#; i've been messing w/ coloring for this forEVER but it's finally done!!

[kit-the-dreamer]

Do you have any hc for vex?? How is he like in you're au??

Woah, two questions in one? It seems like you folks do like my long answers, hahaha.

Well, to be fair, in my Au some of Vex's characteristics are based on headcanons of mine, but there's a line I cross were my Au's Vex is no longer SABA's Vex, so I'll leave a short bullet point thing that will warn if the idea is a headcanon (SABA), my Au (Au) or both (SABA/Au).

Enjoy scrolling down •.°♡  :)

(Btw, I managed to recover your first ask and the writing that was done, but thanks for asking it again anyways ^^. You saved me from going trough a bad time thinking I had messed it up forever ;w;)

(Btw, some phrases are color coded for better understanding of repeated ideas ♤)

• (SABA/Au) First things first: Vex is from Carnivalia and no one can convince me otherwise. And I swear I don't even know if more people had this idea before the post from lacking-hydration that I've been seeing around, but at the time I had the idea it was completely original for me because it sparked in my head some months ago when I was playing LBPpsvita and saw this:

⬆️ Vex and the platform's color palette & pattern ⬆️

[These are screenshots from other people's gameplays]

And since then, it has been enough of a proof for me ùwú

(Obviously, the thematic of carnivals and jesters being related is something that boosted this headcanon and was taking in consideration when thinking about this.)

•°•°•°•

• (SABA/Au) Contrary to some ideas I've seen around, I don't quite beleive Vex is the reason of the lack of knitted knights. I just feel this isn't something he would do, because if he gets rid of ALL of them, how can HE have any FUN? Without anyone around to play with, his life would be very boring. I think this is clearly stated in his personality and way to be.

•°•°•°•

• (SABA/Au) In SABA, I felt like Vex never showed his true potential, he's just fooling around to play a bit with us. I don't even think he takes Sackboy seriously at all! Like, even when we are fighting him, he never really gets angry until he is given physical damage, but even so, his voice tone doesn't get agrier as we are closer to defeat him. It's like if he knows he can't actually be defeated, he knows he'll just be given a ''time out''. This is why he even bothers to fake his defeat in the ''final level'', if you know what I mean. He wants to mock us, laugh in our faces the fact that he is technically inmortal, and the evidence of this statement relies on his final phrase, "As long as there are dreams, there will be nightmares", something I firmly beleive it's objectively true, not only due to the 'universe balance/ying-yan' thingy but also because nightmares ARE dreams, and since the Imagisphere can't exist without these and he's the personification of such, well... you get the point :P. Actually, this ''true potential'' thingy is one of the plot points of the development of my SABA Au's story.

•°•°•°•

• (Au) I want his redemption, but I don't think I should beleive on it since I don't see any reason (in SABA) why Vex would have a redemption arc. He enjoys being the way he is. HOWEVER, my heart still desires said event to happen u-u , and this feeling was actually boosted by one of Scarlet's dialogues in the menu of "The Knitted Knight trials", wich goes something like "(...) Yeah, it inculcated terror on every creature that dared to attack Craftworld, although almost none had a heart." (I can't really remember the exact quote rn, but u get the idea ;w;). The word ''almost '' gives away the chance of 3 possible things to happen:

1. There is a redempted villain living in Craftworld or somewhere else at the moment. We may or not have met them already.

2. Scarlet KNOWS about a certain villain that just 'acts tough' on the outside but is soft on the inside (aka. ''has a heart''). This said villain COULD be Vex, since both of them have already met before, so they have more chances of 'knowing the real other' (but I kinda doubt it)

3. Vex WAS good before some kind of 'villain making' event happened and was friends/pals with Scarlet, or at least she knew something about him, so she knows Vex ''had a heart'' at some point in his life.

However, I highly doubt that she is referring to Vex, I see the option 1 the most possible one tbh, but I think 2 and/or 3 would be pretty neat. This is kinda the limit line between the headcanon and my Au honestly.

•°•°•°•

• (SABA/Au) Is Vex related to the Uproar Dragons?

