Second Sight

The Second Sight, often known simply as the Sight or occasionally the Third Eye, is a talent possessed by every Practitioner as a result of the Awakening ritual.

Uses

The Sight is different for everyone, using different imagery (and sometimes non-visual senses.)<ref name=":4">“Listen up, you two, here’s your first lesson in the field. I want you to pay particular attention to all the weirdness going on around us. Start with the immediate stuff, the connections between each of us, things being carried back and forth. Over time, you’ll visualize it into something like cords, strings, ribbons…” “It’s more a feeling for me,” Nick said. “Physical. Everyone sees it differently.” - excerpt from Subordination 6.3 </ref><ref>It’s scheduled to appear in Kennet next. If you open up your ears like you opened your eyes to the Sight, you should hear the song. You can follow it to the epicenter.
- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.7 </ref> Some things, magical or mundane, generally appear the same to different people's Sight however.<ref>“I…” Verona said, with mirth in her voice, “am loving your hair.”
Lucy had to bring one hand to her afro-ponytail to push it to where she could see it. Pink?
“Why the hell?”
Verona laughed.
She closed her eyes, much as she’d opened them. Her hair was normal. Light brown, glossy, with the highlights of blonde she thought of as the only thing she’d inherited from her dad, and total pain to take care of. - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.2

Lucy nodded, her hair bobbing out of sync behind her. With Avery’s sight, the hair was pink at the ends, and Lucy’s eyes were a rosy brown. - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.4 </ref><ref>Matthew Moss
Type according to Matthew: Host
Appearance: Human I guess? Brown hair + beard. 20-35?
Appearance with Sight: His eyes are in shadow.

[...]

Edith James / Girl by Candlelight
Type according to Matthew: Complex Spirit Appearance: Human? Bleached blond hair. Appearance with Sight: Eyes glow like fire

[...]

Alpeana
Type according to Matthew: Mare Appearance: Filthy hair, totally black eyes, ragged clothes. Appearance with Sight: Same?

- Bonus Material: Notes 1 </ref><ref>“They’re hosting spirits to enough of a degree it’s visible even with a shallow Sight?” she heard Tanner.
[...]
“Why animal faces?” she asked.
“If it’s this omnipresent, it may be the Sight equivalent of labeling something at the root level. I could see changing or obfuscating your name, taking on a title as part of the implement or demesnes rituals, but faces… I don’t know. If it was one individual, I could say it’s a Host with an exceptionally strong rider, or a practitioner with a familiar strong enough it was leaking through, but I’d expect to see that leak somewhere else.”
“If the Carmine Beast disappeared, could it be that they took on that power? Or tapped into it?”
“No,” Alexander said. He rubbed his chin. “Because then they’d be red. Charles- my old friend, he used to make Others. The eye glyph I taught you was something he did early on. I’d halfways wonder if he taught someone else how to make these three, or… no. I wonder if they did the awakening ritual in a funny way.” - excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z</ref>

At it's most simple, the Sight allows one to see through certain basic forms of invisibility and concealment.<ref>I finished the chapter, rereading the bit on being awakened and the sight. Now, as agreed on by men and Others, long ago, I’d see what was normally hidden from people. - excerpt from Bonds 1.7</ref><ref>"Every time I count heads I see nine, but when I go from person to person and count names, the total comes up eight, and I can’t find the person without a name.”
[...]
I used the Sight, and I found the man with no name, sitting on a chair he’d turned around at the end of the dining room table. - excerpt from Collateral 4.1 </ref><ref>Collateral 4.2</ref> Only slightly less basic is the ability to see Connections between things,<ref name=":0" /><ref>Reminder: your average practitioner will be able to look and see if something’s watching them, even if it’s a camera. - Interlude 10</ref><ref>“For those of us who know about the practice, it has a second meaning. The very first thing we perceive when we enter this realm.”
“Connections.”
“Yes. Make of that what you will.”
- excerpt from Null 9.5 </ref> although facility with this varies between individuals.<ref name=":4">“Listen up, you two, here’s your first lesson in the field. I want you to pay particular attention to all the weirdness going on around us. Start with the immediate stuff, the connections between each of us, things being carried back and forth. Over time, you’ll visualize it into something like cords, strings, ribbons…” “It’s more a feeling for me,” Nick said. “Physical. Everyone sees it differently.” - excerpt from Subordination 6.3 </ref><ref>She sat at the end of the bench. Pamela seated herself beside Avery. [...] Her Sight was more farsighted than not, which was a pain, because she really would have liked to see and study the band that stretched between her and Pamela. - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.7 </ref> Practitioners' eyes will often visibly flash or distort in a specific way to the Sighted when they use their own Sight,<ref>Seth stood in the doorway that connected the adjunct area to the church. His eyes glowed with Sight as he looked through her and into her. - excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z</ref><ref>Alexander, situated so Musser was between him and Luisa, sat back, his eyes flashing gold as he turned on the Sight.
[...]

