It Had to be Said (Why I love Cody Walsh)
SPOILERS for Season 2 of the Unsleeping City Epiosdes 1-4
I know we are only 4 episodes into season 2 of The Unsleeping City but Cody is already my favorite PC for personal reasons. I love all of the PCs but Cody is just so familiar to me. His anime-goth aesthetic is what I went for in high school. I hung out with people like him. It's honestly immaculate and makes me wonder if Murph was ever a goth in that time period. The worship of Hot Topic, the long dark coat, the dyed hair, the Skrillex haircut, the multiple swords, the combat boots, the Hot Topic pants, the piercing. Bet you he only wears fingerless gloves. Somehow Murph's description of the old Hot Topic awoke very ancient memories in me that I didn't even know I had, like a time capsule sealed until the right chaos demon opened it. Also how he speaks...that voice, the constant references, the posturing that is so casual and with a level of barely detectable irony. And not only does Cody feel relatable but he is also unrelatable in that he makes decisions no sane person would. This man...this man has the worst fucking luck and he brings it on myself. The sheer dumbassery of this man....morosexuals rejoice. In the first few episodes alone he confronted police/construction workers with swords, he summoned a lesser-lesser-lesser demon, he sold that demon his soul (practically begged him to take it), he made that contract on a WWE poster of Roman Reigns, he stabbed himself in the leg twice unnecessarily, he got aged 20 years, he rolled poorly on almost all of his attacks and saves except for the one where he fucked up the ghost that had aged him with the buster sword. He also tried to find another demon to sell his soul to, went to a spooky magical forest just to check it out, burned his hand on a ruby sword, and took a sword which works off humility (and would have suited another PC wayyyy better). Lastly he allowed his lesser demon to invite a shit-ton of demons to New York and those demons have no virtuous common goal. I love this man.
He is genuinely not trying to be actually evil (like most goths, most of the goths I've met have been very nice). This man won't throw a fit if Kingston tells him to stop smoking in a hospital because he respects Kingston and he knows it's wrong (though he keeps forgetting). He is someone who recognizes the value and appeal of darkness and misunderstood things and like most goths he bathes himself in these things to construct an identity. Like those things he is so attached to, I think Cody is also misunderstood and looked down on. Rather than pivoting away from those things he embraces them...because they are fucking RAD. Seeing the other players and even Murph himself laugh at Cody's overt goth edginess is extremely funny but it's also kinda painful to me because it reminds me of how my classmates would scoff at me in high-school. It's not necessarily ill-intentioned, it's just kind of an expression of "I don't understand you and this is amusing and inexplicable to me." Everyone knows someone like Cody from high-school and I think that's why it's funny to see him because a lot of those kids, while nice, can be a lot of "work" (stealing Ricky Matsui's word) to hang out with. I say that as a goth. Goths generally don't compromise who they are to fit into societal norms, in fact the culture itself is largely about bucking societal norms (which is ironic because there is a extremely popular capitalistic chain of stores dedicated to selling that type of clothes in a more sanitized format...nerd culture has become pop culture). This can be great and fun but it can also be tiring for people who aren't immersed in the subculture. Those social norms do help create scripts for how situations will go and help other people follow along in the social dance smoothly. Cody doesn't follow typical social norms and he largely refuses to do so. Some of the other PC's can be occasionally awkward- Pete, Sofia, Ricky. But I think it is hard for them all to interact with someone so different from them. And that is why I LOVE Cody. I love that fresh dynamic. I love seeing the other characters uncomfortably fumble trying to respond to him. It's great. And I can tell that despite that discomfort and despite how amusing they find him, they do actually care about him. They are trying to parent him and understand his interests from their own perspective. And this is good for Cody because I feel like he is really desperate for a more mature influence that he can respect who also cares about him and takes him as he is. I feel like no one has ever really respected him, people have only tolerated him. And once they get past that awkward fumbling stage and get to know Cody on a deeper level I know that they will accept him and that awkwardness will go away. Because underneath the clothes and the makeup Cody, like most goths, is a person who has a lot of passion for their interests. They don't hurt anyone necessarily by having those interests (even Cody's dumb decisions are generally made with good intentions...he just has bad luck). That's an admirable quality. He is (probably, lol) multidimensional. And guess what...video games, black clothes, darkness, and swords ARE AWESOME. They're fucking rad. There's a reason that this subculture exists.
But also his existence and his worship of Hot Topic juxtaposed with his hatred of Gladiator is kind of a brilliant commentary on how a lot of people will make exceptions for the things they love because they have staked a large amount of their identity in it. I remember seeing someone else post about this on here but I wanna expand on that because it made me have a Big Brain Moment™️. Check out @laneyliveblogs, they're the ones who posted it. Hot Topic (although yes, I do love it) at the end of the day is a corporation. It was probably edgy and subversive when it first started but now it is a mainstay in every mall I've ever been to and it is made to be more palatable to the mainstream by virtue of that. There is nothing unique about what they are selling, though they will claim that it is and largely that's what their image is based around. And when everyone is doing it, it isn't really unique anymore. There is a side of goth that has become acceptable in the mainstream and that is GREAT because it gets more people interested in the subculture... but in the end it can't help but feel kind of strange that this corporation is taking something people deeply love and packaging it to them for a profit. Just looks at all the fandom stuff it sells now, which changes year to year depending on what the popular opinion holds. Remember, being goth is partly about bucking the popular opinion and norms. There is no ethical consumption under capitalism. Everything is calculated. It is not about the style, it is about money and whatever makes the most money stays. This kind of attitude is also antithetical to goth culture. Trends change and so do the things Hot Topic offers. I doubt if I went in I would even recognize its products now. At the end of the day, it is a corporation as Gladiator is a corporation. Is it..probably...better? Better than its Amazonesque counterpart? Yeah, most likely, because Amazon is a fucking train wreck of human rights violations and shady practices. Amazon has wreaked more damage than Hot Topic ever will because Amazon has dipped its toes into everything without even pretending to be offering some kind of unique or alternative experience centered around passion. Its grimy tentacles have penetrated (lol) every facet of life. But Hot Topic is still a large corporation. And so Cody's trust in it is essentially like pitting the devil he knows vs. the one he doesn't. Like I said, I also love it. But I'm also able to intellectually critique the things I love and feel emotional attachment to. But I think Cody (like many people) is unwilling to do that because so much of his identity is centered around the products he buys from there. He's all in.
Have I done any research for this post? No. This was just me rambling about I love a fictional character, par for the course on tungly.com. I am gonna be so incensed if this post ages poorly because I spent 30 minutes on it.