This is a question that could be given two similar answers: 'yes' and 'kinda'. The first one consists of Vex actually being the creator of said creatures, since he is ''The master/god of the Uproar", and it could also be a way to even mock further the Knitted Knights, since it would represent the typical 'knights vs. dragons' fairytale stereotype thing, so it would be a 'fun show' to watch for him when he is in this ''time out'' or just doesn't bother to come to Craftworld in person. This 'fun show' idea is based on the feeling that the Uproar Dragons don't sound much of a threat compared to Vex, since we are told that Scarlet could manage to defeat a WHOLE PACK of them, so Vex would only send them to Craftworld for the sake of sole amusement and not real will to cause true damage. He can do that himself after all. On the other hand, the second answer to this question, 'kinda', consists of Vex being related to the Uproar Dragons but not being his creator. Basing myself on what I stated before, the existence of the Uproar is not an external force(? to The Imagisphere, therefore, it is meant to exist in the universe. Due to this, the Uproar can also create stuff and beings out of their own, such as Dreams and Imagination can (the two energies that every Imagisphere's creature owes its life to), so it would be coherent if it (the Uproar) created Vex AND the Uproar Dragons, so it would mean that these two are related due to their origins, but may not be related in terms of having any kind of relationship (friendship, partners in crime, pals, etc.). Maybe they just know each other, but I don't believe they would partner up to attack Craftworld since I don't believe they would have the same purposes or objectives for doing so, but I lack of information to sustain this last part :/

•°•°•°•

• (SABA/Au) Vex KNOWS he is nessesary in The Imagisphere, and loves rubbing it on our faces. He knows we want to get rid of him, but also knows we can't, because his phylosophy is the correct one.

This also made me beleive that Vex isn't ''''completely evil'''', even if it's true that he enjoys what he's doing, he stands for what he thinks is ''correct''. He doesn't care about balance, but he KNOWS that the Uproar is necessary for life to have SENSE. He's just proving his point to everyone by providing this feeling of ''terror and exitement'' to Sackboy and other creatures, since it's objectively true that without him the events that occurred in SABA wouldn't exist, meaning there would be not a story to tell nor a ''brand new adventure'' at all! And do creators/dreamers enjoy imagining a monotonous happy life of 'x' character? No, I don't think so. We desire action. And he knows it, and a plus would be that he's actually enjoying 'his job' or role a liiittle way too much...

•°•°•°•

• (Au) His own perspective on the consequences of the Topsy Turver and the Uproar affected Sackboy:

This one is TOTALLY my Au. I highly doubt that in SABA Sackboy would ''''miss'''' Vex by any means, but in my Au, Vex changed Sackboy's perspective on life since he (Vex) got ''defeated''. Vex presented the Uproar as something exciting and fun, and he isn't lying about that IF you see it from this perspective: compare the Uproar with a rollercoaster. It is scary, true, and has lots of screams in between, true, but the fun and excitement can't be denied (unless you have some kind or phobia or smth). Due to this, Vex made ''realize'' Sackboy that the Uproar (and the God of Chaos himself) is nessesary in Craftworld's existence, specially since without 'big adventures' (provided by Vex) Sackboy's life would be monotonous and with no purpose. Damn, without Vex Sackboy wouldn't have been named a Knitted Knight nor know about Scarlet and The Knitted Knight's existence themselves! I believe that realizing this sort of things could give him (Sackboy) all sorts of internal crisis (existential and moral) that would open up doors for further manipulation that'll benefit Vex in any way.

•°•°•°•

And this would be it! ^^

For now ;w;

I don't know if I have more stuff back in my mind, but if I do come up with new ideas I guess I'll just randomly share them xd

I hope my answer satisfies your expectations ;w; . I really enjoyed writing this, so real thanks for the ask! ♡

#ask #saba #vex #sackboy a big adventure #l o n g #anon #headcanon #saba au #theories #🤔

[shjayd]

1st post not via iPhone 🤨

ok... i'm typing this from my laptop. i like you enough to download you to my laptop, Tumblr! 😉 i don't think i can even edit any of my font or anything, so that part sucks (if in reality i can't), so i'd say app via iPhone > Windows when it comes to you, #TUMBLR <- idk if that will even tag in the middle of my post/only at the end.

