That is Not What Sentinel Sidney Crosby Would Be Smelling, Okay?

[kiki_eng]

Right. So one of the great things about humanity and biology and the reality that we actually live in is that there's such a range of everything. People experience the world differently; it's pretty cool.

For me, reading stories about characters with heightened senses is both delightful and incredibly baffling sometimes. Sometimes I have a better sense of smell than a supernatural creature; it's a little absurd, to me.

I mean, it makes sense! You write about what you know and there are people out there with a poor sense of smell; the world of smells is not really something they experience, so they don't write it. Probably there are some people writing fic about vampires, werewolves, sentinels and so forth that straight-up forget that smell is one of the senses, or maybe they steer away from it because they don't know how it works.

There are a lot of fics out that I think of as, like, smell AUS - where characters smell of things that make no logical sense because they don't spend a lot of time around metal, or thyme, or sod, or fresh-baked bread. It is totally possible to smell like all of those things, on a regular basis, even, but you sort of have to be immersed in them. Humans, in this universe at least, don't tend to give off scents spontaneously like they've hidden a selection of scented candles about themselves and pull out the correct one suddenly to light it, like, I AM ANGRY, TIME TO SET THE MOOD WITH PINE. Like, most humans don't smell like trees, because they are not trees.

I actually really like smell AUs, and I think they're interesting. The genre is sort of a combination of works that are autopilot purple prose and others that are more deliberately AU. They don't match up with how I experience the world.

My sense of smell varies a fair bit. Some days I have to be standing like three inches away from someone to really, really smell them and other days it's like PLEASE DO NOT STAND ANY CLOSER THAN YOUR CURRENT THREE METRES, IN FACT, PLEASE GO AWAY. I had a really bad day a few months ago. Someone asked me what was wrong and I was like I can smell everything. When I got home that night I put my clothing in really weird places and left my keys in the door. (For me, that is extremely out of sorts.) In retrospect I am pretty sure I looked like I wanted to murder someone - someone actually jumped out of my way at one point.

On an average day it's not bad for me. Strong perfume is an issue but I suspect that's some kind of allergy thing and not really about the intensity of the smell.

I worked with someone once who smelled of a butcher's shop and perfume - their other job and their desperate attempt to cover that scent up when they had to go straight from one job to the other. People who work in a coffee shop are likely to smell of it - it gets in their clothes. Sometimes people who live on a farm smell of it. I think most people can smell that.

What people smell of, to me, is mostly what they're wearing and whatever beauty products they use. Soap, laundry detergent, hair gel, shampoo, conditioner, aftershave, perfume, deodorant. When my ex changed soaps I could tell when I was standing close. I avoid changing my own products because I hate getting used to a new scent. (It doesn't take me long; I just really dislike it. Some scents I never get used to.)

I can't sniff someone and then rattle off all the products they're using. I might be able to learn to do that - learn what all the scents are and how they fit together - but that would be hard for me, and seriously, what the fuck would I do with that skill?

Most of the time I don't really pay attention to what I smell, because, for me, people don't really communicate with smell. My nose isn't so finely tuned that I can pick up on, like, okay - I think it's hilarious that one of Derek Hale's superpowers, according to fandom, is the ability to sniff out erections and other symptoms of sexual receptivity at, like, the slightest stirring of arousal. (I feel like this is one of the many reasons his life is terrible.) Sexual arousal absolutely has a smell but you have to be pretty far along before that's a thing I'm going to pick up on. I'll pick up things like physical exertion and if someone doesn't have great hygiene - shit and piss and sweat and sometimes a kind of rancidness. I can smell when I've been drinking coffee - this is one of the reasons I don't drink a lot of coffee, even though I like the taste; I don't like the smell that comes out of my skin afterwards.

I've been walking around with people and been like, Okay, where's the Indian restaurant? and no one else can smell it and I don't figure it out until like a block and a half later when I see it across the street about 150 metres away.

I don't really think my sense of smell is extraordinary; I feel pretty average most days, but, like, I remember zeroing in on someone and having a disproportionate interest in them because they smelled amazing to me, like leather and eucalyptus, and their house smelled amazing, too, like green, because there were so many plants, and also, again, like eucalyptus - I never figured out where that smell was coming from; I think it might have been some kind of cream. They may have smelled nicer, too, because they ate really healthy.

...and somewhat embarrassingly in retrospect, I dated someone who wore leather and used a eucalyptus shaving cream. (I had not connected those dots together until now and am sort of personally offended.) I definitely move towards people who smell good to me and away from people who smell bad. Smokers aren't a real favourite with me. There's something that I pick up from ~50 year old men on the bus that they're wearing that smells sickly to me. There's a lot of perfumes I don't like and a few that I really do.

