for the ship development meme.. oh i want to ask about so many things! for now i'll start with denreze because they're on the mind! how about.... 1, 3, 20?
DENREZE! (puts on highly reflective glasses and assumes the Gendo Ikarai pose)
1. What appeals you to the ship? Is it based off of canon interaction, personal headcanons, or are you not sure?
The perfect symmetry of their narratives and how they end up occupying the position opposite to where they started. Reze begins as Denji’s manic pixie dream girl. Denji ends as Reze’s manic pixie dream boy. Reze begins as the cheese used to lure out the mouse. Denji ends as the cheese used to lure out the mouse. Reze asks Denji to run away with her, and he declines. Denji asks Reze to run away with him, and she would have done it. Reze asks Denji to meet her at the café. Denji asks Reze to meet him at the café. Reze begins trying to capture Denji’s heart. Reze ends with her heart being captured. Etc., etc.
It's about how they come to recognize themselves in each other and come so close to finding salvation through it. At first, Reze sees Denji as her target, and Denji just sees Reze as a girl who gives him attention. And then Reze realizes that Denji is a child who is being used as a weapon of the state. Just like her. And I think this recognition bothers her. When she tries to tell Denji that his living conditions aren’t good, it’s so clear that she understands that her own situation is bad. But she keeps this air of defensive superiority—her situation’s not as bad as his. She’s in a position to teach him all the things he doesn’t know. (All the while being, of course, just as collared as he is.)
But then Denji’s the one to sincerely suggest that they run away. Not to lure her into a trap (although a trap is set for her anyway), but because he really means it. Even after everything Reze did to him, he understands that capturing her won’t sit right with him. He wants to help her escape. He wants to escape with her. And in the end, she wanted that, too.
Of course, it doesn’t work out.
I like tragic ships. A lot of the appeal of DenReze is what they could have been. Maybe they could have been happy together. Maybe it wouldn’t have worked, and they would have drifted apart. But we’ll never get to know because that opportunity was robbed from them. Neither of them went to school.
3. What do they like about one another? Include both physical and personality traits, anything they like.
I think Reze actually thinks Denji is funny. I think she likes how much he surprises him. Since she was raised as a human experiment, she probably experienced more joy in her short time with him than she did in the rest of her life. No wonder she didn’t kill him right away.
Denji likes people who like him. (Tragic, but relatable.) A lot of Reze’s behavior around Denji was specifically to get him to like her, so it’s difficult to say how much of the real “her” Denji got to know in the first place. (“Reze” isn’t even her real name.) This is part of her tragedy. She dies as a JANE DOE.
20. Leave the ship behind for a moment, what are some headcanons you have for them as individuals in relationships? Silly quirks, or any tendencies they need to quit? Are they selfish or a people-pleaser?
Probably neither of these people should be in a relationship lol.
I don’t know if I really have “headcanons” for Denji, since we’ve seen him with Asa. It’s all right there.
For Reze, I think she’s the kind of person who would want to monopolize her partner’s attention. Like, Denji said he couldn’t run away with her because he had other things going on in his life, and she went, “Oh, I need to bite his tongue off about this.” So, I think she’ll need to learn how to be secure in her relationships. Maybe she should start with making friends.
Anyhow, I ultimately ship Reze with freedom more than I ship her with Denji. Since she hasn’t appeared in Part 2, I’m going to pretend that she got free and is living a quiet life in the countryside.
