“characters in fic are too good at identifying scents” is officially an “his eyes did not literally darken” level of complaint to me now like it’s about the drama it’s about the romance it’s about atmosphere it’s 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 “this smells like a middle school slumber party” before you think “this smells like the exact lotion my best friend used growing up and someone made popcorn recently.”
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 there’s less of a floral scent, and the smells of plants baking in the sun are absent. But no one fucking thinks that, they think “I experience this smell in a midnight forest.”
But tbh that shouldn’t 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