If I'm looking for a seat on public transit and I walk by someone who smells good I tend to sit near them on autopilot, which I sort of feel is a creepy werewolf thing, but I do not really have any qualms about this. It's mostly pretty subconscious and it's not like anyone else would notice any kind of unusual behaviour. I sat behind a guy last week who smelled amazing, like coffee and something sweet, but not sweetened coffee and it was great, A+ transit smell, but there was a point at which another smell interfered and it was sad, like cleaners coming into a rose-filled lobby with something incredibly bleach-heavy.

I tend to choose to surround myself with scents that are neutral or subtle. I'm particular about what I choose to wash my clothes with and if I'm picking out a product I'll probably go with the one that claims to be scentless or have no perfume - that tends to be safer for me.

Cooking smells are sort of annoying to me when they're not my own, because I'm sort of easily suggestible. Like, I pretty much never eat fries - but I have neighbours now who regularly make fish and chips, so I'm exposed to that smell, and (I'm a vegetarian) so I end up eating poutine and making sweet potato fries way more than I normally would. I ate a lot of fried rice and pizza when I lived somewhere else, for the same reason. The smell of cooking flows through open windows and through the cracks in doors and between floorboards.

So, that's a little bit of what smell is like for me, and why I've read fic and gone Sidney Crosby is a Sentinel? ...and he is standing where? He totally knows what is being cooked in that other room. What is this factual inaccuracy. *grumble* Like, it's fine, it's just weird to me, and really obvious that the writer isn't as tuned into their sense of smell as I am. Everyone's different.

Hopefully this will be useful to someone writing about werewolves or something and not just one big exposition of my personal weirdness.

Comments

[sophia_sol]

THIS IS SO WEIRD AND INTERESTING TO ME because I am clearly one of those people who DOESN'T have a particularly strong sense of smell. For instance: I keep on reading in fanfiction and elsewhere of people recognizing the smell of a person they're close to? Like, the actual person's actual smell, not some scented product they're wearing. In fact I know people who are capable of doing this. But I would never in a million years be able to pick the smells of the people I have spent the most time hugging from the smells of any other humans.

So the notion of you choosing where to sit on the bus based on what people smell like, to me sounds like you ARE in a sentinel au because that is so far out of the realm of my experience.

On the other hand I'm pretty sensitive to smells I don't like, which includes pretty much every scented product (and I include those made with natural essential oils in the category). It's pretty frustrating - and I guess it means that in general my olfactory world is on a scale of neutral-to-terrible, with only very rare things that smell good being noticeable to me.

[kiki_eng]

Yeah, I don't feel that my sense of smell is so great, which is why I get really weirded out when it's better than a supernatural being with supposedly enhanced senses. Most of the time the bus is the bus for me and it smells normal and I don't end up setting by someone because of how they smell, but occasionally things stick out.

I don't know if I could pick out individual people's smells either. I mostly smell what they're wearing or eating and I've got a little bit of your thing, too - there are a chunk of scents that irritate me and that tends to overlap with some scented products. IDK.

Smell is really weird, is the thing, I think, and I am really glad this was interesting to you because I felt really weird writing it. :)

[metanewsmods]

May we link this at metanews? We also post our link roundups to LJ and Tumblr.

[kiki_eng]

Sure.

[schneefink]

I read "Perfume" in high school and was astonished what one could do with descriptions of smell in fiction. It was fantastic and extremely intriguing. But since then I haven't come across it much, certainly not in my own writing. As far as I can compare it to other people's, I don't have a particularly good sense of smell. And also because when talking about smells I'm always lacking words, there are no words to talk about smells like we talk about colors. Something can smell like rain, but rain can smell very differently. Though actually that also goes for colors.
(Also "smell" is an odd word in English.)

[kiki_eng]

I have never read Perfume - what is it?

Smell is really weird, I think. I feel like it's something that I discuss most in terms of "Do you smell something burning?" and "Do you smell gas?" ...and, yeah, we dot give directions with smell and we do that with colours, either. It is different.

[schneefink]

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a novel by German author Patrick Süskind. It is set in 18th century France. The main character, Grenouille, has an extraordinary sense of smell, which he uses as his main sense to perceive the world. He has no smell of his own, which isolates him from other people, who unconsciously pick up on the fact that there's something not right with him. He becomes obsessed with creating the perfect perfume, which he thinks he can only get via murdering beautiful young girls to extract their scents.

I haven't read it in years, so it might not be as great as I remember it, but even if it isn't I would still recommend it. Actually now I really want to reread it, I hope we have a copy at home. There's also a movie, but I didn't watch it because the movie poster looked very creepy and I don't think I want to see this novel in pictures. Though I think translating it into a visual story must have been an interesting challenge.

