#eldeepo

It's about an intersex kid.

It's about a little girl born with a staff.

And that's Not Right.

The adults in the room- her father, the 'medical professional'- attempt to remove the staff, by blade and by fire. The fresh little baby SCREAMS. So they agree to pretend it doesn't exist. She'll probably grow up just a regular little girl.

right?

But just around the onset of puberty..... it becomes apparent, not to her, but to the adults, that she's not going to be Regular.

The medical professional tries again to rectify matters. She tries to destroy the staff while the girl is unconscious. The girl screams. The adults give in. They aren't monsters.... but life will be so much harder, so much less foreseen, for this strange little girl....

They try to raise her 'right'.

If she won't be a conventional woman... maybe an unconventional woman. A Powerful woman- in the way that women can be powerful. Are permitted to be powerful.

But she's not a woman- she's a child. What will she be, when she's grown? A Witch. A Wizard. She can't be either. She can't be neither.

(The term 'warlock' is repeatedly invoked and scoffed. The etymology of 'warlock' is 'breaker of oaths'. Counter to the covenant. Rulebreaker.)

They're all in the same boat but all of them are really plainly thinking 'God what an asshole' at so many junctures.

Good grief this capybara stinks

Stupid frivolous monkey with its dumb 'treasures'

Can this cat lighten the hell up like, once ever?

Snobby snooty secretary bird.

Ugh leave me ALONE, dog, I don't want to play.

Lotta content out there about Laios' autistic traits but where o where is the Senshi rep?

Senshi's dedication to Dungeon trophic systems makes Laios' special interest look like a well-thumbed pamphlet. (Granted Senshi has had significantly longer to cook; Laios is a baby).

Senshi's limited emoting is baked-in to his character model- that thousand yard stare, most of his face occluded by his habitual helmet (masked, even...... How many folks pine for covid masks obviating the need to manage their faces constantly?)

He overheard someone mention his special interest and Walked Right Up to a Group of Strangers to brazenly asplain them a thing. Marcille makes a bridge-mending bid regarding the mosses in the scorpion hotpot (after her previous truculent outbursts) and he totally deadpans her, because he didn't even notice.

He is VERY COMMITED to his ethical position on dungeon ecology. More than once he's disrupted Marcille Right at the point of release of a spell, after she's been chanting for like a paragraph, because she's going to contravene some principle of his.

Also

Speaking of Marcille, he demonstrates some pretty rigid, black-and-white thinking around magic, that doesn't seem internally consistent. He's repeatedly reanimating magical constructs (golems), an explicitly controlled magical act, but is Very Very reluctant to submit to being charmed with WaterWalk; his spoken reasoning about this just doesn't hold water.

Oh and he's totally neglected his personal hygiene for basically ever. He's averse to cleaning up for the sake of being bespelled, but other than magic, seems fine with getting the salon treatment. This isn't a Toph Beifong 'protective layer of earth', he's just forgotten to care about not being covered with monster gore.

PDA? The fellow has one (1) social skill, namely, he exercises any discretion on opening his mouth to argue. But that holds him back exactly NONE when he decides he's done listening. The first time we see this is gathering Mandrakes, when he doesn't SAY he's done with Marcille's opinions, but he Does just go ahead and exercise his damn autonomy. a MUCH stronger example is when Chilchuck is guiding them through the trap rooms. Senshi gets roundly (and rightly!) chewed out by Chilchuck, and his response isn't the sensible 'sorry Chilchuck, maybe I could walk more directly behind you so I can more closely match your steps', but to BRAZENLY DANCE ALL OVER THE TRAP FLOOR! the only reason that doesn't kill the whole party is The Plot. It's not even that he doesn't appreciate Chilchuck's skill- he just don't like getting chastised! Same with Anne the Kelpie! Senshi's gonna do what Senshi's gonna do! He WILL not be rushed, he WILL not be chastised, he WILL not be directed! How do we think he came to be living in a dungeon all by himself in the first place!!

AND THE BREAD!

THIS IS NOT THE DEMAND OF A NEUROTYPICAL DWARF

Look there's more. After Chilchuck's impassioned and heartfelt plea, Senshi suggests they should return to the surface because they're 'low on seasoning'.

He's a dwarf who turned his adamantium shield into a cookpot.

He can meticulously maintain his mithril cooking knife but not his axe.

He responds well to other characters meeting him halfway but initiates few (no?) such bids himself. There's rarely any guile in Senshi, and when he is being shifty, he's Bad At It- and again, usually its in service of demand avoidance, like when he capitalises on Marcille's toilet break to reanimate his golems.

Senshi is the monomaniac that society has spent Decades trying to iron out of my wrinkly brain.

I hope to see him also find a place in the neurosparkly constellations.

Bills phobias are 3d glasses, venetian blinds, and TV static.

TV static looks like the static replacing the forms of his presumed parents, and the glitching in his scar.

3D glasses use red and blue lenses to create illusory perceptual depth. Red and blue... like his presumed parent triangles. I've seen 'red and blue make purple and bill is yellow!' takes (egh). But red and blue make 3D. Also, do 3D glasses suggest an alternative way for 'them' to 'all see', other than whatever dimensionally destructive method he went with? Could it have been as simple as red and blue cellophane? All this time?

I was (and am) a simple soul and I loved her first just for being the protagonist. That's the de facto favourite character right. (I loved momiji second).

But past that, I loved her for how successfully she loved. The people in her life were always better for it. She said things, just off the dome, that landed in their hearts. Made them feel seen, made them feel safe, made them feel loved, made them feel worth loving.

And people loved her So Much for it. They cared about her. They paid so much attention. They noticed when she was off by a micrometer. Tohru Honda never had to ask for help. People poked her until she admitted to needing it. Because they noticed. Because they loved her. Because they knew themselves loved.

Oh to be loved like a shojo manga protagonist.

And as the series wore on, the prevailing attitude was that she was tiresome. Mary Sue, saccharine, boring. The worst character.

At the time all I could really articulate was 'but she's so nice', and people would scoff and say 'exactly. Lame.'

Even now, she's not well received... 'I'm annoyed that she prioritises others so much, it's unhealthy. The point of the whole story is that she learns to stop doing that'. It's not untrue, I suppose.

But if I could make people feel like that....