“Then that brings us to option three,” Alexander replied.  He closed his eyes and opened them again, and they were gold. [...] Alexander’s eyes, gold, started to flake and peel.  They revealed a burnished red.

With each fallen flake and revealed bit of red, his vision took on a red tint. He could see the entirety of Ted Havens, inside and out. - excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.x</ref><ref>Verona’s eyes were purple with the Sight, visible only to fellow Sight-havers - excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.9</ref> including to Others, people in some Realms, etc (see below.)<ref name=":2" /><ref>The cat-faced girl had shadow clinging close to her cloak, to the point it was hard to make her out in the dark, not helped by the dark fur of her face. Her eyes flashed violet as she looked over everyone and everything. - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.z</ref>

It can be turned on and off at will;<ref name="1.7e1" /><ref name="2.1e2">A boiling cloud of what might have been vapor, a haze, sat over the city. It was as though stormclouds were rolling in, and they were doing it at ground level. At times there was a fluidity to it, as though the nearby lake had swelled and swamped the area, waves rising and falling, only periodically allowing buildings to be seen, where they dipped low enough.
This wasn’t water or water vapor. It was spirits.
I shut off the sight.
The scene I saw without magical aid was an ordinary one, a simple snowfall, with clouds in the proper places. My view of the buildings was still limited, periodically obscured, but only by snow. - excerpt from Damages 2.1 </ref> if one doesn't learn to turn it off, they can lose their connection to reality entirely over time.<ref>“The book says you need to learn to manage your extra senses. If you don’t, they can swallow you up, and you won’t find your way back to reality.”
“I think I remember.”
“It suggests techniques, but you have to find what works for you. Closing your eyes, but not moving your eyelids. Or try refocusing them, and find that point you reach to where you’re trying to refocus your eyes but you’re doing something else. It becomes as natural as anything else about your body. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s easy.” - excerpt from Bonds 1.7</ref> The sprits within your Self will naturally latch on to patterns and habits of usage, so it is important to use one's Sight in the ways one intends to go on using it at the beginning; overuse can lead to it being "stuck on". Some Practitioners deliberately choose to have some Sight always available.<ref>“My Sight wouldn’t go away. It stayed in one part of my eye.”
“My theory was that it’s like straining a muscle,” Lucy added.
“Have you been using it a great deal?” Miss asked.
Avery shrugged and nodded.<br “The part of you that connects to the Sight isn’t physical. It’s your Self, your soul, your ‘you’. The complex spirit or fingerprint that makes up all the parts of you that are distinct and unique when put together as a whole. It adheres to patterns, adjusting and adapting by scales that have nothing to do with muscles or physical health.”
“What happened?” Avery asked.
“It adjusted. As spirits do, your spirit worked off of underlying patterns and assumptions, that you were someone who always used the Sight, so you always wanted the Sight available. There are many practitioners who do this on purpose, refining their Sight so it is something they can always have available, for specific purposes, and keep their vision clear for other things.”
“Uh, so how do I tell my Self to not do that?” Avery asked.
“That might be something that Charles can help you with better than I

can.  Intuitively, it makes sense that if you don’t want it on most of

the time, don’t use it most of the time.”
“Are there any other ways?” Lucy asked.
“You could make the pattern more elaborate, so it is harder to fall into by unconscious habit. Saying a particular word or wearing your mask or a pair of glasses when you want the Sight available.”
- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.7</ref>

Some Practitioners train their second sight to show them things relevant to their practice.<ref name="2.1e1">With my newly acquired second sight, I could make out the spirits that infused everything. Just as I might focus my eyes, I could focus this sight. I could train it. According to Essentials, some practitioners would train their sight to focus on things better suited to their talents. Imagery would take hold. - excerpt from Damages 2.1</ref><ref name=":0">Damages 2.4</ref> Things a Practitioner might learn to See include:

The existence of minor Spirits everywhere and their general movements,<ref name="1.7e1">I closed my eyes, exhaling, and then opened them.

