Characters struggling to figure out how their powers work in Webcomics.
- Zig-Zagged in Ava's Demon. When Ava makes a Magically-Binding Contract with the demon inside her, she gets Super Empowered with a whole grab bag of fire-and-magma-related powers, all without knowledge of how to use them or how many she has. This includes...
- Nigh-Invulnerability, which kind of is an easy power to master.
- Running a fever-level body temperature
twenty-four seven. - Barfing up lava.
- A completely-functional compartment drawer in her chest cavity.
- Burning with Anger... along with any other intense emotion.Ava: WH- A SUN!? I LOOK LIKE A SUN!?
Odin: Your whole FACE is orange! C-can't you see it!?
Ava: I CAN'T SEE MY OWN FACE!!
- Even though she gained her alternate form some time ago, Mye from Charby the Vampirate doesn't know most of the forms abilities. While she did suddenly learn she could teleport during a fight, and apparently has much greater strength, she still hasn't gotten around to learning to fly and mentions the fact to herself every time she gets stuck in a situation where flight would get her to safety.
- In Chirault Bethan becomes intangible. It seems to give her a lot of sweet options, from going through objects and flying to dispelling magic by touch. However, she still has a problem with not falling through the ground: the gravity does not affect her, but she thinks that it should...
- Charo of Dame Daffodil fame, in her first fight, uses her powers and transforms on instinct. After that, however, she has no idea how to consciously transform back or use her powers. There are no mentors, no instruction manuals, and she got the daffodil hairpin for £3 at a regular store so she can't just up and ask the seller for advice. Fortunately, a bit of practice helps her overcome these flaws. This is rather common to all that get a flower accessory.
- Dungeons & Doodles: Tales from the Tables: Upon becoming a paladin, Angela in Episode 9 tries to figure out how the class' spells work. And then she summons a horse with 'Find Steed', which ends up unintentionally sparking a bar fight.
- Inverted in El Goonish Shive: When someone gains a new spell their spellbook grows several pages to comprehensively describe the details of how that spell works. Elliot goes over a week without reading it despite recently obtaining and using a new spell. It gets to the point where his sister knows more about his new spell than he does because she reads about it before he does, because she stole his spellbook as a prank. Susan turns out to be even worse; she assumed she'd "know" when she got a new spell, and would check the spellbook then. A later strip makes a point of the fact nobody checks their spellbooks as often as they should.
- A more straightforward example comes when Tedd suspects he finally has a power of his own. Grace encourages him to try, but after a pause, he simply asks, "How do people cast spells?"
- In FreakAngels, Cloudcuckoolander Arkady's apparent hobby is figuring out just what she and the other titular psychics can do with their powers. She's recently perfected teleportation. It's implied that all the FreakAngels doing this together is what caused The End of the World as We Know It.
- In one episode of Full Frontal Nerdity, Frank runs a superhero campaign in which, reasoning that "Superman was always Superman", he lets his players start with ludicrously overpowered supers... who don't really know how to control their powers. Multiple destroyed cities ensue.
- Agatha goes through a period of this early in Girl Genius, but for "sparks," this is normal. In fact, she would have finished going through the Shot Web phase years ago if she hadn't had a Power Limiter locket put on her for her own protection. Following the locket's removal, Gil remarks that she didn't break through so much as ease through.
- In Grrl Power, Sydney has seven orbs that grant her superpowers when gripped in her hand, but since she didn't find a manual when she found the orbs, she had to do a lot of experimenting to figure out what the powers were, and has to do more whenever the orbs level up to figure out what new or upgraded abilities have been unlocked. It takes her until comic #541 to figure out even the most basic applications of what the green orb even does, and more than 900 comics in she still has no idea what the red one does.
- Happens frequently in Homestuck, as the kids try to figure out what powers they have and how to use them.
- John takes an especially long time to figure out his Heir of Breath powers but is ridiculously good at them once he learns the tricks; he also takes a while to master his Sylladex.
- Dave figures out his Knight of Time powers relatively quickly, though he still Can't Catch Up with John in terms of raw power; his abilities are apparently more complicated, however, as he has to figure out how to navigate the game's massively screwed-up timeline.
- Rose hasn't put too much effort into figuring out her Seer of Light powers yet, preferring to hone her magical abilities. Jade isn't even sure what being Witch of Space means, beyond apparently having "breeding duties" involving frogs and something about stoking a forge.
- This trope is mostly averted when each of the kids reach God Tier. John, Rose, and Aradia all display instant mastery. On the other hand, Jade, who inherited both God Tier and First Guardian powers is still working her way through the latter abilities.
