DE: Do You Hear What I Hear?

[bjornwilde]

 With all the various species, and variations thereof, represented within Milliways I am curious, what are their senses like? Do they have the human default or are they heightened? And what does heightened mean if so? Do they have senses that don't translate well to the five human?

If they are normal human, do they have a certain sense they depend on more than any other? Is it stronger than the others or is it just a habit for them to pay attention to it? Do they have some tech that enables a sense they normally wouldn't have? If so, what is it?

Comments

[camwyn]

There's no indication that salarians have appreciably different senses from humans, although it wouldn't surprise me if they had a slightly different range of color vision given that they're amphibians and that many species of Earth amphibians have four or five kinds of cone cell.

Varric is a surface dwarf. Dwarves in his canon who live underground have a kind of 'stone sense' that allows them to navigate successfully regardless of where they are, at least most of the time, but this is said to fade the longer they live on the surface. Varric was born aboveground and has expressed a distaste for being in tunnels or underground any length of time more than once, so I doubt he has any appreciable stone sense at all. Unlike D&D dwarves there is no indication that Dragon Age dwarves have any kind of infravision or low light vision, so he has the normal human set as far as I'm concerned.

I have millicanoned in the past that my robotic characters get seriously wigged out if they're transformed into squishies by some means or otherwise deprived of their radio/data receptors. Ecto, Bumblebee and Ironhide all had the ability to pick up on radio transmissions and other forms of data signaling; being turned into a human or a rhino or a turn-of-the-twentieth-century vehicle left them with a MASSIVE gap in the sensorium that humans just had no capacity to grasp.

Ellen has the normal human set of senses when it's just her, but thanks to a piece of equipment she got from Karkat, has taken to relying on... um. Basically, she traded some stuff to Karkat in exchange for a set of goggles he alchemized to duplicate part of Terezi's synaesthesia. The goggles allow Ellen to see smells. While she's got Dogmeat, and he's a fairly good tracker, he's better at alerting when an odd smell shows up than at following a trail. The goggles allow Ellen to spot the remains of old scent trails or other places where something left its scent, so when she has to find a person or some object that would have attracted a lot of attention from humans or animals, she'll often take out the goggles and use those to look for the smell trail instead of more conventional tracking means.

[alexiscartwheel]

Lady Mary - 100% average human senses. Visual cues are very important to her, whether that's facial expressions, posture, style of dress, or hundreds of other little details. It's her most important clue of how to navigate socially.

Stiles - He's surrounded by werewolves with heightened senses, sometimes leaving him as the only normal human in the room. He's not above using Scott's super-hearing as a tool for eavesdropping though.

Carol - Better than average everything comes in handy when you're a superhero. (And even before that she had great vision and reflexes, which helped her become one of the USAFs top test pilots.) She sometimes has a seventh sense that enables her to anticipate what another person is about to do, but it comes and goes. It's super useful in a fight, when it's working.

[bjornwilde]

Ben Grimm has the typical human senses but they can withstand much greater input than a normal humans, i.e. sudden bright lights will make him squint instead of blinding him, etc. Also, Ben likely relies on his kinesthetic awareness more than anything else, otherwise he'd be crushing a heck of a lot more stuff.

Jessica Drew has super hearing, which is rarely shown on page nowadays. I'm not quite sure what to do with it myself given my hearing is subpar, but someday I'll research what sounds are out of human hearing and come to some conclusions.

Hank McCoy has the usual five for now and when he gets furry, it's never mentioned but I plan on taking a page or two from comics canon. In the comics he has a heightened olfactory sense but I plan on him seeing more colors, especially in the ultraviolet & blue spectrum, as well as preternatural hearing, mostly heightened enough he can heart heart beats if he focuses on them.

Quinlan has a variety of senses due to his Force skills. As a padawan, he is still developing them and mostly only has the battle precog but he can also sense fluctuations within the Force. As an adult, he also can sense where someone is simply by the traces they leave behind within the life in the environment. This even works for those that are unseen.

As a kiffar, he also has his races natural psychometric ability. On page, it is shown simply as a vision flashback while in the one episode of Clone Wars, it was shown to have audio as well. The ability does tend to have an emotional impact to Quinlan so I have decided it has visual, audio, and olfactory properties, as well empathetic.

Val von Doom I have millicanoned as having a spatial and chronological sense which mostly works when things are odd or different. It is almost like touch or a barometric perception.

Thalia I think would be able to tell if a weather phenomena were natural or not but not much else. I think she would also be able to feel electricity, thus being able to find live wires in walls, underground, a taser someone is holding, etc.

Anton can feel fluctuations in the Twilight or Gloom. He can also, after pulling on the Twilight, sense auras and other mystical information but tends to avoid it within Milliways since offending Sunshine so often.

Andrea has the senses of a hyena. They are somewhat muted while she is in human form but still heightened compared to a normal human. I think the hyena's sense of smell is strongest, followed by hearing but I really should research this more.

[genarti]

River has the normal human senses plus psychicness. For her, this actually expresses itself through the other senses -- she sees hallucinations based both on her own perception of objects and based on what other people are thinking, and she hears them saying things that they aren't actually saying. Sometimes she also gets feelings or hunches, but mostly it's visual and auditory.