But for the chalk lines and bowls in strange places, the room was normal.
I reversed the process. Eyes closed, inhaling, eyes open.
Again, there were the hints of life. I could see something faint, like dust motes, spraying lightly where the room ended and the hallway began. As though the space warping effect was creating a kind of friction between spaces.
When I focused on the motes, they stood out in my vision, and I could see more of them in the room.
I cupped my hand to catch one.
It turned, doing a small somersault before darting between the fingers that tried to close around it.
I did what I’d done before, but I didn’t close my eyes.
The effect faded.
I turned it on again, but without doing anything with my breath or eyes.
Natural. - excerpt from Bonds 1.7</ref><ref name="2.1e1" /><ref name=":8">We went on our way. I hadn’t turned off my second sight, and I saw how the spirits were shifting. People were milling around the area, which was more like an extended strip mall than a true downtown, but the spirits diverted them from taking one side street. - excerpt from Damages 2.1 </ref><ref name=":9">I felt like a weight had been lifted from me, now that I was clear of the room. Every step away from the circle had diminished the volume of the ticking as if I’d taken ten. Being in the living room, I could barely feel it. With the second sight, I could make out the movements of the spirits, as if they were caught up in a current, fighting a headwind. - excerpt from Breach 3.4</ref> possibly developing into the ability to communicate with minor spirits.

Symbolic representations of damage, harm
Seeing emotion<ref>Faint emotion touched Ted’s face, as much as he tried to hide it. Alexander could See through that too.

- excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.x</ref>

Dreams<ref name=":5">Matthew spoke up, “The Sight is something you can train. With

practice and specialization, you may learn to see connections that thread between people, to see things like dreams or the approach of Death, or more easily track the spirits and how they move.” - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.2</ref>

the approach of Death<ref name=":5" />
A person's Implement.<ref name=":3" />
Detailed dossiers on everyone they look at.<ref name=":6">Bonus Material: Borrowed Eyes Comic</ref>
Weak points<ref name=":10">Right now, as she picked herself up, she didn’t put the ornament

back. Instead, pain framed the hallow, throbbing where she’d been struck at a sensitive point, probably because he’d used that Sight to identify that point. Pain invited painful things in, which was already starting to make her see things, even without her Sight.

She could hear bitter, angry whisperings in her deaf ear, reminding her of past things. [...]

Ruin and Disaster roared in her deaf ear, and images danced at the edges of her vision, encroaching in. She could see spirits without her Sight, and it took effort to block them out. - excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z </ref>

Intent<ref>“Now let go, you’re violating the rules of this house, threatening me and bruising my arm like this.”

She really didn’t want him to let go, so she smiled, small and personal, just for him. Smug.

“I don’t think you’ll tell,” he whispered. “I See it.” - excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z </ref>

Seeing better in the dark
Seeing through obstructions, such as trees or smoke<ref>One enemy remained unaccounted for, and he didn’t have a good photo of the man.

The world was see-through, if he wanted it to be.
The trees provided little cover.
Ted Havens ducked under a branch, rounded a copse of trees, and emerged from foliage. He was unscathed, unlike so many others.
“Saw me coming?” Ted asked. “That’s not usual.”
[...]
Thirty paces separated them. Trees obscured the view some, though Alexander’s Sight helped with that.
- excerpt from Gone Ahead 7.x</ref>

Sensing movement
Seeing flows of blood, electricity, etc.<ref name="2.ze2"/>

Augurs specialize in Sight-related Practices, among other things. Practices which can tie into the Sight include:

Training your Sight to switch between different modes of perception on cue, such as whenever you tap your glasses.<ref name="2.ze2">Nicolette smiled. She adjusted her glasses, and her fingernail clicked into a groove at the rim, then to another. Each ‘click’ was an adjustment, and each one made her Sight change to a different mode of Seeing. Her headache pounded in the background as she switched to seeing him as a doll with chains run through him to seeing him as a figure of light, surrounded by splashes of color, to seeing the electricity running through the walls and the blood running through his veins. She noted the tools and weapons he had, the colors and intensities of them in various Sights and angles. - excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z</ref>
Using the Sight to more quickly and effectively react to things in an athletic or combat situation.
Casting out your Sight to see through the eyes of your minions.<ref name="2.ze1">Her eyes rolled up into her head and the top of her head opened up to the distant Seeing.

