How about a story about a superhero who, when concentrating on a person, can smell what they smell?
The sense of smell is often used poorly in fiction so it would be doubly challenging to 'show' the reader how the superhero's powers were utilised.
AJ
Dominions Son
9/18/2021, 5:27:51 PM
@richardshagrin
This idea probably stinks.
Technically, it smells.
Technically, whatever gives off the odor is what stinks. Perceiving the stink is smelling it.
I seem to recall some stories where a character can either completely take over someone else's body, or ride around in their mind.
I can imagine a scene where a character like that tries to locate a kidnapped friend and since that friend is tied up, blindfolded, and has headphones generating white noise, the only hint the first character might have of their friend's location would be based on what the friend can smell.
or ride around in their mind.
https://storiesonline.net/s/34772/dream-state
That story has that element. As I recall, it covered the sense of smell as well.
Personally i think i remember a manwha i think it was that involved a guy having a superpower that turned various electronic devices into cute waifu girls....
I see the challenge appeal of this, there's seemingly not at all that much one can do with such a singled out sensory input, especially coupled with humans notoriously bad, nearly nonexistent sense of smell when compared to other more specialized creatures. I think right there hides the answer.
It's fairly "known" way of distance viewing for sorcerers to intercept sensory streams of animals, coupled or not to full or limited control over said animal movements or decision making. While smelling what other human might may not be much, going out of that limited domain may open a whole new world.
Then, I imagine a human receiver would be utterly confused with even a dog's olfactory input and the smell-scape they perceive, not even speaking about going further afield, to a shark, or snail, or ant exchanging relayed chemical messages from the anthill on the trail dozens of yards distant.
Not quite what you are thinking of, but Wonder Warthog comes close. Look at the list of super powers in the table on the right.
I actually started one like that for Shaddoth's universe, where the super power was hypernosmia. I only made it to about 7K before I set it aside.
where the super power was hypernosmia
I thought hypernosmia was real, not a superpower. It's much valued in the perfume industry and has cropped up as a plot device in TV dramas like 'Castle' and 'Sherlock'.
AJ
It is, but the character has, um... call it Hyper-Hypernosmia!
The MC can do things like scent cancer (like some dogs) differentiate between a slice of watermelon cut today, and one cut yesterday, based on the oxidation that occurs when the pulp is exposed to the atmosphere etc.
All stuff very exacting (and expensive) machines can theoretically do today, but he can do it offhand instead of after hours of tests.
How about "benign idiopathic hyperosmia". Thats the term used in A Rose Fan Be Too Sweet-First Time over on the other site. MC has to hold his breath to open a milk bottle because of the sour milk caught in the cap threads.
There is at least one story on Lit about a Nose. His super model wife cheats and he smells the contamination on her. The psychological damage destroys his ability to make perfume because now all scents are tainted.
