BEFORE I FORGET AGAIN here are all the notes from our latest brainstorming stream ~
“What If Beauty Could Literally Steal Your Breath?”
Random Thoughts
We see something beautiful to us, we start turning blue and suffocating; can cause death if not treatment, stop exposure, etc
Beauty is subjective; different things would affect different people
Could be scenarios where only a certain type of beauty e.g. a person’s physical beauty is causing the affliction; could also be all forms of beauty
People could be suffocating over – movies; books; video games; faces of their children or loved ones; landscapes; paintings; music; different genres of music; smells –
Could smelling a rose kill you?
Concepts or ideas can also be beautiful, they could also affect certain people
Dating will be awkward and potentially dangerous
Spending time with loved ones could become very difficult
Oxygen tanks
Could the breath stolen by beauty be collected and used for e.g. filling oxygen tanks; spells; etc
Would whatever steals the breath (if it’s not a natural affliction) gain life or improvement in life?
Can different levels of beauty affect differently; cute kitten video make you wheeze a little, but looking at Mt Fuji could make you faint – but again, different for different people
If it’s a natural affliction, symptoms similar to asthma attack (mild to severe); probably no ‘breath collected’
If it’s a nefarious e.g. curse, maybe built into the spell for breath to be collected, or the caster of the spell needs to be nearby
Could also be affected by dreams in your sleep – wake up gasping and/or dead
Smell of the air beautiful – infinite loop
If find yourself extremely physically attractive, could you be affected?
If simply like your looks, could you be affected?
If you have a healthy relationship with yourself and ‘love yourself’, could you be affected?
Plastic surgery to diminish looks to stop hurting your loved ones; would that work? Your loved ones love you, not how you look; beautiful due to personality/soul, beautiful no matter how you look; could be tried in pandemic scenario but found to not be very effective?
Soul surgery???
Does love equate to beauty? Depends on situation/scenario/different people – so subjective
What if it’s only beautiful humans that cause the affliction, not art, nature, etc?
What about the poor people who find something beautiful in everything?
Use as an excuse to get out of e.g. classes – I find the language beautiful!!!
If you do find a particular language beautiful, hearing it would affect your breathing; limit the places you could travel
What about the poor people who find Vtuber feet beautiful??? WHAT ABOUT THEM???
Favourite food could affect you – would no longer be able to eat it
Some people not affected by any beauty at all
How powerful a spell would be required to make a singular person lose breath at the sight of beauty? What about many people at once? If it’s a powerful spell, it might take a novice a huge amount of power, but a master might be able to do it with a click of their fingers
Curse scenario – how painful is it to lose breath? Depend on strength of that particular spell; drawn out of lungs and can’t breathe it back – very distressing; how long does it last? Until death? Just until they have the breath currently in your lungs? Not preventing from breathing in again?
Natural affliction scenario – similar to asthma, other breathing conditions; painful and distressing to that degree
Maybe doesn’t cause any huge health issues – just annoying; causes huge cough, like getting the wind knocked out of you, but no more permanent damage
Two types of fear – one associated with feelings of suffocation without a way to stop it, other is everything else – IF THIS WAS A CURSE SCENARIO this might be quite pertinent, some sort of reasoning behind this curse?
WHAT IF a beautiful person was cursed so everyone who sees them gets the air pulled out of their lungs?
Is breath close to life in some religions; could there be religious implications
What if it’s widely believed those affected – it’s not their breath being pulled out of them, but their soul? What would that lead to – discrimination against the ‘soulless’ sort of thing
THE PLAUGE
Concept for counterbalancing a superpower –
Most beautiful person in a village being accused of being a witch and stealing someone’s soul
Beauty trials instead of witch trials
IN THE CURSE SCENARIO – maybe the curse only works if you see the cursed person’s body directly and wearing 100% covering counters the curse – full long-sleeved dresses and full face-covering veils very popular and sensible
A Medusa situation
Curse scenario – curse only takes oxygen out of someone’s lungs in a manner so they do not realise they are suffocating
What if beauty replaces the oxygen in your lungs with something else (e.g. macaroni; roses); beauty gas replaces?