- Roxy at first hasn't know what her powers can do and naturally assumed, that power, that allows user to "steal nothing" is useless. However, even after she learned, that she can create whatever she wants from nothing by stealing nothingness from imaginary objects (thus making them real), she still had to train for hours and consult with multiple characters to get her powers to work properly.
- In Jupiter-Men, Quintin and Jackie spend their first day with superpowers suffering from Power Incontinence as they stick to and break everything they touch respectively. Quintin accidentally flings himself into a gun-toting mugger while trying to push him over and then jams the gun with slime while trying to stick his hands up. Following this, they practice using their powers enough to get a proper hold of them and use them at will.
- Happens frequently in Kagerou, one of the more notable examples being Kano learning how to use the magic sword he's given. He still hasn't quite gotten then hang of it despite ongoing training and having had to use it a few times to avoid being killed.Kano: Um, Cho, how am I supposed to hold it? It seems to have a number of... teeth.
- Kill Six Billion Demons: Allison is an ordinary twentysomething from modern-day LA who gets the Master Key to Creation, an artifact that grants her nigh-godlike powers, shoved into her forehead one day with no explanation or tutoring included. Needless to say it takes her a long time to begin using it in ways that aren't completely accidental.Allison: Get me — out of here — you stupid pain in the ass piece of shit key! Come on! I'm being extremely resolute!
Maya: Tch! You must not ask. You must simply do. You won't get anywhere with that. Five feet perhaps. Though in fairness to you — many powerful men and women spent lifetimes mastering how to cut space-time. I'm guessing so far you've managed to teleport only out of sheer luck. But don't stop trying! - The first several chapters of Knowledge Is Power deal with these kinds of difficulties — such as when the gravity-manipulator tried to use his powers to move a water heater...
- League of Super Redundant Heroes:
- Lazer Pony, who discovered that he can shoot lazer beams from his eyes, but doing so permanently blinds him the first time he does it. Having a sight-based power while blind is extremely impractical, but LP has been seen trying to learn to better use his powers, particularly with the help of someone "aiming" him. He also has a panic reflex, which fires the beams uncontrollably if he thinks there are spiders nearby..
- Played with by Buckaress, who lately, and for no apparent reason, has developed the "superpower" of setting anything she cooks, alight — even a sandwich..
- In Little Robot, Big Scary World, BIP has to learn his functions through experience, as his creator died before he could tell him how to use them.
- The girls instinctively learn how to command their powers in M9 Girls! Later on, they train to fine-tune them.
- How the first few chapters of morphE play out. The five seedlings have awakened as mages and have to learn to use their magical abilities. Their teacher, Amical, throws them into lessons which become increasingly difficult to rush their learning curve.
- The full capabilities of the Monster in the Darkness from The Order of the Stick have never been revealed. The in-comic reason is speculated to be that he's too... childlike to know his full potential. Xykon implies once or twice that he actually knows the exact limitations and capabilities of the Monster in the Darkness, even if the Monster doesn't; he's repeatedly stated that the Monster is his trump card, and he has no intentions of bringing it out until its planned debut, or until things go completely out the window, whichever comes first.
- At the beginning of Volume 2, the Adventurer of Penny Blackfeather has been trying to learn some magic, but it's still work in progress. Also, when turned into a parrot, he doesn't automatically aquire the ability to fly.
- In the Kings War arc of Roommates the injured Monster Roommate Jareth gives all his power (and kingdom, and resposibilities, etc.) to his best friend (and Token Good Teammate) James with literally no explanation; cue this trope ensuing on a grand scale and at the worst time.
- In The Sanity Circus, Attley has to figure out how to use her Scarecrow abilities after she discovers she is one of them.
- In Sluggy Freelance, Gwynn has never really mastered her magical ability, partly because, more often than not, she bungles the spells badly and Hilarity Ensues, partly because the source of her powers is the Book of E-Ville.
- In Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki, the main character Yuuki is selected to be the next Valkyrie, and is flung into several fights with no idea how to use her new powers. She's forced to more or less play it by ear early on. That's not the least of her problems, though...
- After the title character of Spinnerette acquires spider powers from a gene-splicing ray, she gets to literally figure out how to shoot web. Like movie-verse Spidey, she eventually learns how to do it; unlike movie-verse Spidey, though, it doesn't come from her wrists... Sahira, a biology major, almost dies laughing at this:Sahira: (laughing) Yeah, I guess it'd make sense for the web to come out of your ass!
Heather/Spinnerette: It does not come out of my ass! It comes out of a gland at the base of my spine! - Two Guys and Guy dips into this trope at Wayne's expense, as usual.
