Gilded Dreams And Horrid Reality

A few days had passed, and only five people notified us to let us know they may send an application to Through The Looking Glass, as detailed in our rules. rainDrip’s words resonated in my head: of those five, only one at best will bother to apply. The others? They’ll find admins they’re friends with, who have far more sophisticated sites and history.

I couldn’t help it—my perfectionist heart drove me to skim through the advertisement channel on the Survivor RP Group. About two or three new ads popped up a day, and all of them blew me away. Artists that drew headshots of nearly fifty NPCs, custom made soundtracks, one of them even made a small video game for their advertisement of their world.

Just what kind of uber-talented people are out there!? Monsters, they’re all monstrously gifted! How did we have a chance of standing out, especially when it took me so long just to make the simple graphics and profiles I did? The strengths of the rest of our group remained firmly routed in writing and programming (in rain’s case).

Two more days passed, cementing us as halfway through our application period. I had to get back to schoolwork sooner or later, spending my after-hours in the library, but even then I couldn’t stop myself from smuggling my tablet and headphones in and situating myself on a table in the back.

“I can’t believe it’s almost June,” dropsgum said. “Besides school stuff, we haven’t even gotten any apps either. Do you think I should’ve made some of the NPCs cuter?”

“Even if you could have,” I whispered, “It wouldn’t have made a difference. Just because some people think that the date-ableness of a character means something to an RP doesn’t mean that we should prioritize it.”

“But what if,” she said. “Cuteness is, like, the second most important attribute for a character!”

“What the hell’s the first?”

“Feminine confidence! Not like the usual kind, the cooler time. You watched Lush PrettyMure after I recommended it to you, right? It’s like Mure Dedication! When she died and came back with her transformation, that was feminine confidence.”

I barely followed what she was talking about. As usual, she constantly prioritized cuteness above all else. Our DMs, filled with photos of pink desserts and anything else she thought was cute like baby animals or outfits attested to that.

“….Right.”

“You’re barely listening, aren’t you!?”

“Listening and comprehending are different states here,” I said with a sigh as I leaned back in my seat.

“You could at least pretend to get it,” she said with a huff.

“I don’t like lying,” I stated simply. “Especially to you.”

“...Especially to me, huh?”

My heart thudded, as if it was a pre-programmed alarm to tell me when I said too much. “I didn’t mean it like—wait, don’t you dare! Imply! Anything!”

A hissed shush pierced my ears. Around the corner, one of the librarian assistants glared daggers at me. I could only pray that she didn’t hear the details of our conversation.

TowersFall: gonna switch to typing cause ppl are getting possy at me
TowersFall: POSSY
TowersFall: PISSY!!!

Dropsgum snorted before she hung up on the call. Oh, she wasn’t going to let go of that one anytime soon. I could already see her spamming that word over and over again in our admin chat.

But I could handle some humiliation, as long as it cheered her up. Sometimes that’s just what you need to endure to be a good friend.

Friend! Yes. Friend. She’s a good friend and that’s all. Clearly I should discuss this more instead of focusing on the lack of reception we have to our RP group. If anything, it was marginally less disappointing, but ten times more humiliating to talk about.

…

I need to learn to shut my brain up sometimes.

Before I could think myself into an aneurysm, I packed up my bags and headed home. There wasn’t much I could do in terms of recruitment, but as life hastened to teach me I needed to balance what happened in real life with what happened online. And so…

“How about this school?”

I stationed myself at the dinner table for more of my mother’s torment. I appreciated that she spared me for a bit after I passed out at school, but a little more of a vacation would’ve been nice…thinking about your future is a special kind of existential despair. A black, swirling hole of nothingness in which all is engulfed, your dreams, your aspirations, even your reputation.

And let’s not forget the worst curse of all: your peers and family! All social outcasts understand the pressure to succeed, whether or not anyone tells you to, the burning desire to prove to your peers from a distance that you’re more than a nobody is more powerful than steroids. Not that I’ve ever used them, but I’m an expert on being ignored, so that’s my final say.

I’d had my own lavish daydreams of writing a best seller for years to come, or scriptwriting for a movie and winning a prestigious award. The spacious theater, pungent with the pooling scent of every perfume and cologne under the sun, the cold air and the serious atmosphere to pierce your nerves and leave your soul bare for all the world to see.

The seats are filled with fanciful figures of celebrities, people beyond the veil of humanity ascending to a seat among the gods—ah, they may as well be that in the eyes of their admirers. And they’d consider me one of them! As I took each step towards the stage, it would be as if I were ascending towards the glorious Mount Olympus, ready to make my voice known within the angelic chorus of creative—

“It’s ‘You’re’, not ‘Your’,” my mother grumbled as she tossed a pamphlet into the garbage. My dreams crashed against the hard pavement of reality. “How could I trust a college that doesn’t even proofread their pamphlets?”

“I know, right?” I said, though all that earned from her was a look down at my work. She had given me a piece of paper and the chance to pick out some schools that interested me; plus notes on their pros and cons. In the end, though, all I’d managed was a few names of some high brow schools, with no notes otherwise. I’d only noted down the ones I did because they were household names I couldn’t bring myself to give a shit about applying to.

Her nose scrunched up as she spoke. Whatever words dangled off the tip of her tongue, though, crashed down her throat again, as she remained silent before she shook her head.

My father, however, had much more to say, and he sat next to us at the kitchen table, in convenient tongue-lashing range.

“He’s treating this like he does his virtual worlds,” my father said, face buried in a magazine. If only I had it in me to point out the irony of his tabloid, but I kept my mouth screwed shut before my angry words could leak out. “Always on his computer, playing video games that only want your money. Are your digital people going to help you get a job?”

My teeth grated against each other. “No,” I said, “They won’t. But I’m not—“

“Oh,” he scoffed, “You should’ve gotten a job. That way you’d be able to save up and pay for school yourself.”

“I barely play video games anymore!” I yelled and stood up. “If anything, I just…message people. It’s where my friends are, I’m basically going to hang out with them like you always ask me to.”

The same, displeased expression crossed my mom and father’s face, though only he spoke up. “You never know what’s on the other side of the screen,” he said as he looked at me from over the cover. “Those friends of yours are waiting to kidnap you once you tell them where you live.”

As any other night with my father, I acted like a reasonable person—quietly excused myself, scooped up my notebook, and went back up to my room. I would’ve been grounded on any normal day, but as we both had these arguments more and more, my mom wasn’t too keen to fan the flames or take sides.

Hell, I’d be less frustrated if she did take a side against me. As it was now, my father and I were in a stalemate. Not to mention the stress school and Through The Looking Glass were giving me…

I wasn’t getting much sleep tonight. I knew that much. So much for my promise.