GOTTA START SOMEWHERE.

previous text complaint: taken back

it's time to get this started ⌚ i heard about you from the Netflix true-crime documentary, Hotel Cecil or w/e, & the thought of posting my thoughts like a social journal (among some other things I've ran across or made self - i like to do calligraphy and hand lettering. i've became creative AFTER getting clean AFTER getting pregnant with my daughter. i always was, i guess the drugs took that part of my imagination away? i'm also obsessed with astrology. if you ask me, i'm a professional astrologer 🔮🌙✨..🤥🫤😤

Taurus Sun, Taurus Moon, and Rising Gemini... i know. a SCARY, yet BEAUTIFUL mEsS. ❤️‍🩹 i'm also very educated in mental health. from personally, to genetics, family and friends, to past work experience. i was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (BPD) after my HORRIFYING encounter with Post-Partum Depression, PPD, (although i've most likely suffered from my BPD since a very young age. my mother and brothers who lived with me all of my life would agree). i just never took, nor wanted to take, what my mom and family dr. told me a/b therapists & referrals to psychiatrists anywhere near serious. i honestly thought everyone felt/acted the way i did with both my lowest of lows & highest of highs 🤯… to me, it was always “this is what everyone has to go through. this is life. this is life… everyday”.

i'm a twin, my mother & i are as close as they come (it’s scary b/c I know she won’t be here forever, & both my daughter i I NEED her. forever). her EVER leaving us is another thing I refuse to even think a/b. NEXT SUBJECT;

yes, DADDY ISSUES 🙄 i was the wildest teenager into my late 20s. that was all until i FINALLY realized my self-worth & left my toxic, to say the LEAST, ex-gf, FOR GOOD, & ended up with my life-long best friend's brother, who i've been close, actually very close with, ever since i met his sister when we were ~10-years-old. he saved me. then our daughter came at the most perfect time to save us, as we started to go down that path holding hands. i'm DEF. not going to go into depth, y'all would drown, if you haven’t already.

*the specifics are overrated with no existing relevant meanings here*

i've been on this Earth for ✨almost✨ thirty whole fucking years. yes, i typed out the word, b/c I now have this BURSTING animosity for the number 3, however, 4 is mine. my best best friend is a 2-year-old, teeny chonk, only 2 years old, more dramatic than me, sassy-ass, genius COVID baby. (she was conceived in 2019, so, that was... a.. normal different?) she's 28, ✨ALMOST✨ 29-months-old. her name isn't important, so I'll just refer to her as 'quack'.. 🦆

..............🥰🥰🥰

we live together with her daddy - minez first 🏃🏼‍♀️🥇😂 - my other best friend. (〃￣︶￣)人(￣︶￣〃) •i also enjoy: "adult" coloring books, THC, journaling, Amazon Prime, the little things, elephants, my vape, bullet journaling, bellly laughing, my dishwasher, baby clothes, wood-burning, doodling, Hulu, ACKNOWLEDGMENT, roses WITH sunflowers 🌹🌻, ORCHIDS, my desk, ear-buds, Aaron Hernandez, my little space on earth instead of the internet - my desk & sketchbook, & ANYTHING organizational/cleaning... •i dislike: Scorpios, fantasy movies/series like Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones - sorry, not sorry 🤷🏼‍♀️ - shitty parents, mornings, Karens, uppers, Instagram, judgmental humans, my fingernails when they aren't done, & typos. I have a love/hate relationship with Pisces, both male & female 🐠 i'm as blunt & unfiltered as they come. oh, & you can't hurt my feelings (a big s/o to my past traumas). i'm.. an opened, closed book... if that makes any sense to you? now go ahead & try to break down my walls to get to know the real me! i’m the best friend you could ever have! 🤞🏼😸🥳 OKAY! that's enough for now. follow me, & let's get to learn more about e/o & our little spaces on the internet. if you've made it this far 🙂 i'm going to stfu now. (didn’t lie a/b a thing. told you i tend to start rambling. bad.)