[...]
She saw with eight eyes, each taking a different course, but all moving in concert, staying near one another.
She found them. The clearing. The hut. Three girls. Her creations peered through the trees and the leaves, watching them do a circuit, looking for something. The image was a bit blotchy, because of the sickness. A bit jittery, because of the fear. Overly sharp, because of the pain. The cost of using such things as a power source.
Who are you and what are you looking for?
She tried to peer closer at the girls, but their faces were gone, replaced with animal visages.
[...]
The words were indistinct, distorted. She hadn’t made these pets of hers to listen in. Only to See.
[...]
Her eyes being used up with the eight individual viewpoints of her pets, she had to draw the circle around the feathers blind.
- excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z</ref>

Borrowing another Practitioner's Sight through a ritual.<ref name=":6" />
Casting out Omens or other harm along your Sight, similar to the Evil Eye.<ref>Nicolette reached to her pocket, then set down the feathers. Her eyes being used up with the eight individual viewpoints of her pets, she had to draw the circle around the feathers blind.

She made her gaze a bridge, by which the omens could travel. There were people who could do this naturally, with varying types of evil eye, but she wasn’t one of them.
- excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z</ref><ref>“With Nicolette sending omens in to investigate… she was looking for trouble, and then more trouble happened. That’s how Melissa got hurt. Does Alexander cause strife to happen by turning his Sight on things?”
“It surrounds him, yes. He’s good at navigating it, to the extent that it may be something of a shield of his. His underlings may fight more among themselves as a consequence.” - excerpt from Out on a Limb 3.2</ref>

Some things can produce an effect similar to the Sight, including:

Many Others have alternate perceptions similar in many ways to the Sight, although not necessarily able to be turned off. Practitioners who cross the line from being human may lose their Practitioner's Sight but can gain other forms of awareness.<ref name=":1">“I feel it. Pressure,” Matthew said. “I was chasing it, driving this way and that. We’re close to a nice big patch of it.”

“Is that your Sight?” Verona asked.
“I lost my Sight a little ways into hosting this thing [...] My Sight is gone, but my vision is tinted. I’m more sensitive to some things. Kind of like Sight, but not optional.” - excerpt from Back Away 5.2 </ref><ref name=":2">Zed turned around, his eyes flashing as he did. [...] “Vessels?” Zed asked.
“Three elemental vessels, and one man with something elemental-related in him,” Edith said. Matthew nodded his agreement, his expression serious.
[...]
These three were vessels. Like Edith was, but these ones were too neat, when he looked at them with the Doom’s eyes. Closer to the space he’d carved out for his Doom, but… a much, much bigger hole. [...] To his Doomsight, there was someone nestled inside her, dark, chafed around the edges and shadowy, like she’d had pale skin before being rinsed in thin black ink that had settled into the creases. It was a woman, long-haired, human sized and human shaped, curled up and contorted into a space as small as this woman’s upper body. Her eyes and teeth were too white and bright.
- excerpt from Back Away 5.d </ref><ref name=":3">Others with extraordinary or nonhuman senses and practitioners who have keen Sight will be able to see one’s relationship to their implement. In many cases, this is a benefit, as such Others are often face-blind when it comes to telling one human apart from the next, but will recognize the individual by their implement.
Much ado has been made about the allegorical ‘diagram’ fragment that an item may represent. Here, we can return to that notion and say that for these Others, the implement and the associated diagram may be placed around, over, on, or through the practitioner. It may be a mark on the forehead, a reflection of one’s sword in their eyes, or a framework surrounding them. - excerpt from Implementum, quoted in Bonus Material: Implementum Text</ref>

Certain realms, such as the Spirit World, make things obvious in them that are otherwise hidden.
Some rituals and devices can produce visual representations of hidden things and/or alternate realms, very similar to the Sight but visible to everyone present.<ref>She lifted up the dense, metal dollhouse, setting it in a metal box with about 20 segments. There were a horrendous number of figures, pieces of furniture, accessories, animals, and little colored blocks inside, sliding around, rolling down stairs, and falling out. The box itself had zipper-like creases at the edges of each segment, knitting them together. She centered the dollhouse and then collected the fallen bits, pushing them in through windows.

