Pareidolia and the Gilded Scar is a collection of short stories by Avouleance with the goal of writing a short story for each letter of the alphabet. Expect a lot of references to obscure scientific concepts and classical mythology as abstractions of various mental states. The stories currently released cover a range of genres with surrealism and magical realism being the most common. Themes include trying to extract meaning from seemingly random events and trying to make something attractive out of them.The author states [1]
these are based on their own experiences, specifically with ASD (High-Functioning Autism).The first collection of 8 stories Attempts C,D,G,J,O,P,R and U At Being Happy was self-published on May 17th, 2017.
Pareidolia and the Gilded Scar contains examples of:
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Across multiple stories
A collection of commonalities to save duplicate entries
- Aerith and Bob: Some recognizable names are used (Agnes, Alex, George/Sam(antha) e.t.c)but these are mixed in with strange names like Hind and Robin? (including the question mark) and many that are made up (Kyntharyn, Prail, Tantalidy e.t.c).
- Anachronic Order: Grooming takes place across multiple dates, and changes between them out of order. Unwinding mostly goes backward.
- The Faceless: The collection contains a total of one description of a face and that doesn't give much away he's not the most looking like all the parts of his face came from the same face sort of person. The appearance of all other characters isn't ever specified.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: None of the characters are portrayed as wholly good or evil and there are reasons given for different sides of the conflicts presented. Any judgment is in character.
- Magic Realism Mythological creatures like werewolves and phoenixes and gorgons are part of the stories and two distinct version of Time Travel happens in Just Us and Unwinding
- Minimalism: This is present both in the scale of the stories, which are small and personal and in the writing which is very limited with what is explicitly described or shown.
- Minimalist Cast: The majority of stories features casts of fewer than 5 people.
- No Name Given: The narrators in both Constellation Prize and Of the Artist go unnamed.
- No Social Skills: If the story has enough characters for them to interact, expect it to be awkward, shown both in their mistakes and the lack of awareness of non-verbal communication.
- Reclusive Artist: A common character type in universe, Stella Brown, the narrator in Of The Artist, and Phoenix Leon are all clear examples.
- Surrealism: In the sense that the events presented in most of the stories seem to have more to do with how the character's feel than with a coherent reality.
- Time Travel: The concept and its implications are explored in both Just Us and Unwinding.
- The 'Verse: A band that plays a role in Residual Warmth is also alluded to in Unwinding (their music is described in the same way inboth stories)
Constellation Prize
- Too Much Information: Stella is presented as being rather explicit, to the point the narrator apologizes, though this may be because she's not actually speaking and her private writing is being violated.
Domestication
- Meaningful name: Agnes is named after the chemical symbol for silver (Ag).
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Artemiza self-identifies as a werewolf but what that means isn't clear.
- You Keep Using That Word: Artemizae gives the definition of the domestication as "That means we're making a home out of it".
Grooming
- A Good Way to Die: Megan is seeking one of these and it's the service Peturesque aim to provide.
Just Us
- StableTimeLoop: Falling into one of these is the cause of the conflict into this story.
Of the Artist
- Time Skip: While never explicitly stated, the narrator's ages over the course of what is presented as a continuous stream of conscious.
Psyphonophore
- Neurodiversity Is Supernatural: In this cause it's the neurotypical people who are portrayed as supernatural/ alien.
Residual Warmth
- You Wake Up in a Room: Though in this case the room has burnt down and the mystery is why Tantallidy didn't get destroyed with it.
Unwinding
- I Hate Past Me: Prail's motivations for going back in time to shout at herself.
