#THE SHEER BAD LUCK

[chalkblhue]

I shall await hopefully (I am shaking with boredom) for my lost lover (ao3) to return from the trenches (server maintenance or whatever) by sitting down and knitting patiently (playing the sims and checking for updates on twitter every five seconds)

[feroluce]

SO LIKE. As much as I roll with the Emanator of Elation Sampo theory, I do have. Some doubts about this specific instance of it. Not that I think Boothill is lying, or that I think Sampo isn't an Emanator, but I wonder if the person Boothill actually met was Sampo.

Just! Sampo is so careful. The only reason we even knew he wasn't of Belobog was due to a dialogue-dependent fourth wall-breaking dream sequence that no other character could have seen. It took a missable dream bubble in an out-of-the-way spot that was seemingly left only for the trailblazer at the very end of a side mission just to confirm him as a Masked Fool. Like it's not just the fact that Boothill mentions this person being an Emanator. It's that he knows they're also a Masked Fool, which is also something Sampo is incredibly dodgy about. Sparkle even seems to call him out on this in her party join line fjkdjaskldj

((But also, Boothill, baby. WHY were you trying to get them drunk????))

And regardless of if you believe him when he calls himself an old timer, he obviously has a lot of experience in doing what he does. He knows what he's doing, he's good at it, and he is viciously capable and competent, unfortunately for his victims smhznskdn

So it just. Feels very unlike him, for him to let his guard down enough to not only let himself get drunk in front of Boothill-

a total stranger btw whom Sampo has absolutely no reason to trust, and a dangerous Galaxy Ranger to boot who has plenty of blood on his hands and a significant bounty on his head

-but to get SO drunk that he lets loose the secret that he's an Emanator.

When Boothill brings this up, he mentions that if Emanators were obvious and known at a glance, it would lead to atrocities. And for as much as Sampo is disliked by his victims (there's an entire anti-Sampo organization in Belobog JFDKLASJFDL), it's all for fraud. He's wanted by the IPC as an intergalactic thief. He scams people out of their money, and only rich people at that. That's mostly all that he's known for. Nothing he does is violent, even though Sampo surely has the capacity to inflict a lot of harm.

And I don't mean that he's exactly a pacifist or anything; Firefly comments that Sampo seems like a highly skilled covert fighter. His voicelines make it sound like he enjoys combat- hell, his ult line makes him sound like a hitman. I like to hc him as being a pretty high ranker in the fighting rings at the World's End Tavern, like we see in the Simulated Universe occurrences.

But I don't think he would enjoy being the cause of uncontrollable violence and bloodshed.

Like yeah he's a dick who scams people on the regs for funsies, but he has lines he refuses to cross, which we see a lot of in how he interacts with Sparkle. More than just not enjoying it, I think he would hate it if he were found out and it caused an incident, especially since he seems so endeared to Belobog and her people now and it looks like he plans to return there. He wouldn't want to bring any of that back to them.

So I just can't imagine him carelessly fucking up bad enough to out himself to a random stranger that could easily put a bullet right through his head.

Sparkle maybe could, though.

Because as we find out later the dreamscape had expanded FAR beyond what it seemed, far enough that the trailblazer had been dreaming since the warp jump in. Most people enter it unknowingly, and don't realize they're already dreaming when they think they're still awake. Boothill and Dan Heng should have already been dreaming during their exchange on the Express that started all this.

And as long as someone knows they're dreaming, completely changing their appearance is easy, even for the common layman. We see this with a couple of NPCs and also Sparkle herself, with her (in)famous impression of Sampo.

Thank youuuuu Sparkle

And yeah, the trailblazer and almost all of the other characters wouldn't know about the expansion until near the very end. None of them realized they were dreaming even outside of their dream pools, and surely none of them would think to be suspicious of another person's appearance outside of the dreamscape like that.

But Sparkle has a script from Silver Wolf.

She knew all the secrets of the dreamscape, and she knew them from the very beginning. There would have been nothing stopping her from appearing as Sampo in front of Boothill and spilling all his secrets.

And she apparently has a long-standing history with Sampo, including trying to get him in on her own much more fiery and aggressive version of Elation.

Maybe all Sampo needs is to be outed as an Emanator, and then when all the violence and bloodshed catches up to him, then he'll finally understand! ദ്ദി(｡•̀ ,<)~✩

[shrews-art]

I could write a whole essay about how Victor Vale and Kell Maresh are two sides of the same coin, opposites yet somehow similar when it comes to their relationship with pain

[dont-offend-the-bees]

Fuck I hate being an adult. I need a more adult adult to help with the volatile emotional situation.

[newtonsheffield]

Not one of my coworkers clearly trying to make me feel guilty because I got Taylor Swift tickets yesterday and she couldn’t get any for her and her 12 year old daughter and I’ve “seen her before”

And you know what, I’ll see her again. Best of luck in presale.