• i want to leave you all something pretty to look @ as a preview of what this journey entails💭

#newbie #hello new people #happy new year #journal #journaling #journal ideas #journaling inspiration #journaling junkie #doodles #doodle brain #sketchbook #cannamom #cannacommunity #astrology #nice to meet you

[miodiodavinci]

Hey Mio! I've been listening your covers and watching your PVs and I've looked that the text in ''Talk to the past'', ''Stickybug'' (at the beginning) and ''One of Repetition'' (some parts) had the effect of fractal warp, i've been looking for it and i didn't find anything for AviUtl, can you help me with a download link or anything? ; n ;

oh!! funny story about those!! so the text ripple effects in Talk of the Past and Stickybug were originally made in After Effects following this tutorial here (which especially shows through in the aesthetic of the talk of the past video w), but after i lost my access to AE, i ended up spending literal years bemoaning my fate to forever be without distortion maps dsfklhgjdf

except ! ! ! i found a workaround in AviUtl ! ! !

(forgive me in advance if any of this is inaccurate or hard to follow―i'm away from my computer for right now and can't really double check this or provide screenshots OTL)

full tutorial under the cut ! ! !

essentially, the whole process boils down to:

choose a scene outside the one you have your text or other assets on (i.e. the footage you want to jitter). you can access the scene panel by going to the upper lefthand corner of your composition timeline. it should say "root" to start with or something similar.

(side note: scenes are SUPER HELPFUL when it comes to pre-composing, doubling up on effects, or even having a specific video sequence on call for you to just slap into your main composition without all the hassle of managing layers w)

in that new scene, load up a solid color image file or create a new background graphic using the right click menu on the timeline

go ahead and add on the Noise effect to that image or background, and from there, go ahead and start setting up different parameters to animate over time (primarily Speed and dx/dy). you may also want to play around with the noise type and choose the one that looks best to you (i prefer spline noise / the one that looks like bulbous clouds w)

when you're done, you should have essentially a random mess of black and gray that shifts and changes over time. however fast it moves and changes is how fast your wobble effect will appear in the final composition. you can also increase how sharp and apparent the final wobble will be by adding on a Color Compensation effect and increasing the contrast on the noise

run back to your main scene, grab whatever asset you want to wobble (or create a new frame buffer if you want the whole screen to wobble) and add on the Displacement Map effect. at the bottom, it should have a drop down that references the shape of the mask, and there you can select the "from scene" option or something similar, which will allow you to snag that noise scene and apply it to the layer!!

turn down the Blur on the displacement map and turn up the X and Y displacement values and boom!! you have some rippled text!!

if you want to get really fancy, you can also create a new project with a lower frame rate, set up your animated Noise effect there (anywhere from 24 down to 4 or so if you want something really choppy), and then export the footage so your wobble will appear to be more hand animated. i personally prefer this method so i can also loop the footage, change the speed, add on an animation effect, or generally get slightly finer control than i would have gotten just launching from the get-go w

i hope this helps!! sorry again that i can't double check most of this, but hopefully this is complete enough that you can follow it through ! ! ! !

#mio answers things #anon #tutorial #you don't know how glad i am that i finally have displacement maps back ksfdjlhgksdf #i would be nothing without my hand-animated text wobble look w

[jleighwrites]

Through the Looking Glass [Unedited]

Quen inspected himself in the glowing mirror, knowing that the reflection was truly his own. He stood at 5 foot 8; a bit short, but he didn't mind. His ochre skin was clear and his hair was cut into a clean blowout. Apparently that was popular back in the 20's. His amber-colored eyes gleamed back at him, tarnished only by the dark circles underneath. Many of his acquaintances had gotten rid of theirs, but he liked how it made him feel human. 

When he was finished getting ready for the day, he stepped into the hall and made his way to one of his family's augmented reality chambers, or ARCs for short. When he reached the door, he took out his personal ID and held it in front of a small screen next to the door. It beeped once before flickering to life.