Roses in the lungs disease; a major fanfic trope; cough out petals if you’re bottling your love feelings; either confess love or forget about the person you love; if untreated leads to death
Beautiful voice can steal your breath
CURSE SCENARIO - If a person’s ambition is perceived as beautiful and they curse someone and steal their breath, would their own ambition, etc, become more beautiful
Beauty as a power without using the overused trope of charm is a good idea
Could this be a superpower – your face/voice/personality/etc can steal people’s breath – how could you use this power; what difficulties will you face in life; etc
What would the embodiment of beauty be?
Would you know you find someone you like if you lose your breath? Probably a good indication
World ugly-fying filter for extra sensitive people so they can leave the house
CURSE SCENARIO – sorcerer collecting breath so their idea, dream, ambition, etc, gains so much breath it can will a body/form into existence, become personified; could someone literally make a god?
CURSE SCENARIO – what if when you steal someone’s breath, you take it for yourself, increasing your own beauty (in the eyes of your society)
Breath transfusions
Iron lungs – beauty industry evolves around accessories and mods for iron lungs, etc
Could pets, animals, (plants??) also be affected?
Mosquitos would go extinct??? Blood so beautiful???
Use of robots and AI for art; become cyborgs to avoid art and beauty
Beauty deities could die out from declining numbers of believers
What if being ‘ugly’ can fill someone’s lungs with oxygen?? ‘Ugly’ people become saviours
Photo of ** become a creepy pasta/urban legend, but actually true
Beauty is a Lovecraftian eldritch being that gains power from each breath taken
Are lungs and gills equal? If not, research into humans developing gills and becoming amphibious
If two ‘ugly’ people dated, could they permanently live in space/water if their lungs are constantly filling with oxygen?
Mermaid HRT (hormone replacement therapy); need to know actually afflicted by disease and it’s not a fetish; or heart transplant – WHAT ABOUT THE MERMAIDS
What if people get systematically tested for what type of people (or other things) they find attractive and what archetype of beauty they are – like blood types; medical update during yearly physicals, etc, part of regular blood tests, monitor changes as grow
Sirens – become what we individually find most attractive; sirens stealing breath?
Pinocchio-like – become more of a ‘real person’ by being the most beautiful, gaining the most life/beauty/etc; ‘contest’ between unscrupulous sorcerers to gather the most breath/life/beauty
SHOW IDEA – near extinction of human males; all boys captured and on government-mandated dating shows – MAKE IT A ROMCOM
Treatment for curse – depend on strength of the curse; whether it’s short or long term; are there any antidotes? If not, at the mercy of the sorcerer
If a mental health or other disorder due to chemical imbalances or other difficulties in the body, treatment similar to other mental health/respiratory diseases – drugs, CBT, relaxation, decreasing stress, etc
Potential of social pension, etc, if afflicted by this – if it’s a rare thing, probably; if it’s a pandemic, no
Family issues – parents not being able to raise their children, unable to spend much time with them, affect on the children emotionally, developmentally
Spending infancy in opaque incubator; light cycles and stimulus provided within?
Would baby beauty affect all people or just family – could all babies be raised in a box? What age would they come out?
Insurance issues
Importance of visual beauty decreases, leads to auditory beauty being the most dominant form, which in turn leads to auditory beauty causing more problems; need to soundproof incubators, etc; deadly loop
ID cards – fingerprints, etc, instead of faces
Difficulties getting medical treatment?
So in love willing to die for each other – toxic relationship
Logos not exist since someone could find it beautiful
Beauty could become something like alcohol, cigarettes, recreational drugs – people know it’s dangerous, but do it for the euphoria
Compare ‘beauty tasting’ to wine tasting
Beauty battles- UNBREATHE
Disease would produce many forms of ableism – taunting due to avoiding beauty, etc
A Rare Affliction
Mental health disorder; when affected by beauty, body seizes up, affects the trachea and the lungs, etc, creates asthma-like symptoms
Permanent or a curable affliction
Could be related to neurodivergence
Minimise exposure to beauty; need to find out exactly what you find beautiful in order to avoid it
If found self beautiful and were affected by it, get rid of all your mirrors!