[kiki_eng]

That sounds very odd and also like a smell AU, a very creepy smell AU. I might look into it, if only for the scent descriptions - it sounds like they would be kind of fascinating.

[snickfic]

Yes! (I followed you over from your link.) I have always struggled with describing smells, because as you say, most of the words usually used are in fact comparisons to other things! So I'm very interested in this book you mention.

[schneefink]

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is a novel by German author Patrick Süskind. It is set in 18th century France. The main character, Grenouille, has an extraordinary sense of smell, which he uses as his main sense to perceive the world. He has no smell of his own, which isolates him from other people, who unconsciously pick up on the fact that there's something not right with him. He becomes obsessed with creating the perfect perfume, which he thinks he can only get via murdering beautiful young girls to extract their scents.

I haven't read it in years, so it might not be as great as I remember it, but even if it isn't I would still recommend it. Actually now I really want to reread it, I hope we have a copy at home. I remember little of the exact phrasing the author used to describe smells, and sometimes I couldn't imagine them simply because I didn't know the scents - mostly specific spices and ingredients for perfumes. But the book also made me realize the importance of smells, that they often work subconsciously but very powerfully. It even made me a bit interested in perfumes, though I've never worn any.

[snickfic]

Neat. Thank you! I will have to add it to my list of possible things to read. :)

[snickfic]

There are a lot of fics out that I think of as, like, smell AUS - where characters smell of things that make no logical sense because they don't spend a lot of time around metal, or thyme, or sod, or fresh-baked bread. It is totally possible to smell like all of those things, on a regular basis, even, but you sort of have to be immersed in them. Humans, in this universe at least, don't tend to give off scents spontaneously like they've hidden a selection of scented candles about themselves and pull out the correct one suddenly to light it, like, I AM ANGRY, TIME TO SET THE MOOD WITH PINE.

Bless you. Yes. I find those AUs frustrating usually, because there's no logic to how it works, no way to expand from the scents given to predict other scents. It ends up just feeling like magic to me? And not the good kind. It's just so arbitrary. If there were rules for how it worked, then I could get into that - I wonder if anyone has written a fic where people's smells work that way.

[kiki_eng]

Mostly when I'm reading these things I'm like, sure, whatever, you're describing smells, that's cool, and I do not expect actual logic, which is probably why I don't get frustrated. You made me think about how that would actually work, though. My first instinct was that you couldn't use science to make mood-scents with rules and still have your characters be human, but, I think, maybe if you created some kind of benign brain bacteria? Maybe. You'd still be SOL with the whole pine thing, though. I sort of feel like some kind of synesthesia-esque telepathic broadcast is the way to go here, like, the smell of tomatoes is happiness for Katie and she broadcasts that scent when she is happy, so it's in the brain, but not the nose, really.

I feel like a lot of the point with smell AUs is personality and smell, so I don't really know about prediction. I think it's supposed to be kind of arbitrary and personal. ...so that would be a pretty different fic, I'm not really sure what that would look like, or, that might actually be a kind of standard alpha/beta/omega fic where the three designations have different scents?

What did you mean by rules?

[snickfic]

I mean I just want some kind of predictive principle, so that if you have enough information about a person, you can predict how they'd smell based on those attributes. And that those attributes would interact with each other in ways that you could also predict or at least guess at. The thing where the author just pick smells they like feels so random to me, it doesn't even feel like information; it just feels like some form of wish fulfillment.

Which, fic is full of wish fulfillment! But I wish the smells thing were developed in such a way that I could expand on the worldbuilding. And it wouldn't have to have a particularly scientific basis, either - you clearly already know more than I do about the science of smells! But just like, say, a good magic system has rules and organizing principles, I want the smells to have something like that.

IDK if that clarified anything. :P Clear as mud, maybe.

[kiki_eng]

Yeah, I am having a slightly hard time imagining a middle ground between reality and he smelled of jasmine and sandalwood and the sea. (Though I have totally seen authors apply logic that wasn't really wish fulfillment and had more to do with characterisation! ...but, yeah, I get what you mean with that.)

You are right that I am still a bit confused. I think you might have to make up your own system for me to understand it. (Sorry?)

[snickfic]

I don't even know what it would like, is the problem! I keep hoping someone will write it and show me. I just know that I've read fics that got across the effect I want with regard to other worldbuilding tropes - human societies based on animal characters, for example.

Anyway, thanks for indulging the random person who showed up on your journal with Opinions. :)

[kiki_eng]

Thanks for commenting!