[berryicet]

As a person with a special interest in moths, how could I NOT draw Frank infodumping about them

[right-agent]

i got your back, if you got mine

a bunch of doodles about an idea of mine

[goosewizard]

his bones, in fact, would NOT rest easy next to her bones

the first part of my lyctor stained glass collage project!! :000 imma be working on g1deon and cytherea next so watch out 4 that :)

[cappydoodle]

childhood fave ft. most recent fave :)

[vilelittlecritter]

Ha ha I don't know what I want to do with my life and I feel unsatisfied with my current condition!

[scruus]

GOT BOTH OF EM IN LESS THAN 50 PULLS DEVS I LOVE U SM IM GONNA SCREAM AND CUM SO HARDDDDDDD

Literally me when i saw i got xaviers card after 30 pulls. Screamed so hard my friends got scared <3

Anyways rafayel wait for me bby am coming for u

[an-eldritch-peredhel]

#dang it do i have a new oc now

Sounds like!! I'd love to hear more if you've got it!

(referring to my tags on this post)

You will meet a stranger, sometimes, if you make a habit to frequent taverns, inns, halls for game, or even the one tree where the young Bracegirdle cousins sneak off to play marbles. Well, you will like as not meet many strangers, except in the last case, but this one will be different. Or perhaps you get lucky, and don't frequent such places, but find yourself in one unexpectedly, and meet them regardless.

Everyone in Gondor knows someone who knows someone who met Lady Luck, no one has met her themself. If you do, starry-eyed romantics say, you'll be blessed with good fortune for all your days. The pragmatists tell you you'll be blessed with the good sense to discern a scam.

He may smirk at you after winning a bet, some dark-haired man, using his earnings to buy a round for the bar. It's always a different man, but it always goes to Alwed's tab. It keeps the crowd from getting too rowdy, even if the more superstitious get on edge.

No one remembers meeting them the first time, but dwarves with common sense avoid Audr's shell games and silver-toothed smile- you always win, but it's never worth it.

A woman with greying-gold hair and stiff fingers might call herself Eadrun, and challenge you to a game of dice. Few decline, and far fewer win.

For as few elves remain in Middle Earth, the one who calls himself Herendil and laughs as though his name is a joke should be recognizable. He seems young and lighthearted in a way most have lost, but he will play you cards, win just as much as he loses, and disappear, never recognized.

A hobbit-lass may giggle, red curls gleaming in the sun, and introduce herself as Peony Sandheaver, her family is visiting from Bree, and she wants to see how Shire-hobbits play Jacks.

Sometimes an orc prays over a set of knucklebones, knowing that at least one god will hear one prayer. Orcs have little luck in battle, but uncanny luck with dice.

There are countless stories, just as many true as not. Countless names, far more unnamed figures, always just out of place enough wherever they are to be interesting and promise new tales, never enough to provoke suspicion, not at first.

Even those in the Blessed Realm may find this dark-eyed stranger. Always dark-eyed, like bottles of dark glass. They stop by Aulë's workshop on occasion, to learn and suggest and play new games. They never win the first round, but most have the sense not to bet anything they aren't willing to lose on the second.

Oromë's people call them Umbarnica with a laugh and a toast in welcome. They thrive in the drunken revels after a successful hunt, sharp as ever as they dance from game to game, cackling at ill-advised propositions offered as collateral for or against a bet. Usually this means them winning to avoid it, a frequent enough occurrence as-is, but every now and then they'll decide to let someone get lucky. The bragging rights are the real reward.

And there are no guarantees with this stranger. No way to ensure their favor, though many ways to get their attention, few good. They like irony, take pleasure in hubris reaching its fall. They love superstition, even if they don't always honor it, and they love stories. There are gods that can be mistaken for kind, they are not one of them, created to serve the king the Dark Lord could have been. Their favorites are fickle, their grudges subtle but long-held. They love cheaters, unless they're at the end of the attempt. They will always catch you, and you will always regret it. They slink through candle-shadows and pipe-smoke, grinning, dance in town squares turned to faire grounds, curl up on comfy chairs indoors on rainy days.

But sometimes, in these days, you won't meet a stranger at all. Sometimes your storyteller will get a bright-dark glint in their eyes, and some dice will roll strangely high and some dice will roll strangely low and either way the story will be better for it. And if the next time the group meets you need to take a moment to remind the storyteller exactly what happened last session, well. That's why you take notes.

So pray to the dice-god, card-master, quick-sighted. It might do you no good, but they love superstition, and they love stories. And when you play a dark-eyed stranger, don't cheat at cards.

[komaedalesbian]

it just always circles back to junkos dead hand for me. very fucked up concept that im extremely fond of. god the fucking dead rotting hand

[shoulderholsterfreak]

You know, considering not only how incompetent the New Republic military leadership is and how badly they’re being written in general, Thrawn could come in and obliterate them with a sneeze.

[tea-cat-arts]

Man, I really miss when Mihoyo would actually let characters be in the wrong. It’s just kinda weird to me how a game that quotes philosophy as much as Honkai does also refuses to explore moral complexities and contradictions.

[tiredfoxtf]

If one more person on youtube will tell me to visualize something to be a better artist, I WILL cry. Ugly.