We have been referred to by many names through the ages, in some ways we are the older species in our plane of existence, even if we speak as if we live in a higher plane. We aren't. Not really.

You see, what you think of as a higher plane...It isn't, not in the strict meaning of the word, what you a mere mortal refer to Heaven or Hell, they aren't really in another plane.

Existence is...complicated, it's like an onion actually (Yes, we do have those things here too). You all live in the middle layers of the onion, your Hell is a few layers down, and Heaven is a few layers up. And we live in the top layer, almost on the outside of the plane, what does that mean to us?

We are aware of our position and how it impacts on the rest of the onion, you see, since we are at the topmost layer we have more freedom. We can see what happens outside of our plane and we have the privilege of interacting with the other layers of the onion, if there is something we find interesting within the other layers we can just pluck it out and bring it to us.

Now why does it matter this?

You see, it does not. Not really, not in the great scheme of things, for you humans we are still existences so far away and we seem so powerful that you may as well be ants to us. And you are, don't ever be mistaken about that, there is a reason that we are called that.

[Constellations], the latest in a long list of names, [Gods], [Creators], [Administrators], [Celestials], [Immortals]...To be honest I liked the last one more.

Even if each one had its reason to be and why we were called as such, at the start you lower being deemed us the creators and gods, somehow that didn't stick and other humans from different levels of the plane started seeing us as the ones that ruled their world.

Came the name of administrators, then others looked up to us, as holy beings and so we were called Celestials or Immortals. And we basked in those names, we felt that it was what we deserved, what it was expected of us.

The idea gave us thrilling emotions and so we searched and found those humans that would bring us the most enjoyment, and in doing so we started seeing more of the life of the humans in the lower parts of our plane.

And so we mighty beings in the stars turned our sight down, and as one who stares at the abyss, the abyss stared back. The most powerful among the humans noticed us and named us once more, [Constellations].

Those that dwell among the stars and look down upon the world of mortals. It was quite a romantic naming, alas... our purpose wasn't that noble.

The most powerful among us started to make their own entertainment by messing around with those humans they enjoyed watching, making them suffer, giving them trials, and sharing only smidges of power to those they made suffer, just so they would barely survive and proclaim the greatness of the [Constellation] they serve.

And those constellations? They would share what they saw with others bringing even more and more interest towards the lower planes, the humans in the middle of our cosmic onion had a name for this kind of entertainment.

A name we took and made plenty of use for...

Streams.

We turned into rabid enjoyers of seeing the humans fight and survive in the live streams, and the weakest among us turned into [Streamers] that would use this service to earn power by donations by other constellations just so that their favorite human could survive or face stronger foes.

But as time went by, even those pitiful and weak humans from lower planes noticed that we earned as much if not even more than we gave, so they started being more...picky.

It was long gone the era where a single whisper from a mighty constellation was enough to get them to pledge themselves to us. 

And after all of my ramblings, you must be surely wondering... what the hell is this guy even speaking of? Isn't this common sense?

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

For you, it may be, that nowadays every kid gets taught in class not to accept a contract with a constellation unless their mother or father says so. So the once mighty constellations end up fighting tooth and nail for the good humans.

Those that train and have learned, those that go to the academy where you train to be a true [Awakener].

Constellations fight and train too, just so that their name gets added to the roster of approved constellations, just so we get a chance to speak and get our name in the big world.

And all for what? So that we can entertain other bigger constellations so they throw something our way? Is this a way of living?

If you had asked me this a few centuries ago I would have laughed at your face and asked if you were okay, this has been our way of living for so long that no one ever remembers what was the first true constellation streamer nor what they did.

I too, after all, wished to become one of those big constellations that made a living from streaming a human while going on adventures, finding love, fighting against a bitter rival only to manage to scramble a win using something I threw himself offhandedly before as a joke.

Do you know those epic reversals you see in epics?

I wanted to be part of those too, not as a viewer, nor as an actor, but as the one behind the camera, as the streamer.

So now tell me whoever is reading, watching, or listening to this, why did it end like this?

Maybe is hubris? 

