DE: There is no try

[bjornwilde]

Today's DE (and yesterday's though I forgot to give credit) brought to us by genarti :

Your character has the chance to magically become the world's greatest expert on something they're not already good at. (Either they don't know anything about it, or they only have a passing layperson's knowledge.) What do they choose?

Comments

[nocarename]

OK. Good one. Lots of thinking here.

Ako is looking for mad science. Failing that (because of really learning limits or what have you) computers in particular I think.

Artemis wants to be good at writing. I'm as shocked as the rest of you folks. Writing stories it is.

Janet wouldn't mind some instant science knowledge either. She's confident in everything else.

Robo wants languages. All of them. Unless the bad guy is being stupid while he rants, then it's easier not to know what he's saying.

Tyler wants to be good at magic. I don't have the book for that in his universe, he's just not going to learn. Alas.

[jjprobert]

At the moment, (read, as soon as I complete his next set of OOMs), Bean would choose to be a military genius. In a few years, his focus will change to genetics (or rather, wish that it could).

Max would probably choose writing. The ability to be interesting, informative and engaging with the written word.

Erik would undoubtedly choose Norse Mythology at the moment. If he wasn't allowed that, I have no ideas what he would choose. I'll try poking him more in a bit.

Jack would probably choose the ability to fly a plane. Especially after what's just happened.

Alfred probably wouldn't choose anything. No doubt there'd be some unforeseen cost to this new knowledge. No thank you.

[bjornwilde]

Ben would love to be a master pastry chief. Granted this is more his physical challenges than lack of knowledge or skill.
Hank at present would love to be able to play the clarinet or some other jazz instrument. And actually with how big Rock and Roll is getting I bet Hank wouldn't mind learning the guitar now that I think about it. In the future, he would like to be an awesome teacher.
Thalia will take mad guitar skills please, thank you.
Andrea and Jessica aren't speaking up so I don't know about them.

[camwyn]

Ray would like to become the world's greatest expert on robotics. He knows enough to keep Ecto and Francis in reasonable repair, but for serious issues he has to turn to the Bar or to places Romana has access to.

Gordon ... is acutely aware of how very far he's fallen behind everyone else and would ordinarily say he would like to become the world's greatest expert on theoretical physics, but it would probably occur to him to add "WITHOUT all the other theoretical physicists in the world dying, disappearing, suffering brain damage, or otherwise having their own expertise or effective expertise reduced in any way."

... his mom was a judge. Lawyerspeak is not unknown to him.

Shephard figures he could become an expert enough expert at most things he's already familiar with through intense effort, so he's going to fall back to a childhood wish that was never fulfilled because of insufficient funds: playing the violin. No, I am not kidding; as a kid he wanted to learn the violin, but his family didn't have the cash for lessons or the patience to put up with a beginner self-teaching. So, violin, albeit more along the lines of what Apocalyptica does with cellos than the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields or anything.

Mordin does this kind of magical skill acquisition as a hobby. Salarians have short lifespans and rapid metabolisms and are heavily into learning as a culture, so if there's something they really want to become an expert on, it tends to happen. Through effort. Mordin possibly more than most.

Medic, I'm not sure about. Maybe baking or something, since Grandmama is very good at it and he knows she won't be around forever.

Hektor isn't picking anything until he knows what god he would be beholden to first. His sister got an offer in a dream from Apollo and look what happened to her when she didn't follow through on her side of things.

Varric would say cryptography, if the word existed in his world. Being the biggest expert there is on secret codes and ciphers puts you way ahead in the information business.

Ellen would choose agriculture. Because somebody has to be the expert, if they're ever really going to get off the ground in the Capital area, and she can think of far worse things.

[thenewblack]

Varric, you wouldn't be up for a game of Solitaire, would you?

I think, of mine, Tyler is at the right time for this to be fairly new news and within the bounds of hobby interest.

[igetthatalot]

I believe the phrase I'm looking for here is, "Your ideas intrigue me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter."

[aleister_author]

Probably an EP this evening then, assuming work doesn't rise up and try and kill me.

Please don't rise up to try and kill me work.

[herr_bookman]

This is the hardest question. Autor would probably choose to raise his Diplomacy score, primarily because he can't see a way to improve that other than being around people.

[mnr_splinter]

Aang would very much like to just magically know how to be the Avatar. That would kind of just make his life a whole lot easier if just...poof and he knew all four elements and was able to master the Avatar State. Is that a thing that can happen?



Bumi would very much like to become more proficient with these guns he's only recently been introduced to.

Raph's coming to realize just how important math is to carpentry, and I think he'd really like to maybe understand it a bit more. I've always had the headcanon idea of him being very slow when it comes to academics.

Mike...maybe Magic? Because that couldn't possibly go wrong.

There's so much that Splinter hasn't studied, and so...the list is long. Maybe sailing?

[gavin62truck]

I would force Tommy to become the world's best husband and father, because FAMILY, HOW DOES IT WORK, SERIOUSLY, HE HAS NO IDEA (NO TOMMY, YOU DO NOT GET TO BE THE WORLD'S GREATEST HOCKEY PLAYER)

[ceitfianna]

This question is harder than I expected but its also been a long day. I'd love the ability to just know how to be a school librarian.

I think Will would want to know how to fix England. I'm not sure of a specific skill.

Charles, oh Charles is hard as he wants to know so much, but I think his big one is how does mutation work in his world? What caused it to appear? Though he wouldn't mind becoming an expert in Erik.

William wants to know how to manage the ranch.

Sameth would like to become an expert on Kait.

Jane wants to be an expert writer, whatever that means.

Moist wants to be a good enough thief to never get caught so just better than he is.

Demeter wants to understand her daughter.

Tumnus wants to know how to keep Narnia prosperous, so an expert on Narnia.

The Pirate King is already the best at what he does, thank you very much.

[afullmargin]

Coming late to the party, but some the voices are finally speaking to me! WHAH!

Gus would like to be an expert with women... that and something cool and impressive like martial arts.

Michael thinks he could learn just about anything, and would like to have it put to the test.

(The other voices hate me and are quiet...)