#those are the ones i can think of

[syrupspinner]

i am obsessed with roman sands re:build

so now im gonna talk about it for a looooooong time. you can hit j to skip posts

roman sands re:build is an upcoming game developed by arbitrary metric (paratropic) and published by serenity forge (ddlc+, lisa definitive edition, slay the princess pristine, basically if it has text boxes and is an updated release it was these guys). notably, it is a remake of a visual novel just called roman sands, but ive deliberately avoided learning anything about the older release because I don't want spoilers

it's hard to pin it to one genre. you could call it an adventure game? you take first-person control of someone... interchangeable. nobody cares about your name, and people seem to use whatever pronouns is most convenient for their perception of you in any given moment. anyway, it's your job to be the busybody at this resort. fulfill requests until the day ends, which takes four room transitions. you start in the morning when you first enter the main doors, then it goes to noon, then afternoon, then evening, then you quit

then it's the next day. you're in a time loop... probably. this is also just what working in retail is like, I've been told. every day has you do the same thing for the same people. oh, speaking of,

everybody hates you. there are four hotel guests: Betty, who will yell about hoe youre awful at your job and you should be ashamed; her husband Harold, who is scatterbrained and weak-willed but at least knows how to say thanks: Sylvia, a high-class lady who condescends at you; and... bunk

I mentioned your perception is inconsistent. Betty sees you as maliciously incompetent, Sylvia is equally insulting but in a way that's more concerned with emphasizing her own superiority, and I'm not sure if Harold even knows you work here. but bunk can flip-flop in the moment. sometimes, he sees you as one of the guys that he can talk with about the good old days where you could complement women on their bodies without them calling hr. sometimes he sees you as one of those women. he doesn't care about who you are in the slightest, you're just a means of gratifying whatever whims he has. well, the others are like that too, but bunk is the most obviously carnal.

the main gameplay loop sees you routing the most efficient way to maximize your XP gain. since entering a door advances time, and the tasks reset every loop, you can do stuff like... getting Betty's pills before she asks for them, and going through the side door so you can fetch Harold a chair before he asks for it. cutting down on backtracking means you can do as much work as possible in as short amount of time as possible, just like a real overworked minimum wage service worker!

the games design and atmosphere does a great job at distilling this sense of frantic pace-keeping. I could never play stuff like diner Dash cuz I always got overwhelmed by having to keep all the orders straight and worrying about customers getting even a little unhappy. RSr:B fixes both of those problems, the former by making everything predictable enough to plan around and account for with previous attempts explicitly not mattering. the later is addressed by making everyone a stupid jerk.

also, just because i dont realy dwell on it, the aesthetic is amazing for non-thematic reasons. i love the use of cool colours despite the tropical setting, it emphasizes the tranquility that is intended by the location, and heavily contrasts with the presence of the sun as a threat to the narrative, which emphasizes the threat's dismissal. wait shit thats a thematic reason again, fuck. i love pretty dreamcast beaches and shiny y2k ui elements and the stupid stretchy noodle people. it just looks so cool man. im and english student not an art studen so i cant really articulate why i think that without just saying its pretty and i like looking at it.

anyway, there are so many minor mechanical things that are built to goad you into hurrying the fuck up. you start each day with two minutes on the clock, and if that clock runs out, you... miss out on a little xp boost. if you walk on an arrow path to whatever task is closest, you go way faster, encouraging you to move straight from one request to the other without breathing. and you cant select responses by scrolling through a menu, you have to select it from the number row. its like in a shooter, if you couldnt use a weapon wheel and always had to quick-select, which of course encourages you to be quick

there's enough that encourages you not to get too stagnant with your loops too. first, there's a sense of mutual exclusivity. there is only one drink, and two people want it. second, there's unlockable items! this is the main use of leveling up. for example, you can get a mop to clean bunks puke (don't actually you'll softlock and the demo doesn't save) or get that checkbook Silvia wants you to sign. or a simple toolbox

ooo, another thing is the tutorial. just when youre about to enter the doors, you get a pop-up of a girl telling you stuff lie "keep your head down" and "hurry up" that dont actually tutorialize much of the gameplay itself. i think this is another deliberate satire of capitalism. the most important part about getting and maintaining a job isnt your skillset, its who you know and how well you adhere to the culture. it doesnt matter how well you do the skills if you dont know your place

also, the game is really good about teaching you things naturalistically. betty asks you for a marg (with the pop-up lady redundantly telling you to get her the marg, but this would be really helpful to the players that were very understandably overwhelmed/disoriented by being yelled at by three people at once). bring it to her and she immediately barks another order at you, which tells the player that you talk to people to get requests. then, you go outside and get her pills like she asked, and you learn about the mechanic where time pass when you go to a different area.