Our own hubris is the reason we ended up like this, it would be quite a fitting end indeed. And yet here we are, here I am. Leaving this so that someone would find it, hoping that they would see it and maybe, just maybe, bring us another end.

Now what was the problem that got us here?

Was it the society we built?

Was it the type of expectations you humans live with?

Was it the type of expectations we constellations live with?

The contracts we create?

The streams we made?

I don't know, there is no way to know what made [Him] end up like that, what did he do? How did he end up like that?

How could someone twist my [Gift] that much that it ended up transforming into something like that?

"COME AND GET YOUR PRIZE!" Oh, my time is coming to an end it seems.

"YOU HAVE THE WRONG ADDRESS!" That should keep him at bay for a few minutes.

So, yes the problem... as you may have noticed this recording has some small background problems.

*crash*

"I WILL BATHE IN YOUR BLOOD AND EAT YOUR ENTRAILS USING YOUR SKULL AS A PLATE!" ...Okay maybe something more than a small problem.

That which you hear in the background is what we have colloquially referred to as [A constellation killer], they are created when a dumbass gives another dumbass the wrong type of gift.

It could be something as inane as giving a human the power to earn one point of experience for each life they kill, and then that human somehow falls on his ass over an anthill killing a million insects, earning himself a quick boost of power. A life is a life after all.

Or can be something as obvious as giving a human the gift to earn the gifts of those that they kill, because yes. It is a problem if a single human somehow manages to grab more than one gift, these things are broken if someone gets smart with their use.

Usually, we go to the academy to prevent this kind of thing, and we pick our incarnation with great care to ensure this does not happen, such as picking the right incarnation after studying their life so that we know they will not turn into a psycho murder machine.

My incarnation for example was a pushover who couldn't live without his sister and was expected to kill himself when or if his sister died. 

Why did I pick that? I didn't, it is what was expected of me to choose since my gift is...problematic.

It is still better than the guy who got stuck with the human that eats glue and shoves crayons up his nose. We get these kinds of humans since our gifts are dangerous.

Mine is [The Collector], it allows the incarnation to harvest something out of the target in front of them. Easy right? Simple.

You find a rock, you can pick up that rock, or if you are smart about it, you can get the mineral components out of it, want only graphite? Easy.

Want only carbon? Easy.

Now do you see the problem with my gift? No? Should I put it plainly and simply? Fine.

You find yourself with the corpse of a high-ranking incarnation, they had the gift of super strength, fly, and invulnerability. You use my gift and suddenly you can pick one of those from that incarnation.

You got very good at using my gift? Well, you may as well pick everything out of it.

That isn't enough? You killed that incarnation and have already those gifts? Well, why not harvest his remaining life force? He would live another 30 years, might as well harvest those for yourself right?

He isn’t going to use them dead anyway, so why waste it?

Now you see the problem? 

Yes, if you abuse my gift you can turn into a monster, and usually, the kind of people that are motivated enough to do so are those that want to kill hard-to-locate and hard-to-murder targets, such as...I don't know, entities that have been existing from the beginning of time and live in the topmost part of the onion.

You remember the onion right?

Well, while it is easy for us constellations to visit the lower layers of the onions, it is harder for those from below to visit the layers at the top. Unless they can [Collect] the gift to do so from an incarnation whose gift was to visit us.

Or from a dumbass constellation that wanted to visit the world of the humans to gloat, so yes. I got stuck with an incarnation that shouldn't be able to do anything in life.

Still better than the crayon and glue-eating human.

"I FOUND YOU!" Oh right, that was happening.

"So you did, care to leave a message too?" Not that he would, how many times have I tried that?

"As if it matters, I will kill you all for what you did. No matter how many times I need to, I WILL KILL YOU ALL!" And that's all from me folks.

My name is [The Collector], and my gift is [The Collector]. Or if you are a friend you can refer to me as the archivist, as that is what I wanted to be.

I wanted to be a live streamer who would have his incarnation travel and find all kinds of materials to create the greatest library in the world, my incarnation would travel high and low, collecting all kinds of data and making the greatest library in all of this stupid onion thing.

Instead here I am, using all of my remaining life force to try and create a message in a bottle, to whoever it may end up with. I hope you have better luck than me.

PD: The graduation day was BS.