Practice Doesn't Make Perfect

[111]

As the title says, what things is your character horrible at, yet they try to do anyway.

 

Example, maybe your character tries to cook, but every dish ends up in flames.

 

Perhaps they consider them-self a songstress, but can never sing in key.

 

Maybe they think they're a tough guy, but get beaten in every fight.

 

These aren't things your character is simply bad at, most characters have no skill in certain areas. These are about things your character keeps doing anyway.

 

 

 

As for Evangeline, she seeks love constantly, but sabotages every relationship

 

She yearns for a revolution, yet only manages to create racy tabloid stories.

[Steel Wolf]

Friendly as Steel is, she is terrible at keeping people to her side for any great length of time. Several moons of an adventurer's life where companions are swapped in and out randomly, and her continued flame held for her slain husband make attachments a challenge. Doesn't mean she doesn't try to make it happen.

 

Same with relationships. She hasn't really "formally" gotten back in to the dating scene, and becomes an awkward turtle when paid a genuine compliment. She's looking to keep at it, though. She needs someone who can withstand the Roehugs.

[Berrod Armstrong]

Berrod cannot knead a proper batch of dough to save his life. He either adds too much water, or too little. The right amount of water NEVER gets put in. The same goes for butter. He's also terrible at knowing when to add a bit of flour. It's  always just a horrible mess.

 

 

Yet, he keeps trying because he wants to be able to bake a gods-damned loaf of bread someday.

[Zyrusticae]

T'rahnu wants to write, but her handwriting is atrocious and her prose tends to be impenetrable to anyone who isn't from her particular neck of the woods (she likes to use a lot of flowery language and metaphors - blame her mom for that one).

 

Actually, her writing being so bad is part of why I don't bother writing an IC journal for her.

 

She also thinks herself highly attractive and carries herself in that manner, even though her particular combination of hard muscles and androgynous frame mean she actually has niche appeal (which the gals actually tend to appreciate better than the guys). Absolutely no amount of discussion on this subject can dissuade her.

[Maril]

Nailah is very good at cooking - Over a fire. The results are more questionable once you put her in a proper kitchen, and she is generally speaking not bothered by the mess she leaves in her wake. She's bad at keeping her own room - partically because she doesn't really know what to put there, and /where/ to put things, so she has a lot of piles of her belongings about on the scarse assortment of furniture and the floor. 

She's not good at commitment to relationships, so much that she will seek to avoid people who declare any sort of love for her. She doesn't like the notion that someone might be expecting her home for dinner. 

Also, she can't fight - these days she's trying to learn how to use stabbers, but she is mediocre at best and doesn't know enough to effectively win a fight. Her strategy for fights generally involve one step, called running. 

Oh, and she has very little idea of how to maintain friendships. She internally panics when one of her friends are feeling sad. Being all like "Uhm.. So.. do I.. pat their shoulder? does that work?"

She is improving slowly on some areas, as she's surrounded herself with people these days, as opposed to her earlier days of wandering alone.

[Zhavi]

Zhi is such a dork when it comes to gambling. She knows she's not super good, really, but once she sits at the table she just can't help herself. She wins juuust enough to keep coming back for more.

[Dogberry]

For all of his bluster about being a man of the sea, and life as a whaler, Dogberry has a hell of a time catching a fish. He just doesn't have the patience. Doesn't understand much about bait use.

 

Also, he is allergic to carbuncles. It's an aetheric thing, and as such leaves him woefully inept at any kind of summoning.

[Miryn]

For a trained knight, Miryn has a sad history of getting her ass kicked a whole lot.

 

Not that great at courtly manners, either.

 

Bad with animals. She and her war chocobo held a business-like relationship.

[Melkire]

It doesn't matter how many times Osric picks up a skillet, his meals will always be the culinary equivalent of cyanide.

[Oscare]

Give Oscare healing tools or healy magic and a patient and the patient would've been better off dying.

