ācharacters in fic are too good at identifying scentsā is officially an āhis eyes did not literally darkenā level of complaint to me now like itās about the drama itās about the romance itās about atmosphere itās about taking you to a heightened version of reality!!! please suspend your disbelief at least enough for vibes-based sensory descriptions it will be So Worth It i promise
Tags stolen from prev (sydmarch) but like taking literally TWO seconds of thought and a kindergarteners knowledge of how scent works would have made that line make sense!!! Our olifactory memory is so good that yes, someone who has been in a midnight forest might actually recognize the scent of a midnight forest. When we smell things, the memory of when it was last smelt comes before the recollection of the scent! You might smell a room and think āthis smells like a middle school slumber partyā before you think āthis smells like the exact lotion my best friend used growing up and someone made popcorn recently.ā
So like, yes, someone can smell wet pine needles and moss because dew forms at the coldest point in the night, plus all the nearby flowers are closed so thereās less of a floral scent, and the smells of plants baking in the sun are absent. But no one fucking thinks that, they think āI experience this smell in a midnight forest.ā
But tbh that shouldnāt even matter, the purpose of the sentence is to a) build the mood b) let you know the mindset the narrator is entering the situation in and c) establish the narrator is someone so familiar with forests at midnight they can recognize it by scent