the main goal of the demo, the main thing you're working towards, is fixing the elevator. well youre in luck, because the thing that you get from being level 3 (which you can get in your first day if you know what youre doing) is a toolbox. its not robust enough to fix the boiler in the basement, but... actually no it cant do anything about the elevator because its too sulfur-y. from here im going to spoil the central puzzle to completing the demo, so if anything ive said sounds interesting, leave now and play it

so! if you take some time to look around, youll notice the orrery. yes thats its name, yes thats a real word, yes i also misread it as ossuary and got super concerned for a minute. the orrery it has a large yellow chunk in the middle, and a planet missing from the display. theres a solar system display in the main lobby. so take the planet thats logically missing from both displays (or just take em all and just see which one fits - its mercury btw) and put it into place. now just... rotate the display until the planets align and beam the sun from the left into into the yellow chunk and... it retracts, showing you the idea of sulfur. you can use that to fix the elevator, and then the demo ends! nothing noteworthy or worth mentioning happens after that point. nope, not even [withheld]. look i know too many people that ignore spoiler warning but i still wanna leave something for them to discover when they play the demo, because you are going to play the demo

now, with everything (audible wink) established about what this game is, lets talk about why it is that way. i know i usually jump right into the analysis assuming that the reader already knows about the game, but like, there are three people who have posted about this on tumblr. two of them are developers and im the other one.

so first and foremost, ripping the bandaid off, this game is anticapitalist as fuck. you play as a service worker that has their humanity brushed aside at best for the sake of fulfilling menial tasks. your paycheck is sporatic, and they only things you can spend it on are consumerist trash that literally does not matter. at the end of the work day you vanish into the sea, crawling right back out when the next day starts, as a metaphor for how the people being serviced by these workers see them as their job and nothing else, dehumanizing them to the point that nobody in the game realizes that youre a human being first and a worker second. your opinions and feelings dont matter, just your labour. and i dont have to tell you that the time loop represents the banal repetition of the 9-to-5.

also, its getting hotter. every day is one tick off the countdown where the sun fucks the big one and... maybe youll die, maybe youll just be in hell. this is also anticapitalist, because this is pretty obviously... fuck i dont even wanna call it a metaphor because it just kind of is climate anxiety. its mentioned once as something too far in the future to care about, if its even a problem at all, and youre expected to go about your day without thinking about it. but at the end of every day you still see it. n days until the sun dies. just ignore it, you cant do anything about it

the aesthetic plays into this too. you know im a sucker for paradise-like locals, and my favorite thing you can do in them is explore what goes on behind the curtain to make them paradise. like, in Paradise Killer, a lot of ink is spilled over human "workers" sacrificing their lives to build something that will just be scrapped for some trivial imperfection. here, you essentially play as one of the humans trying to upkeep the illusion of perfection. its supposed to be incongruent to your gameplay experience because youre just a worker, your experience doesnt matter, this is all for the guests sake. your frantic gameplay is deliberately contrasted with the serene locale and calming music

oh! the calming music! theres one track in the game that isnt a chill beat, and its... the level up music. the first thing i thought of when i saw it? a slot machine. did you know theyre often designed to have flashy and appealing scenes play out both when you win and when you lose? its to subconsciously trick your brain into thinking youre doing a better job than you are, that youre winning in some way just by continuing to pour your money away. i dont think thats a coincidence. first, slot machines are a great symbol of the evils of capitalism, a machine that only offers the "service" of a slim chance of receiving money that, realistically speaking, is dwarfed by what youve already lost. the purpose of a system is what it does, and gambling as a systemic part of life is successful in bankrupting as many vulnerable people as possible.

