Sampard

Sampard is the slash ship between Sampo Koski and Gepard Landau from the Honkai: Star Rail fandom.

Canon
The two are first introduced soon after the Astral Express Trio begins exploring Jarilo-VI, the planet both characters reside on. Sampo is found hiding in the snow assuming the trio are Silvermane Guards—whom are the law enforcers in the overworld—and upon them finding him he lies, saying that Gepard is "an old friend of mine". Upon realizing the three aren't with the Silvermane Guards he opens up introducing himself as a merchant and offering to take the trio to Belobog (the planet's main city). Whilst traversing, the group are intercepted by Silvermane Guards, leading to a fight as they attempt to take Sampo in for smuggling. After defeating the regular guards, Gepard appears and effortlessly blocks March 7th's attempt to finish the Silvermane Guards off with her ultimate attack. By then, however, Sampo has long since fled and left the trio to fend for themselves and seeing that they aren't actually his allies, Gepard takes over guiding them to Belobog.

It's revealed that Sampo is a mercenary, with countless accounts of fraud, that transports goods from the overworld and underworld—who Gepard has been trying to capture for a while, but the other always escapes from him. He had been attempting to use the trio to bypass the guards. Along with Gepard being a Silvermane Guard on the overworld, it's later revealed that Sampo is a member of Wildfire which is the underworld's version of the Silvermane Guards. Gepard specifically being a Captain whilst Sampo is a Hired Contractor. This further adds to their dynamic of being complete opposites from personality and appearances to even their occupations.

Despite their feud, the two seem to have ironically positive opinions of each other. Sampo has two opinions of Gepard, the first being that he enjoys Gepard for their entertaining game of cat and mouse. Sampo tends to have ironically positive opinions about several people, more or so, his comments are passive-aggressive, which could be perceived as positive. Sampo's second opinion of Gepard is more optimistic than the last, he compliments Gepard for his upstanding attitude and charm, at the same time, noting that Gepard lacks that charm. Gepard's opinion of Sampo is more aggressive and blunter than Sampo's, he uses the opinions of others rather than his own as well, he calls Sampo cunning and credits him for the amount of stolen goods he possesses.

Quotes
"Ah, we see eachother pretty often - usually it's me running away and him running after me. Gotta say. I'm gradually beginning to enjoy the attention, hehe."

- Sampo (About Gepard)

"He's very... cunning. According to leads provided by citizens, he's got his hands on a number of ancient relics. He sold off most of them, but it seems he's using others to commit various frauds."

- Gepard (About Sampo)

"What else is there to say? You know him as well as I do. He's an upstanding guy, as well as young, handsome, and charming in his lack of charm."

- Sampo (About Gepard)

Fanon
Sampard rose rapidly in popularity amongst fans due to the two being enemies, many fans liking the idea of the two having an enemies to lovers relationship. The fact that they don't interact on screen hasn't deterred fans due to the various voicelines they have speaking about eachother. They're the 6th most written romantic pairing and 5th most written slash pairing under the Honkai: Star Rail tag on A03.

The pairing has occasionally been compared to Bronseele (specifically the two in Star Rail) as both Gepard and Bronya have light coloured palettes and are affiliated with the Silvermane guards and the overworld - whilst Sampo and Seele have darker palettes and are affiliated with Wildfire and the underworld.

It's currently both characters' most popular pairing thus far, though, GeHeng seems to be a potential rival with said ship steadily gaining popularity.

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