"Quenton Jarod Harris, Junior attending Paulson R. Stewart High. Would you like to begin Classes for the day?" it asked in a robotic voice.

"Yes," he replied.

"Creating Scenario… Connecting to server… Finalizing… Start-up complete. Have a good day, Quenton Harris."

He swung the door open and was met by a bustling school hallway. Dozens of beautiful faces were chatting with each other, walking past each other, and scrambling to finish assignments that should've been done the night before. He let the door creak shut behind him and it disappeared into the wall. He hadn't taken two steps before the robotic voice was back. 

"Message received. Sender : Juulia Brewer. Would you like to open the message?" Quen let out a heavy breath as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He regretted having skipped coffee this morning. The system repeated itself, "Would you like to open the message?"

"Yes."

An opaque, digital, blue message box appeared before him. As he walked, it stayed in the same position, phasing through classmates as he went, but they didn't flinch. To be fair, they couldn't even see it on their side.

Morning!! :DDD

In cafeteria.

Meet there??? uwu

Quen rolled his eyes at the emotes. Juuls had an obsession with "Millennial Texting", as she called it. In fact, she was kind of a nerd for it. She was the only one that had taken an interest in that era. American History classes taught them that the first 30 years of the century were dark times, but somehow Juulia managed to find light in them.

He reached out and pressed the X in the top right corner of the message box, causing it to blink away. "Hey, Google?" he called. 

"What can I help with?"

"Teleport me to the Cafeteria."

"Sure. Now teleporting Quenton Harris to the cafeteria."

The noises and sight of the hallway faded into a blue void. Here, it was relaxing. Here, he could breathe easy. And just like that, it was gone. The void transformed into the cafe and the garbled mess of voices was back.

He scanned the faces before him one by one, trying to discern his friend in the sea of Glowing radiance. On the days that he had to use ARC, it was always significantly harder to recognize Juulia. With ever-changing hair colors and styles, vast varieties of makeup, and feature correction, the only way he could tell the difference was when their name appeared in front of them when he met their gaze. 

A girl sitting a few tables down stood up and began to wave her arm around; he didn't have to see her to know it was Juuls. Disregarding the built-in recognition program, the greeting was a dead giveaway. She did this almost every morning, whether in person or through ARC.

He made his way through the crowd, literally. Instead of bumping shoulders with people, their holograms simply phased through him. The chamber, however, did produce realistic copies of inanimate objects. He plopped down on the nanobit replica of a bench at his school's lunch table.

"What's up?" he asked.

"Oh. Em. Eff. Gee. You literally took forever, lol," Juulia replied. A couple students around the two of them glanced their direction, giving them odd looks.

"Proximity chat," Quen reminded her. He took a moment to adapt to her new look. He assumed that she had been trying to look like one of those 'E-girls' that she was always on about. With neon pink hair, a beanie, and dark makeup, she looked completely different than she did yesterday.

"Oof. They just don't have good taste. The 20's were so… Lit."

"That's new."

"What? Lit? It just means, like, cool, but better."

"You're so weird."

"Pog."

And with that, the bell rang. Immediately, he was sucked back into the loading void briefly before being spit out into his first class of the day. He took his seat as the teacher appeared in the room. She was beautiful and could pass for 25, though she was actually 20 years older.

"Alright everyone, sit down please. Today, we'll be talking about why we're here. We all know that the early years were just about as bad as they could get. But they had some major influence on how things work in modern day."

Juulia would be bouncing off of the walls if she were here right now. Fortunately, she didn't have this class until after lunch. He was spared of her over-enthusiasm for now.

"Did you know that ARC was developed a few years after the events of the Covid 19 pandemic? It took a while, but when it was released to the public it was an instant success. Can you believe they used to hold classes through video chats on a computer?"

A hand in the back went up. The teacher motioned towards the student, urging her to ask her question. "What's a computer?" It seemed that everyone had been wondering the same thing, Quen included, because they all shifted their vision from the student to the teacher.