One thing this means is that she actually depends on touch more than any other sense, because touch doesn't lie to her. She also uses sight and hearing, but touch is her grounding sense and her reality check. Anything that messes with her sight or her hearing she can deal with fine; anything that messes with her sense of touch or kinesthetic awareness sends her straight into meltdown. (See also: that time she got turned into a mongoose.)

Regan is just plain normal human.

Trowa is also just plain normal human, aside from having a low-level empathic bond with his boyfriend. And a low-level empathic rapport with animals. (He doesn't really notice either one of those, especially the latter, because to him it's just certainty about the interpretation of cues that other people might consider ambiguous or nonexistent.) I'm not sure which normal sense he uses most; he tries to pay attention to all of them. Except taste.

Enjolras is another normal human. Nothing extra here, unless you count an acute sense of symbolism.

Clare is not remotely a normal human, however! She has an extra ability to sense yoma power -- the aura of a yoma, but also their location and the strength of their power, and (if she concentrates) even the ability to sense the tiny shifts as that power flows into their muscles so that she can sense a move before the yoma makes it. In Milliways, this also applies to a lot of other creatures, although their auras feel variously weird to her. Anyway, this doesn't really translate to any other sense.

Thor also has some extra senses, about which I have been very vague and ambiguous! Because so is canon, and because I want to have the flexibility to have them kick in or not as is narratively convenient. But he's generally aware of what's going on with the atmosphere and electromagnetism around him, and he's also at least sometimes aware of magic happening and of whether people have an inherent power to them. (But sometimes he also isn't. Flexible!)

[katyafeline]

Oswin/Clara: My theory is she's a tiny bit of an empath - see 'Hide'. It's not enough to actually do anything with, but more than enough to give her the heebie-jeebies.

Ace: Thanks to the Cheetah virus, enhanced hearing/smell/and speed, more when she stops fighting it. Her sense of time is more acute too thanks to her training, though right now it's gone completely wonky.

Haymitch: Bog standard, unless you count an enhanced sense of snarkiness.

Glorfindel: 'Lord of the seen and the unseen' - he has the ability to see the spirit world (for lack of a better term), and interact with it to a certain extent.

Katya: Like Anton, can sense auras, patterns of causality and predict future odds to a certain degree, and, y'know. Can turn into a 300lb tiger. With all that entails.

Bones: Bog standard human. Again, with an enhanced sense of snark.

Balthazar: Without his ring, standard human. With his ring... depends on if he's actively looking for something. I'm pretty sure there's a spell to enhance any sense, but he doesn't run any of them all the time.

[damncompass]

Joshua is your plain, everyday, standard-issue human. Ish. He's developing a bit of an Artifact-sense, but that's so small that it's barely worth mentioning. Otherwise, he's just smart.

Helena is also a standard-issue human, except I'm not exactly sure what the debronzing process does to someone. I have theories, but I think I have to wait until next year to see if they're right or not. She is acutely aware of other people, though, able to read body language and tone of voice, and use that quite effectively.

Fantine is definitely just plain human. Except perhaps a over-bearing sense of doom.

... wow. Mine are pretty boring currently.

[fairy_fixit]

Amascut, even when she pretends to be human, demonstrates a heightened sense of smell, attuned especially for cats. She probably has hybrid cat-human vision and feline-like enhancements on the higher end of the auditory spectrum. Luckily for her (and anyone she happens to lick I suppose :P) she has a human tongue and can taste sweetness. Still, predator, so vision is important.

But the again, goddess, likely a shapeshifter too. She does detect divine power, though, especially when it is aligned with destruction. She probably has no detect artifact sense on her own.

Fairy Fixit, and the Zanaris fairies in general seen to be living magical bundles of energy in a physical shell of some sort. They are really good at sensing magic and divinity is just a part of that. They have large mostly forward facing eyes so I am guessing sight is important to them and that they were once, if they aren't still, predators. Zanaris fairies also sport a pair of plumose antennae which I figure they use like moths do. Mostly as accelerometers while in flight, but also as chemoreceptors and vibration sensors (extra noses and ears). Fairy Fixit's hat has a dangling light source which she uses for accelerometer purposes, since the hat restricts the movement of her antennae.

[1nv1nc1ble]

Canonically, Mark has normal senses, but I think that his brain is capable of processing sensory information faster than a human's. One doesn't fly as fast as a Viltrumite and not be able to process what he or she's seeing, hearing, etc., at faster speeds. Otherwise, there'd be a lot more holes in things where Viltrumites have crashed through them.

[never_shall_yield]

All of mine are regular human, with the exception of Banner-as-Hulk, in which case...heightened/super everything.

And Gene would like it mentioned that he has a highly attuned sense of Bullshit, and the ability to spot a terrorist gobshite from a hundred yards away. More seriously, he does have a heightened spiritual sense when it's time for his actual Role to kick in, and help people out of his world and on to Heaven. But he doesn't know a name for that. It's just something that occurs as an instinct.