how does that play into roman sands re:build? well, like a slot machine, the extravagance of the music and the visuals exists to play up what youre getting. on one hand, this is just a reasonable way to design a game, emphasize gameplay rewards with something flashy so players have an increased sense of accomplishment. on the other, this is meant to convince the player that slow incremental progress towards finally earning the right to use a mop bucket is something worth celebrating. it reminds me of how often employers try to trick their employees into being satisfied with stuff like pizza parties instead of, like, raises. this may sound like a stretch to you but id like to take a moment to remind you that this game includes a gacha system for literal useless trash for no other reason than to satirize how consumerism encourages you to spend money on things that cost as little as possible, valuing consumption for consumption's sake rather than the actual value of what youre consuming. why wouldnt they extend this to also satirize how capitalism undervalues workers by withholding basic amenities and minimal compensation as a reward for doing as much as you can as fast as you can? keep working, motherfucker, maybe youll get that better toolbox soon

wage theft is one of the most common forms of abuse done to the working class. it follows, then, that it is one of the most normalized. it takes many forms, like unpaid overtime and withholding benefits. perhaps the most notable are forcing employees to purchase mandatory equipment out of pocket (a central game mechanic as discussed earlier) and asking employees to do things outside of the scope of their position. of course, this is how the gameplay works on a fundamental level. you are asked to do the work of a receptionist, a janitor, a bartender, and even a masseuse. notably, this is done by the customers and not the administration. I'll get into the lack of a distinct employer figure later, so for now I'll go into how the layman's complacency in abusive systems seems to be a major theme of the game

yknow what im gonna talk more about harold. the other guests are actively disrespectful and directly abusive to you, so Harold definitely stands out. he requests things from you politely, and shows you sincere gratitude. here's the thing though, he's TOO accepting. Betty arguably treats you the worst out of the four guests, and Harold is never seen even attempting to oppose her. he's on to something when he hears the vmmmmm vmmmm noise from the basement, because there's a giant ominous machine if unknown purpose, but Betty yells at him until he stops caring. his abuse towards you, the working class, is not through shouting insults at your capability or sexual assault or insulting your personhood directly. it's through witnessing you be mistreated, and embracing it as the status quo, making the most requests to you out of everybody. at least when the others dehumanize you they're blunt about it, but Harold being the nicest person while still only seeing you as a worker to be commanded stings in a special way. being treated this way is normal, it's the best you can hope for

not only does Harold serve an important role in showing how complacency in an abusive system helps perpetuate it just the same as active participation, but he also more specifically connects to the climate change metaphor. just as all the guests mistreat you in a unique way, they all dismiss the growing heat in unique ways. bunk notices it, but is too caught in his vices and self-loathing to really care that much about the realistic consequences inplied by the fucking su dying. betty says that shes fine with an awful thing happening to everyone because itll probably hurt the people she hates, meaning she definitely votes conservative. and Harold, having heard all this, questions it but soon blissfully dismisses his concerns, a toxic positivity urging him that things always turn out for the best. the other viewpoints are selfish in self-explanatory ways, with Harold representing the climate deniers who see the topic as too confusing and complicated to hold a proper opinion on. Harold I'm shoving a microphone in your face how do you feel about the conflict in the middle east

did you notice i didnt mention sylvia? she doesnt comment. she takes the moment to passively insult those shes around. between you and me, i think she knows more than she lets on, it seems too much like shes deliberately dodging the topic. also, from the way she talks about couture later, specifically upholding it as something godly and unfit for mere cattle (the player) it kinda feels like she has to be in some higher position. or being on the same level as the lower-class that she demonstrably hates is really starting to get to her, and she feels the need to distance herself from the likes of us.

let's get back to the lack of an employer figure. depending on how you interpret [withheld] it can be theorized that kara (yes thats her name no you didnt miss anything) holds this role, especially since it seems to be her in the tutorial pop-ups. I disagree with this for more wide-scope reasons, I think you sincerely washed up in shore one day. the doyalist explanation is that it is how all workers are seen to operate. the working class is not envisioned by those they serve as having lives outside of their job. how often have you considered what your cashier's hobbies might be? their family, their weekend plans, their politics? youre probably just waiting for the card reader to let you scan and go home, all you're worried about is the service provided by their labour. I'm using "you" but I do this exact shit all the time too, to be clear. anyway, it further emphasizes the guests dehumanization of you in their perception. they can imagine that when a human works at a job, they answer to a boss. but when presented with a service, a worker just becomes a means to that end, and their humanity is replaced by their labour.