[...]
She whispered, “Show me the three girls with animal faces,” and opened it up.
Three simple figurines with rectangular blocks for bodies were topped with the heads of a fox, cat, and deer. They were within a cabin with an open top. Ribbons filled the space, tying to a center mass. A circular bit of wood, shallow, sat in the center.
There was no sign of the other figurines that had been within, or the diner, or the old house.
“Why animal faces?” she asked.
“If it’s this omnipresent, it may be the Sight equivalent of labeling something at the root level. I could see changing or obfuscating your name, taking on a title as part of the implement or demesnes rituals, but faces… I don’t know. If it was one individual, I could say it’s a Host with an exceptionally strong rider, or a practitioner with a familiar strong enough it was leaking through, but I’d expect to see that leak somewhere else.”

- excerpt from Stolen Away 2.z</ref><ref>The room’s appearance shifted, to become something very much like the spirit world Lucy had visited together with Verona and Avery. The floor was covered in an inch of water, littered with flower petals. She could see the nose of the ‘mask’ she wore in spirit, and her hair was far longer, pale pink tendrils blowing across her shoulder.
Other students changed as well. Avery had the deer mask. Jessica had two silver lines running down from her eyes, her skin and hair beaded with moisture. Dom, Talia, and Jorja weren’t as affected as some, but Lucy could see how Dom’s hands were paler. Talia resembled her doll and her doll resembled her. Jorja had little pastel pellets littering her hair and shoulders, in stark contrast to how dark her clothes and hair were, and how grim her expression was.
“Spirit is one source of power. Basic, simple, easy, but it can be hard to negotiate for the particulars, or to control the fine results.”
[...]
The lighting changed. Everything became a slow-motion flow of smoke, but where transparent wisps overlapped, they painted silhouettes and details.
She wore the fox mask here. More smoke traced the outline of her cape.
“This is what one might see with a particular variety of the Sight, ignoring connections. Lucy here-”
- excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.6</ref>

Being possessed by an Other may taint your vision with their way of seeing.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":10" />

Known Examples

Blake Thorburn - a world painted in rough strokes, with exaggerated contrast and saturation,<ref name=":11">I did. I searched for the connection, but I couldn’t make out much.

The world was buried under a haze, and the wind was blowing in too many directions at once.
“Trace your eyes along the paths that things run in parallel, the straightest lines. Good place to start, and good places to avoid if you think someone’s searching for you.”
I looked harder. The saturation and contrast seemed exaggerated, the world painted in a impasto style with coarse brush strokes, animated with life and constant motion. I followed the areas where the strokes and lines met, so I could see the flow of it, not stopping at a dead end but naturally sweeping my eyes along the straighter paths where the particles danced.
[...]
My eye traveled over the splash of minor spirits that danced around it, seeking out the areas where they were traveling in the straightest lines.
One, blocked by the house. I eyeballed it, figured out the direction, found it on the other side of the house, faint, disappearing into the woods and glades.
The Briar Girl, I thought. - excerpt from Damages 2.4 </ref> drifting "dust mote" spirits everywhere reacting to Practice,<ref name="1.7e1">I closed my eyes, exhaling, and then opened them.
But for the chalk lines and bowls in strange places, the room was normal.
I reversed the process. Eyes closed, inhaling, eyes open.
Again, there were the hints of life. I could see something faint, like dust motes, spraying lightly where the room ended and the hallway began. As though the space warping effect was creating a kind of friction between spaces.
When I focused on the motes, they stood out in my vision, and I could see more of them in the room.
I cupped my hand to catch one.
It turned, doing a small somersault before darting between the fingers that tried to close around it.
I did what I’d done before, but I didn’t close my eyes.
The effect faded.
I turned it on again, but without doing anything with my breath or eyes.
Natural. - excerpt from Bonds 1.7</ref><ref name="2.1e1" /><ref name=":8">We went on our way. I hadn’t turned off my second sight, and I saw how the spirits were shifting. People were milling around the area, which was more like an extended strip mall than a true downtown, but the spirits diverted them from taking one side street. - excerpt from Damages 2.1 </ref><ref name=":9">I felt like a weight had been lifted from me, now that I was clear of the room. Every step away from the circle had diminished the volume of the ticking as if I’d taken ten. Being in the living room, I could barely feel it. With the second sight, I could make out the movements of the spirits, as if they were caught up in a current, fighting a headwind. - excerpt from Breach 3.4</ref> connections visible as streams of moving spirits<ref name=":7">I switched to my other sight. “June Burlison.”
I could see the connection. Frail, spirits reacting between me and the book, me and Rose, and between me and something out there in the woods. Too general, indirect and fleeting to point the way to anything.
“June Burlison,” Rose said. I could see the same connections forming. The connection passed to me, then out to the woods, like the aftermath of lighting that darted between conductive targets.
Would this same strategy work for finding people? Objects? If I wanted to find Laird, could I call out his name until I could make out the connection? - excerpt from Damages 2.3 </ref><ref name=":11" />

