#rezeposting

[iridescentscarecrow]

my beloved reze slander jpeg

[lovebombdevil]

[iridescentscarecrow]

forever thinking about how bomb girl arc opens on reze as a Damsel In Distress trope signifier -> overturns on the rooftop into Femme Fatale -> before the fireworks, reze assumes the role of "Protector" (as set against the damsel; "i'll protect you", thus de-gendering) & this is the one active defining exercise we see her undertake in order to Solve her identity conflict. she is at her core part of that category of characters who want to be solved, but she doesn't have a mouth to say this, so she make believes. & bites out denji's mouth for it...!

she assumes every Woman in Film trope ever in order to convey the genre of the bomb girl arc to the audience & herself to denji; which is why the arc itself is horromance since both romance & horror films are the epitome of on-screen Feminine: the woman//the monster. The Woman//Monster collaboration in films invoke e/o but simultaneously set itself against e/o. until the rooftop, damsel in distress has to be protected from Monster. //-ely, the Monstrous-Feminine is a concept of abject horror, a social distress, that reze occupies as the arc progresses.

the Monster in the arc transforms from the external threat of serial killer to the Monster that takes over the figure of the Damsel, reze. interesting that the scene which immediately precedes the rooftop is that of the pool; sweet cafe dates -> sexuality framed as temptation. the former is the domain of the damsel, & in fact the serial killer's initial promise-threat closes on a panel of denji-reze at the cafe. the latter is something more suited to the trope archetype of femme fatale, so it makes sense that it happens before the inversion. re: the move from Romantic -> Erotic: the fireworks scene with its eroticised violence is a location of transgression, from reze herself, from one genre to the other. the Woman, as blushing girl, kisses the protagonist (romantic element) & turns into the Monster in horror film, & that's how she's presented from that point forth. the girl asking for help outside public safety, her swimming out of the darkness with heads in her hands & the word "monster" at aki's mouth. she's gleeful: the monstrous feminine strips itself of damsel, cannibalising itself.

& it's so compelling that the end of the bomb devil arc, that no one in-story is privy to- not even makima as the story writer or angel, the witness - is entirely internal monologue; she is silent in that scene outside it. we've never heard her thoughts prior; in fact, within the classroom, her hair covering her eyes, she masks them both from audience & the story, even as she clearly feels certain ways about denji's circumstances that mirror her own. it's as if she daren't utter Herself outside the genres she plays with.

when it does arrive, it's akin to a guilty secret whispered to the audience: "i've never been to school either" & that relinquishes her grip on those performed genres & startlingly, reveals reze as a tragedy. bomb girl arc *is* her tragicomedy dissolved into horromance tropes. it also ironically makes you see denji as entirely alike to her - "either". the woman & the monster are most usually presented through a lens of Difference from their respective protagonists; & reze enacts this difference through her performance of maturity & experience & its falseness is what the last scene reveals to you, it's such a childlike statement for a girl bleeding out in an alleyway. such a childish & quiet death! & what's especially cruel is that this very last understanding of her is something withheld from denji, & the Film.

[iridescentscarecrow]

you held onto me like a crucifix

- chainsaw man, part 1

- timeloop, character study, 23k

- cast: reze (pov) x denji; makima

read on ao3 at https://archiveofourown.org/works/74296526

[iridescentscarecrow]

iris out art by kenshi yonezu... im sick with glee. the finger in her mouth is so unbearably delightful. rotting girl who has to bite up her own finger & remember herself?? add another lovely makima reze comparison to the mix, but of course makima/nayuta has someone's mouth to imprint onto... & reze has to stuff all that love-wanting into her own mouth alongside denji's tongue. sweet. it's sweet.

[iridescentscarecrow]

i talk about reze's enacted maturity a bunch but it's still so fascinating to me? themes of childhood & of growth in the bomb girl arc... her adopting of both the roles of femme fatale & that of <teacher> to denji's protagonist, & to denji's status as a child. but she dismantles both of these with the "i've never been to school either."

her teaching him dirty words in the classroom, & her reading in the café, the scene in the pool — "things you don't know... i'll teach you...": there's an overlap between intellectual & sexual maturity that she asserts over him in the arc. & i find that interesting because it's also wrapped in the role she's playing — a role that's part coerced (a child forced to act as a [honeypot] assassin) & part exertion of her agency (the way her facade mechanisms actually function). even her bargain for freedom, the plea before the fireworks scene, something that should be outside the boundaries of her [role as an assassin] happens at the same maturity location: "i'll protect you". she doesn't really ever let slip that dynamic she has with denji, whether it's the promise of protection before the kiss, the hurt of the kiss where her "i know" implies a kind of aged understanding of its violence, implies she's been through it before. or the continuation of the teaching role into the fight scene where she expresses her status as a hybrid as one she knows how to wield, "i'll teach *you* how we do battle". denji, despite his past & his present, is projected by her as uninitiated, as young — & she inhabits a location of control within the space of their interaction. even on the beach, she puts it as if he's the fool who was easily taken in by her experience...

but she's a child just like him!! & her using him as a proxy for what she essentially views as salvation for herself is most visible in that scene in the classroom where she calls out how wrong his circumstances are, as a child. she's saying <here are my experiences that i'll help u grow into> & <they were wrong, i should not have gone through them> simultaneously. but she also obscures herself from these circumstances by taking on the paper thin role that she does. like it's not *her* at all....

[iridescentscarecrow]

bit of unedited rambling but i think a lot about the fact that reze teaches denji how to swim. how i prefer to read reze's relationship with water — dampening & putting out fire/bomb. but so much of her arc is lined with water: the rain forcing the two into the telephone booth, the rain at the school, the scene at the swimming pool where she places herself at the centre of it & promises to teach him how to swim. contrasted with her being the bomb hybrid & shortly preceding, the fireworks. it's so interesting to me that she gives the boy she wishes to protect the tools to extinguish her most dangerous self. "can you explode when you're wet?" / "isn't it true that you taught me how to swim?" says he, after dragging her into water with him & washing up with her on the shore. she offers the act at the pool to him as a fascimile of intimacy as per her role as a honeypot assassin, and in many ways the scene later mirrors this act. they're both entwined together because of the chains as they fall into the water — it's almost and not quite a hug. artificially intimate.

speaking of almost & not quite hugs, the fact that it's particularly <repurposing of technique imparted to denji against her> is lovely, because this is also what happens with how she disables denji post the kiss & how this is exactly what's done to Reze, in the end, by makima & angel in the alleyway. the same stopping her/denji from reaching for their hybrid trigger through clean dismemberment (by angel & reze), and of course, that final holding of hand, gentle & potently intimate within frame, to entirely extinguish your ability to fight back (by makima & reze). bringing you to the other in an almost hug. the softness to reze's death always gets me, because it's the very softness she gives denji post the kiss, that very violence. it's akin to the swimming: how it's introduced by her & is used to dissolve her. but it's not denji doing it this time, not him dragging her into water & looking at her as if he can understand her on the shore. despite her wanting him to share in & understand her hurt ("does it hurt? i know. i'm sorry."), it's makima — the movie watcher — who starts the alleyway scene with that note of Sharing ("i like the country mouse too") & cuts reze, who is Movie in how much she is composed of trope, out of the story.

[iridescentscarecrow]

it's my birthday so i wanted to share this reze & the bomb devil characterisation piece i'd been writing :)