even if you didn't disappear into the sea, it wouldn't make any difference to them, they only think about you to acknowledge when you're not performing with proper efficiency, just like how you don't think about your clothes until they stop fitting, or you don't comment on roads without potholes, because there's nothing remarkable about meeting expectations.

so. what's up with that anyway. I've yapped about metaphors and figurative representation for a while now, but what's the lore? well, fuck if I know, it's a demo. but I've got some theories

theory one, it's a simulation. that would make sense with what is presented to us in the [withheld] segment, and also explain the time loop succinctly. the vmmmmmm machine could be some sort of core of the simulation? the lobby is full of larger-than-life paintings and sculptures, which may be foreshadowing that the entire world you're in is also man made (also, since i dont bring it up anywhere, i like how youre surrounded by art by never encouraged to interact with it, highlighting how capitalist obligation prevents us from truly appreciating the artistic). it is all but told to you that you're an interchangeable replacement for a previous employee, whatever happened to them, and some sort of matrix-style disposable humanity schema would fit right in to that. for the rest I can just say "it's like that one visual novel" and I think most of you will get it

theory two, it's the afterlife. it would make sense considering the location is called paradise in marketing. sulfur as an element is heavily associated with demons, so perhaps there's meant to be some symbolism that's made more solid in later parts of the game? here i can say its interesting that you obtain it by stepping outside of your role and not adhering to commands, which can parallel an angel disobeying the will of god. and using it to actively solve the problem could represent breaking traditional thought with new ways of thinking outside of doctrine? i dunno, it's hard to really say what it represents in the grand scheme before I've like, played the whole thing. also, that could mean [withheld] is a flashback to before you were conscripted into servitude (read: died), especially since the store page specifies that its post-apocalyptic. the cow imagery gains a double meaning here as well: they're seen as livestock meant to be literally churned into product, but hinduism sees them as sacred. something something essential worker, most see the proletariat as a disposable beast of meat, the animal itself just a means to an end of what they produce, but a select enlightened subsect of the world understand their importance to upkeeping society. which i guess are marxists in this metaphor? again ive only played the demo so this is 70% extrapolation

oh, speaking of cows, you can find a cow that has suffocated from neglect. I think this can connect to the whole worker dehumanization theme, but my intuition tells me it'll be more relevant to the [withheld] parts, in a way that is complimentary but still stands alone. god that part is so interesting, kara just could not wait to talk about dying. the voice actress nailed that shit

okay one last thing. the release was originally planned for summer 2023. its almost 2025 and the steam page still says "coming soon". completely sincerely: good shit. it would be hilariously pathetic to overwork for an arbitrary metric deadline when the entire game is like, about how shit that specific practice is. I love to see devs taking their time to make things the best they can.

if you can't tell I'm. kind of excited for this game. i dont usually go this in-depth but the thought of this thing instills the innate autistic urge to yap deep within my soul. but like i said earlier i dont really have the capacity to talk about stuff like how it looks and how it plays without just blindly gushing. did you know in the gameplay reveal trailer on serenity forge's youtube channel, your character nudges forward a little bit whenever they pick something up? this doesnt seem to still be the case, as interacting with objects now gives a full-screen prompt with the option to pick it up or examine it. also you dont seem to be any further forward when the prompt goes away.

okay. im gonna try and be less biased and come up with a critique. um, the demo could benefit from a save system, since its pretty easy for players who are taking their time and taking in the atmosphere to spend over an hour on this. you could argue that since the game is about going fast and being efficient through time loops that its not that big of a deal, and i agree! if a player quits the demo halfway through they can get back to where they were pretty quickly. but the demo does have a few glitches, like moments where it softlocked on a selection menu and it forced me to alt+f4. i know this'll be fixed in the full game anyway though so who cares.