Nick - more of a physical feeling than anything visual<ref name=":4" />
Verona Hayward - a world covered in transparent plastic-like sheets, spirits as skinless creatures moving beneath them, cobwebs representing connections.^{[citation needed]} Enhanced low-light vision.<ref>“I’m fine,” Verona said. “I can kinda see in the dark if I use my Sight.”

[...]
She remembered why she’d used the sight, and tried to analyze the world around her. Movement and motion provoked shedding of bits of grass, bark, or paint, to the point she could tell that there were things out there, but… she couldn’t see in the dark.
“I can’t,” she said.
“Me either,” Lucy said.
“You could train your eyes to See that way,” Edith said. “For now, I would guess your Sight is exaggerating your natural abilities, preferences, and your way of looking at the world.”
“You’d guess?” Lucy asked. “You don’t know?”
“No,” Edith said.
- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.3 </ref><ref>They descended past the tops of the trees, into the recesses of thick forest. It was dark, to a surprising degree. Verona had first experienced this when going to save Avery from the Forest Ribbon Trail. She kept her Sight on, but it didn’t help much. She tended to see better when there was at least a little light, and there wasn’t much. - Excerpt from Back Away 5.2</ref>

Avery Kelly - photographic film representing connections,<ref>Edith turned her head to look off into the trees. Avery, her Sight

still active, could see the band that wound through the trees and along a path, extending to the distant campsite that Edith was looking at. [...] The idea of this particular bit of chalk-drawing, like the one on Lucy’s hat and Verona’s hat, was not to work on spirits, but to work on the bands she could see with the Sight. Every relationship between a person and a person, place, or thing had a band or a ‘connection’. - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.3</ref><ref>Avery turned that same Sight out toward the campus. The ‘bands’ of film-negative cutouts that represented connections were stretched tight, to the point of being strained, and many others were lying limp on the ground, especially here, between the parking lot and the school, and at the front of the school itself. She didn’t know if that meant they were broken forever if it meant the slack would be picked up later, but it caught her eye. - excerpt from Cutting Class 6.9</ref> shadows and mist everywhere obscuring unimportant details, handprints and footprints everywhere, areas without prints damaged.<ref>She did as Miss had instructed earlier in the evening, and opened her eyes to the Sight. She could see the flare of Edith’s eyes, and the world partially dissolved. On trees, on cars, there were a multitude of handprints and footprints. Bands extended like clotheslines or spider’s webs across everything, including a band from the truck to the office, another band to the truck, and another band that extended down into the woods, wrapping around trees on the way there.
Where there weren’t handprints and footprints, things were damaged. Bark was peeled and broken, grass black to the point it looked like there was nothing there, and sections of wall around the camp buildings were splintered and shedding paint.
The bands were the interesting thing. They were almost like old film negatives, partially transparent, silhouettes standing up and looking around. Almost like paper with sections cut out. Almost like something quilted, layers stitched on. A middle-ground between all three. Where there was too much negative, too much cut-out, or too little material, the bands looked like they could snap. She felt like she could look at those scenes that formed the band and analyze them, but she couldn’t get close enough. When she moved, they moved. If she walked towards one, it rose higher until it was well above her head. - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.3 </ref> Movement is highlighted.<ref>Avery used her Sight. It made it easier to see moving things, and to see the threads that tied one thing to another. - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.3</ref> Farsighted, things close-up are blurred.<ref>Avery’s eyes opened wider, her pupils narrowed, and the ‘real’ world peeled away. The floor was shrouded in the faintest of mists, the unimportant details flaked away like peeling paint in a high wind, and it was just her, the people on the field, a court of handprints and footprints, and a mess of the bands all around her, strung between players and between herself and the others. The ones from herself were harder to see.
[...]
One third of her left eye was stuck on the Sight, like a blurriness that wouldn’t go away, but it was a different picture, darker, mistier, with handprints, some bloody.
[...]
Her Sight was more farsighted than not, which was a pain, because she really would have liked to see and study the band that stretched between her and Pamela.
- excerpt from Lost for Words 1.7</ref>

