#olfactory

I need to gag on the smell and have it melt my brain completely. I need to be salivating and involuntarily parting my lips out of a desperate need to taste it.

I need it shoved into my mouth, invading me with strong musky flavors. The taste occupying the few remaining braincells still functional, turning me into nothing but a wet hole to be pounded into.

Chinese Lily

Woodstock

Absolute vanilla

Characters: Aerion, Baelor, Maekar, Dunk, Daeron

today on "what unhinged terror fandom content can scylla come up with this time?" we have...

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁ The HMS Olfactory: Scents of AMC's "The Terror" . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

i decided to combine two of my special interests (gay sailors and all things olfactory) and thought about what a) fits the characters best scentwise, and b) what would actually make sense for the time period (how archival of me). the plan is to make these for all of the major crewmates, but i had to start with my Two Babies: Collins and Goodsir.

eventually, i'll also write something a bit more formal about this and include citations for my olfactory reasoning, historically speaking. for now, i'm just a weirdo havin' fun. enjoy! xoxo

Henry Foster Collins: Black Salt - Heretic Parfum

considering his journey beneath the sea, i figured something that smells like the sea itself was appropriate (see base notes of seaweed and petrichor).

in the early 19th century, clean and citrusy notes were very trendy for masculine scents, like bergamot. i think the top notes of tangerine and eucalyptus speak to that.

the heart of lily and rose, to me, fits Collins' inner warmth despite his gruff exterior.

Harry Goodsir: Dirty Violet* - Heretic Parfum

it only felt natural to pick a scent from the same house, and with one of the same heart notes (rose) as Collins.

this is actually one of my absolute favorite perfumes. it's a lovely unisex blend with a smoky floral quality to it, and i think it suits Goodsir's soft nature well.

i marked an asterisk with the word "violet" to note that violet wasn't actually a trending fragrance note until the late 1800s. in replacement, i think a dirty lavender would be more appropriate historically.

not sure if literally anyone else will care about this or if it will resonate, but i needed to put this out there. hope someone else is crazy about sailors (and what they would smell like) like i am! ✧ദ്ദി( ˶^ᗜ^˶ )

Olfactory Atlas

These pretty swirls look almost botanical, but this is not a flower, it’s the organ used to smell one. The image is a cross section of the interior of a nose – specifically a mouse nose – with the neurons highlighted in green. By analysing the gene expression [which genes are 'on'] and distribution of several million of these nasal sensory cells from hundreds of mice, scientists have created a map of the nose. Each olfactory neuron displays a specific type of receptor that binds a specific odour molecule, and these neurons, it turns out, are not randomly distributed. Instead, they form horizontal stripes of receptor types from the top of the nose to the bottom. Furthermore, this nose map matches that of the olfactory bulb – a structure in the brain that processes odour information. Researchers are now investigating whether human noses are mapped out similarly – information that may guide research into cures for anosmia.

Written by Ruth Williams

Image from work by David H. Brann and colleagues

Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

Image originally published with no restrictions – hence published here with as Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Research published in Cell, April 2026