Tested on a 1.21.1 minecraft server with and without oraxen 1.181.1 All elements of my hud seems to have Minecraft vanilla "outlined text" effect, resulting in a black drop shadow on everything.
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this is how the hud looks like below 1.20.4 (which is the expected behaviour)
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i've tried adding outlined: falseto my elements but this does not change a thing.
Many clients who use my hud in 1.21.1 reported having the same issue as me.