The teacher chuckled. "It was a large device that used to be kept on desks before technology was integrated into Glass."

"They only had technology on the 'computer'?" another student asked.

"I mean, they had other forms of technology. They had smart watches, smartphones, smart TVs… But most of their time connected to the internet was spent on a computer or on the smartphone, which is what we now call our Shard."

Quen had to admit, everything about the early 21st century was something else. But where it intrigued Juuls, it brought up a bad taste for him. To him, it was just the beginning of the death of authenticity.

After what felt like hours of droning, the class was finally wrapping up. Google's voice broke him from his thoughts. "Message received. Sender : Crystalinne Harris. Message saved for later."

"I've sent an assignment reminder to all of you. Your homework is a 500 word essay on what 'Facebook' was before it created Glass."

He scoffed at the assignment before the next bell rang, whisking him off to his second class. 

When the final bell of the day rang, the low hum enveloping him whirred into silence as ARC powered down. Without the machine running, he stood in a room made up of nanobits. The tiny metal balls made up the walls, floor, ceiling, and even this side of the door. All of them worked to create the illusion of being in an actual school, when in reality, he'd been inside a room no more than 10 feet wide and 10 feet long all day.

He stepped out of the chamber and made his way into the kitchen, where he was met by his mother and father. "How was school today?" She asked. His father pulled a latte from the Keurig and sipped it as he waited for a response.

"It was alright. Just another day," he replied, "Dinner smells good."

"Oh, yeah. They delivered lemon pepper steak and asparagus today. All of our portions are already in the oven."

"That's… Lit," he said, a smug sense of pride flickering within.

"That's funny, son. Haven't heard that since Gran was alive. Get that from, what's her name? Jessica?" 

"Juulia. Yeah." His father's beard was getting shaggy, he noticed. Since he had started using Glass, he had been letting it grow out. Seemingly, it didn't bother him much any more. His father had been adamant about leaving Glass alone for most of his life and had taught him to do the same, but when Grey hairs began to appear, he decided to finally give in.

Honestly, he wasn't surprised. Glass was wildly popular internationally. It had originally been bought out by the American government in 2040, probably for facial tracking, and integrated into every single building since then. It was everywhere. He and his dad were two of only six or seven people that he knew of that didn't use it. But now, he couldn't even say that.

After dinner, he had decided to take a hot shower. The water on his skin felt nice and he let the steam relax his muscles. When he finished, he dried off and wrapped his towel around his waist. Stepping in front of the mirror, a pleasant chime sounded.

"Glass activated," a voice with a programmed British accent sounded through the surrounding speakers. The edges of the mirror lit with a white backlight and menus appeared on the screen in glowing, white letters. A box formed around his face, his name appearing above it. "User : Quenton Harris detected. Set nickname : Quen."

He began to comb his hair into place when the voice rang out, "Quen, would you like to use the Autofix function?" A white bar highlighted the "Autofix" option on the menu. 

"No," He replied sternly. 

He finished with his hair and quickly brushed his teeth. When he smiled so that he could check them, the voice came again, "Light enamel stains detected. Would you like to use the Autofix function?"

"No."

It was irritating to hear it trying to coerce him into using it, knowing that it used that method to get so many people addicted to it. He simply shook his head. That's how it starts. A quick fix here, a minor upgrade there…

He pulled on a sleep shirt and some sweatpants, tossed his towel into the laundry chute, and headed for his room. He needed to write his essay and get some rest for the next day. It would be Tuesday, which meant live classes. 

Quen's alarm beeped, rousing him from his slumber. He sat up in bed and stretched, before lowering himself to the floor. "1, 2, 3, 4…" he counted the sit-ups in his head as he started his quick morning workout routine. He had always been physically active. Staying healthy had been a big goal for him. The way things were now, even with the best Healthcare, people hardly ever made it past their 50's. He wouldn't let himself be a victim of the system.

50 sit-ups, crunches, and push ups later, he stood up. Began getting dressed for the day. A white button up and a tie, he wanted to look nice. Of course, Glass attempted to goad him into Autofixing himself, and just like every other day, he had none of it. 

