What a character with visions power would see? (2024)

In my story there is a little girl with a magical power of enhanced sight, at rest she can see far away than a human being, and can see shades of infrared and ultraviolet, with concentration she can make her vision even better, and do stuff like enhancing her peripheral vision, or protect her eyes from light-overload or notice a visual ilusion (because it doesn't *feels* right).

Well, my question is *what* that power should allow her to notice and see? Could she see blood in a cleaned shirt? While her power is *magical* it has some sort-of-scientific groundings. Any ideas or sugestions?

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.

Certain bodily fluids fluoresce under UV light; I'm not sure if being able to see in the UV spectrum would allow you to see them. If so, it would probably require a light with some semi-significant UV component, like sunlight or that from a fluorescent bulb.

Otherwise...most of the limitations of what you can see are biological. You can plausibly say she can see in slow motion, see heat, see places that are 'hot' radioactively (maybe), if she's using some anatomy other than her eyes to do it she could probably pick up radio signals, and she could see arbitrarily far and arbitrarily high-resolution (you could plausibly have her see as far as one could with a telescope, or as closely as one could with a microscope). The only common visual ability that's not plausible would be X-ray vision, since the information about whatever's on the other side of the wall just isn't there in the EM spectrum.

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)

There's one chapter of Franken Fran that deals with something like this: an artist is going blind, so the good surgeon gives him new eyes. That can see every single spectrum of light (and all the creepy crawlies that surround everyone.) He goes crazy, but eventually finds happiness painting the Snow Maiden of legend, who turns out to be quite real.

I'm personally not sure, but I'm with . It certainly sounds plausible to me. Might cause problems with the character being grossed out more easily, by things that we can't see under our visible light spectrum.

She would see what a mantis shrimp can see.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Not yet, but in the future she will be able to "see" radio (not necessarily be able to understand it though), her eyes are the "focus" of her power, but she doesn't quite uses them to perceive light the way we do (in theory, something that can blind a human would weaken her power, but she would become a blindseer)

I was actually thinking that the girl is *used* to see the creepy crawlies.

lol, the only creature in the world that understands her!

Kinetic vision?

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.

So it's an explicitly supernatural power. Good to know. (Have since read the thread where you said this was a Luminosity spin-off; my comments above were under the assumption that you wanted actual biological eyes that could see this sort of thing.)

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)

oops, sorry if it wasn't clear.

Are you talking about this thread? I had been crazy wondering if the girl is looking too calm for the situation >.>

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.

X ray vision would be awesome and so would Meat Vision

In an anime, I'll be the Tsundere Dark Magical Girl who likes purpleMY own profile is actually HERE!

She actually has that

Saddly, no meat vision for her.

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.

Ah, good memories.

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

UV would make things look radically different, but I do not think it would really offer any sort of advantage. Infrared is a different matter; the ability to operate in darkness, to actually see other people and animals better in the dark then you can in the light, is not to be underestimated. It's...well frankly to people who've never seen it before it appears supernatural, even demonic. (NATO troops in Afghanistan had to knock off night patrols for this very reason about two years back.)

Light concealment like bushes or leaves, even a blanket or tapestry, or the exposing of any part of the body, any part no matter how small, and you will be seen. Trying to blend in with the environment is more or less completely useless. Things that have been recently handled and retain heat like weapons, pottery, doorknobs even if it's real recent, will glow slightly.

So no hiding in dark corners. No pretending you weren't holding that knife earlier. She'll know.

Nous restons ici.

Of course, this is set in a Twilight fanfic, and their vampires don't produce body heat. So there's one big demographic you're missing.

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)

Not strictly relevant, actually; if they're really giant heatsucking blobs they'll be just as visible as if they were made of fire. If they're merely air temp you'll still see them against any background that's decent at retaining heat...which is pretty much everything.

The twilight books describe them as cold, which suggests they'd actually be visible as darker than the background most of the time. It's a distinction that'd be lost on wildlife but not on an intelligent mind.

Nous restons ici.

I'm assuming that Twivamps are not actually internally refrigerated, but equilibrate to room temperature and feel cold due to heat capacity and conductivity. In that case, they'd be harder to see. Perhaps as darker outlines against something warmer, but not nearly as easy to find in cover, and they wouldn't leave thermal traces on things.

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)

&

I am writting that the vampires do "suck heat" (as it seems to be the case), or at least when she see them, is like seeing a blackhole for infrared, it cause a huge Uncanny Valley to the girl.

I was also considering that the girl manages to sneak out of a wolf village no once, but twice purely by her power of sight, I already considering that she could the thing of seeing retained heat, and check for patrol trails, etc.

She 8 btw.

edited 22nd Sep '11 3:41:01 PM by Bluelantern2814

"Here to welcome our new golden-eyed overlords," said Addy promptly.