Fairy Eyesight

So, as a defensive mechanism, being able to pinpoint things and identify targets in nature is good, yes?

Dogs and Cats have two cones: blue and green.

Humans have three: blue, green, and red. (we know this, obviously because of our RGB codes)

Butterflies have five: blue, green, red, and two colors we don't even have names for, and all the colors derived from those five cones.

Since fairies take after butterflies with the wings, and even though they look human we know they're not. So I think it'd be a nice addition to include fairies being able to see things in far broader a spectrum of color than humans, nekos, and inus. What do you think?

I think that the unknown colors would be added in the human spectrum for them, like, the separation of colors are even more blurred as these new colors are added in.

yeah sure. make them even stronger than they already are. <.< How about you give fairies a few more disadvantages as well? Besides that "if you cripple their wings they cant fly and use magic" I mean, because even after one crippled their wings, they still appear to be able to do anything a human can do and possibily much more. O.o


Also, butterflies have a net-type style of eyes. So I dont think your comparism works here. If you have bat people, you dont give them Supersonic capablilities unless they get those ridiclous ears either, do you?

Amaroq kind of makes a good point. As far as we can tell, fairies have human eyeballs, meaning that they'd likely only have the capabilities of human eyes.

One more thing! I don't think all, or even most fairies have any relation to butterflies. Most of the ones I've seen have dragonfly wings, with only a select few having butterfly ones.

One moooooore thing! From a writer's standpoint, don't you think it would be difficult to describe how fairies perceive things (y'know, more than it already is) if they were able to see colours we don't even have names for?

Well of course it'd be hard to write for colors you cant even imagine, but there's techniques for getting around that.

Either way, I see a few fairies have butterfly wing types. Aya does, as she's canon. Either way, the cone cells are not a part of the cornea. They're in the back of the eyeball, in the retina.

Also an interesting note, rod cells, instead of cone cells, work better in dim light.

A few fairies have butterfly wings, but not all do.  So applying that logic to all fairies solely on the principle that butterflies do doesn't make sense.  I think it goes without saying fairy eyes have the same range of binocular vision and detect the same three color wavelengths as humans do.

We could apply inspiration from these though to say that fairies all have one extra cone for a total of four, not five. Mist Fairies, Crimson Maidens, Canopy Fairies would have an extra cone for their respective color coded area. Could work with all the fairies in some way.

For Crimson Maidens, since everything is a stark red, having an extra cone to help them pick out the various plants and animals that are also red would make it easier to write for, and also be a little more relevant, as that is what Shady Knight is going for.

Though honestly we can make some leaps when it comes to idea creation. We don't need to directly say "oh they're a butterfly or not, therefore we can/cannot have the extra cone" or, "slug girls should absorb the males in through their body during sex because their counterpart species does!" (Actually I'm unsure which of the slug type creatures do that. It might a sea creature one that does) or about how anglerfish absorb and digest their male counterpart while having sex with them, (anyway, enough of the examples...)

My point is we don't need to directly peel a trait from their animal counterpart because they're not technically related to them. Or not. Could work both ways whether you do or don't take inspiration. We did that with mantoids, even though a lot of people didn't quite think that was the best way to handle how they had sex. We judged it was too disadvantageous for a creature in felarya to kill their mate during sex.

I have a feeling this is going to devolve into how creepy sex in the animal kingdom can be.

I think the only reason most of these sexual methods work in nature is due to the lack of sapience in the animals involved. >.>

On subject, I actually agree that crimson maidens should maybe have more developed colour sensory to help them spot the differences in red things in a red forest.

Ilceren wrote:

You guys know what Trilobites are, right? They are an extinct animal, a frequently found fossil. Well, it seems they all died because of a simple desire an influential part of the race had: Trilobite females really liked big-shelled males. And so, their shells would become bigger and bigger as generations passed, fruit of that preference, until they became so big and heavy that Trilobites could not swim anymore and they extinguished. Heh, talk about disadvantageous social conventions.

The thing I find most interesting about this is how could anyone Possibly know that about a species that went extinct long before humans walked the Earth? O.o

I usually relegate their antennae as their mean to sniff out magic. That said it gets confusing when you have antlers instead like Melany does, unless she feels a tingly sensation in them.

Amaroq wrote:

yeah sure. make them even stronger than they already are. <.< How about you give fairies a few more disadvantages as well? Besides that "if you cripple their wings they cant fly and use magic" I mean, because even after one crippled their wings, they still appear to be able to do anything a human can do and possibily much more. O.o


Also, butterflies have a net-type style of eyes. So I dont think your comparism works here. If you have bat people, you dont give them Supersonic capablilities unless they get those ridiculous ears either, do you?

Firstly I want to know where you've seen a Fairy who did anything other than lay around whining about her wings being all shattered. Seriously not seen one myself that I can recall in even the worst fan adaption. Maybe in some of my own Rps, but to be fair I don't believe in laying around prone if I can roll away from the fatal blow or at least keep myself in the game for another turn.

As for big ears and super sonics? =P

The Wiki wrote:

Banshees have poor eyesight and, like normal bats, use a sort of sonar to help them find their way and locate prey in darkness. They constantly emit little clicking sounds that are known to damage nearby electronic machinery. Their name come from their main weapon: a powerful sonic wave that can be focused at prey, paralyzing it for a short amount of time, just long enough for the banshee to swoop down and grab it. The method is not unlike that used by crystal mermaids, albeit less damaging for organisms, and much more devastating against electronic devices.