I've only recently started having my own thoughts about Emanator!Sampo and I think my favorite version of this is that he is technically an Emanator, it's just that he doesn't talk about it because Aha is a dick who only blesses people that don't want it and Sampo hates it here dkjxkdkdck
Aha blessed the Mourning Actors! A whole faction of people who have specifically made it their life's mission to resist Elation! THEY made a literal worm THEIR Emanator just to see if it would be accepted into the Genius Society! And when it wasn't, Aha just as easily killed it and tossed it aside! So I feel like there is a good possibility that Aha looked down at Sampo, this little oddball who doesn't seem to even like Epsilon or a lot of the Masked Fools and was like.
Hey.
You know what would be really really funny.
And I feel like being an Emanator wouldn't even be a plus for Sampo, because of how he operates. Sampo excels at blending in; he managed to smuggle himself onto a planet
that had been isolated for 700 years,
with only one (1) single city on it,
and going even further, he snuck himself into the Underground,
where the population is even more sparse,
and STILL. Not a single accusation of him being an alien! Not even after the Astral Express lands and proves that interstellar space travel is possible! Sampo is so thoroughly ingrained into Belobog that yeah, some people admit they don't know his origins, but none of it ever comes with the question of whether he actually is a Belobog native or not. Sampo knows exactly how to blend himself into his surroundings in the most subtle way possible. And being an Emanator, something far more powerful than any normal human or Pathstrider could ever hope to be, would only throw in a massive extra variable for him. Sampo would have to be so so careful to keep a lid on his Emanator traits, to keep up the appearance of being totally normal and average at all times. It doesn't help him at all.
And this part is pure indulgence, but I love taking Aha's closeness with mortals, and THEIR tendency to take human form, and twisting it into a case of THEM using Sampo as a vessel.
I want Aha to look at Sampo the same way all of us look at Sampo. A chew toy. A plaything. Something to shove through the meat grinder. Aha thinks Sampo is hilarious and a funny, silly little guy, and THEY want to put him in Situations just to see what he does. Sampo is not a fan.
This though, this is what makes Sampo so wildly entertaining as a vessel. Because Aha knows that Sampo does not want to be a vessel, does not even want to be an Emanator, and THEY find it SO much fun to watch the mental gymnastics he has to pull to convince himself he's ok with it, this is fine actually, because he's not exactly about to tell off a literal god. He doesn't feel like getting a smiting today, please and thank you.
Because squeezing yourself into a human vessel is so different than merely adopting a human disguise, there's already a human soul in there, it's kind of a tight fit. If Sampo doesn't make room, doesn't all but dissociate right out of his own body, it could cause. Consequences.
And so, Aha always gives a warning, just to watch him squirm.
It begins with the sound of bells.
Just little ones, at first. Small, clinking little sounds that could even be considered nice. Something almost gentle, like a wind chime in a pleasant breeze on a warm day. This is the signal for the countdown.
Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Makes himself as small as possible within his own body.
The bells rise and multiply, tinkling wind chimes give way to sleigh bells, to shopkeepers bells, the sound of something inevitable approaching, something entering.
Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Dilutes himself, weaker and weaker concentrations.
The bells rise and rise, multiply and multiply, celebration and tragedy resonating in the sound of church bells, ringing bright and loud, the sounds of weddings and funerals both the same.
Sampo breathes in, breathes out. Becomes like smoke, like vapor. Hollows himself out.
Empty, empty, empty until he echoes, like a bell, like something with the sole purpose of being shaken and rattled around, a thing to be struck, the sounds jarring and punched out and gasping and piercing the air, the lung, the eardrum.
Sampo breathes in.
Beaten he rings, bashed in he sings.
Aha breathes out.
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Also ngl I kinda love the concept of Debling courting Penelope and Colin getting jealous because of it, not because I ship it (he’s barely a character) or because I’m part of the crowd that wants to see Colin ~suffer (though I’m not opposed to seeing him dramatically yearn), but because the reason Penelope specifically is going after this vegan man is so fascinating to me. Like, she obviously doesn’t love him. But she will marry him to protect LW… she’ll marry him to please Portia, that’s so funny.
Girl’s so desperate to escape her awful family life while at the same time keeping her secret, but she also wants her mother’s approval. And she’s so caught up in that toxic mindset that she completely misses the guy she’s been in love with since childhood making heart eyes at her from across the ballroom.
Pen only has her parents’ terrible marriage as a frame of reference, so she probably thinks it’s a bonus if her future husband is much older than her because that could make her a young widow. He’ll leave the country for the majority of the year to fuck off to Antarctica? Oh to be left alone by your own life partner!!!
Meanwhile Portia is enthusiastically nodding behind Penelope like yes, perhaps he’ll die at sea, and neither of them think there’s anything wrong with this outlook in life.
Hilarious.
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jrwi riptide 110
I would just re quote the entirety of the last ten minutes since the actual prophecy drop if I could but god just. “what if it’s nothing?” “well, was it fun?” “yeah” “then that’s all that matters” and “even if it’s already written I’m glad to share a story with you” bro. “We all have burdens that we did not ask to bear” or something along those lines.
just. a chosen one who’s told to find who he is, not just what the world tells him to be. no longer comforted by the idea of destiny, because the burden is so much and he wants to be more than destiny. but he’s so worried he’s nothing without it. he never measured up, and now the destiny he’s learned his entire life is false, and he just wants to seize his own life and make his own choices and carve his own path, but who is he if he doesn’t serve this purpose? if his destiny has been proven to be based off false prophecies, if he isn’t his titles, if he isn’t predestined and already written, then who is he? what do they see?
and the fact that his friends and crew all reassure him with the little things. the blue of his eyes, his courage, his kindness. someone who smokes weed to disastrous results, who throws gold into the ocean even though they’re meant to be pirates. someone who faces danger at their side and doesn’t back down, but laughs. someone who tries to be good.
not a hero of prophecy. not the chosen one. but their captain. their friend. their family. and even if all of that was all predestined and written and free will is an illusion, then fuck it. they’re written chasing freedom and fun, they’re written doing some good in the world, and above all else they’re written together - and that means that it isn’t nothing.
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Staunch hater of men but travis is just my skrunkly little guy. Love how sad he is. Love how tragic he is. He’s just one of the girls and he loves it.
Travis is so good, largely because, if this show had been made in the 90s, he WOULD have been a girl. He and Javi both would have been the lone girls in a sea of boy soccer players. Travis is the love interest; Javi would have been the archetypical annoying little sister. And because YJ likes to play with gender dynamics and flip the scripts, they both still play out as you’d expect the Sole Girls in a male-dominated story to do. Travis’ whole arc is about learning to navigate outside of what society tells him to be—and, other than that, he’s there to be Nat’s love interest. Even as an adult, in Natalie’s memory sequences, he gets the Dead Wife lighting and soft framing in bed. He even gets, as a friend pointed out, fridged to further her story. When the girls get progressively more violent, Travis is the victim, or he’s told to take Javi out of the room. He starts off as a shitty boy, as is befitting of 1996 culture, and he gets to unlearn that which does not serve the hive. He is tragic. He is doomed from the start. He is learning to be soft in a situation where softness gets you killed. He is the representative of sibling dynamics in the wild, and now he’s the answer to the question: are you still a big brother when your younger brother is gone? He’s fucking devastating.
I just really love that the only three men in the wilderness are the gay coach, the complicated love interest, and the sacrificial lamb. Those are all positions usually reserved for women, and I love YJ for flipping it around.
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