I'm in bed with the flu which means it's my spicy internet time and for once I'd like to take it to talk about The Unsleeping City: Chapter II. It's the intrepid heroes least popular season, understandably because of the poor Zoom quality, but I have some other qualms with it which is why I don't talk about it so often, but now I actually wanna bring up one of my absolute favourite parts of that season which is, also, totally unique to that season. I understand why they haven't done it in any other season, because it's an uncomfortable thing, especially with a mixed poc and caucasian table, but since it's so unique it also makes me thoroughly disappointed that I've never seen a single post talking about it during my now many years with the Dimension 20 community.
Cody and Ricky's strenuous relationship. And yes, I understand that many have Cody as their favourite character because he is objectively funny. He is reliably the punchline in every single scene and many relate to him being stuck in his Hot Topic teenage years. So I understand that, yes, it's probably swept under the rug since so many people's favourite character is Cody, but I'm tired of it because my favourite character, throughout any Dimension 20 season, is Ricky Matsui.
Ricky Matsui's arc during season 2 is that he has to learn that it's okay for him to dislike a person even if they're not evil. You can just not like someone because your personalities don't match. Ricky is continually annoyed by Cody and it is so fucking funny, yes. I cry laughing every time I think about Sofia casting Silence on Ricky so he can scream his head off after Cody gets the questing blade. But there's another reason besides general annoying-ness that Ricky doesn't like Cody. His racism.
No, I'm not saying Cody Walsh is a racist, but there is an underlying theme during season two that Cody unknowingly and continually disrespects Asian culture that really gets under Ricky's skin.
Ricky is quiet. It's not a character trait I picked up on until the Time Quangle episodes, since Zac is generally known for not taking over scenes, but his other "low-key" characters had more presence than Ricky during the quangles and there he has no friends that's going to address him directly. Ricky's a quiet person. He's got a big family. We only meet Emiko, but we know he also has at least two twin brothers. He's also a first generation immigrant. It's never brought up during any of the seasons (I think it might have been just over Discord that Zac talked about it), but his real name is Riki Matsui. He chose to americanise it. He chose to assimilate. He's already sacrificed a piece of his culture.
Ricky is nice. He's kind. His soul has no darkness and he's dedicated his life to civic duty. And then there is this guy. And he's friends with your friend. But he keeps using your culture as a gimmick and it leaves a sour taste in your mouth.
The second season of The Unsleeping City is the only Dimension 20 season that's tackled racism and between player characters at that! That's big! It's something they don't really do (not out of ignorance, but probably just a wish to keep it out of their work). Why did you all sweep it under the rug?
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