Scenting is such an interesting trope in a/b/o fics and I feel like fics don't often explore their world-building implications as much as possible (and honestly, this can be said about all omegaverse tropes). Like, how much different would society develop if humans have these specific traits? Imagine if we used a/b/o more as a sci-fi genre than just a porn genre. (Nothing wrong with the latter, just to be clear.)
Anyways, now I'm imagining an AU where the only a/b/o trope you use is the scenting and none of the designations or the werewolf biology. (So technically it's not an omegaverse AU anymore , just an AU where humans have advanced noses, but whatever.)
If humans ended up developing chemoperception that is just as nuanced and sophisticated (and maybe even more complex than) our visual perception, then that would definitely end up shaping our sociocultural evolution.
There should be museums that not only host the visual and auditory arts, but the "aromatic arts" as well. Chemists and perfumologists would have careers as aromatic artists. Museums would have "chemical reconstructions" of what certain historical figures or events would have smelled like.
And since the nose and the tongue are interrelated in our chemoperception, I would imagine that aroma museums would always have restaurants attached to them, and aroma exhibits would have accompanying menus where the flavor profiles would complement the aromatic arts. Food and aroma science can be lumped into an umbrella category of "the chemical arts."
If you're wondering why humans would end up evolving such a complicated chemoperception, then one hypothetical answer would be that our hominid ancestors could have lived in tumultuous times where an advanced chemoperception would have ensured the species' survival.
- Maybe it was an era of active volcanic activity, and sensitivity to chemicals in food and water was necessary for survival.
- Maybe the fungal, microbial, or plant life of the time was extremely hostile to mammalian life, so we had to evolve advanced chemoperception.
- If we accept the conjecture that cooking food, the dawn of our culinary history, was a pivotal step in our higher cerebral evolution, then an advanced chemoperception amidst a dangerous chemical environment would definitely be evolutionarily advantageous.
(Anyways, now I'm thinking of a destiel AU where Dean is a chef in the aroma museum that Cas works in as a chemist/aroma artist.)