Lucy Ellingson - a watercolour world, blades piercing things (as well as darker stains/paint) represent harm and danger. Ribbons, banners, and strips of cloth blowing in the wind represent connections. Farsighted, things close-up are blurred.<ref>Like the raising of an eyelid, she lifted up a veil that was entirely of her will.

The world was painted by watercolour, favouring dark blues and grays for the snow, dark greens and black for the trees. More startling was the red. Like bloodstains, the red was everywhere, sinking into snow, into trees, and even dirt, though it was hard to make out. As if to facilitate that bleeding or bloodstaining, blades, swords, and shafts of wood impaled everything. Ribbons, sashes, and tatters of cloth were tied to handles, blades, and shafts, and each blew intently in a different direction.
Even people had sashes, but it was hard to tell the origin points. When she got closer she found things got blurrier, harder to make out, as if it was the opposite of the way things worked in reality. - excerpt from Lost for Words 1.2 </ref> Stains are visible even in darkness or smoke.<ref>With the Sight on, she could see the drama, the watercolor stain spreading out into the air and sometimes turning fluorescent, glowing brightly or reflecting the flames. The darkness was deeper, and faces white. She could see the blades impaling people.
Two guys and three girls were sitting on the side of the hill, barely

any illumination around them, and the stain that spread around them was
colorful, taking on vague shapes like faces.  The blades that had been

digging into them before were now pulling away, drifting like they were underwater and swords could float. They looked up at the night sky, and

because they were on the hillside that wasn’t directly facing Kennet,

there wasn’t a lot of light pollution to block off the view of the stars. Even the milky way was visible high above. Lucy had to turn off

her Sight to see it, before she turned it back on.

[...]
Lucy’s eyes stung with the smoke from the cabin. She used the Sight, and saw silhouettes like black stains against the smoke, throwing water on the couch that was over the couch.
[...]
Her Sight helped identify stains where the tree branches could scratch and the especially brambly bushes and weeds were.
[...]
To Lucy’s sight, the black cat mask was white, the white rim around the eye sockets like smudged blood. The stain at Melissa’s foot was black in a way that made the gloom around it seem pale, threads reaching up and into her body, where the threads of stain transfixed her heart, the slashes that extended out like blades unto themselves.
[...]
As the light faded, she used her Sight to scan the surroundings, judging the slopes-
And saw Guilherme, stained a deep green-blue, approaching from the shadows. He was in his boy form, shirtless, his only real clothing like

a kilt worn over leather pants, and he had a weapon.  A long spear.

- excerpt from Leaving a Mark 4.3</ref>

Nicolette Belanger - multiple modes changed by tapping glasses, including seeing people as figures of light with splashes of colour around them, dolls supported by chains, and seeing everything in terms of flows of electricity and blood.<ref name="2.ze2"/>
Lawrence Bristow - a world of diagrams and symbols, people as human-shaped dossiers of info framed by diagrams, with notations on their head and throat describing their status in his collection.<ref>Bonus Material: Borrowed Eyes Comic</ref>

References