...wow. It's a strange day when you realise Gene Hunt is the most spiritually aware of your pups. 0_0

[masterofgunfu]

Gene as a psychopomp amuses me to no end.

[the_gene_genie]

Freaks me right out!

Which is OK, as he finds it as unlikely as everyone else, actually. Still. He's quite good at it, if he manages not to get to attached to his peeps (he rarely manages, but ah well. He tries.).

[minkhollow]

Cata and Sam, while both baseline humans,* have some advantages thanks to Guild training. I don't know if I'd call it heightened senses as such, but they always know what time it is when they're at home (and would probably adapt if given a couple days to another world's clock; I'm not sure about Milliways, though, since it's Weird). That's the only one that's not training-specific.

*Okay, in Sam's case that's not exactly true, even though he likes to pretend it is. His mad projectile skillz are a manifestation of natural magical talent.

Claudia is baseline human, for now. Eventually she'll be able to tell when an Artifact is created. (And, you know, have a building in her head. But that's not exactly heightened senses.)

Apollo is a god. Your argument is invalid. He's very in tune with things having to do with his domains.

Imp is baseline human.

Regulus is a really fucking powerful wizard. We've headcanoned that the House of Black has a tendency to know what different people's magic feels like; the closer he is to someone, the more likely he is to pick up on it.

Red: Smell, hearing (which Granny cites as being particularly annoying when your home is an inn) and speed; of the three she's most comfortable by far with her nose.

[aberration]

Elle is has some superhuman senses associated with her ability, though this is mostly manifested as being able to perceive electrical current, and now magnetic forces, in a way others can't. All of her typical senses are baseline human, though she has been trained to be kind of hyper aware most of the time. Given that her ability emphasizes aim to a great degree, the sense she probably relies the most on is sight.

Asami is entirely baseline human. She probably also relies on sight a lot while driving.

Katara is a waterbender, and bending does seem to provide some amount of extra sensory perception, though I think how this plays out varies a lot person to person. Katara is able to sense what she can bend, including (though not yet) blood in another's body, but this is pretty low-level perception depending on her power level in the moment, and whether she is actively looking to/attempting to waterbend.

Leslie is a normal human. I'm trying to think if she has any sitcom-exaggerated senses, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Manny is not a normal human, but I can't think of a way this results in enhanced senses.

Marceline is a vampire, and while she has a lot of powers, I don't think of any as involving extra senses. Marshall Lee at one point sings that he has x-ray eyes ("and they're looking right through your anatomy"), but he might have just been messing with Fionna. I did millicanon that the way she perceives taste is different from how a human would, as she mostly consumes the color red through her fangs. And if she's taken on a non-humanoid form, her senses may change/enhance accordingly.

Hiccup is a normal human. While he obviously relies on sight a lot, I like to think he also relies a lot on touch in smithing/working with his hands, and muscle memory.

[ceitfianna]

Will, William, Jane and Moist are all baseline human though due to exciting lives Will, William and Moist are good at paying attention in dangerous situations. Oh and the Pirate King too, he's bog standard with musical ability.

Charles is a telepath and I believe an empath too, his canon isn't good at specifically explaining what he can do. Its been pointed out that he's one of the most powerful psychics in the Marvel universe alongside Jean and Emma. What that means is that he's aware of all the thoughts and emotions of people around him, I've headcanoned that he can also go into people's dreams. To keep himself from being overwhelmed, he has layers and layers of shield that allow him to control how much of a person's mind he senses. Due to how much control this takes, his greatest fears is losing control and losing his sense of self, because without that core knowledge of who he is, he would go mad. This go rather long and isn't as much about senses but its Charles, he's complicated.

Sameth as a member of the Abhorsen bloodline has a Death sense, which means that he can sense someone who is dead and also feel dying. This is why the Window disturbs him so much, but its a useful skill when your family fights necromancers. As a member of the Wallmaker bloodline and a Charter Mage, he's very turned into the Charter and the magic of his world. I've extrapolated that this also makes him good at sensing other forms of magic and seeing some of how they work. How effective it is depends on how much the magic resembles and works like the Charter.

Tumnus is a Faun who I think has slightly better hearing due to his rather large ears and its not a sense exactly but I think it takes him longer to get cold.

Demeter as a goddess of agriculture and fertility is very in tune with the living world to the point where she can orient herself by the ground under her feet. This is why she never wears shoes, the ground and the living world are her realm and bare feet allows her to constantly connect with it.

[chanter1944]

Sariel is baseline human. She relies on both sight and sense of touch when she's flying; she's Millicanonically gotten good enough that she can feel a course change through the movement of the ship while off-duty, which seems a reasonable conclusion to draw - if you're trained to be aware of these things, you can't generally just switch it off, nor would you necessarily want to. She doesn't want to, for the record.

Canonically and Millicanonically, she's displayed a heightened awareness of people's actions and reactions, especially body language and facial expressions, and possibly their emotional state as connected to these. I wouldn't call her enhanced, just naturally attuned. Some of this might be due to her routinely using her eyes for fine detail work, but I suspect most of it is just her natural state of perception.