silken Thread: Sammy, in canon, while starting out as a Extreme Doormat to her sister, was quick to stand up to her. Here she's worse, with even bigger issues; justified in this story, as Amy had more years to destroy Sammy's self-esteem.
- In In The Brilliant Light Of Day, a retelling of Touhou Kishinjou ~ Double Dealing Character, Raiko Horikawa, who was formerly the challenging Optional Boss, is instead The Unfought, with no indication she's even capable of being a challenging combatant. She spends most of her role in the story imprisoned in the Shining Needle Castle's dungeon.
- While Touhou Ibunshu significantly lowers everyone's power level compared to the original notoriously overpowered Touhou cast, none get hit harder than Reimu. She goes from one of the most broken players in a game that already begins broken to someone who can't use any magic at all without pre-prepared spell cards, frequently finding herself utterly useless and repeatedly asking herself what she's doing among all these mystical beings in the first place. She temporarily gets Yuyuko's powers during the final arc, but it's still a large step down.
- The Final Sword does this to the entire cast of canon swords of Touken Ranbu by practically turning them useless with the introduction of Rebora, an overpowered MacGuffin Super-Person, and making them exist for pretty much nothing more than being her friends.
- Nobledark Imperium: The Primarchs in this timeline were not the geneforged sons of the Master of Mankind, but normal humans who were simply Oscar's greatest generals. Some were not augmented at all — Lorgar, Corvus and Guilliman simply never received augmentation, while Magnus and Horus were incompatible due to being a mutant and an abhuman, respectively — and the rest only received the same augmentations as other Marines instead of being made into demigods. Granted, this also means that they are as a whole far more stable and sane than their counterparts were, so it's ultimately more of a mixed bag.
- With This Ring: In canon Young Justice, Wolf is, well, a super-powered wolf, with all that that implies. Here, she shows no signs of unusual intelligence and doesn't particularly assist the Team as in canon, she's just a wolf pup- a super-powered one, but a pup nonetheless and a valued pet.
- Young Justice Titans unfortunately does this with Lilith Clay. In the comics, Omen was one of the earliest Teen Titans, had some psychic powers, precognition, and a few mystical powers later on. Here, her precognition is more long term with her gaining visions of a world ruled by Trigon and she has no combat or other skills otherwise. At least, until she got Demonic Possession. Then the Titans couldn't even lay a scratch on her until a magical hero got involved.
- Because the cards used in Arc-Ved Protagonists use there real-world effects over the anime effects whenever possible, this trope can apply to some cards, while other cards get the oposite. An example being Yuma's Utopia monsters, in the anime and manga all Number monsters (including the Utopia's) could only be destroyed in battle against other Number monsters, they do not have that effect in the TCG or OCG, as such, the Utopias can be beat in battle by any monster here.