[Unnamed Mercenary]

Franz has learned the hard way that he's not very good at alchemy anymore. He tried to keep up with it for a little bit, but found he botched more crafts than not. Still, when no one is looking, he still tries. All that knowledge is there, but he'll end up spilling chemicals, or mixing something too hard, overheating things, etc. Don't. Trust. His. Alchemy. It's for the best.

 

He's also starting to realize he is absolutely terrible at trying to cheer people up, despite trying so hard.

[Roen]

Anything that involves studying out of a book.

 

Roen has never been good at book study. Even cooking, she cannot follow recipes, but has been taught hands on. She does things intuitively rather than following written instructions, much to the dismay of her childhood nannies and teachers.

 

Not much has changed since.

[Lillini]

Noxaelius thinks that he's good at taking care of his chocobo...that she's living a happy life with alcohol to drink and "boundless exercise" (she can run off around the neighborhood whenever she wants). Little does he know, she always gets rid of the alcohol he gives her out of pity for him and is actually quite lonely running around by herself. Good thing she has a real caretaker now.

[D'ly]

D'ly can't fish. At all. Its pretty much guaranteed that she will either get tangled in the fishing line, loose/ruin the bait, only catch kelp, or all of the above...

[Verad]

Eorzea's Greatest Archer, Pending Certain Conditions.

[Kellach Woods]

Kellach is absolutely horrible at catching social cues.

 

Like, for example, when it is acceptable to follow your friends around creepily. (NEVER)

 

(also at getting Phlegeton's Mask)

[Aaron]

Magic.

 

Controlling his ice affinity. 

 

Not being emo. This is sooo not the biggest thing he's bad at.

 

 

Making a sandwich. He always looses interest in the sandwich before the second piece of bread gets put on and just throws it away. 

 

I should know, I got annoyed solo rping it.

[Dasair]

The first thing that comes to mind is how Xavarian loves to travel, is so excited to go to new places, even moreso to find rumored ruins, or places of aetherical interest to him...

 

Yet he is terrible with directions.  Completely, unforgivably bad.  If he gets to a place he was hoping to somewhere within the week's time, he considers it a success. This applies within cities too.

 

He has gods know how many maps, and he still can't seem to figure them out.  The best you'll get out of him is the ability to backtrack where he just was, though he tries intently to write down notes to a place he has to know how to get to.  The Shroud is sometimes the exception, but he's already missed some assignments that his mentor has given because he couldn't find the location he was supposed to meet, and only ended up going in the right direction by the time everyone else was finished.  Of course, this will never stop him from trying.

 

I've also found in playing him, that he isn't the best at speaking anything purely assuring. (Speaking coherently in general aside.)  Granted, the times it's happened, the other person somehow took to being cheered up anyway, but Xavarian can't simply say 'It'll be alright'.  He adds more detail.  Too much detail.  

 

'I hope that your friend ends up alright- not that he won't survive, of course.. maybe, or that you or he necessarily have explicit reason to worry, really. I mean- well, I can't speak for how proficient or not he may be in duels to the death, perhaps he has had similar encounters; he looks like he may be able to take a spell or two as well, not that looks are any way to judge such a thing.  Though of course maybe he does have reason to worry, especially given that he doesn't know much in the ways of Aether in an Aetheric duel- But he might not!  And you might not.  It could end up quite alright for him, considering how unstable Aether can be at times, perhaps it will explode upon his opponent and hopefully not the other way around~  There is always something to be said for the unexpected- not that him being fine is unexpected- *muttered curse, and a pause*  ... If one of you is worried, however, might we be able to teach him something more in the remaining hour?  

 

...No?  

 

Hells.'

 

 

 

He means well, really.

[Kage]

Kage comes from a family that is well... they made their fortunes on goldsmithing.

 

Kage -sucks- at it. That phrase about not being able to polish a turd and how mythbusters showed you kinda can~? Well, Kage turns all good things to turd. Especially golds. He's explained this to Jara but... well Kage just is horrible with precious metals. He's horrible with them.

 

But he keeps trying because even though he says he doesn't care... he still wants his parents' approval. His family's.

