Category III

“Experimental Guidelines (Optional, Recommended)”

Category III rules are not essential to qualify a film as Auntrolye, but they offer powerful tools to enhance the psychological fidelity and structural immersion of the genre. 

These are techniques, not laws, that should be used only when they emerge naturally from the character’s internal condition. Misuse of these techniques for aesthetic purposes alone dilutes their narrative weight. These guidelines do not make a film Auntrolye on their own. If the core laws of Category I and II are broken, no amount of experimental craft can qualify the film. These are amplifiers, not qualifiers. Used correctly, they allow deeper emotional realism and layered immersion. Used incorrectly, they reduce the genre to aesthetic replication.

1. Cross-Genre Themes Must Pass Through Subjectivity

Horror, romance, and thriller tropes may appear in Auntrolye, but only when filtered through the protagonist’s internal perception. A horror sequence, for instance, is not about an external threat, it must be the character’s emotional projection of fear, shame, or trauma. Romance must not be objective affection, but a perception clouded by longing, regret, or fantasy. Thrill is not pace, but anxiety felt as distortion. These genres are not fused onto Auntrolye; they are reprocessed inside it.

2. Use of Delay, Desync, and Blur

Techniques like audio desynchronization, visual warping, and temporal lag are encouraged to depict memory failure, psychic trauma, or emotional dissonance. However, these must emerge from the protagonist's mental state, not from a stylistic impulse. If a character cannot process a memory, the dialogue might arrive out of sync. If they are dissociating, the visuals may momentarily collapse or freeze. These technical distortions serve as externalizations of internal malfunction, not gimmicks.

3.  Dialogue and Dreams Are Subjective

All speech and dream sequences must be treated as subjective constructs. Characters may speak in loops, metaphors, or with eerie emotional flatness, not because they're surreal, but because the protagonist interprets them that way. Dreams in Auntrolye are not symbolic detours, they are mechanical extensions of perception. This can lead to repeated phrases, blurred faces, or nonlinear exchanges. Clarity is not the goal, introspective distortion is.