Minimise contact with family and friends for your health
Lead to depression
Treatments – if natural, inhalers, relaxation therapy, etc could work for mild to moderate cases; difficult to treat severe attacks; if it’s a mental health disorder or chemical imbalances causes breathing difficulties, probably some kind of treatment
What kind of treatment if it’s a curse
Like many disabilities, chronic disease – live your life, but need meds, assistance tools, regular care, etc
A Global Pandemic
Pandemic cycles as beauty standards change to something once believed safe
People naturally start finding other things beautiful that once they didn’t find beautiful in a self-preservation reflex, but now THAT’S beautiful, so that starts affecting them, too = cycles
Beauty becomes suppressed in all its forms
Oxygen would become a black market item; ridiculously expensive and hard to get; hoarded
“Beautiful” people encouraged/forced to wear masks, etc
There will always be a “most beautiful”; doesn’t matter how ugly masks, clothes, etc, are; logical conclusion (in the beginning) is to try to avoid beauty
Some people would try to capitalize on the situation – selling oxygen at high prices; if the curse scenario, collecting all the oxygen and selling it again;
Military uses – send something beautiful to the enemy to act as a debuff
Selling diet air for a good discount
Small percentage of people immune and run secretive beauty clubs; poetry readings; in dystopian future sort of thing
IN THE BEGINNING – preventative measures; increased respiratory clinics everywhere; warnings outside of art museums, libraries, famous natural sites, etc
Only so much preventative measures can do – when beauty is so subjective (people could be dropping with every rainbow) and the beauty cycles that are starting
‘Beauty’ starts being controlled; libraries, galleries, art and creative expression in general start being suppressed; to many restrictions; and eventually outlawed
Libraries would be burned; book bonfires; art bonfires; musical instruments bonfires; natural world desecrated – ALL IN THE SAKE OF HEALTH
No one able to appreciate things like fine dining any more; fancy chefs out of a job
People not affected by beauty at all in a prime position to EXPLOIT
A curse gone out of control; evil magical people exploiting it stealing breath
Surge in kidnappings – can intentionally use beauty to knock people out and kidnap them
If it’s only people you find beautiful that causes the breath loss, what if everyone is only affected by those genders you are sexually attracted to? Is it just sexual attraction or is it romantic attraction, as well? (does not include family members, etc, that you love and find beautiful)
HUGE EFFECT ON POPULATION
What does society look like in 100 years if this beauty pandemic is ongoing; if all forms of beauty – becoming a drab bunker society in which creativity is shunned, all forms of beauty shunned, self-expression punished; secret beauty club for immune people; black market in beauty for those willing to risk their breath just to experience beauty; probably rebellions brewing (or constantly being stamped out) in this bunker society
What would happen with the beauty industry?
Beauty as a drug and erotic asphyxiation being common; like strip clubs but removing masks not clothes
IF BEAUTY STEALS BREATH AND UGLINESS GIVES IT (societal norms) – eventually what is beautiful and ugly might completely swap; cycles
Everything becomes very bland to prevent declining population – population and crowd control through beauty
Self harm increases to diminish beauty and protect others – no one would want to be beautiful; what about cycling beauty standards, things that are ugly would soon become beautiful to most people
Dystopian beauty soldiers
Movies, tv shows, etc, temporarily banned until beauty standards switch around; keep cycling
If you'd like to write anything inspired by our lovely and mildly disturbing brainstorming session - be it a six-word story, a sentence, a drabble, a paragraph, a poem, a play, a short story, a novella, a novel plan, or something else entirely - please, write it and share it with us! If everyone is comfortable with making a Scribble Hub account, this might be a good way to keep all our writings together (please don't panic about cover art - any random free-to-use picture related to your story is perfectly perfect). Please use #MacGuffinsUwrite in the synopsis, and perhaps include an @moonfeatherblue just to grab my attention! If you're not comfortable with Scribble Hub, don't worry! Please post where you are comfortable, use the hashtag, and maybe let me know with a VOD comment so I know to track it down.
You'll have a little longer this time around due to Blue's family holiday adventure coming up - I'll be reading all your stories on 6 May at 10 am aest (assuming all goes to schedule). If you could try to have your stories posted by the day before, that would be very much appreciated 💙✨
