You wouldn't think omnipotent beings would be bad at *anything*, but there you go.

OOC: crossposted from theatrical_muse, today.

Prompt 333: What are you bad at that people wouldn't expect?

Due to the fact that I am omnipotent, there is remarkably little that I am bad at. Most of the things I'm bad at are entirely obvious and easy to expect given the nature of my species, such as compromising, pretending to be humble, actually being humble, or making allowances for the inferiority of others. However, there is, I will admit, one thing I'm bad at that most people don't know or guess at, unless I demonstrate it for them.

I can't sing.

I mean I can sing, of course -- there's in essence nothing I can't do, a neat little consequence of my aforementioned omnipotence. But the Q don't make, nor are we overly interested in, music -- the syncopation of rhythms in the vibration of matter, intended to generate an emotional response in sentient beings, seems even more pointless a thing to create than ephemeral pocket universes populated by fantasy beings. Also, generally speaking, only humanoid and caninoid life appreciate it, and I am neither. (All right, so the M like music, but you know what? This is my journal and I'm not gonna talk about them.)

So in my true form I don't make, or listen to, music. In mortal shape, I can appreciate pleasant combinations of sound, in a way that I don't in my true form -- rather like the way I appreciate such things as attractive mortal bodies. You actually need to be limited to find certain things appealing, so only when I'm limiting myself by processing my consciousness through, say, a human brain, does any of that appeal.

And my favorite human form to wear can't carry a tune in a bucket. I could use my powers to enable myself to sing, or take a different form, but why? When I'm dealing with mortals, the emotional reaction I'm usually going for is to simultaneously amuse and annoy them, and singing badly does both. If I'm trying to intimidate them, then music really doesn't belong in my repertoire at all, and I don't honestly usually try to evoke emotions in mortals beyond fear, amusement or irritation. I play instruments perfectly in mortal form, of course, because there's no learned physical skill that any mortal of that shape is capable of that I would do badly (yes, yes, Sisko beat me in a boxing match, but I was trying to provoke him, not beat him, and by that metric I succeeded quite well. If I'd been trying to actually defeat him at boxing, I could have done so easily.) But singing is not a learned skill, in humans. Humans who do it can learn to do it better, but if you can't carry a tune, you just can't. My favored human form's physical brain doesn't have the right wiring to stay on pitch while singing, and I lack enough interest (by which I mean any) to use my powers to fix it.

So there you go. I sing really, really badly. But hey, at least I know it, unlike this other Q I know who is actually under the misapprehension that his favored mortal form sings well.

Muse: Q
Fandom: Star Trek TNG and VOY
Based on Q's actor, John de Lancie, admitting in interviews that he can't sing, and then proving it on the Spock vs. Q audiobook.