Finally, he felt confident. He was ready for the day. He grabbed his backpack from the back of his desk chair after ensuring that his report on Facebook was packed. Since he was heading out of the house, he also snagged his Shard from the charging pad and shoved it into the pocket of his black jeans.

He strode down his driveway and stopped next to his mailbox. After a few minutes, a large, white bus with no windows arrived. He climbed in and heard a chime over the bus' speakers. The British voice spoke, "Quenton Harris has boarded."

He made his way to an empty seat and plopped down. The first thing he noticed, like always, was the smell. An amalgam of body odors swirled around the cramped space, making him sick to his stomach.

Inside the bus, you could see the surroundings on the installed Glass screens, almost like windows. He turned his focus to the passing buildings as he tried to block out the horrendous scent surrounding him. He was one of the last stops, so he wouldn't have to endure it for very long. He slid his Shard out of his pocket and began to read the day's headlines. The war overseas was still raging on, as expected. The weekly universal paycheck rate was 31 dollars more than the last. And another round of the Meta-Vaccine was going to be made available before fall, hopefully to prevent as many infections as possible.

The bus rolled to a stop in front of the real Paulson R. Stewart High. When the doors creaked open, the automated voice announced that it was time to evacuate. He passed by the empty driver's seat and stepped out onto the curb, letting fresh air flow into his lungs. For the first time since last Thursday, he smiled.

Quen enjoyed the few moments he had in the outdoors as he strode to the entrance. Biding his time, he held the door open for other students. Unfortunately, he knew he had to go in.

He stepped into the real hallway, which looked almost exactly the same as it did in the ARC replica. There were three main differences. First, the smell. Just like on the bus, it was everywhere. It absorbed every crevice, every corner. It was disgusting. As much as it bothered him, no one else seemed to mind.

Second, the students he saw today were nothing like the ones that had been in his simulation yesterday. Where beautiful faces surrounded him before, he was now engulfed in a sea of low effort. Hair was frizzy, tangled, and out of place. Clothes were wrinkled and stained. And the worst, it was obvious that most of his classmates didn't take care of themselves. They were supposed to reach the peak of their physicality at ages 16 through 18. If this is what "peak" looked like, he understood why the average life expectancy was decreasing.

Third, Glass was everywhere. It made up all of the windows, all of the mirrors, and even lined the walls in some places. It kept track of each student as they navigated the hallways. The 'Assistant' feature was turned off, which meant no obnoxious voice trying to pressure him into anything, but it still worked it's magic in the reflections. Each user's Autofix settings synced up with every Glass that was linked to the system, which was - legally - all of them.

It disgusted him, the way people walked around, acting all high and mighty. Just because they never had to see their true selves didn't mean that no one would. The problem was, they didn't care. After graduation, They would be assigned a home, a mate, and a job. And after that, the only ones that would have to see them would be their direct family. All other interactions would be carried out in ARC, which had a partnership with Glass.

These moments, here, in Paulson R. Stewart High, were the last bits of his fleeting reality. Someone bumped into his shoulder, causing him to stumble out of the way. A bigger guy wearing a pair of eyeGlass gave him a strange look. "Sorry, man. Hard to tell the days apart," his apology sounded genuine, "Your fix looks nice."

"Don't worry about it. And thanks, but it's not an Autofix," Quen replied. The guy chuckled for a moment before tilting his head down to peek over his eyeGlass.

"No kidding. Well, good for you, man. Between you and me, they really need to get it together," he said, looking over the crowd. He shifted his gaze back to Quen, "Compared to us, they look pretty rough."

The sad thing was, he probably hadn't seen his true self in years. "Yeah, man. Well, see you around." Quen left him behind and began walking towards the cafeteria. There was only one person he wanted to talk to.

An arm linked through his, and through a haze of vanilla scented perfume, a familiar voice chimed, "Bruh, you got here earlier than me today. That's wack." He didn't have to look to know who it was. When he turned to her, he was engulfed by her radiance. She was authentic. She was real.

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