[Marisa]

Oh god, if this were back in July when I created the first iteration of Ryoko, the answer would be "Everything". 

 

Now, though? Reading Eorzean is a struggle for Ryoko to this day, due to her education being conducted almost entirely through Ishgardian religious texts, most of which are ancient. 

 

She can't draw worth a damn. She's got this box of crayons (fun fact, crayons have been around since the late medieval period) that she passes time with, but since I may actually want to create and upload some of her drawings some day, she's just going to be as good at it as I am. And I can't draw a circle. 

 

I feel like as many as I had before, I should probably tack on another one or two major failings. I'll have to think about it overnight.

[Spethah]

Despite being quite a friendly person who's up for conversation, Vel is terrible with any kind of relationship. She's been so much of a lone drive due to her childhood that she's completely denied working with a group for long periods of time. Ironically in order to get good songs, she has to be in a group of great warriors and she's been fighting that one problem for ages. Old habits die hard.

 

She also cannot cook. At all. Don't even try to get her to. Things either burn or she just doesn't know how to cook it.

 

Vel also has no tolerance to alcohol and she's a very rough party member when she's drunk or hungover. Don't drink and bard kids.

[Blue]

Jet'a is hopeless at humor. Like, terribly so. Understanding jokes, or making them is not something the Twelve had in mind for him. Thankfully, he doesn't seem interested in them.

 

Blue is kind of a natural talent provided that she is taught well. But for as long as she keeps traveling with the wrong people and is affected by their teachings, she will really be a good-at-nothing. Social conventions is her major lacuna.

 

Vincent? Killing. No matter how hard he tries to become a tougher man and all the cruelty and rough stuff he experiences, taking something or someone's life is something he simply cannot do.

 

Chiara... cursing. She cannot curse or use vulgar language, no matter how hard her friends push her (or provoke her). As an upper class of Ul'dah, politeness and keeping classy is a natural trait for her.

 

I haven't RPd Dylise enough to really think of what she'd be unpracticed at. Likely, trusting others.

 

Kujh'a is hopeless at keeping cool. Squirming, panicking, and overall running his mouth at the wrongest times seems to be his prime occupation, which is likely how he always gets in trouble....

 

Clive cannot stay awake for longer than four hours straight. Much like a lion, sleeping is his main occupation, saving his energies for when it really matters. In decreasing order of priority, what will keep him awake are hunting Primals, having sex, training and eating.

 

Valeria... She just can't have fun, I guess. She's all business-business 24/8.

[Devereau]

My character tends to be terrible at consistency. He tends to suffer from bursts of passion and desire to do things, but is generally horridly sidetracked often, no matter how great he thinks the subject at hand is. So many incomplete projects.

[Val]

Most people know that Val can't read or write to save his life. He also only fairly okay at cooking unless it's over a campfire, and he can't really shoot a bow either. He can't use magic (through traditional aether) and he's pretty bad at understanding most metaphors. 

 

When he hears a philosophical question, he tends to have a mental breakdown and ask the absolute, most ignorant stuff in response--basically fretting over meaningless questions such as "If you drop soap, does the soap get dirty or does the floor get clean?"

 

It's still hard for him to show affection in public--not because he doesn't want to show PDA, but he feels like it'll show some form of weakness. That's.. not necessarily a skill though, and he's starting to get over it anyway.

 

When it comes to technology, he just kind of beats at things. He's okay when it comes to strategy of war and combat, but anything else he fails at unless he can somehow manage to relate it to combat. He's also prone to falling asleep in long meetings that bore him or have nothing to do with him.

 

He also lacks most social grace, but that's just because he's a prick and doesn't much care to learn any. He orders food and eats with his bare hands, much to his lady's dismay.

[V'aleera]

Madame Geneva de Fleur's How to be a Lady, Volume 4 states that "A lady must always practice grace, patience, and diplomacy in full measure, even when dealing with the undesirable and rakish."

 

In spite of being almost as devoted to that book series as she is to the Twelve, V'aleera is still working on the "grace, patience, and diplomacy" part. The rate of progress is not encouraging.