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.