uhhh i can see people being thrown off my having to click the mouse to advance dialogue but not being able to click menu options? i explained earlier how i think thats thematically resonant, but themes or no themes its still an inconvenience that players might have a problem with. the game has the colours and animations so built-in to how it works im not sure how robust the accessibility options are gonna be but that remains to be seen. but players are already complaining that the demo made em motion sick so i hope people sensitive to that kinda thing still have a chance to enjoy this. theres also how it isnt very obvious that you can select other planets in the lobby solar system but the dev said theyd improve that for the full release so im not gonna make a redundant suggestion.

um. there are probably. other things? accessibility/approachability is pretty important, but im just trying to be considerate of other potential players. if youre asking about what i, personally, think needs to be improved i can think of much. maybe if you play you can find a flaw, cuz i sure didnt. when you play the demo, let me know if i missed anything! i feel like i discover something new to talk about every time i launch this thing, which... is too often i think

this post is 4000 words. its almost 4 am. play the demo for roman sands re:build and add it to your steam wishlist.

[gongyussy]

i'll let phie-san say it:

[deskatt]

kids

[me-beef]

@strangeravatar made a great point

i was gonna focus on the spike-hotboxing-celestia aspect but i got distracted somewhere along the way and i think i forgot what joke i was trying to make

but dont you think its interesting how many guards of the exact same color/body type she's managed to accrue?? i do

ooohh you want to go look at our stickers so bad

[hinamie]

oversaturate

[starcurtain]

Please someone redraw this with Dr. Ratio and Aventurine because this is the exact vibe they have in my head post-Penacony.

[umblrspectrum]

so like is it specifically planets the solver craves or can it get by with just eating dirt off the ground

[akanemnon]

We didn't even get an answer, and we never will (at least it's not determination)

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[whatdoinose]

you don't stop getting percieved as whatever sex they assume you first had when you come out btw.

come out as a trans man to your school? youre a weird girl that is also trans. you are hated. you have 0 of the privelege of being treated as not a woman and all the horribleness of bigotry. you are whatever gender that will harm you most.

.

"oh sorry u cant go on this school trip because yr not a girl and they dont wanna room with you and if you room with any men you are horribly unsafe"

"oh sorry you don't wanna be sexually harassed? well yr a man who cares? this is punching up. be a man why are you upset?"

"mm you have no say here actually cuz youre a GIRL and girls don't have a voice here. ur body my choice tehe"

and many more.

.

all of these things can be directed at the same person. you are not more priveleged than other trans people cuz some losers out there have the most basic radfem ass understanding of how oppression works. you culd pass perfectly but the moment they know you are trans you will experience the harmful intersectionality between misogyny and transphobia. to deny that ever happened and that there are complex experiences out there is to deny trans people of their oppression. no matter your intention it is horrible and self harming to the community.

[0vergrowngraveyard]

mr and mrs prower seeing the child they abandoned suddenly on the news being praised because he singlehandedly stopped a missile from blowing up a whole city

[ionomycin]

heartblood

[captainjonnitkessler]

Do you guys notice how when Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, started planning a general strike, he did it by a) targeting his messaging towards unions with the ability to safely and effectively strike in large numbers, b) laid out a clear, actionable plan for those unions to follow (setting contracts to all expire at the same time, since many unions cannot strike while under contract), c) is using union contracts to set clear, actionable demands that can be met in order to gauge success and provide an end goal, and d) started organizing FOUR YEARS before the proposed strike date to give people the chance to plan accordingly, because it takes a really freaking long time to get tens of millions of people organized?

You notice how he didn't do it by slapping a message on Twitter saying 'hey nobody go to work on Monday, that'll really show 'em'?

[nhyhu]

idk when this progress shot is from lol

[girlwiththegreenhat]

team fortress 2 finally getting rid of the bots after 5 years

work on the team fortress 2 comic continuing after 7+ years

half life 3 development looking more likely than ever with legitimate code, file, and voicework leaks referencing a new non-VR single-player game from valve featuring a HEV suit wearing protagonist and Xen creatures and concepts

shoutout to the valve fan that found the genie lamp. you a real one

[naturecalls111]

unorthodox murder mystery

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."