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sathari) wrote in
smellsgood2014-04-04 05:10 pm
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The scent of imagination
Over in the welcome post,
synecdochic and I had a bit of a discussion about scent and imagination/synaesthesia, as a result of which I promised to post the following questions for the comm to play with!
- Do any of you have synaesthetic effects around your perfumes and other scented things? (For those who aren't feeling like clicking links, synaesthesia is when you have two or more senses that overlap or interact--- some of the most common ones are associating colors with letters or numbers, although just about any combination is possible--- the link is to a book called The Man Who Tasted Shapes, in which an MD was inspired to research synaesthesia as a result of a friend who could tell that chicken was undercooked because "it didn't have enough points on it". In this case, we'd be talking about sounds, colors, textures, etc., that your perfumes and other scents call up for you--- or other scent-related overlaps: did you buy a perfume because it smells like your favorite song, for example, or your favorite color?)
- Relatedly, do any of you associate particular scents with fictional characters (ones you follow in others' work, ones you work on yourself, ones who are both, etc.?)
I'll post my answers down below as an example, if anyone's curious.
(Suggested tags: meta; maybe something related to "things we relate to scents" or "ways we experience scents")
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
- Do any of you have synaesthetic effects around your perfumes and other scented things? (For those who aren't feeling like clicking links, synaesthesia is when you have two or more senses that overlap or interact--- some of the most common ones are associating colors with letters or numbers, although just about any combination is possible--- the link is to a book called The Man Who Tasted Shapes, in which an MD was inspired to research synaesthesia as a result of a friend who could tell that chicken was undercooked because "it didn't have enough points on it". In this case, we'd be talking about sounds, colors, textures, etc., that your perfumes and other scents call up for you--- or other scent-related overlaps: did you buy a perfume because it smells like your favorite song, for example, or your favorite color?)
- Relatedly, do any of you associate particular scents with fictional characters (ones you follow in others' work, ones you work on yourself, ones who are both, etc.?)
I'll post my answers down below as an example, if anyone's curious.
(Suggested tags: meta; maybe something related to "things we relate to scents" or "ways we experience scents")
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Jezebel is a little less thorough in its imagery for me: I'm wearing it right now, and it's the color of honey and sand and sunsets and just a hint of something green, and something orange-and-red and blossoming, and the feel of a kind of humid almost-warmth. It's kind of a desert-after-the-rain scent to me (not that I know what actual deserts smell like after rains), which brings me to my next point...
Characters you associate with certain scents: there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that the "cactus-flower perfume" that I have been known to write Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca from Final Fantasy XII as wearing? Smells exactly like Jezebel even though it would be made from different things in her world (like, um, actual cactus flowers, lol) than it is in ours. Similarly, I am developing whole headcanon structures around the rules for the different Archadian Houses' scents, based around the use of sandalwood and pine "chops" as social currency/markers in canon. (All of which is actually no more nor less than a way to explain exactly why the scent that Vayne Solidor always wears smells uncannily like BPAL's Bow and Crown of Conquest. Which in turn has to do with the cedar note in it and the existence of cedar chops as an Imperial-family-exclusive status mark--- I just basically have a chicken-or-egg problem: did the Solidors get a House scent blended for them with cedar in it because cedar chops were used by the Imperial family and they were marking/staking their turf, or did they start using cedar chops as an Imperial-family-only symbol after they took the Imperial throne, because it was part of their House's signature scent? Oh, decisions, decisions!) Likewise, I am trying to pick an awesome sandalwood scent for House Bunansa, so that I know what Balthier wears when he's feeling nostalgic or embittered, or needs to prove a point/establish his status at a visceral level to an Archadian.)
Those are the ones I have a lot of current headcanon about, and strangely I don't have a lot of scent thoughts for characters from other games (except that I seem to have adopted the broad general bit of fanon that SOLDIERs from FFVII are hypersensitive to scent and probably don't wear cologne etc. even when they're not in the field.) On the other hands, back when the first Iron Man movie came out I amused myself imagining someone telling Tony Stark about BPAL and him promptly trying a variety of the scents with sexually suggestive names, especially names that he would see as letting him introduce the topic of his own sexuality into the conversation, like Casanova and Golden Priapus, lol. Also, Padme Amidala from the Star Wars prequel trilogy has a scent with plum notes in it but I don't know what else or what the scent is!
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aahaha oh God that is beyond perfect
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I think the best example of this may have been the time I applied Guerlain Nahema for the first time, sniffed my wrist about a half hour in, and almost physically jumped because I smelled like Mrs. Coulter.
That was really actually pretty great.
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about point #2
http://archersangel.dreamwidth.org/145008.html
and then famous queens;
http://archersangel.dreamwidth.org/145179.html
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I actually bought the BPAL perfume based on Marc Antony.
What do you think Octavian would smell like? How do we smellify earnestness? LOL
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There's a snake-king in my WIP, so I was really happy to discover a solid perfume called "Serpent," which not only smells really good but also evokes some of the moods/themes of the story. It's not the perfume any of my main characters would wear (I think Hallie wears Marc Jacobs Daisy, Thea showers with bergamot soap, and Isabel... hm, Juliette Has A Gun Midnight Oud is the perfume she'd want to smell like, but I doubt she has a bottle) but it's great as an evocation.
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That's incredibly cool!
And the perfume you referenced sounds like another one that could be for Princess Ashe--- cool! (True Confessions of a Lurker time: in one of my recent forays through the DW site search function looking for FFXII fic, I stumbled upon your "Troppo", which is fantastic! And by fantastic I mean, "I suspect this has entered my headcanon for Vayne in some ways.")
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I try to keep this out of my scent reviews, but sometimes I just have to say that Mage is exceptionally high-pitched or Whip is screechy.
Also, I don't have lists of scents for characters, but I have been searching for the scent of Midgar for a while. (Cinnamon-and-ozone aquatic for the Mako reactors, steel and asphalt for the Plate, and the smell of neon in the background. Yes, neon has a smell.)
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For some reason what popped into my mind as my own scent-association for Midgar when you said that was BPAL's No. 93 Engine. Which I have not smelled in a while, come to think of it!
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Usually it's someone I haven't met before, but sometimes it's a fictional character (or a famous person) I'm already fannish about. Serge Lutens' 'Gris Claire' is Gregor Vorbarra from the Vorkosigan series. And Piguet's 'Bandit' is Rachel Maddow. (It isn't just her - it could be other people too - but it's definitely her.)
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You're the second person who's had this--- that's neat, getting to meet a new character through a perfume! And someone else in this thread is going to try to write fic around scents, too--- very cool!
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Which is a question I'd like to throw out there: how many here can recall scents when you're not smelling them? I can, but the spouse cannot--however, he's a hundred times better at identifying scents, as in, "there's a hint of rosemary in this". I find the ability to verbally identify scents magical.
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But then again, that started with me actually going through the spice cabinet when I was learning to cook, so I think it's training?
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Seconding the ability to verbally identify scents as a form of magic! Ditto tastes for me; I can describe what things taste like, often synaesthetically, but identifying ingredients in common parlance? Not so much. As for remembering how things smell... I think I can, but I'm not sure how reliable it is, if that makes sense.
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I don't get characters, though I've spent some time thinking about what characters might wear. But that's as much about what perfumes evoke in me the same kinds of kinesthetic experiences as the character, so I'm always a little shy about talking about it.
(moved to correct reply spot, sorry!)
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Cool--- and see above, that is almost my exact description of BPAL's Dee!
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